Story Maps and CSV files

[CatherineCarter]

Hi everyone ..

I am just in the beginning stages of trying to learn Story Mapping (and I think I am going to love it!) but I know that I do not want to use the public photo sharing sites. I will host the images myself (hopefully from iCloud .. I haven't checked that yet) but that means I have to use a csv file .. and that is fine. However, I can't seem to get the webapp to take the file. I have tried to click the button and upload AND simple drag-and-drop. Nothing happens .. nothing at all .. no error message .. nothing. It just sits there.

I am working in Safari on my mac. I run ArcGis in Parallels but since this is web-based the OS should not matter. However, sometimes Safari is peculiar.

Has anyone else had this problem? Do you recommend that I switch to Firefox?

I would appreciate any help you can give me.

Cathy Carter

ps .. the map is public here if you want to give it a try -- http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=7f351c0920194e618b1220d9184163fb

[CatherineCarter]

On another note .. I tried Firefox .. no luck. I also tried creating the csv file with Numbers instead of Excel .. still nothing.

[GregoryL_Azou]

Hi,

Welcome to Story Maps Hope you will like it.

I am not sure if iCloud support well to serve picture over HTTP, Dropbox is really good for that.

Your CSV item doesn't seems to be public. But that's ok, you don't have to create a CSV item to use a CSV to build your Tour, you can just start the builder from the Story Maps website and drag and drop the csv in the application.  The application will help you troubleshoot your CSV. Note that you can also get an example CSV that will save you issue with naming of fields.

Also note that to use pictures hosted on any server, you don't have to use a CSV, you can build your tour from the builder by starting from scratch and the builder will prompt you to enter the point one by one.

Also note that if you have an ArcGIS Online Organization account you can store your picture in ArcGIS Online. That's the most secured way to keep your pictures really private.

Start creating your tour through that page Apps | Story Maps by clicking build your tour.

To use a CSV or build your tour point by point, on the first screen select the advanced option (at the right of YouTube).

[CatherineCarter]

Hi Gregory .. Thanks so much for responding. I made the map public but not the csv. Even so, the csv won't load at all. I know that I can add them one at a time, but in the movie I watched last night the cvs was so much faster and gave more control.

I am a home-use user so it won't let me choose to store my images in AG Online. But Dropbox is a great idea .. I use it all the time.

So I still want to know .. why won't my csv file load?

Thanks,

Cathy

[GregoryL_Azou]

Hi Cathy,

I am not sure why it doesn't load your CSV. I still can't access it. Are you trying to drag and drop it in the builder? Have you started from the CSV example that you can get from the builder? I highly recommend that.

I agree that CSV is theoretically faster to build

Storing it in ArcGIS Online as an item is not the best way to do it, you should just drag and drop it in the builder...

[CatherineCarter]

I am so grateful for your help. I have made a little quicktime video to show you my clicks to see if you can tell anything from that. I am sorry to be so much trouble.

I am also sorry that this is turning out to be so hard to do. It had so much potential!

[GregoryL_Azou]

Thanks for taking time to make a video. This definitely sounds like a bug, the app should let you know if something is wrong with your CSV. Have you tried to use the example CSV that you can get from the screen where you choose to import the CSV. I just tested on a Macbook with Safari and it seems to works fine.

[blainecastle1]

Hi Catherine

I have built a number of story maps on my windows computer from CSV files and not had a problem. When my class tried to do the same on the school's Mac computers, using the same CSV file I had emailed to them it did not work straight away.

Can you confirm that the file is a CSV not text and is recognized as one in the Mac environment

I seem to remember that drag & drop did not work on the Mac, we had to use the 'Add data from file ' button

Also, check that you have no blank lines in your text file as these can cause issues,

Are you using addresses or Lat / Long or GPS points as your location information?

Cheers

Blaine

[CatherineCarter]

Hi everyone ... and thank you so much! Here is what I have learned so far.

I wasn't sure about my csv file so I downloaded the sample again and put my lat/long data and place names in it. I just left the sample image urls and then tried to load it. Here is what happened .. if I try to load it within the tour map app nothing happens. However, if I load it BEFORE I click configure app, i.e. when I am still building the layers of the map, then it works perfectly. And .. when I go into configure app, all the points and images are there. Very strange! why have the option to do it within the configuration at all?

So .. that is progress. I will keep working on it.

Thanks again!

[GregoryL_Azou]

Hi,

Glad you found this workaround.

When you select a CSV in Map Tour builder, it will just add it to the web map as a new layer for you.

Why doing that in Map Tour builder, because it should let you know if there is any issue with your CSV.

We are going to look into this more. I am sure I tested both drag and drop and using the add data from file dialog and it worked on my mac, but I must be wrong.

Let us know if you have any issue to finish building your tour.