Latest Contributions by Suzanne-Boden

In a previous post, we covered how to add data to ArcGIS Pro, prepare it for your project needs, time-enable the layer, then share the layer as a time-enabled web layer to an ArcGIS Online organizational site. This post takes you through the steps to create a web map featuring the time-enabled web layer.  Ready? Let's get started.  Go to www.arcgis.com and sign in to your ArcGIS Online organizational account. In My Content, right-click the web layer and add it to a new map. You can immediately see that the web layer is time-enabled because a time slider displays at the bottom of the map viewer.  On the map, only the points from a specific time span are displaying. In the Contents pane, click the ellipsis button under the layer's name, then click Disable Time Animation. All the layer's points now display on the map. Each point represents a hostile act against a maritime vessel between 2010 and 2015 in subregion 62, which includes the Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea (the data is from the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's Maritime Safety Information Portal). Configure Pop-Ups When making a web map, you need to decide what information users should see when they click a feature on the map. Currently, all layer attributes display in the pop-up. Some field names are cryptic or irrelevant to the general audience this map is intended for. You can configure the pop-up to be more user-friendly. In the Contents pane, click the ellipsis button under the layer name, then click Configure Pop-up. The pop-up title is currently set to display the layer name followed by the incident reference number. Unless you're familiar with the data, this information isn't easy to understand. In the Pop-up title box, delete the existing content, then click the plus sign to see the fields list. Click {DateOfOcc}.  Next, configure the pop-up content. Under Pop-up Contents, click the down arrow next to Display and choose "A custom attribute display." Click Configure. In the Custom Attribute Display dialog box, click the plus sign and add the {Victim}, {Desc1}, {Desc2}, {Desc3}, {Desc4}, and {Desc5} fields. Add a space between each field. Select {Victim} and click the bold button. Add an extra paragraph return after the {Victim} field. Click OK, then Save Pop-up. Now the pop-up presents focused information (incident date, victim, and details) that is appropriate for a general audience. Rethink Layer Styling On the map, all the incidents are represented with the same symbol. This makes incident distribution easy to see, but suppose you want to communicate more about the piracy victims. For example, were certain types of vessels targeted more frequently? Were some vessels victimized more frequently in specific years or was the "victim type frequency" consistent throughout the six-year span of the data? To answer these questions, your first step is to symbolize the incidents based on the Victim attribute. The ArcGIS Online smart mapping feature makes this easy. In the Contents pane, click the Change Style button under the layer name. Choose to show (symbolize by) the Victim attribute. The suggested drawing style is Unique symbols. This is what you want. Click Options. The legend in the Change Style pane contains many classes (unique symbols). Why? Because the incident data contains lots of variations on victim type (one example: tanker, chemical tanker, oil tanker). For this map, these type distinctions aren't important. The map will be easier to interpret if you categorize similar vessel types using one term. One way to accomplish this is to edit the layer's attribute values. Standardize Attribute Values Victim values could have been edited in ArcGIS Pro before the shapefile was shared as a web layer. However, it's usually wise to keep source data as-is and make a project copy. Most organizations have standard procedures governing how GIS data is edited. Because this web layer was shared to My Content, editing the attribute values won't affect anyone else's work. Cancel out of the Change Style pane. In the Contents pane, click the Filter button under the layer name. In the Filter dialog box, click the Edit tab, build the expression "Victim contains Tanker," then click Apply Filter. The map now shows only incidents where the victim was a type of tanker. In the Contents pane, click the Show Table button. Only records that meet the filter expression criterion are shown in the table, and they are selected.  Mouse over the Victim field name, click the gear icon, then click Calculate. In the expression box, enter 'Tanker' (in ArcGIS Online, text values are enclosed in single quotes). The expression reads Victim = 'Tanker'. Click the Validate checkmark button to make sure your expression is valid, then click Calculate. Note: There's no undo on table edits. Now all the Victim values for the filtered records are Tanker. Click the down arrow next to Table Options, then clear the selection. In the Contents pane, click the Filter button, then click Remove Filter. Repeat the "filter, calculate values, clear selection, remove filter" steps to create eight Victim classes: Tanker, Merchant Vessel, Carrier, Cargo Ship, Container Ship, Dhow, Passenger Vessel, and Fishing Vessel. For more information about working with tables in ArcGIS Online, see this help topic.  