Latest Contributions by JayLarsen

What are the best ZIP, Census Tract, and Block Group layers to use in AGOL? I used to use for ZIPs the "USA ZIP Codes (2015)" layer.  Now I see that Living Atlas has what looks like Esri maintained layers for ZIP, Tract, and Block Group with no years on them.  The blurbs say they are special versions that work good on AGOL.  Is this true?  Should I use these? In the past, I did tract uploades form Census .shp files, a pain. And didn't bother with blocks because it seemed like too much time to draw. Will somebody at Esri say that "yes, we made these new layers, use them, we will maintain them, and not screw them up ever." for the following layers: https://honorhealth.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=2a0f46361c05465eb89d4aa417d6ad08  https://honorhealth.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=fe6374385966414687ec0396146fdba6  https://esri.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=0a2fde8aa7404187917488bafcbc77e6  I'd love to know the exact use case of these layers and their release history, if there is such a thing? ... View more

How exactly does PowerBI work with AGOL maps?  We have authors that are full #AGOL users, if we make a map, put it in PowerBI dashboard, can anybody see it? We are a typical larger company, we have high-skill ESRI users with about 5 years of assets on #AGOL. If we stick a map into a PowerBI report or dashboard, can anybody in the company view it without any other login? I can't tell if the "Plus" account is based on authoring, or viewing? I need to know this answer before doing any more testing or recommendation. Thank You. ... View more

I was using the ESRI for Office plugins in Excel the other day, and needed to use one of my AGOL layers for our locations.  No problem loading it, but I couldn't figure out how to set up filters?  All of our basic locations layers require filters to display as we keep status information like "closed", "WIP", "open", etc in there. Can it be that there is no way to set filters in ESRI for Office? Furthermore, when I loaded my locations layer, ESRI for Office didn't obey the default filter set up in AGOL, either? I searched for ways to do filtering, but came up with nothing. After all the interesting and useful adds to the product recently, I can't believe there's no interface for filters? Anybody else run into this or know? Thanks! #filter ... View more

I was working on deadline this week with 2 colleagues on a project that utilized the same map one of us had made. I started to get strange results, and it makes me ask, "what exactly is going on in the multi-user situation with shared maps?" 1.  Colleague made map set up a bunch of layers we would need and we all started work. 2.  I open the map while she is in it.  How does it arbitrate what happens if we try and change styles on the same layer? 3. Whose edits get saved? 4. A lot of work was taking this one big master layer, and restyling it for about a dozen different views.  I dupe the "original" layer, and then rename the copy.  I do my setups.  I save her shared map.  I come back the next day, and not only is my dupe layer not in there, neither are my edits.  Huh? 5. I did the same as above, but compelled a local layer save by doing a "save layer" on my dupe layer that was set up with my needed settings.  That did save locally in my content, but did not appear in the content list when I open the map.  She reports that she does see my layers fine.  I have to go re-add them, and start work again from that point. Is the multi-user broken?  Buggy?  Was something weird going on?  It really shakes our confidence when we do a bunch of work and it disappears like this. Anybody know what is going on? ... View more

AGOL printing continues to be problematic/non-existent for pure online AGOL/BAO shops like mine.  Endless screencapping and editing and hacking together of suitable maps and legends. (The new "print" feature that puts a legend in there is nice try, suitable for only the simplest of maps, and still requires a screencap!) At UC I saw a demo of the print widget for the ArcGIS app generator.  It contains a URL that WORKS for PRINTING in a web app!!!  Yet if you plug this same URL into the AGOL Org definitions, it is specifically NOT ALLOWED. Why do you let any schmoe on the web print a nice map to PDF, and we paying AGOL customers cannot?  AGOL must have native print on par with BAO--which, ironically, is made out of AGOL to begin with... The workflow of making PPT slides from screencaps is back-breaking and awful.  Please realize that 99% of you customers are making PPT slides for Execs, and it is terrible and labor intensive beyond belief. ... View more

AGOL should allow update functionality of Hosted Feature Service Layers that were created with Excel sheets. Currenlty, if you upload an Excel or CSV, geocode it, and turn it into a Hosted Feature Service Layer, you can update the sheet itself with the UPDATE button, but the Hosted Feature Service Layer does not change. So, if you have a common workflow around a shared layer of store sites, etc, that are updated, you have to do it by hand in Hosted Layer, or make "yearly" or "version-ed" layers from continually uploading new Excel sheets. This latter workflow means that all maps that you want to show the "stores" or whatever in have to be re-setup with the new data.   I know you can do "update" from desktop, but we are an all AGOL/BAO shop.  Seems like a glaring missing piece, really.  I thought it was demo'd at UC last year, but that must have been from desktop only.  Meanwhile, this year, the big demo was for tiles made from a layer auto-sensing a change in the underlying layer and tripping an update of the tiles.  So, clearly ESRI knows this workflow is common, and should wish to automate it. ... View more

The 5.4 release has some really quite nice features.  The improvements to Infographics is certainly one of them.  However, a few notes: 1.  The "default" set from the previous release was better.  One of my first tasks was to go an recreate it. 2.  The resolution of the .PNG file is not quite good enough to make PowerPoint slides out of.  I wish there were PDF or higher-res options.  I have reverted to going to "card view" and doing screen captures. 3.  The population pyramid option is wonder, something I use constantly.  However, Execs always want an age scale on it, which I have to go create manually, then group with the pic in PowerPoint.  Should be ON or have option to be ON or OFF. 4.  Why only 1 type of infographic?  We can have many templates, but the only way to invoke them is go in edit mode and set as default?  The drop down should list all templates, or maybe have a Top 10 or something? 5.  What exactly is happening when we share projects and infographics?  The users get an immediate save dialog...does this mean everybody is always just working on their own local copy? Thanks! bao‌ ... View more

BAO continues to improve consistently, and there were many good changes in the latest 5.4 release.  However, I do notice that "projects" do not save the look or view or state of the map between sessions.  This means that if I have to go in and edit, or just tweak the tiniest thing in a given project, I have to go back into the assets pane and turn on and configure all of my layers and objects!  A needless time-waster, IMHO. It seems to be that the previous version did a much better job saving the "state" of a map. E.g.:  I make a map with some tracts and a ZIP showing. Now I layer in 2016 pop data and color only the tracts, while putting the ZIP in outline with some special attributes.  I make a PDF or JPEG.  Now, I neeed to come back in, do a tweak, and do another JPEG.  I find upon returning to the project, all my objects deselected.  I have to go turn on everything.  And worse, the custom setup for my 2016 pop layer must be almost re-done. Please have some way to save the view of BAO projects. Cheers! business analyst (ba)‌ business analyst online.community analyst‌ bao‌ ... View more