Support Annotation Feature Classes in ArcGIS Online

[deleted-user-vpHnfyiCToFz]

It would be nice to add within a feature service or as a seperate annotation service the ability to add annotation to ArcGIS Online directly.  Many GIS professionals spend considerable amount of time to make sure the annotation will support map services and end users.  These annotation layers are very important and should be added to ArcGIS Online.

[KatieChiu]

That would be great that we can publish the annotation on ArcGIS online. We do need this function for our utility map.

[DanaBarber]

Does anyone know if there has been any progress on supporting annotation in arconine?

[VanWalker]

This must happen!!!

[BobSiscoGIS]

I agree.

[Juan_CarlosMolina]

I am surprise that ESRI has not make this happen. Considering how time consuming Labeling tasks could be using annotation in AGOL would be of great help

[BrianO_keefe]

I was shocked that this wasn't already available... Labeling seems to be a halfway step... but without being able to rotate based on a field? Fairly worthless with Parcel dimensions... ugh.

[Brad_S_SSMC]

Annotation is an invaluable means of communicating complicated information in a more digestible way.  Much time and resources has been spent creating multiple annotation layers to display at different scales.  One of the production tasks in many GIS shops is to maintain the custom annotation layers.  Even if a process behind the scenes converted the individual pieces of annotation to polygons that look like font, it would be very valuable to leverage what has already been created.  Thank you.

Apparently the trick is to work with the geodatabase so that it is compatible with the AGOL publishing service from V10.x or Pro.  I have been successful in publishing a V9.1 geodatabase through ArcGIS V10.3.  Had to upgrade the geodatabase to clear the warnings generated during the analysis step.  Note: Publish as tiled PNG only.  Had success publishing in Pro when FGDB was imported my means of an MXD.  Still unsuccessful with Pro even seeing the V9.1 FGDB or the upgraded FGDB.  Therefore, can't publish through Pro.  Able to see some other FGDB's though.  Confusing.

There should be some kind of dialog in Pro when searching through the folder tree as to why older ESRI items it can't be read.  Now, they just don't show up during navigation.  For example, I can see the FGDB's in Catalog in 10.3.  In the properties, it says V 9.x.  A button lights up that allows me to upgrade.  Now it can be manipulated.  In Pro, older items have to be imported.  Many items can't even be discovered prior to import.

Bottom line: make note of existing annotation scales.  Upgrade older GDB if having issues.

MXD's - Use existing map documents with annotation included, or bring annotation into new MXD.  Publish to AGOL as tiled PNG.  Dialog will ask for desired scale range.

Pro - Import existing MXD.  Publish to AGOL as tiled PNG.  Dialog will ask for desired scale range.

Hope this helps.

[JoshWhite]

Maybe I am missing something here, but I am able to have annotation in AGOL now.  I can't produce it in AGOL (like you can with labels), its done in the map service but the annotation layers for parcels for example display just fine in AGOL and my webmaps.  

[MarkChilcott]

Annotation needs to be in AGOL. 

While AGOL does support labels, and there are work arounds to convert annotation to features, then label the features - this is a hack work around.  ie While an AGOL web map can label, Collector does not support labels, and as AGOL does not support annotation - it becomes difficult to add labels maps and apps.

[JoshWhite]

What do you mean by Collector does not support labels?  I think editing annotation in AGOL would be a good idea but I think editing annotation in Collector would be a disaster.