Symbolize the Points Now that you've standardized the victim values, you can symbolize the layer using unique symbols. In the Contents pane under the layer name, click the Change Style button. In the Change Style panel, choose the Victim attribute, choose to style by unique symbols, and click Options. You can change the color, size, and shape of individual symbols or all of them if desired. You can also adjust symbol transparency. The default settings are fine for this map. There are three remaining victim types that don't fit into the standard categories. You can move them into the Other class by selecting their row, then dragging the row down below Other. Click OK, then Done. Time-Enable the Map Click the ellipsis next to the layer name in the Contents pane and choose Enable time animation. Play the time animation. You can use the forward and back buttons to manually progress through individual time spans, or play the full time animation automatically. Click the wrench icon next to the time slider, then click "Show advanced options." You can adjust settings including the time span duration, start and end times, playback speed, and more. For this map, the time settings are fine. In the Contents pane, rename the layer to Piracy Victims. The web map pop-ups, symbology, and time settings are now configured, so save the map. And there you have it. This web map can be shared as-is or featured in a web app or story map. Related training: Would you like to learn more about working with the ArcGIS Online map viewer? Check out these training options. Related post: Visualizing Time in ArcGIS: Prepare Data in ArcGIS Pro ... View more

There are many ways GIS professionals can get their work done these days. Technology is providing new capabilities and, at the same time, the user experience is becoming simpler, more intuitive, and integrated. Case in point: ArcGIS Desktop, which now includes ArcGIS Pro and an ArcGIS Online organizational subscription. ArcGIS Pro is associated with an ArcGIS Online organization and integration is built into the interface. You can directly publish content you create in ArcGIS Pro to the organization and easily grab content from ArcGIS Online to support mapping and analysis projects.  Here's a simple example that shows how.The Example Almost every month of the year, Esri Training Services hosts one or more live training seminars. And for years, we've been doing three live broadcasts at the same times on each seminar day. From time to time, we evaluate whether our broadcast schedule is still suitable—do we need to adjust the broadcast times or number of broadcasts? Examining the distribution of seminar attendees helps us answer these questions. For simplicity, this example focuses on U.S. seminar attendance.Step 1: Prepare the DataFinding the data needed for a GIS analysis is a common challenge. ArcGIS Online organizational subscriptions include access to a large content library. From within ArcGIS Pro, you have easy access to this content. Start ArcGIS Pro and open a blank project and a new map. Add the seminar attendee data. In the Project pane, click the Portal tab, then click the icon for All Portal. In the search box, enter world time zones. Drag the feature layer into the map. Now search for usa states and drag the USA States (Generalized) feature layer into the map. Because the focus is the U.S., clip World Times Zones to the extent of USA States. Click the Analysis tab, then click the Clip tool in the tool gallery. Fill out the tool's parameters, then run the tool. When the tool finishes running, a new layer of U.S. time zones is added to the map.Step 2: Create Information The Summarize Within tool will generate a new output layer that includes a count of attendee points within each time zone polygon. In the Analysis tool gallery, click Summarize Within. In the tool dialog box, specify Input Polygons, Input Summary Features, and the Output Feature Class. Run the tool. The tool output is added to the map with a single symbol legend. To better visualize attendance by time zone, apply a graduated colors legend. Not surprisingly, the most populated time zone (Eastern) attracted the most attendees, followed by the Pacific time zone.Step 3: Share Your Work These analysis results are useful to those who monitor live training seminar attendance patterns. You can share content you create in ArcGIS Pro with everyone in your organization, with members of organizational groups you specify, or even with the general public. In the Contents pane, remove the World Time Zones and USA States layers. Turn off the USA time zones and basemap layers. Save the project. Click the Share tab and click Web Map. Fill out the Item Description and choose to share to your organization (requires publish privileges). Click Analyze to make sure there are no errors, then click Share. When the share job completes, colleagues can view the web map in the ArcGIS Online map viewer or in ArcGIS Desktop. And there you have it. It's never been easier to access an extensive collection of high-caliber data, use it for your project needs, apply analysis tools to generate new data, and share your work in a format that others can easily access and understand. Related posts: ArcGIS Pro Mapping Environment: Likes and Loves Easy-Button Method to Create a Web Map Resources to learn more: ArcGIS Online Help ArcGIS Pro Help ArcGIS Pro training options ... View more

