Possible to find out where feature layers are being used in web applications?

[ZachRobinson_SantaClaraCounty]

I am wondering if it is possible to easily find out which web applications in our ArcGIS Online organization are using a specific feature layer.

For example, if I delete a layer from our organization, I want to make sure I know which web maps and applications the deletion will affect. This can be difficult and tedious to search manually when an organization has many web maps and applications. 

[Katherine_Clark]

I would love to know if this is possible as well! As far as I know there isn't an "easy" solution, but maybe something can be done with the Python API?

[MichaelVolz]

Have you considered looking at 3rd party vendor solutions designed specifically for this issue?  I would look at GeoJobe especially if this is a time consuming task for GIS personnel at your org as AGOL and Portal mature and there is a good deal of content.

[Katherine_Clark]

I think I've looked into GeoJobe before....correct me if I'm wrong, but it is not a free service, correct? It would be difficult to justify the expense to higher management (non-GIS) who would have to approve something like that, unfortunately. 

[jcarlson · Accepted solution]

@Katherine_Clark, you guess right: you can do this with the Python API!

The text version:

1. For a given layer's URL
2. Find all maps that reference that layer
3. Fina all apps that reference those maps or the layers directly

The tricky part is # 3. An app can reference a layer directly in one of its widgets, like the Search widget. Other apps, like Experience Builder and Dashboards, can also reference layers directly without going through a map. Further complicating this is that certain apps will make direct references to a layer using their ID, rather than their URL.

To make sure our search is comprehensive we can't just search for the apps that reference the maps; we'll have to search for the layers directly as well. It gets a bit convoluted, but it works!

The code:

from arcgis.gis import GIS
import pandas as pd

# Log in to portal; prompts for PW automatically
gis = GIS('your-portal-url', 'username')

# Layer ID to search for and its URL
find_id = 'a405b06ae8e24f94a2768a4581b79e73'
find_url = gis.content.get(find_id).url

# Pull list of all web maps in portal
webmaps = gis.content.search('', item_type='Web Map', max_items=-1)

# Return subset of map IDs which contain the service URL we're looking for
matches = [m.id for m in webmaps if str(m.get_data()).find(find_url) > -1]

# Pull list of all web apps in portal
webapps = gis.content.search('', item_type='Application', max_items=-1)

# Create empty list to populate with results
app_list = []

# Check each web app for matches
for w in webapps:
    
    try:
        # Get the JSON as a string
        wdata = str(w.get_data())

        criteria = [
            wdata.find(find_url) > -1, # Check if URL is directly referenced
            any([wdata.find(i) > -1 for i in matches]) # Check if any matching maps are in app
        ]

        # If layer is referenced directly or indirectly, append app to list
        if any(criteria):
            app_list.append(w)
    
    # Some apps don't have data, so we'll just skip them if they throw a TypeError
    except:
        continue

pd.DataFrame([{'title':a.title, 'id':a.id, 'type':a.type} for a in app_list])

The output DataFrame will be any apps that reference your layer:

You can easily amend the final line of the expression to include additional details about the items.

[Katherine_Clark]

Thank you, Josh! I'll definitely look into this. 

[ZachRobinson_SantaClaraCounty]

Fantastic, thank you so much for your thorough response!

[NickShannon2]

This is great! Thank you. 

Can the script be modified to include 'web maps' in the output DataFrame? 

[jcarlson]

Of course! Since our list of maps is already defined earlier, that last line could just be amended like so:

pd.DataFrame([{'title':a.title, 'id':a.id, 'type':a.type} for a in matches])

If you want the maps together with the apps in the output, you can just use the pandas method concat:

dependencies = pd.concat(
    [
        pd.DataFrame([{'title':a.title, 'id':a.id, 'type':a.type, 'url':f'{gis.url}/home/item.html?id={a.id}'} for a in app_list]),
        pd.DataFrame([{'title':m.title, 'id':m.id, 'type':m.type, 'url':f'{gis.url}/home/item.html?id={m.id}'} for m in matches])
    ]
)

But if the properties you want from the maps / apps are the same, you could also just merge the two lists together:

all_items = app_list + matches

pd.DataFrame([{'title':a.title, 'id':a.id, 'type':a.type, 'url':f'{gis.url}/home/item.html?id={a.id}'} for a in all_items])

[HaThach1]

Hi, I implement this script above to include the maps together with the apps but got an error for m in matches section.

pd.DataFrame([{'title':a.title, 'id':a.id, 'type':a.type, 'url':f'{gis.url}/home/item.html?id={a.id}'} for a in app_list]),
pd.DataFrame([{'title':m.title, 'id':m.id, 'type':m.type, 'url':f'{gis.url}/home/item.html?id={m.id}'} for m in matches])

Have any idea? thx