Editing by Multiple People

[ShanaCrosson2]

Having fun playing with the new StoryMap builder! 

We're testing how it works to share with a group so multiple people can edit a map. I shared a map to a Group, but the other members weren't able to edit it. Is the functionality the same as with the classic StoryMaps? (I did Publish the StoryMap and shared with Update and access capabilities.)

[OwenGeo]

Marina Gray‌ -- Just wanted to let you know that in the last release we added a notification when two authors are editing at the same time. See this blog for details: What’s New in ArcGIS StoryMaps (August 2020) 

[HaydarHussin]

Dear Owen,

I have 50 students. That are in groups of 3. As you know we are now in Coronavirus lock down. Do I actually, as an admin, have to make 16-17 groups and manually add their story-maps and the member names to each group ?  This does not sound reasonable.

[OwenGeo]

Hello Haydar -- That is the way groups work in ArcGIS Online, so unfortunately I don't have a different solution right now if you require all the students in each group to edit the same story map.

I think it should take about 20 minutes to get that set up for a class that size. You would only have to create the groups and add the students. The students would add their stories to their group once they created them.

If that does not sound reasonable, you can have students plan and draft their story in a collaborative tool like a Google doc and then a single student can be responsible for transferring the content to the story builder for the group.

[HaydarHussin]

Thanks Owen for your reply. I was not aware that you cannot give "group making options" to your users as an admin.

Is that something to think about, making the invited member roles more customizable in terms of user options/capabilities ?

I think when you are working in a hierarchical structure with multiple teams that need to be managed, there could be some 2nd tier management options where for example an Admin can give some certain rights to people who manage teams. Just a thought.

[OwenGeo]

I just checked and it looks like the ability to create a custom role with the ability to create groups with update capabilities does exist, so you could do that as well.

[HaydarHussin]

Thanks Owen !

I just made a custom role and applied it to all relevant users in bulk. This is exactly what I was looking for.

[KatieWarnell1]

I have a related issue with editing by multiple people that just popped up - possibly with the April update, although I didn't see anything about this in the blog post about the update.  I have several StoryMaps that are shared with a group with update capabilities.  For the past several months, one other user and I have both been editing and publishing these StoryMaps.  Yesterday, I made a few changes to one of the StoryMaps that was originally created by the other user and got a message that I can't publish the story as a co-author - only the original author can do so.  I have made changes and published the same story many times, so this seems to be a new limitation that will greatly hinder our ability to work collaboratively on StoryMaps going forward.

[OwenGeo]

Hi Katie -- Yes, that was a change in the April release. The reason for this change is that only the owner of a story (or an admin) can change its sharing level (private / org / everyone). This is how security in ArcGIS works for all items, not just story maps.

When the publishing options were available for co-authors, it made it seem like a co-author could open someone else's draft story and publish it to the org or everyone; however, this would simply give an error since the co-author doesn't have permissions to change the sharing.

If a story was already published then you may have been able to just publish changes without changing the sharing level of the story.

We are looking into enabling the option for co-authors to publish changes to an already published story in a future release, but we are thinking that authors should have to opt-in to allow that, and that will take us a little more time to think though and design. For now, all publishing controls are available only to the original author and admins.

[KelleeKoenig1]

This is a helpful thread; I'm trying to understand if it's still current for the issue my team is facing. I created a group that permits editing of all items and added coworkers 1 and 2 to the group. Coworker 1 created a StoryMap that is shared with the group as well as publicly, and has published it. Coworker 2 needs to make a few tweaks to it, but keeps getting a warning message that Coworker 1 is editing it (which is confusing, because to our knowledge Coworker 1 logged out of it). I was able to successfully make an edit without any warning messages, but I also have admin privileges. Is that the same issue described above?

[OwenGeo]

Hi Kellee Koenig -- We've heard reports that this is happening for authors using the legacy Edge browser. We're looking into it, but legacy Edge is not a supported browser.

If that is the browser you and your colleagues are using, please download the latest (Chromium-based) version of Edge or use a different supported browser.

If this is not the browser you are using, please let me know which browser and version you are using when this issue occurs so we can look into it.