Updated January 16, 2017 Given that technology—the Internet, e-commerce, smartphones, the behemoth that is social media—has dramatically changed consumer and personal behavior over the last decade, it's no surprise our professional lives have evolved. For many of us, what we do at work and how we do our work have changed a great deal. At the same time, more and more organizational leaders have grasped the business value of getting geospatial content out of a department silo and into the hands of knowledge workers using ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise and a variety of enterprise applications. As a result, many GIS professionals are being asked to share. Of course, the profession as a whole is a generous lot, so sharing itself is nothing new. What's new is the ease with which things can be shared. The ArcGIS portal has become an integrated content platform that supports enterprise GIS workflows and the information needs of both GIS and non-GIS professionals, collaborative working groups, and the public. When there are many potential content consumers, the question of what to share needs to be carefully considered. If you're in the process of crafting a sharing strategy for your ArcGIS portal (an ArcGIS Online organizational site or an ArcGIS Enterprise portal website), here are three tips to help the process along. 1. Prioritize Consumer Relevance While you could share all types of geospatial content, that may not be feasible or desirable. When faced with an overwhelming number of choices, site users may opt out. Feature the content that your organization's users are most likely to be interested in. Like you, site users will be most interested in content that helps them do their work faster, easier, and better. Think about your organization's structure (or constituents) and imagine you're a content consumer. Why have you come to this site? What are you hoping to do with the content you find? For an analyst with the market research group, maps showing customer and physical business locations, demographic data, and drive times might be highly desirable. Templates for branded web apps could also be useful. Make a list of frequently requested items. How many times does your team create the same or very similar information products for different groups? Share that content. If you've ever thought to yourself, "If the folks in [department X] only knew how our data could help them!" Well, now's your chance to showcase your data to school the non-GIS teams on the value that geographic insight brings to their projects. Once you've settled on what to share, decide how to share it. It may make sense to create hosted feature layers for data that will be especially popular. Learn how to create a hosted feature layer 2. Provide Guide Posts Never underestimate the power of clear directions. Think about your favorite e-commerce sites. How do they direct you to products? Their home pages likely have prominent links to: The latest products The five or ten most popular products Recommended items for specific use cases ("Dorm essentials for your new college student!") Adopt these familiar methods to enhance your ArcGIS Online organization's or enterprise portal's home page, your front door if you will. A front door should be welcoming, but quickly passed through. You want visitors to enter the living space and join the party. The home page description section is a great (visible) place to add links that will guide users to the relevant content you've shared. Learn how to configure your home page description 3. Teach Them to Fish Who better to help the masses create accurate, impactful maps and apps than a GIS professional? Your ArcGIS Online organization is a rich source of authoritative content However, a lot of people may not know exactly how to use it at first. You can help content consumers get up to speed by adding frequently asked questions and tips from the GIS team on your organizational site. Of course, you should always document essential information in the item properties, including: Who created the data and when? What is the data's accuracy? Explanation of numeric attributes shown in a map legend or table (unless the data is clearly unambiguous) Access and use constraints Here's a good example of item properties for a web map. To make sure consumers see this information, you can get creative. The Open Data DC app effectively provides key information about the app right inside the app. As you're documenting your content, support searching, which is how people find things these days. Create a set of standard tags—both geographical and topical—and consistently apply them. Learn more about item properties By sharing relevant content and helping consumers understand how the content can be used to shed new light on their work, you extend the benefits of GIS well beyond its current boundaries. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the point where the work produced by GIS professionals is being widely viewed as a strategic organizational asset. Carpe diem. Related training: Is your team just getting started with an ArcGIS Online organizational site? These courses are designed to help administrators, content producers, and content consumers be productive right away. ... View more

