Can I Customize the School Locator Solution?

LeviCecil · ‎07-17-2023

I've been using the school locator solution since v1. I'm starting the process to upgrade to v2 to take advantage of the ability to include bus stops data. The problem I'm running into is that the way that the locator is configured, it's only looking for elementary, middle and high schools. Our district has a combination of K-5th grade, K-8th grade, Middle and High schools. I've been able to add these as domain values in the hosted feature services and work with them in the schools data management aprx, but when I try to configure the web maps or hub sites, I still only see elementary, middle and high schools as options. I was able to overwrite the web map with the new version in my screenshot, but I'm at a loss on how to configure everything in the instant apps and hub sites. The instant apps seem to be using the nearby tool, when what I need is zone lookup. I only want to see the schools (K5, MS, HS) within the attendance zones that the searched address is located in (and only the bus stops associated with those schools), not all the schools, attendance zones and bus stops within a search radius. Is this possible with the solution at v2? Any help would be appreciated.

ChrisFox · ‎07-18-2023

Hi @LeviCecil,

The My Neighborhood School app and map are what you would want to use to support searching for an address and returning the attendance zones and schools that intersect this location. We are still using the Nearby app, but have enabled an option that only returns the intersecting polygons from the layers and doesn't display the buffer distance/search radius.

This app uses a join view between attendance zones and schools called 'Schools_zones'. If you look in the web map there are 3 layers (Elementary School, Middle School, and High School). To add additional layers based on your School Type domain you will want to do the following:

Open the My Neighborhood School web map in the Map Viewer
Select one of the layers and under the options (...) click Duplicate
Select the new layer and give it an appropriate name (this will display in the app UI)
Change the filter on the layer to the appropriate value from the school type domain
Save the web map
Configure the My Neighborhood School instant app
On the Nearby options click Search Method
Check on the new layer you added in the step above to include it in the results
Publish the app

Now when you search it should return any attendance zones that are appropriate for that school type.

LeviCecil · ‎07-18-2023

Thanks Chris! This is very helpful. I'm not seeing the option you mentioned that only returns the intersecting polygons from the layers and doesn't display the buffer distance/search radius. I also want to be able to show the three (or two in the case of K8) schools the child will attend, not just the K5 and then a list of attendance zones. Is this possible with the Nearby tool? It is with the zone lookup.

ChrisFox · ‎07-19-2023

Hi @LeviCecil, the option was removed from the UI of Nearby in a recent release, but it still works in the My Neighborhood School app that was deployed with the solution so you can use that app for this case. Otherwise you can use the Zone Lookup app which provides a similar user experience. What you are wanting to do is possible with the My Neighborhood School map and app. You just need to follow the steps in my post above to customize the layers in the My Neighborhood School map. Each layer will be a filtered view of the attendance zones and when you use the app it will intersect each of the layers and return the attendance zone if found and the associated school information.

LeviCecil · ‎07-19-2023

OK, thank you. I'm confused on how to set the filters. What I want to see is in the first screenshot. I used to Zone Lookup to show the three schools (K5,Middle, High) for an entered address. I'd like to also see only the 5 bus stops associated with the K5, and the bus stops associated with the other schools as well, based on their site IDs. My Neighborhood School is showing me every bus stop within a radius, some of which aren't associated with any of the 3 schools in tied to that address. Would this be possible?

Zone Lookup:

My Neighborhood School:

LeviCecil · ‎07-20-2023

It doesn't look like I can accomplish what I need to do with the Nearby tool. I need an Arcade expression that matches the Bus Stop to the school IDs for the attendance zones returned in the search. This only allows me to set a specific school ID in from the Bus stops layer. There shouldn't be 46 bus stops returned in this search.

ChrisFox · ‎07-24-2023

@LeviCecil, I am seeing similar limitations in both Zone Lookup and Nearby. When I tried creating another relationship between the attendance zones and bus stops they were still not being filtered when I returned the zone. We will need to look at this for a future update of the solution to allow you to filter the related bus stops.

LeviCecil · ‎09-11-2023

Hi Chris,

Do you have a timeline for an update of this solution? There is a lot of interest here in integrating the bus stops into our school finder app.

Thanks!

ChrisFox · ‎09-18-2023

@LeviCecil, I don't have an estimate at this time. There may be an enhancement in the next ArcGIS Online release that could make this possible in the Near Me widget within ExB. I am still waiting to see if this functionality makes it in this release or the next. Once the functionality is available we could look into an update in the solution and you would be able to create similar in your own version of the app.

LeviCecil · ‎10-09-2023

Hi Chris,

Any news on this?