topic Re: Copy or move story maps to another account? in ArcGIS StoryMaps Questions

Copy or move story maps to another account?

Anneka_France — Fri, 02 Aug 2019 15:55:29 GMT

We can copy Classic Esri Story Maps to other user accounts using ArcGIS Online Assistant. This is really useful when we want to transfer ownership of a story map, or when we're running training sessions and want to copy across materials. Will it be possible to copy the new ArcGIS StoryMaps to other accounts? If so, is there a time frame for when this feature will be implemented? This will help us to plan our transition to the new story maps for our upcoming training sessions and partnership projects.

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

OwenGeo — Fri, 02 Aug 2019 17:26:00 GMT

Anneka -- We are planning to provide the ability to create a copy of a StoryMap in a future release, but we don't have any more details to share at this time.

The best way to transfer ownership of a StoryMap to a colleague is to have an administrator move the item(s) from one account to another. This preserves the itemID so any links to your story will continue to work.

Can you share a little more about the workflow you'd like to have when transferring materials? Does the author transfer stories or might another person transfer stories that were created by others? Are you transferring stories between members of different organizations or just between different member accounts in the same organization? What do you do with the maps or layers that might be used in a story that's being transferred?

Thanks for any additional info you can provide!
Owen

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

Anneka_France — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 12:18:07 GMT

Hi Owen,

We're an umbrella body with ~60 member trusts and >100 partnerships. We provide technical training and support to our member trusts and partners. As part of this, we often develop story maps and templates that we can copy to our members' accounts to help them get started and save duplication of effort. They can then build on these templates and add their own local data and narrative to enrich the story.

This involves copying/transferring story maps between members of different organisations. It is usually the author that is transferring stories to a different user account, but occasionally we might see a great example on someone else's account and it would be great if we could also copy those templates too. There's also times when we might want to simply copy a story map within our own accounts, either to preserve a back up that we can revert to if our edits aren't approved, or to use an existing story map as a template for a new story.

In most cases, we copy the maps across to the new account too and 're-link' the story map to the copied maps. However, we don't tend to copy data, as we always encourage the use of open data that is shared publicly in ArcGIS online and the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World We make sure the most relevant data to our trusts and partners is available in our ArcGIS Hub and only recommend that users upload their own local data to their accounts. We want to avoid duplicating data wherever possible and try to maintain authoritative versions of each dataset.

The ability to copy story maps has been critical to our workflow. Until this is possible with the new story maps, it will significantly limit our ability to use the new story maps in upcoming training sessions. This is in addition to the missing functionality in the new story maps, such as story map actions and bookmarks/tabs. This is an issue as I believe Classic Esri Story Maps‌ will stop being available by mid-2020? It seems counter productive to invest in training staff how to use the old story maps if these skills will be out of date within 12-months, especially as most trainees are not GIS professionals. Can you provide us with a time frame for when/if these features will become available? Or suggest another workflow for us to use in the meantime?

Feel free to ask more questions!

Thanks,

Anneka

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

OscarMonell — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 07:25:07 GMT

Hi Owen Evans!

And there is also the workflow where a super user would like to create pre-populated "templates".

For instance, a business creates presentations of potential investment sites, and need a template with all basic information to get a quick start and the author can focus on the site specific details only.

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

OwenGeo — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 12:04:58 GMT

Thanks for the additional information, Oscar and Anneka -- We'll be looking at addressing the requirement for a story template even more directly with the new StoryMaps beyond just a generic ability to copy a story. It's a little ways out for us since we've just had our first release, but it's definitely on our radar.

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

Anneka_France — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 11:45:39 GMT

Thanks Owen. It's great to hear that you're looking at adding more template capabilities beyond simply copying, but will it be possible to add the generic copy ability in the meantime?

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

OwenGeo — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 12:30:28 GMT

Anneka -- We'll likely add the ability to copy a story before we tackle the template issue, but right now we don't have a timeline for when either one of those features might be available.

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

SaharPour — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 09:25:29 GMT

The Admin Tools for ArcGIS℠ Online Will helps to get a copy of StoryMaps inside the organisation.

But I'm looking forward to the previous copy option that exists in the earlier version of StoryMap for copying the story-maps from one account to another by ago-assistant.

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

Anneka_France — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 09:50:29 GMT

Also looking forward to it! Owen Evans‌ any update on this?

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

Anneka_France — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 09:28:02 GMT

Hi Owen, are there any ways to copy the new storymaps yet? Or do we know when this will be possible?