This is the third post in a three-part series on creating geoprocessing models in ArcGIS. If you've read the previous posts in this series, you've got modeling basics down and you know how to add model parameters to support easy reuse and scenario testing. In this post, you'll learn some techniques to do more with less—effort, that is.  List Variables In the last post, you learned how to make a tool parameter a variable, and turn a variable into a model parameter. By default, a variable stores a single value. However, it's possible to store multiple values in a variable. When you do, the variable is called a list variable. When a list variable is connected to a geoprocessing tool, that tool and all downstream processes (all the processes that depend on the tool's output) will automatically execute once for each value in the list. That's right: when you define a list variable, model tools automatically know to process each list item. Using list variables is like running geoprocessing tools in batch mode—with the major advantage that you have to enter the list of values only once to achieve multi-tool processing. Consider the model below, which automates a typical data management workflow. This model creates a file geodatabase, converts a shapefile to a geodatabase feature class, removes duplicate features, defines the coordinate system for the feature class, and outputs a layer with selected features. Notice the model even has two parameters. It's a complete workflow that works great when a single shapefile needs to be processed. It falls short, though, when multiple shapefiles need to be processed. The model would have to be run manually multiple times to process all the shapefiles. Wouldn't it be better to run the model once and have all the work done? Creating a list variable will accomplish this. To create a list variable for this example: Right-click the Feature Class to Feature Class tool input variable and click Properties, then click "A list of values." Click OK. Double-click the variable to open it and enter each value. More about list variables Inline variable substitution With list variables, tools run multiple times to process each input. By default, however, the tool output names will be the same—which means all but the last list item's outputs will be overwritten. To overcome this, use inline variable substitution. There are two types of variables that can be substituted in processes: model variables and system variables. To use a model variable for inline variable substitution, just enter the variable name surrounded by percent signs. The system variable %i% is often used to add a unique, sequential number to the end of output names. List item numbering starts at 0 (the first item's output name will have a 0 appended). For this example, you would open the Feature Class to Feature Class tool and add a lowercase i surrounded by percent signs to the end of the output feature class name (ASAM in this case). Using the system variable ensures the model will correctly process and create the three outputs needed. However, the output names are not descriptive. You could rename them later, but why not automate that work now? Model-Only Tools ModelBuilder includes a set of tools that are available only for models that will be run inside ModelBuilder (i.e., they won't work when the model is run as a tool). The Parse Path tool allows you to separate an input path into its component parts, then reference those parts in downstream processes. In this example, the Parse Path tool is a better alternative to using a system variable for the model processes. It allows the input shapefile names to be used in the output names instead of cryptic numbers. Note: For processes that create intermediate data, using a system variable is a good solution when output names must have unique names but you don't need to worry about those names causing confusion. To add the Parse Path tool:  Click the Insert menu > Model Only Tools > Parse Path. From the model window, open the Parse Path tool. For Input Data Element, choose Input Shapefile. For Parse Type, choose Name, then click OK. Connect the Parse Path output (Value) to the Feature Class to Feature Class tool as the Output Feature Class. When you hover over the Feature Class to Feature Class output element, you can see that the three outputs now have names corresponding to the input shapefile names. This will make the model outputs immediately understandable to the people who need to work with the data. More about model-only tools Preconditions Did