This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Online #4
For those new to this series, "This Week's Picks" is a (loosely) biweekly blog where I share some of my favorite ArcGIS Online content with you.
If you are interested in earlier posts, they’re archived here: This Week's Pick's - ArcGIS Online: Archive
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Thanksgiving weekend had me thinking a lot about sharing. We share a meal; we share time with family and friends; we create shared memories and history together.
With sharing on the mind, the sheer number of hours I spend in ArcGIS Online meant it was only a matter of time before I began thinking about sharing data, maps and apps, and the powerful messages and stories that can be conveyed to a lot of people when these items are shared with the public.
However, there are some factors to think about before making your items accessible to everyone.
The following resources describe best practices for layer and Web Map configuration for publicly shared items, discuss the nuances among public sharing options, and provide some suggestions for generating the most possible interest in your public maps.
An important note before the picks: It is the responsibility of anyone sharing layers, maps and apps publicly to check the data to make sure that nobody's private information is included.
Blog: Prepare Content for Public Sharing
Important elements to consider before sharing items publicly include access to the content, accessibility, and the end goal of the map or app. My colleague Madison recently published an outstanding blog going through four crucial questions that help address the above aspects. My favorite passage: “Members of the public never have access to delete your maps and apps, but mistakes can happen in an organization with many members who have content administration privileges… for this reason, we recommend enabling delete protection for all content shared publicly (layers, web maps, and apps). Deleting web maps or apps is a permanent action that cannot be undone.”
Additional References:
Video: Prepare Content for Sharing with the Public
Take a closer technical look into some of the concepts that Madison presents through the ArcGIS Online team’s video demo, recorded at the 2018 Developer Summit. Specifically, there is a side-by-side comparison of Feature Layer and Tile Layer performance for public-facing applications, as well as the full workflow of enabling subscriber and premium content in a configurable app, a Web AppBuilder app, and a Story Map.
Additional References
- Documentation: Embed Apps
- Blog: Use Subscriber and Premium Living Atlas Content in Public Maps and Apps
Blog: Captivate Your Audience with Apps
Creating a configurable app from your Web Map is a quick, straightforward way to provide a focused user experience for a public audience. This blog covers some templates that are great for public sharing, the importance of well-configured pop-ups, and organization branding. Quotable line: “Configurable apps in ArcGIS Online turn your web maps into shareable and presentable information products.”
Additional References:
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I hope the above picks provided some helpful tips on sharing items publicly! Let me know in the comments below 
if there are any outstanding questions. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for This Week's Picks – ArcGIS Enterprise & This Week's Picks - ArcGIS Pro!
If you're interested, I'd love to connect on LinkedIn. You can follow me on Twitter, too. I regularly post / tweet GIS(ish) content to these platforms.
-Peter