StoryMaps adding ArcGIS App Issue

[JonathanMcD]

I've had a few users approach me over the last couple of weeks highlighting some odd behaviour when trying to add, instead of embed, an ArcGIS App into a storymap. When selecting "Add ArcGIS App" their content is not visible, or some of it is visible but not other items. 

I managed to have a proper look at it within a call yesterday with one of the users, and the behaviour of the element seems to be completely broken. All they want to do is replace their embedded dashboards in their monitoring storymaps (they really dislike the disconnected prompt to always sign in).

As can be seen in the below screenshot, even when filtering by a specific group and type, the listing pulls back way more items than it should, but also completely omits certain dashboards, not all, and other elements.

The screenshot is from my account, the group filter only a dozen or so dashboards, but as can be seen it's pulling content that has no shared sharing perms with the group whatsoever.

Anyone else experienced this? Should I just log yet another support call ?

[OwenGeo]

@JonathanMcD - Thanks for posting your questions about the behavior you are seeing when adding ArcGIS apps to StoryMaps.

At this time, only apps shared with everyone are shown in the item browser you are referring to. The reason for this is because the ArcGIS StoryMaps builders do not yet have sharing checks for apps and their content. However, with the recent addition of tracking of these types of item dependencies and relationships in ArcGIS (see Discover How Your Layers, Scenes, Maps, and Apps Connect), we are actively working on bringing these types of checks to ArcGIS StoryMaps and plan to include publicly-shared items here in an update coming later this year.

For now, if you want to embed an app that is not shared with everyone, you can use the Embed block and paste in the app's URL (as it seems you and your colleagues have already been doing). Of course, the reader must have an ArcGIS account that has access to the app if it is not shared with everyone even if it is added to a StoryMap that is shared with everyone. They will be prompted to sign in to see the app.

I also want to mention that there is no difference between adding an app via the ArcGIS app or Embed option, both behave exactly the same way once they are added. The ArcGIS app pathway just provides a way to browse your content and pick an item as opposed to having to find its link/URL.

> As can be seen in the below screenshot, even when filtering by a specific group and type, the listing pulls back way more items than it should, but also completely omits certain dashboards, not all, and other elements.

Regarding this part, I'm not able to validate whether you are seeing more/fewer items than you should based on the screenshot because I don't have access to the group you used to filter. I did some testing on my end and I am seeing the items filtered correctly in my groups. Is the group you are using public? If so, can you share a link to the group page here so we can take a look?

> All they want to do is replace their embedded dashboards in their monitoring storymaps (they really dislike the disconnected prompt to always sign in).

Could you share a little more about this? Do you have a screenshot of the prompt you are referring to and could you provide how your colleague would like this to work?

[JonathanMcD]

@OwenGeo 

Hi Owen, thanks for the response.

Good to hear the sharing validations are being developed for future release.

Regarding the group behaviour - the Public Transport (Team) is a group that contains only staff from this team within our organisation, and as such, only then contains content (data, maps, dashboards etc) that they create.

My screenshot shows the applied filter for the Public Transport (Team) group and Apps, however, the returned items shown include content that is not shared to this group. The filter shows a return of 194 items which includes content in my ownership that's not shared to the Public Transport (Team) group. Additionally, the Public Transport (Team) group contains 261 items of which 127 are apps - they have a myriad of dashboards and surveys to monitor public transport and finance - so there's a mismatch in numbers too.

Regarding the behaviour of embedded apps and the sign-in prompt - a user owns all content they are using within a StoryMap - data, maps, and dashboard, however, when they are viewing the storymap a prompt persists within the embedded item to sign in. If we use the Add ArcGIS App element the sign in prompt is not present and the dashboard shows as would be expected. The screenshot below is of the exactly same dashboard - top one is embedded, bottom being added as an ArcGIS App.