First Thoughts On The June 2026 ArcGIS Online Update

JeffreyThompson2

Here in Arlington, TX, home of ~~AT&T Stadium~~ ~~Dallas Stadiu~~m ~~Arlington Stadium~~ ~~Dallas Stadium in Arlington~~ Dallas Stadium, we are in full World Cup fever. I'm working from home today because the entire nation of Jordan is partying outside my office. Or maybe they are mourning, as they have already been eliminated from the tournament and tomorrow's matchup is...Argentina. As Jordan prepares for a Messi end to their first World Cup appearance, we welcome Experience Builder 1.21 to ArcGIS Online and I've come to expect the odd number releases to also be quite messy. (11AM and I already see five bug reports. @Katie_Clark has compiled a list of all the Community bug reports in ArcGIS Online as of June 30th.) And will we be mourning or celebrating? I'd have to say I have mixed feelings. I was really looking forward to saying we've hit full Web AppBuilder parity. According to the 2026 Roadmap, the last WebAppBuilder parity features, Re-Shape and Auto-Complete Editing Tools, should be out today, but they aren't on the What's New Page. In spite of that, there are some very exciting things in this update. Let's take a look at what we did get.

For those new to this series, here's how it goes:

I read the official What's New in Experience Builder Blog post.
I maybe try a few things for a few minutes.
I attempt to translate the What's New page from developer to English.
If I don't think something is going to be very important to many people, I leave it out of my notes.
I might make some guesses how the new stuff can be used. (Tips and Tricks LLC offers no guarantees that anything said in this post will actually work.)

We will start outside Experience Builder, because there are a lot of ArcGIS Online updates, mostly to the Map Viewer, that should have an effect in Experience Builder land.

ArcGIS Online Updates

Map Viewer
- A tool to check your maps for performance issues.
- Parquet layers
  - A new type of layer so new and fancy that the links describing it don't even work.
- Symbol Layer Drawing Order
  - So you can do stuff like cased lines.
- More options when configuring forms.
  - These are used in Experience Builder by the Edit Widget.
- Create a time based animation.
- More labeling options.
Scene Viewer
- Make stuff glow.
- Control marker and label visibility of stuff you can't see.
General
- Set Contingent Values so that one field gets restricted choices based on another field.
- Designate a replacement for depreciated or retired item types.
  - Direct users from your old, gross WebAppBuilder site to your shiny, new Experience Builder site.
- Publish a Layout in ArcGIS Pro to ArcGIS Online as a Custom Print Template.
  - Previously, this had been an Enterprise only feature.
  - It costs 5 Credits a pop for printing from a Custom Template.
  - The Print Widget says it can already handle it.

Now, to the true Experience Builder stuff...

Accessibility

Designate things as ARIA landmarks.
- ARIA is some behind the scenes formatting designed to help screen readers read and understand a webpage.
  - A huge part of the accessibility standards are built around making a page readable by screen readers.
- The landmark role is helps the screen reader understand what a part of a page is and allows users to jump to it.
The Sidebar Widget has tooltips on the Collapse Button that also get read by ARIA.
Screen readers tell you when you switch Pages in a Menu Widget.
The (new) Language Switcher Widget has accessibility features.
- The Language Switcher Widget itself is an accessibility feature.
The Timeline and Comparatist Templates are accessible.
- Coming this fall to CBS, when the police think something might have changed slightly, but they don't know what, they call... The Comparatist.

Actions

You can add Data Filtering Changes and Record Selection Changes Actions directly on a datasource.
- This seems useful in the case where you want to do the same thing, say zoom the map, every time regardless of how the data gets changed. Could save some clicks if you set it up early in the process.
Clear Data Filters and Clear Data Selection Actions
- A common request is a for a Clear All Filters Button. This is it. You can build that now.
  - I said "Oooh" a lot when I figured out what this was and got teased by my toddler for it.
As a computer programmer, one of my greatest fears is ~~getting replaced by a robot~~ the dreaded infinite loop, where one thing triggers another thing that triggers the first thing again. If a choice of Actions will cause that, you won't be able to choice that option.
- I see the typo, but I like it.
Open a Widget in a Widget Controller when a user hits the Location Button on the Map Widget.

Arcade

Only one thing in this section, but it's a pretty important thing. In the Data Panel, it is now possible to make an Arcade Expression. This will function like adding a new Field in your dataset and be reusable all over your application.

Data

Support for Knowledge Graph Layers.

Headers and Footers

Earlier this week, I thought up a hack to use a Header to make data persist from Page to Page. I was thinking about writing a Blog post about it, but apparently it was only good for one day.

Login

If you wind up signed out while editing an app, you will get a chance to log in again instead of just losing all your work and you should see some warnings if there is some problem, like someone deleted your map, with the application you are working on.

Translation

A new interface for adding translations to all sorts of text with an AI translator to help. Options to import or export a translation.

Templates

A new full-screen Page Template called Keystone.

Themes

If you customize a Theme it will automatically save itself as a new Theme. This is such a great new addition, I can't believe someone hasn't put this on the Idea Board everyday.