you notice that the Input Shapefile element now links to two tools—Parse Path and Feature Class to Feature Class—and that Parse Path isn't part of the main model workflow? When a model contains separate but related processes, the order in which those processes execute is unpredictable. You can control processing order by setting a precondition. In the example, the potential exists for the Feature Class to Feature Class process to run before the Parse Path process...which means the model outputs will be overwritten as each list item is processed. To ensure the Parse Path tool always runs before Feature Class to Feature Class, make the Value element a precondition to the Feature Class to Feature Class tool. To set a precondition: Right-click the Feature Class to Feature Class tool and click Properties. In the dialog box, click the Preconditions tab and check Value. Click OK. Any model element can be set as a precondition to a model tool, and tools can have more than one precondition. More about setting preconditions Go Ahead, Model It By visually mapping workflows, automating time-consuming tasks, and supporting rapid "what if" scenario testing, models are a valuable tool to help GIS professionals work more efficiently and collaboratively. With a solid understanding of modeling basics and a few advanced techniques in your back pocket, you may find yourself jumping at opportunities to build models in ArcGIS. Because besides being geoprocessing workhorses, models are...fun. Related posts: ModelBuilder 101 ModelBuilder 220: Add Flexibility For hands-on practice with ModelBuilder, this e-learning course is recommended. ... View more

This is the second post in a three-part series on creating geoprocessing models in ArcGIS. ModelBuilder 101 covered five steps to create a basic model. One of the main advantages of building a model is the ability to quickly test multiple scenarios. This post shows how to support scenario testing when a model is run as a tool. Confused about what running a model as a tool means? In the ModelBuilder application a model appears as a visual diagram. Outside of ModelBuilder you can run a model from a tool dialog box (double-click the model in the ArcMap Catalog window).  In ModelBuilder, you can open any tool, change its settings, and quickly run the model again to explore alternative scenarios. That's great, but convenience matters too. When running a model as a tool, you can explore alternative scenarios by changing model parameters—all at once, in one place. Let's talk the P-word. "P" Is the Key Uh oh. Now what? Have you ever opened a model tool and seen the statement, "This tool has no parameters"? Maybe you closed the dialog box thinking the model had a fatal error. Time to clear up the confusion. That statement is information, not an error message. The model will run fine as-is, meaning it will run using the inputs and criteria specified by the model creator. You can't change anything. Go ahead and click OK to run the model. Model parameters are things that can be changed. If they exist, you will see them when you open a model tool. So what can be changed using a parameter? Just about anything—inputs, outputs, and tool-specific parameters. A good way to learn how to work with model parameters is to create a model, add its tools, and set the tool parameters as usual. After the model is built (and saved), think about what criteria you would want to change when running it in the future. Running a model using different input data is a common need. Adding a parameter can meet that need. The input to the Create Folder tool is a model parameter. Allow for ChangeTo make a tool's input a parameter, in the ModelBuilder window right-click the input element and choose Model Parameter. It's that easy. The letter "P" above an element indicates it's a model parameter. Tip: When you make an element a model parameter, the element name will display in the model tool. Element names can be cryptic, so a good practice when adding a parameter is to rename its element so that model users will understand what is expected. To rename an element, right-click it and choose Rename. Here, the Create Folder tool input was renamed to "Set your workspace folder" (the original name was a folder path). With the new name, it will be clear that you can browse to a different workspace if you don't want to use the default location. To make a tool parameter into a model parameter, first make the tool parameter a variable, then set the variable to be a model parameter. The Create File GDB tool has three parameters: Location, File GDB Name, and Version. Suppose you want the ability to assign a different geodatabase name each time the model is run (perhaps you'll be creating multiple geodatabases as part of your project). File GDB Name is now a model parameter. In the model window, right-click Create File GDB, click Make Variable > From Parameter > File GDB Name. The variable is added to the diagram with an arrow connecting it to the Create File GDB tool. To make the variable a model parameter, right-click it and choose Model Parameter. Now it too has a "P" above it. In this case, "File GDB