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

OwenGeo — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 16:27:07 GMT

Anneka — The ability to create a copy of your own story is coming this week! 😄

Also, admins will be able to copy any story in their organization.

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

Anneka_France — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 07:47:27 GMT

Thanks Owen!! This is great news Will we be able to copy to other organisations eventually too? Perhaps using Admin Tools for ArcGIS Online & Portal?

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

OwenGeo — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 12:29:20 GMT

Hi Anneka -- Copying items between accounts in different orgs needs to be a capability added by the ArcGIS platform (or an Esri business parter), so it isn't something any specific Esri app team like StoryMaps would likely tackle. There may be an idea to vote for on the GeoNet ArcGIS Ideas community or a thread on the ArcGIS Online community to discuss that.

Admin tools is a 3rd party tool from an Esri business partner, so that's a question for them.

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

OwenGeo — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 21:11:45 GMT

Anneka France and others on this thread -- The ability to create a copy of a story was added in the April 2020 update to ArcGIS StoryMaps last week. You can create a copy of any story you own, and members with administrative privileges can copy any story in the organization. See this blog for the announcement, and please let us know if you have any feedback on this new feature. What’s new in ArcGIS StoryMaps (April 2020)

Also, people interested in this topic may want to see these threads for more information about the current status of the community-support, open-source AGO Assistant tool and some misconceptions about its ability to fully clone new and classic stories.

Can you transfer a Story to another ESRI account?

Duplicate storymap (new version)

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

MJBiazar — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 17:19:36 GMT

It is possible to clone a Story Map (or a feature layer, map, app, etc.) from one AGOL account to another using a Python script. This will create a copy of the Story Map with uploaded images in your AGOL account. However, it may not copy other dependent items such as web maps.

This workflow is explained in more details in the article linked below:

How To: Copy/clone content from one ArcGIS Online organization or Portal for ArcGIS to another

from arcgis.gis import GIS
gis1 = GIS("https://arcgis.com", 'USERNAME','PASSWORD')
gis2 = GIS("https://arcgis.com", 'USERNAME', 'PASSWORD')

items = gis1.content.search(query='id:ITEM_ID', sort_field='id', sort_order='desc')
print(str(len(items)) + " items will be cloned. See the list below:")
items

def deep_copy_content(input_list):
   for item in input_list:
      try:
         print("Cloning " + item.title)
         copy_list = []
         copy_list.append(item)
         gis2.content.clone_items(copy_list, copy_data=True, search_existing_items=True)
         print("Successfully cloned " + item.title)
      except Exception as e:
         print(e)
   print("The function has completed")
deep_copy_content(items)

All the best,

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

Anonymous User — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 23:49:46 GMT

Will we be able to copy to other organizations eventually too? I am trying to transfer ownership of a StoryMap I built to another account outside of my organization.

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

Anonymous User — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 19:16:00 GMT

I am trying to do the same as Casey , above. Is there a way to do this?

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

OwenGeo — Wed, 01 Jun 2022 20:06:35 GMT

Yes, you can copy a story to another organization. This can be done using the latest version of the ArcGIS Assistant tool.

For more information, see Common Workflows | ArcGIS Assistant User Guide (esri-ps.com)

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

SarahBlake — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 20:11:13 GMT

What about the scenario of my college students want to copy their final-project StoryMap over to a personal ESRI account they may create after graduation in order to retain access to their work, to show potential employers or other schools? This solution would not seem to work in this scenario as personal accounts don't offer apps like StoryMap, correct? I'm trying to convert the work format for my GIS Certificate students' final project from an old-style word or .pdf doc to something more portable like StoryMaps, but the 'portability' factor doesn't seem to be there yet....

-Sarah Blake, GIS Instructor,

Skagit Valley College,

Mount Vernon, WA

Re: Copy or move story maps to another account?

OwenGeo — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 21:13:41 GMT

@SarahBlake -- Public accounts absolutely have access to StoryMaps.

There are some limits to the features that are available to public accounts compared to subscription accounts, which are described here: Licensing—ArcGIS StoryMaps | Documentation.

If you use ArcGIS Assistant to transfer a story from a subscription account to a public account many of the non-included features (for example, an embed or audio block) would still work in the published story. However, you could not edit the story or else some of those features may stop working.

This is not a workflow that is widely tested or officially supported, but it may be a simple way to move a published story that no longer needs to be edited, which sounds like it might meet the requirements of the situation you mentioned.