StoryMap Won't Publish/save new changes

[RichardHarper25]

I am using some premium demographic/crime data. When I go to publish the story, it will show (the screenshot) prompting me to authenticate, but does nothing when I click the button. The story map will then load, saying "Sorry there was a problem publishing your story!" I can still see all the unpublished changes I've made, but can't publish.

I planned on using this information publicly as part of my county's crime prevention plan.

Thanks for any help!

(Also, very new to this, so I appreciate the patience! :))

[OwenGeo]

Hi @RichardHarper25 -- I'm sorry you are running into this issue. Can you share what premium layer(s) you are using? The layer names aren't expanded in your screenshot. If you can provide links to the layers, that would be most helpful. If you could also share your story with everyone and share a link to that, it would also be helpful if we could see that.

Not that is should cause this issue, but it looks like you have quite a lot of layers (at least 10+) in every one of those maps. Are they all needed? For storytelling, it's typically best practice to pare down your maps to just the essential layers (ideally this is 5 or fewer).

[RichardHarper25]

Thanks for the reply! To be honest, I have just sort of been learning through trial and error (I know there is a better way) I grouped the layers, which ended up taking care of the issue in the screenshot, but it still will not publish new changes.

Also, I sort of treated this more like a “report” map, and not a story, so that could be causing issues. I am still working on this, but would like to be able to share a draft with my colleagues (who don’t have accounts)

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/d5a885b32f414464a10ad0241eae23f1

[OwenGeo · Accepted solution]

Can you share with me details of the steps you followed to add the layers to the map? I'm not sure why the authorization process is failing.

Unfortunately, grouping the layers actually makes the issue I mentioned worse since you are adding additional elements to the web map (the groups) rather than reducing the number of things in the map. 😞 It looks like there are a lot of duplicate layers in your map. Even layers that are toggled "off" (not visible) must be initialized and take up a fair amount of memory when the map loads.

In general I'd recommend that you start with just a basemap and add only the few layers that are required for one spot in your story. Then create additional web maps with a small number of layers as needed for the rest of the story.

I see you are doing some map choreography, which is great! Sometimes you'll need several layers to support this type of experience. This is fine, however, it's still good to think about how many layers you are putting into a single map. The best way to organize this is to create several maps that you use across your story rather than a single map loaded with every layer needed.

It looks like your entire story is one long sidecar. That can get very monotonous for your readers, so we recommend alternating between sidecars and simple inline sections. These transitions allows readers to mentally reset so they don't get fatigued from seeing the same floating panels flying across the screen for minutes on end.

Can you review your story and break it up into smaller sections? Or perhaps even into multiple stories? If you create multiple stories you can group them together in a collection  like chapters in a book. For more info about creating collections, see Start your first ArcGIS StoryMaps collection (esri.com).

It'd also be good to think about how you could tell part of your story in an inline format. By inline, I just mean the text and media is centered in the page. For example, if you look at this story, you'll see that there are inline sections alternating with sidecars and this creates a nice balance and rhythm to the story. You can also look at our gallery to see more great examples and get other ideas for how to tell your story. ArcGIS StoryMaps Gallery | ArcGIS

There are also a lot of good tips for beginners here Quick tips for mastering the ArcGIS StoryMaps builder (esri.com)

Hope this information is helpful!