Unable to Open PDF in AGOL only Download- New as of Feb 29, 2024

[CaseyWilson1]

At the City of Springfield, we share authoritative pdf maps, like regulatory zoning, with the pubic via our ArcGIS online Hub.  Previous to today, February 29, 2024, the pdf behavior when in AGOL and the Hub, is that you have the choice to Open and then download a pdf document.  Today, the pdf we uploaded can only be downloaded from the Hub and when in AGOL.

We would like people to be able to view the pdf and not have to download the pdf.  Did something change with the February 2024 AGOL update?  Is there a setting I need to consider? 

[JoseBarrios1 · Accepted solution]

Hi Randall,

I want to confirm my understanding of how this change will impact Experience Builder and the use of the Embed widget to access PDF documents. Are we no longer able to embed a PDF hosted in ArcGIS Online and have it open directly within Experience Builder?.

If this is the case, could someone please update the help esri  help documentation at this link?

Thanks

JB

[MichaelRobb]

Thanks for the explanation. To address this, thoughts about allowing admins to configure an option to enable this feature? When Enterprise is behind a firewall in a corporate setting, the risks you mentioned are not applicable. Instead, users are frustrated because their machines are cluttered with downloaded PDFs, requiring additional clicks to access them.

[DavidMcCorkindale1]

@RandallWilliams  as per @MichaelRobb comment above.  While we are understand the risk on AGOL applying this same change to ArcGIS enterprise does not represent the same risk where the system is firewalled and upload of PDF's are restricted to trusted users. A fix to this on enterprise would be appreciated. 

[LindseyStone]

Just upgrade to Enterprise 11.3 from 10.9.1 and started experiencing this. I agree with  @DavidMcCorkindale1 .  Having the security in place in AGOL makes sense, but on your own Enterprise Environment is overkill.  Only people within the company that has been trusted to upload items have been given permission to do so on Enterprise.  This is just creating additional downloads on computers and mobile devices that are not needed.  I think ESRI should release a patch to allow it as option to view the PDFs without download in the Enterprise environment.   I say patch because we all don't have the resources to constantly upgrade our enterprise environments.

[CaseyWilson1]

Thanks @RebeccaRichman for passing this along to the developers. 

[Amanda__Huber]

Adding our voice to this. This is a very frustrating change that broke a large portion of our public maps workflow. It was not communicated to us, the customers and came by surprise after this last AGOL update. From this thread it sounds like others are just as surprised. 

Please re-consider finding a solution that's safe to host. In the meantime we will be scrambling to resolve our broken maps that are consumed daily by the public. 

Best, 

Amanda Huber

Three Rivers Park District

[MapsAreFun]

Hi Amanda, 
I'm keen to hear if you come up with a solution to this issue. We also have an ESRI site that was designed to deliver PDF maps which has been broken by the upgrade. Previously users could preview the map and decide if they want to download it. As we can no longer preview PDFs in portal it now automatically downloads the PDFs and presents a blank white screen where the map was previously. 

[davepete22]

This is a very unwelcome change.  A heads up would have been greatly appreciated, changes entire workflows as others have mentioned.  

[davepete22]

For my situation, I did find a workaround.  I was using PDF's linked to in Survey123 and instead of saving my Word doc as a PDF, I saved it as a JPEG instead and that is able to be viewed in browser instead of downloaded.  Hope this is an option for some of you.  

[Amanda__Huber]

This is a great workaround for quickly viewing graphics, but unfortunately screen readers cannot read images like PDFs. So any text on your map is lost for those with accessibility needs. 

Alternate text would fill that gap but not be comprehensive as it can't capture everything that's in the map. 

Just something to think about!