Name" is self-explanatory, so there's no need to rename the element. Descriptive parameter names help model users know what to do. To support testing multiple scenarios, now suppose you want to be able select subsets of features for processing. In the example model, the Feature Class to Feature Class tool is used to convert a shapefile of ASAM incidents to a geodatabase feature class. The tool has two parameters that make sense to designate as model parameters: Input Features (required) and an optional Expression parameter used to define a subset of features. Input Features is the location of the shapefile on disk, which could vary. Right-click the Feature Class to Feature Class tool and click Make Variable > From Parameter > Input Features. Right-click the Input Features variable element and choose Model Parameter. Repeat this process for the Expression parameter. Both of these model parameters will benefit from being renamed. Model parameters exposed in the model tool. After saving the model, close ModelBuilder and open the model as a tool to see the parameters. Tip: If you don't like the display order of the parameters in the model tool, you can reorder them in ModelBuilder (Model menu > Model Properties > Parameters tab). Notice the help text on the right side of the model tool. This is the Description text from the Model Properties dialog box.Less Is More By allowing certain criteria to be changed, parameters increase model usability and are a valuable technique to explore what-if scenarios. However, as with anything, it's important to exercise restraint. Setting too many parameters defeats the other main advantage of a model—to simplify and speed up a geoprocessing workflow. Remember, you can always open a model in ModelBuilder to tinker with individual tool settings and run the model to explore the result of your tinkering. Add parameters only for items you or others are likely to find most useful, such as the option to specify different input data or modify a key analysis tool setting. Put the rest of the model elements on auto-pilot. In the next installment, you will go beyond basic techniques and learn some model power moves. Related posts: ModelBuilder 101 ModelBuilder 360: Amp Up the Automation Picture This: A Model for GIS Automation ... View more

Getting Started with GIS has been the most popular Esri web course for several years. It's free and a great learning tool for those brand-new to GIS. You can use ArcGIS for Desktop trial software to complete the course exercises if you don't have access to a paid license. ... View more

This is the first installment in a three-part series on creating geoprocessing models in ArcGIS. In this post, learn the steps to build a simple model.  ModelBuilder has been called a visual programming language or a tool to make "visual scripts." I like to think of ModelBuilder as a tool to map a workflow, and a model as a workflow map. Like a map: A model can be navigated (it has direction built in). A model uses shape, color, text, and symbols to represent and communicate about its features. A model reveals data relationships that can spark ideas and collaboration. Invaluable for conducting sophisticated spatial analyses, models are everyday workhorses too. If built with reuse in mind, they can be your go-to shortcuts to get a lot of work done. If you've never created a model in ArcGIS, here's what you need to know to get started. Take the five-step approach: Plan the workflow Create the model shell Add tools and specify parameters Validate the model Run the model 1. Plan the Workflow Obvious, but...before creating a model, know what you want it to do. List the data input, identify the required geoprocessing tools, and describe the desired output. If the workflow is simple, just think it through in your head. For more complicated workflows, you may want to sketch everything out on paper or a whiteboard. If you're not sure which tool to use or what a tool's required inputs are, check the geoprocessing tool reference. 2. Create the Model Shell In ArcGIS, a model has to be stored inside a toolbox. Creating a toolbox is simple. Right-click a folder in the ArcMap Catalog window and choose New > Toolbox. Right-click the new toolbox and choose New > Model. An empty model window opens. Now set some key model properties. Click the Model menu > Properties. In the General tab, check on the option to store relative path names. Using relative paths prevents headaches down the road if data gets moved around. Also, set these: Model name — the filename; no  spaces allowed. Label — the plain-English name; displays in the ModelBuilder titlebar and in the Catalog window. Spaces are fine. Description — briefly explain what the model does. This will be a helpful reminder to you later and essential information if you share the model. 