Story Map - AGOL Item Name vs. Map Title - these shouldn't have to be the same

JacobMaggard

In AGOL WAB apps, I can set the map title to something very user friendly -- while maintaining my "not user friendly" AGOL item naming convention in the backend.

With story maps, no such luck. If I change the map title in edit mode, it automatically changes the backend item name. I don't want this behavior.

Thanks,

Jake

MelanieRosenberg2 · ‎06-30-2017

I think you can add the title during SM creation then go into AGOL and change the item name. That should give you what you want. Although, I agree it is not ideal to be forced into having both the same from the get-go.

RupertEssinger · ‎07-01-2017

Hi Jake, I know what you mean and point taken. Actually, the names don't have to be the same but in some of the Story Map Builders it will update the existing app title in item details in ArcGIS Online when you enter the title in the Builder. And some of the Builders will prompt you if you change the title to see if you want to use that in the item details. We're not very consistent with this. But once you have finalized your Story Map title in the Builder, you should be able to change the title in the item details so that a different title appears. For example sometimes if a story map has a really short title and long subtitle, you might want to edit the title in the item details so that it includes some of the text from the subtitle so that the item title is more meaningful when the item is included in a gallery or ArcGIS Online Org home page featured item strip.

Rupert

PS. Authors also sometimes make the title in the item page include version info so that they can see that when they look at their list of apps in ArcGIS Online My Content or My Stories on the Story Maps website. It is best to avoid doing that because the title in the item details is used automatically when your story map is shared on social media. When one of your audience members clicks the Tweet button in your story, the default Twitter card that gets generated automatically by Twitter includes the title, thumbnail and online summary about your story that it gets from the item details page in ArcGIS Online, not the actual title and subtitle in your Story Map header. So authors should be aware of that if they use different text for their item page's title. In the example below the title in bold in the Twitter card is the title in the item page, not the title of the app

Also, notice how in the example below, the item details page doesn't have a thumbnail and the one line summary is the same as the title, so the default twitter card doesn't look good: the person who does the tweet can't control this: it is up to the author of the app to fill in the item details. Authors commonly don't take full advantage of making a useful one line summary that will help make people want to click on the link in tweets.

If your publicly shared story map doesn't have a thumbnail or good one line summary and it is already being tweeted, don't worry. If you upload a thumbnail or edit the summary, Twitter will pick that up eventually and update all the existing tweets so they look better. You can also force Twitter to update by pasting your app in: https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator

Rupert