New Widgets

Image Change Detection - Compare Dynamic Imagery Layers to find out if your plants are dying, water is drying up, stuff is on fire or things are getting built. Historic trends and climate models say most likely yes to all four.
Language Switcher - A simple menu to allow users to change the application's language at will.
QuickCapture - Designed for field collection in situations like being a passenger in a moving vehicle. Don't edit feature layers and drive.

Updated Widgets

3D Toolbox
- Controls for the default time of day on your Scene's mood lighting.
Add Data
- Select a sublayer and tile matrix from a Web Map Tile Service.
- If Anonymous Access is turned on, view Publicly shared content in the Organization Content Menu without signing in.
  - Somewhat easier to find your content in that menu than the massive pile that is ArcGIS Online.
Analysis
- New Tools - Don't really know what any of them do.
  - 80-20 Analysis
  - Detect Image Anomalies
  - Detect Target Using Spectra
    - For Bond villains?
  - Geomorphon Landforms
    - Spell check doesn't think that's real.
  - Resample Library Spectra
    - Daniel Craig isn't coming back. So, just watch Casino Royale again.
  - Summarize Categorical Raster
Business Analyst
- Did you know every time someone views an Infographic it costs 10 ArcGIS Online Credits? That's 60 American cents! Now, you can spend those 60 American cents on caching an Infographic and only get charged once for it.
- In Workflow Mode, export up to five Infographic at a time without viewing them first.
  - Does that mean for free?
- Chose to view an Infographic in a Widget Panel rather than full screen.
Chart
- C-c-c-c-combo charts.
  - You put a line chart in my a bar chart. You put a bar chart in my line chart.
  - These charts can each have their own axes and styles.
- On a single series column or bar chart make everything one color or give unique colors and labels.
  - Make nulls their own category.
- Date Only and Time Only Fields can be used as a category.
Coordinates
- Use different display options for each coordinate system.
Date Filter
- Can trigger the Data Filtering Changes Action.
Edit
- Batch Editing with Interact With A Map Widget turned on.
- Can turn on labeling for the length of line segments in 2D.
  - 3D got it first. Seems backwards.
Grid
- Headers in Grid boxes.
  - Turn them on/off and style them as a group or box by box.
    - These options are also in Grid Pages.
List
- Set the List Item's Height to Auto in a Flow Template to make all the List Items the height of the tallest thing.
  - Both useful and dangerous. Make sure all your biggest stuff is all very similar in height or you will get nasty results.
Map
- Quote: A loading indicator appears at the bottom right corner of the map to communicate if map data is updating or the extent is changing.
  - I'm pressing X to Doubt on any meaningful communication here.
    - The loading indicator is tiny and the color scheme makes it impossible to see on anything but a white background.
      - Even knowing exactly when and where to look, I'm still struggling to see it.
      - There's a good idea here, but the execution is terrible.
  - Also, the indicator does not start indicating until well after the extent has stopped changing.
  - Here's an Idea for making it better.
Near Me
- New interface for setting up an analysis in Express Mode.
- Users can enter input text in multiple languages.
  - I'm confused. What input text?
Oriented Imagery Viewer
- Overlay imagery over a 3D scene.
- Multi-field sorting in the Sequential Navigation Tool.
- Video support.
Print
- As mentioned above, you can use a Custom Print Template.
- Save your printout as an ArcGIS Online Item.
- Print in a different datum if you want.
Section
- Make a View the Default View and you can have the Section go back to that View when the user clears a Selection.
  - This feels like something hackable, but I don't know how yet.
Share
- Optionally, hide the Short URL option from the users.
Sidebar
- You can set up your Sidebar to auto-close when the user clears their Selection.
- Tooltips on the Collapse Button can change what they say depending on if the Sidebar is opened or closed.
Swipe
- Change the Leading and Trailing Layers titles to something else.
  - I'm not saying you can do this. I'm saying you should do this.
  - At least, make it say Left and Right.
Table
- Users can edit more than one record at once.
- Highlights will show where the unsaved changes are.
- There's a Reset Button to undo unsaved changes and a Save Button to actually save them.
  - I think it's generally too easy to make an accidental edit in a table across the ArcGIS ecosystem, so I like the idea of an intentional Save Button.
    - But now, I wonder how many intentional edits will be lost to this button.

That's all for this update. I'll be back to do this again when handegg is once again being played in that corporate branded football stadium.

LindsayRaabe_FPCWA

As usual, nice wrap up. A few things for me to dabble with from this update.

BlakeTerhune

I see the typo, but I like it.

👊

WilliamTarpai

@EzraCheruiyot Please share this post with Tenwek High School mappers and teachers supporting them. It will be interesting to what discussions come forth during this World Cup season. Remember, 'silence' is not an option. Have you had any feedback or led any field visit with ESRI East Africa offices staff? It would be great having student feedback after they were able to read the official What's New in Experience Builder Blog post.

KarinaLivingston

This post made me laugh and provided a nice wrap-up, thanks! I have Jordan in my family World Cup team draw.

EzraCheruiyot

@WilliamTarpai Am going to share the same to both safina team and Tenwek High school,regarding the visit to ESRI east africa i had made contact and they promise to discuuss my visit to there headquarters with the relevant department from there end so far have been in touch with a friend who is working there and will be waiting for there feedback as well

Katie_Clark

Appreciate the humor and great summary, nice work! Thanks!