Offline capabilities with MMPKs

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03-05-2020 11:43 AM
ZorbaConlen1
Occasional Contributor III

Hi. I'm assessing the option of providing an mmpk for our field staff who use explorer. This is for our firefighters to access Prefire drawings of buildings that have details useful in emergency response. Currently, they use explorer with an online map, which is publicly accessible and secured via the map service, but they frequently complain about connectivity and also the need to sign in, which is cumbersome and time consuming when time is of the essence and your bumping along in a fire truck :-). This is iOS version of explorer. Latest version.

So, I'm considering these options:

A) Sideload mmpk to their devices and provide a launch link that opens that map from where its loaded in app storage. Since the map would be stored locally there would be no need to sign in to AGOL. Solves the sign in issue, but deployment is not easy.

B) Set them up to access the mmpk via AGOL. Again, a launch link can assist with downloading the mmpk on first use, and launching it directly on subsequent uses. Users would need to sign in, but I'm thinking they can just stay signed in so that it's less hassle. This simplifies deployment and refreshes to the mmpk, too.

Issues I'm running into:

1)  Address search fails when disconnected. If I turn off mobile data and wifi (or go away from wifi hotspot), I'm unable to search for addresses or places. Note that the feature search which i have enabled does work. The mmpk contains a vtpk that I have created from the esri world topo vector basemap. The docs for explorer indicate that address searching is supported by default - Prepare maps for download—Explorer for ArcGIS | Documentation. Under the heading "The following tips will help you make better MMPKs for offline use:" 

   "By default, maps allow you to search for places, addresses, and coordinates."

Perhaps I missed something in creating the mmpk? Or is this a bug?

2) Launch link to the local mmpk fails when disconnected. It's like this - https://explorer.arcgis.app?itemID=MyMap. This opens explorer without signing in to agol as desired, but it fails to launch the map. If I'm online, it works as expected.

3) Regarding Option B above, the mmpk is only accessible once the user signs in to AGOL. This is expected. The issue is that if a user (who is not already signed in) attempts to access the offline map once they are in the field in a location without connectivity, they can't access the "offline" map, because they need internet access to sign in. Kind of defeats the purpose of an offline map. Is this an issue for others? How to address it? I'm thinking I would instruct users to just always stay signed in... Launch link like - 

https://explorer.arcgis.app?itemID=MyItem&portalURL=https://xxxx.maps.arcgis.com

Thanks for reading this long post. Appreciate any advice on this.

zc

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ZorbaConlen1
Occasional Contributor III

So, regarding issue 1, I found that you do have to include a locator when using the Create Mobile Map Package gp tool. After re-creating the mmpk with the locator included, offline search is working now.

Regarding issue 2, it's actually a bit more complicated. I was launching the link from a txt msg and the behavior is described above. However, if one attempts to launch it via a bookmark in safari, it fails entirely because it thinks it cant browse to that url due to being offline. This latter, is likely the more common approach as you would probably deploy the launch link as a shortcut. So, the takeway is that launch links don't really work unless the device is online. This is problematic. I dont want to have to train end users to launch the app one way while connected and a different way when offline.

Finally, I'll add another issue with launch links. Here is image of the page launched via the launch link, on an iphone in safari (similar with ipads). It looks like a link to download the explorer app. If you pull down from the top, you then see the hidden smaller link that says 'Open in the Explorer app'. It's very easy to miss this option. This should be adjusted to give equal or greater emphasis to launching the explorer app. Or better yet, if explorer is already installed, just skip this and activate explorer as dictated by launch link parameters.

launch link in safari

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