StoryMap Embed not retaining URL parameters

[GregoryHanton]

Hi, has there been a change to the Embed option in StoryMaps at the October or November update releases?

I've previously embedded a number of Dashboards within a series of StoryMaps (each StoryMap focusses on a different geographic region) with each embedded Dashboard having URL parameters. This had worked really well, saving me from making multiple copies of a Dashboard (for each region) and instead using the URL parameters to filter the layers in my Dashboards.

However, when I try and embed a Dashboard with URL parameters now it is instead embedded into my StoryMap with the URL parameters removed. Even if I copy the URL of a previously embedded Dashboard via the settings in the StoryMap (which displays the URL parameters and filters as expected), and embed this again, the URL parameters are removed from the URL.

The format of my URL parameters are:

DashboardURL#region=Name%20Name

Thanks in advance for help / guidance to resolve this!

[OwenGeo]

@ColinBergmann_ct -- Thanks for reporting the issue you are seeing. I just did some quick tests with the web experience in this blog post, and the parameter that changes feature selection appeared to be applied as expected across sidecar slides.

Could you provide links to your story and web experience with the parameters you are using so we can take a look? If you are not able to share your app with everyone, please contact Esri Technical Support and they will be able to help.

[ColinBergmann_ct]

Hi Owen, Thank you for your reply! We are not ready to make the story map public yet, but I made a public copy that shows the issue. See link below:

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/fe473a49c61e410689bb7b0e1774f878

[OwenGeo]

@ColinBergmann_ct - Thank you for the helpful story that shows and explains the issue. We will look into this and post back here when we have more information.

[OwenGeo]

@ColinBergmann_ct - We talked to the Experience Builder team and they have identified a bug on their end that is causing this. They've indicated they will address the issue in their next release in November 2026.

An internal issue has been logged, but if you would like to formally track this, you can submit an incident with Esri Support.

[ColinBergmann_ct]

That's great, thank you for the follow-up!

[OwenGeo]

@ColinBergmann_ct - Oh, I almost forgot! We found a workaround you can use to get the behavior you are looking for if you don't want to wait until November.

If you add a URL parameter to your Web Experience links you can "trick" the embedded app into thinking something has changed so it refreshes between consecutive slides. Parameters must be added before hashes (#) in a properly constructed URL. In the examples below I'm just adding a parameter of slide=1 to the first url and slide=2 to the second. You'll also need a ? before the parameter...

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/38215638af2049929e22afabc512fa98?slide=1#data_s=id%3AdataSource_2-19f37ff5488-layer-15%3A293192&widget_8=layer_visibility:%7B%22widget_8-dataSource_2%22%3A%7B%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ff5488-layer-15%22%3Atrue%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f24476d4c-layer-10%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ab1d43-layer-11%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37abbe7a-layer-12%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ac3550-layer-13%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ad3f4d-layer-14%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-194d1b0b3f2-layer-7%22%3Afalse%7D%7D&zoom_to_selection=true

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/38215638af2049929e22afabc512fa98?slide=2#data_s=id%3AdataSource_2-19f24476d4c-layer-10%3A293192&widget_8=layer_visibility:%7B%22widget_8-dataSource_2%22%3A%7B%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ff5488-layer-15%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f24476d4c-layer-10%22%3Atrue%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ab1d43-layer-11%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37abbe7a-layer-12%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ac3550-layer-13%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ad3f4d-layer-14%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-194d1b0b3f2-layer-7%22%3Afalse%7D%7D&zoom_to_selection=true

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/38215638af2049929e22afabc512fa98?a=1#data_s=id%3AdataSource_2-19f37ff5488-layer-15%3A293192&widget_8=layer_visibility:%7B%22widget_8-dataSource_2%22%3A%7B%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ff5488-layer-15%22%3Atrue%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f24476d4c-layer-10%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ab1d43-layer-11%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37abbe7a-layer-12%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ac3550-layer-13%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ad3f4d-layer-14%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-194d1b0b3f2-layer-7%22%3Afalse%7D%7D&zoom_to_selection=true

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/38215638af2049929e22afabc512fa98?a=2#data_s=id%3AdataSource_2-19f24476d4c-layer-10%3A293192&widget_8=layer_visibility:%7B%22widget_8-dataSource_2%22%3A%7B%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ff5488-layer-15%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f24476d4c-layer-10%22%3Atrue%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ab1d43-layer-11%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37abbe7a-layer-12%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ac3550-layer-13%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-19f37ad3f4d-layer-14%22%3Afalse%2C%22widget_8-dataSource_2-194d1b0b3f2-layer-7%22%3Afalse%7D%7D&zoom_to_selection=true

You can use anything for the parameter (like slide=1, slide=2, etc. or s=1, s=2, etc.). You can even use different parameters. As long as something is different about the parameter and/or its value it will force the app to refresh. It would be best to make sure what you are using is NOT one of the supported URL parameters to ensure you're not creating any unwanted effects.

[ColinBergmann_ct]

This is great, thanks @OwenGeo !