Copy or move story maps to another account?

[Anneka_France]

We can copy Classic Esri Story Maps to other user accounts using ArcGIS Online Assistant. This is really useful when we want to transfer ownership of a story map, or when we're running training sessions and want to copy across materials. Will it be possible to copy the new ArcGIS StoryMaps to other accounts? If so, is there a time frame for when this feature will be implemented? This will help us to plan our transition to the new story maps for our upcoming training sessions and partnership projects.

[OwenGeo]

Anneka -- We are planning to provide the ability to create a copy of a StoryMap in a future release, but we don't have any more details to share at this time.

The best way to transfer ownership of a StoryMap to a colleague is to have an administrator move the item(s) from one account to another. This preserves the itemID so any links to your story will continue to work.

Can you share a little more about the workflow you'd like to have when transferring materials? Does the author transfer stories or might another person transfer stories that were created by others? Are you transferring stories between members of different organizations or just between different member accounts in the same organization? What do you do with the maps or layers that might be used in a story that's being transferred?

Thanks for any additional info you can provide!
Owen

[Anneka_France]

Hi Owen,

We're an umbrella body with ~60 member trusts and >100 partnerships. We provide technical training and support to our member trusts and partners. As part of this, we often develop story maps and templates that we can copy to our members' accounts to help them get started and save duplication of effort. They can then build on these templates and add their own local data and narrative to enrich the story.

This involves copying/transferring story maps between members of different organisations. It is usually the author that is transferring stories to a different user account, but occasionally we might see a great example on someone else's account and it would be great if we could also copy those templates too. There's also times when we might want to simply copy a story map within our own accounts, either to preserve a back up that we can revert to if our edits aren't approved, or to use an existing story map as a template for a new story.

In most cases, we copy the maps across to the new account too and 're-link' the story map to the copied maps. However, we don't tend to copy data, as we always encourage the use of open data that is shared publicly in ArcGIS online and the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World We make sure the most relevant data to our trusts and partners is available in our ArcGIS Hub and only recommend that users upload their own local data to their accounts. We want to avoid duplicating data wherever possible and try to maintain authoritative versions of each dataset.

The ability to copy story maps has been critical to our workflow. Until this is possible with the new story maps, it will significantly limit our ability to use the new story maps in upcoming training sessions. This is in addition to the missing functionality in the new story maps, such as story map actions and bookmarks/tabs. This is an issue as I believe Classic Esri Story Maps‌ will stop being available by mid-2020? It seems counter productive to invest in training staff how to use the old story maps if these skills will be out of date within 12-months, especially as most trainees are not GIS professionals. Can you provide us with a time frame for when/if these features will become available? Or suggest another workflow for us to use in the meantime? 

Feel free to ask more questions!

Thanks,

Anneka

[OscarMonell]

Hi Owen Evans! 

And there is also the workflow where a super user would like to create pre-populated "templates".

For instance, a business creates presentations of potential investment sites, and need a template with all basic information to get a quick start and the author can focus on the site specific details only. 

[OwenGeo]

Thanks for the additional information, Oscar and Anneka -- We'll be looking at addressing the requirement for a story template even more directly with the new StoryMaps beyond just a generic ability to copy a story. It's a little ways out for us since we've just had our first release, but it's definitely on our radar.

[Anneka_France]

Thanks Owen. It's great to hear that you're looking at adding more template capabilities beyond simply copying, but will it be possible to add the generic copy ability in the meantime?

[OwenGeo]

Anneka -- We'll likely add the ability to copy a story before we tackle the template issue, but right now we don't have a timeline for when either one of those features might be available.

[Anneka_France]

Hi Owen, are there any ways to copy the new storymaps yet? Or do we know when this will be possible?

[OwenGeo]

Anneka — The ability to create a copy of your own story is coming this week! 😄

Also, admins will be able to copy any story in their organization.

[Anneka_France]

Thanks Owen!! This is great news   Will we be able to copy to other organisations eventually too? Perhaps using Admin Tools for ArcGIS Online & Portal?