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Offline Story Maps

11987
22
02-27-2017 12:40 AM
Status: Implemented
JohnBrushett
by
Occasional Contributor

The ability to create an offline story map, in a similar fashion to creating a Map package or Arc reader project would be a useful functionality for sharing Story Maps as an output product between Portals hosted on different servers. This would mean products could be shared where direct connectivity between Portals is not possible for various reasons. 

22 Comments
OwenGeo
by Esri Notable Contributor
Friday

Thank you for the feedback about marking this idea as implemented. We do understand everyone's needs have not yet been met and want to reassure you that closing this idea was not an attempt to say we are done working in this area. Our intent in closing it is 1) to educate people on this thread that much progress has been made in the area of taking StoryMaps content offline, and 2) to ensure that moving forward we collect the latest and best information about what the community is still looking for in ArcGIS StoryMaps.

This thread was started in 2017, which was several years before ArcGIS StoryMaps was even released (the original request was for classic Esri Story Maps such as journal, cascade, etc.). Most of the comments posted after ArcGIS StoryMaps became available were posted before briefings or other types of StoryMaps (beyond "stories") were available. Many things have changed over the nine years this thread has been active. Additionally, many of the comments in this thread are asking for very different things, so for us to know what to focus on it's critical to understand the community's current needs and to be able to isolate the support for different use cases.

The use cases mentioned in this thread that I anticipate are at least partially addressed with the current functionality include:

  • The museum that wants to provide tablets to visitors with info about historic sites
  • The land conservation trust and the nature preserve taking maps and information into the field
  • Several emergency management use cases (many emergency management, disaster response, public safety, and law enforcement organizations had been asking for a way to create slide-based content and this was one of the main drivers behind why briefings were developed)
  • Providing content on airplanes for VIPs (executives typically prefer slide-based content to scrolling article formats)

Most of the early messages on this thread focus on these field operations or low-connectivity situations, and those are the the use cases that are addressed with the current offline briefings feature. However, many of the more recent comments have transitioned to more of an "archiving" use case in academia, which is a completely different workflow that would be addressed by a different set of features.

I don't mean to make extra work for others, so I'm happy to create a few new ideas for people to vote for and link back to messages on this thread. Closing this idea as implemented does not mean the thoughts and messages that are already here will be lost or ignored. It just means we are redirecting where future votes and comments should go.

Here are the additional ideas I think I am seeing:

  • Provide an offline capability for StoryMap stories (similar to the existing capability for StoryMap briefings). This is also a field operations or low-connectivity use case.
  • Provide a way to "package" a StoryMap in a file-based format for archival purposes such that it can be viewed without any connection to the web. This could be for any type of StoryMap—including a story, briefing, frame, or collection—but it would be good to know which is/are the most important.

Please let me know if these capture the aspects of the other requests on this thread, and I can create these ideas so others can comment on them and upvote them. This will help us accurately track the support for each so we can better plan and prioritize the work required to implement these features.

PatIampietro
by
Friday

Thank you @OwenGeo for the thorough explanation of the justification for closing this Idea as "Implemented" and for offering to create new Ideas that capture the unfulfilled aspects in this thread. I understand that your initial statement regarding closing the Idea may have been composed with brevity in mind, but if this response to our feedback had been posted instead, I for one would not have responded the way I did.

I think the two additional Ideas you described will help persist the needs expressed in this thread with the addition that I think the offline capability described in the first one should also be for any type of StoryMap, not just Stories (obviously it is already there for Briefings). In other words, there is a need for both an offline modality as well as an export or "package" capability for all types of StoryMaps. If the second capability also satisfies the first need, then that would be great.

I'll watch for the Ideas so I can Kudo and comment on them! Thanks again.