This Week's Picks: ArcGIS Online #5
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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There is a chance that if you’re reading this, you might have contacted Esri Technical Support before and spoken or emailed with one of my colleagues. It goes without saying that Esri Support Analysts are wizards at solving technical problems involving GIS, but what some folks don’t know is that they are also the engine behind the Support site’s Knowledge Base (KB).
That’s why this week I want to highlight three new(ish) Technical Support-written Knowledge Base articles that get into some lesser-known ArcGIS API for Python and Arcade functionality.
Clone Hosted Feature Services between ArcGIS Online Organizations
“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry…” and suddenly, it’s a requirement to transfer Hosted Feature Layers, Web Maps, Apps and maybe even surveys and dashboards to a different ArcGIS Online organization. This would be a daunting task, but the ArcGIS API for Python’s Clone Items method makes it easier. This KB article (written by yours truly, I know - shameless plug) provides a Jupyter Notebook and standalone Python script code sample to get you started.
Additional References:
- API Reference: Content Manager (ctrl + f clone_items)
- Get Started with the ArcGIS API for Python
- Clone Dashboards (KB Article)
Automate ArcGIS Online Hosted Feature Service Downloads
Unintentionally overwriting a layer or accidentally deleting a Hosted Feature Service are mistakes that many of us have made in ArcGIS Online. With the ArcGIS API for Python, it is possible to automate local backups of your Hosted Feature Services for when these situations unexpectedly come up. See the code sample in Munachiso Ogbuchiekwe's KB article.
Additional References:
Step-by-Step: Calculate a Field in ArcGIS Online with Arcade
In https://community.esri.com/community/gis/web-gis/arcgisonline/blog/2019/11/12/this-weeks-picks-arcgi..., I highlighted Arcade resources focused on pop-ups, symbology and labeling. To round things out, Hanushrie Gopalkrishnan's support KB article demonstrates how to use a simple expression to calculate a field based on the values of two existing fields.
Additional References:
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I hope the above KB articles provided some helpful tips on the ArcGIS API for Python and Arcade! 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 and 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.
Happy holidays and see you in 2020!
-Peter