Latest Contributions by KoryKramer

Have you ever wanted to create an empty feature service to use in ArcGIS Online, and found yourself stuck with no easy way to get this done? If you’re asking why in the world anybody would want to do this, this blog may not be for you – but keep reading anyway, because you may find new ways to leverage your ArcGIS Online account! There are cases where you are planning on going out and collecting data, maybe using the Collector app … the point is, you don’t have any existing features. However, you need to provide the structure and format that field staff, volunteers, or community members use to add data to the feature service. Since you’re using ArcGIS Online, your natural instinct is to go to the documentation and search for “create empty feature service.” You find a section of documentation called Publish an empty hosted feature layer. Steps 1 and 2 go by quickly - no sweat. But then you get to Step 3 and you can't go forward. You find yourself saying things like, “I don’t have an existing feature layer that is right,” or “this template just doesn’t work at all for what I want to do. It’s going to take way too much time to get this to work. This should be easier. Sigh.”Pssst…  Here’s the secret. Every named user for an ArcGIS Online Organization account has access to developers.arcgis.com. Go to the website and sign in from the upper-right corner using your ArcGIS Online Organization username and password. Once signed in, you will see options to the left of your profile. Hover over the options until you see Hosted Data. My Hosted Data section of developers.arcgis.com Once in Hosted Data, you will find the answer that you’ve been looking for: a super quick, super simple way to create an empty feature service. Clicking either 'Create a Feature Service' or 'New Feature Service' will launch the same wizard to guide you through the process. Enter the service’s Title, Description, Geometry Type, and Tags. Also be sure to set the service’s Default Extent. New Feature Service section of developers.arcgis.com In Step 2 of the wizard, add the Field Alias, Field Name, and Data Type for each field of the service. Fields can be marked as Required or left as optional. Create Fields section of developers.arcgis.com Select the renderer for your new service. Renderers define the visual display of your data when you are using the ArcGIS SDKs as well as how the service will look when initially added to the map viewer. You can override your chosen renderer in the SDKs and map viewer at any time. View this service in the ArcGIS.com map viewer to configure a custom renderer. Review and publish your service. Review and Publish service section of developers.arcgis.com Your service has been published and is ready for data collection. Add it to ArcGIS Online and give it a spin! Edit empty feature service from developers.arcgis.com in ArcGIS Online Kory K. - Desktop Analyst - Support Services ... View more

If you are a Business Analyst Online (BAO) user, then you are familiar with all the great information you can find about a place. You can generate reports for your specific areas of interest based on thousands of data variables ranging from demographics and census to consumer spending and employment data as well as traffic counts. Now, what if you are out and about and just have to have that information right now? The BAO Mobile app is what you need. The next-generation BAO Mobile app is now available on the Apple App Store. Customers who have purchased BAO as a premium app get the mobile app as part of the subscription. BAO users who are a member of the organization’s Group (normally named ‘My BAO Group’) containing the BAO application will have access to both the BAO web app and the BAO Mobile app. If you believe that your organization has BAO but you are not able to log in, please refer to this post. If your organization currently does not have BAO and you would like to try it out, sign up for a 30-day trial. Keep in mind that if you’re using the old BAO mobile app, this will not automatically be updated to the Next Gen BAO Mobile app. You will need to download the new BAO Mobile app from the App Store and log in with your ArcGIS Online username and password. The old mobile app will remain available for a short time to allow users to download and start using the new app. Old BAO app released 2012 (left) and new BAO Mobile app released 2014 (right) While we understand there might be some confusion regarding which authentication credentials to use, it is necessary to have both the new mobile app and the preexisting product available for a short time to allow users time to download and start using the new BAO Mobile app. The new mobile app requires ArcGIS Online credentials (username/password) and the user must have the BAO web app to use the new version, which should streamline the login process between ArcGIS Online, the BAO Web app, and BAO Mobile. Previous BAO mobile app users that do not have a current subscription to BAO will not be able to use the new app unless they purchase a subscription. This is the primary reason to keep the previous BAO mobile app available so these users will have time to transition to the new app if they want to continue using the mobile app. Kory K. - Desktop Support Analyst ... View more