3. Add Tools and Specify Parameters With the basic setup done, now comes the fun part. You can't beat ModelBuilder for easy drag-and-drop building and tinkering. But hang on a sec, it's useful to understand some ModelBuilder vocabulary. A model consists of one or more processes. A process consists of three elements: input data, a tool, and the tool's output. Each output becomes input to the next  process. Just like when you run a geoprocessing tool outside a model, if your input data has selected features or records, the tool processes only the selection. The output of each model process (except the last) is called intermediate data. When you run a model inside ModelBuilder, intermediate data is automatically saved. If you don't need it, you can delete it by clicking the Model menu > Delete Intermediate Data. When you add a tool to a model (by dragging/dropping from the Catalog window or using the Insert menu), its output element is also added and both elements are white. In model parlance, white means "not ready to run." You need to double-click the tool and set its parameters. Tip: In a tool dialog box, a green dot means the parameter is required. Once you set the tool parameters, the input element displays and the process is colored, Oz-like. As you add processes, the model window may fill up. Use the Full Extent button, followed by the Auto Layout button to see the big-picture view and zoom in and out as needed. Be sure to save the model periodically as you build it. To add the final model output as a layer to the map, right-click it and choose Add To Display. Otherwise, you'll have to manually add it to the map. 4. Validate the Model After you've added all the tools and set all their parameters, it's time to ensure the model will run properly. Validation is easy (click the Validate button or Model menu > Validate). During validation, if there's an error, processing will stop at the first process that requires a fix. Figure out what's wrong, make the fix, then validate again. Repeat if necessary, then save your work. 5. Run the Model You have two basic options to run a model: Within ModelBuilder (click the Run button or Model menu > Run) Outside of ModelBuilder as a tool or service Running a model as a tool or service has distinct advantages for collaboration and sharing. We'll cover model tools in the next post in this series. It's fun to run a model inside ModelBuilder. As the model progresses, each process turns red and then gets a drop shadow. The drop shadow indicates the process has completed correctly. If a process turns white, that means something needs to be fixed and the model stops running. If you've validated, this shouldn't happen. Maybe Run It Again A model's final output may raise a question. For example, suppose a model process created a 20-meter buffer around a feature. After examining the model output, you wonder what would result if you used a 50-meter buffer instead. To find out, simply open the buffer tool, enter the new distance value, and run the model again starting at the buffer process (right-click the buffer tool and choose Run). Because you're not altering preceding processes, you don't need to rerun the entire model.  This is the beauty of a model. It's a perfect medium to explore and test what-if scenarios. Note: If you delete intermediate data before changing a parameter, you'll need to rerun the model from the beginning. Like scripts, models are encapsulated workflows. Once built, they can be reused as a fast alternative to manually performing a set of individual processes. You can build a model to automate any geoprocessing task or series of tasks, from the complex to the straightforward. Now that you've learned the steps to create a simple model, you may be ready to take it to the next level. In upcoming posts, we'll dive into more advanced modeling techniques. Related posts: ModelBuilder 220: Add Flexibility ModelBuilder 360: Amp Up the Automation Picture This: A Model for GIS Automation ... View more

Making a story map is an excellent opportunity to be creative, challenge your inner cartographer, and demonstrate GIS skills (and add pizzazz to your LinkedIn profile while you're at it). If you haven't yet made a story map, this four-step process may help you get started. Number 2 in the process is to plan and execute your data strategy. This step is critical but can get glossed over in the creative excitement to make a cool map. It's time to give it some time in the spotlight. A lot of story maps are focused narratives about geographic places, features, and current or historic events. When considering data to support a story map project, pay particular attention to three items. Locational Accuracy Currentness Understandableness Locational Accuracy The story map topic determines how locationally accurate your data needs to be. If you're making a map tour or shortlist, odds are you're showcasing point features. Depending on the real-world features represented by the points, map viewers may have accuracy expectations that you'll want to meet. Keep in mind that the prettiest, most topically engaging map is a dud if the features shown are far from their real-world locations. Suppose the topic is a local garden tour and the source data is a list of the participating homes' street addresses. The map is large-scale and uses a basemap that includes streets, parcels, and building footprints. In this case, map viewers will reasonably expect the house points to be on the correct city block and on the correct side of the street. If the points are not displayed at that level of accuracy, it detracts from the story map. If you don't know which side of the street point features fall on, let the ArcGIS Online map viewer's geocoder do the work for you. Save addresses, GPX coordinates, or lat-long coordinates in a text or CSV file, then upload the file to the map viewer. If you're making a map tour in which images and text are the meat of your story, you probably don't need submeter accuracy. It's perfectly fine to represent an entire street as a single point feature. As long as the points are reasonably close to the real-world locations, the story works. Currentness Unless you're presenting a historical topic or a temporal analysis of a current issue, seek out current data. You can find lots of up-to-date, authoritative maps and data on ArcGIS Online. If you use obsolete data to present a current topic, you run a high risk of creating a misleading or totally inaccurate story map. For example, using 1990 U.S. census data as the basis for a story map about current U.S. demographics is a do-not because more current census data is readily available. In this case, the 1990 data is obsolete. On the other hand, if the topic is how U.S. demographics have changed over the last 20 years, using 1990 census data in conjunction with 2000 and 2010 census data is the sound approach (and the Swipe or Map Series story map apps would work well). In this case, the data is old but not obsolete. Understandableness This possibly invented term relates to the usability index of your data, meaning can users interpret it at a glance or do they need to metaphorically lean in and squint? This item creeps into step 3 territory (create the web map), but an important part of planning your data strategy is thinking about the final presentation. Often, preprocessing data speeds up assembly of the end product. A story map is a focused narrative, so delete any fields or features that aren't relevant to that narrative. Conversely, if your data doesn't include all the detail you want to present, add one or more fields with the desired information (e.g., text descriptions, website URLs, image URLs, or category codes to base feature symbology on). You may need to split attributes stored in one field into separate fields to enhance usability of feature pop-ups. After you've finished preparing your data for story mapping, you're ready to add it to a web map, which you'll then share to become the foundation of a story map app. As mentioned previously, using the ArcGIS Online map viewer is an easy way to create a web map. You can upload a service, zipped shapefile, TXT file, GPX file, or CSV file. Note: When using an ArcGIS Online public account to create a story map, you can upload a maximum of 250 features at a time. If your dataset includes more than 250 features, reduce the number of features or split the dataset into multiple files and upload them separately (first plan out how to group the features into a logical set of map layers). If the data you want to use for a story map is stored in a geodatabase feature class and you aren't able to (or don't want to) create a service, it's easy to export the feature class to a shapefile. In the ArcMap Catalog window, right-click the feature class and click Export > To Shapefile. In the Feature Class to Feature Class dialog box, you can build a query to export only certain features and you can remove fields that you don't need. Shapefile text fields have a 254-character limit. If the source feature class has a text field that stores more than 254 characters, the text on the web map will be truncated. Always examine your source data carefully and make any necessary adjustments before exporting. Symbology plays a big role in data understandableness, particularly when it comes to quantitative (numeric) data. Exercise caution when mapping quantitative data—it's easy to unintentionally use symbology that turns perfectly accurate numbers into an inaccurate view of reality. For example, pie chart symbols are often used incorrectly to symbolize data that does not represent part of a whole. When presenting quantitative data, a good practice is to cite the data source. At a minimum, document who collected the data and when. You could add this information to the story map introduction panel, legend, feature pop-ups, or another appropriate text element. One final tip that has nothing to do with data: Be sure to add your byline and perhaps a custom logo to the story map. After all your hard work, you deserve the recognition and map viewers will appreciate knowing who created the story map. True beauty comes from the inside, so goes the saying. When it comes to maps, true beauty comes from accurately located, current data, presented understandably with valid symbology. Planning and executing your data strategy may take a little time and effort, but the reward is an authoritative map that will engage and educate. In other words, a story map that's beautiful both on the outside and on the inside. Related post: Four-Step Process to Make a Simple Story Map ... View more