Why are the offline map areas, with the new Collector app, limited to 16 areas?

MatthewStull1 · ‎03-18-2019

I am wondering why the new Collector App (from Dec 2018) is limited to 16 offline map areas. This seems very limiting to me.

MarkBockenhauer · ‎03-19-2019

Matt,

For offline areas what would work best for you and your users?

Your input (as well as anyone else reading) can definitely inform the software design decisions that are made. Especially, with newer functionality.

Thanks,
Mark

MatthewStull1 · ‎03-19-2019

Thanks Mark. One thing I have noticed is Collector seems to be locked into offline mode after you have created your Offline Map Areas or am I wrong about that? I haven't found a way to switch back to a live connection map. If this is the way it is designed, then it should be made VERY clear in the help (I haven't read everything in the help documents but I can't remember reading that this way how the app worked).

There should also be warnings about the size of the area you download and that if you download a large area with lots of data, it will take a LONG time to download, especially if you choose a high level of detail for your baseball like Streets, Buildings, etc...

I do agree that there should be a limit on the number of offline map areas. I would have put the limit a bit higher than 16 though. I would probably have set it at 25 or 30.

Thanks for listening.

Matt

MatthewStull1 · ‎03-20-2019

Ok, it seems like this system still has bugs in it even after last nights' AGOL upgrade to 7.1. Five of my offline map areas still say they are "packing" on the main "Manage Areas" screen. When I click on these individual map areas that say "packaging" and go into their individual screens, they show as being done (which they should be since I created them the say before). I refreshed each of these map areas that still had the "packaging" icon/message showing in the main Manage Areas screen in their individual screens. Then finally, the main Manage Areas screen showed all 16 of them ready to download (with no "packaging" icon/message). Unfortunately, the Collector app doesn't reflect this even after I restarted it.

THEN... after looking at the Collector app, I went back into the "Manage Areas" screen in AGOL for my offline map and the 5 areas were again showing the "packing" icon/message. What is going on!? This is driving me a little crazy! Seems like there still some bugs in this system.

I also found out that the group that they are in needs to NOT allow group members to make updates. There is a new message that says this in the settings windows for my offline map (again with the 7.1 upgrade last night). This is helpful. If I un-share the map with my group, it was disappearing from Collector, or at least it was before the upgrade. I looked at Collector again and it's not refreshing.

I think the system maybe having a hard time with some many offline map areas. I am going to try and use maybe only 10.

Frustrating.... please fix this!!

MiaogengZhang · ‎03-20-2019

Matthew Stull‌ when you open individual map area, do you see both basemap and replica created, like this ? Or there is some file missing. If so, can you share the screenshot?

MatthewStull1 · ‎03-20-2019

Hi, thanks for response. The offline mode does seems be working ok now that we have turned off the sharing with a group (the offline map and hosted feature layer are no longer shared with any group).

Here is a screenshot of one of my offline areas: