Esri Story Maps are a simple yet powerful way to inform, engage, and inspire people with any story you want to tell that involves maps, places, locations, or geography. They make it easy for you to harness the power of maps to tell your story.
Esri Story Maps are web applications that let authors combine beautiful maps with narrative text, striking images, and multimedia, including video. The applications are designed to be attractive and usable by anyone, which makes them great for education and outreach, either to the general public or to a specific audience.
Story maps can be made for a wide variety of subjects. Anything that you can show on a map can be the subject of a story map!
You may want to tell a personal story about a trip or a place you love. Or you may want to tell a story for the agency or organization you work for to showcase plans and projects, to engage supporters and stakeholders, to promote a city or region, and so forth. It's all about getting your message across in a compelling way.
Want to get some ideas and get inspired? Check out the story map examples featured on the Story Maps home page. Then, to see more, go to the Story Maps Gallery. You can filter and search the gallery to find story maps about subjects similar to what you may have in mind.
Esri Story Maps are built into ArcGIS, the world's leading mapping and GIS platform. Anyone with any type of ArcGIS account can create story maps at no extra cost. You can sign up for a free non-commercial ArcGIS public account or sign in with your Facebook or Google credentials. You can also purchase an ArcGIS subscription to access premium datasets, publish your own datasets, perform geo-analysis, set up enterprise-wide use, and more.
First think about your subject, your intended audience, and how you want to tell your story to them. We recommend visiting the Story Maps Gallery for ideas and inspiration to see how other authors have handled similar topics to yours.
Next go to the Story Maps Apps list to browse the application templates that we provide and choose the best one for your story map project. Each app lets you deliver a specific user experience to your audience. There are apps for map-based tours, collections of points of interest, in-depth narratives, presenting multiple maps, and so on. Spend some time comparing the apps to see the different components they let you incorporate in your story. We encourage you to check out which app best suits your project and determine its requirements before getting started.
Each application template has a tutorial page that guides you through the authoring process. The apps have interactive builders that make it easy to assemble your story. You'll be prompted to sign in with your ArcGIS account (if you are not already logged in). You can create your web maps in ArcGIS first and then reference them when you build your story, but some of the apps also let you create and edit your maps from within their interactive builders, so you can do your mapping as part of building your story. You can think of Esri Story Maps as one of several ways to publish your ArcGIS web maps and put them to work.
See also How to Make a Story Map.
As part of ArcGIS Online, the web maps used in Esri Story Maps and the data they present are hosted in the ArcGIS Online cloud. Story Maps let you use the full power of the world's leading mapping platform to create maps for your stories. In ArcGIS Online, you can combine your data with the wide range of authoritative, trusted spatial data published by Esri and many leading agencies, and choose from the range of cartographically rich basemaps that are also built into the system. Your maps can also include data being served with Esri's ArcGIS Enterprise. If you are using ArcGIS Enterprise to create story maps, your maps will be stored in your enterprise's own on-premises cloud infrastructure.
No. The Story Map application templates are hosted in ArcGIS, so there's nothing to download or install when you create a story map. You simply launch the interactive builder for the app you want to use to author and publish your story.
You also have the option to download the source code for any of the Story Map application templates and install it on your own website or web server instead. This enables your story's URL to reflect your own web domain, and also allows you to tweak or customize the source code to further tailor the application beyond the options available in the app's builder. To get started with hosting a Story Map app's source code, please see this blog post. To see some great examples of customizations that people have made to the Story Map apps, click this link to open the Story Maps Gallery with the 'Customized' option in the gallery's 'Format' menu already selected. Note that if you choose to download and self-host an app, its source code will therefore not automatically reflect updates that we make to the version that is hosted in ArcGIS, as we fix issues and make enhancements.
Yes. Although the example story maps you see on this website and in the gallery are all shared publicly so you can access them, not all story maps have to be shared that way. You can also create story maps containing proprietary business or enterprise information that is not intended for public use and restrict access to them. In this way, you can use the benefits of story maps within your enterprise to present information.
As part of ArcGIS Online, Story Maps use the standard ArcGIS Online security and sharing model. When you author a story map, you decide when you are ready to share it so that other people can start viewing it, and you can choose how you want it be shared. When you share a story map publicly, anyone in the world with a web browser can access it. Your audience is unlimited. This level of sharing ensures the maximum exposure for your story map. It's great for outreach, advocacy, and getting your message out there.
When you share a story map just to your organization, only people who have accounts in your organization's ArcGIS subscription will be able to sign in and see your story. This level of sharing is a feature of having an ArcGIS subscription and is not available to users of the free, noncommercial ArcGIS public account. It is also possible to configure ArcGIS Online in your enterprise so that users can use their standard enterprise logins to gain access. See the answer to the next question, too.
Yes. See this blog post.
Yes. ArcGIS Enterprise enables an enterprise to set up its own cloud-based mapping infrastructure, providing the same capabilities as ArcGIS Online to its staff. With ArcGIS Enterprise, maps, apps, and data are hosted on the enterprise's own servers rather than in Esri's cloud. Story maps authored with ArcGIS Enterprise are normally shared just within the enterprise. The Story Map applications that are available in your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment depend on which version of ArcGIS Enterprise you are using. Our app updates are released first in ArcGIS Online and then included in the next ArcGIS Enterprise release. This means that the version of our apps that you see in ArcGIS Online may be different from the version in your deployment of ArcGIS Enterprise, depending on the ArcGIS Enterprise version you are using. Story Map Shortlist and Story Map Crowdsource won't be supported in ArcGIS Enterprise. See the separate FAQs on this page about those two beta apps for more information.
Developers using ArcGIS Enterprise can also download and self-host the source code for any of the Story Map apps in order to customize their look and feel. To configure a self-hosted app to point at your ArcGIS Enterprise Portal, you would change the DEFAULT_SHARING_URL setting in the app's config.js file.
Once you've created and shared a story map, you will want to make sure your intended audience sees it. You'll also want to get the word out and promote it, just like any other web-based resource that you want people to use.
You can add a link to your story map to a web page that your audience will be visiting. For example, if your story map is about a project your organization is planning, you could add a link to the web page for that project, so that people can launch your story map when they read about the project. It's good to include a small screen capture of your story map with that link on that page to attract people. Alternatively, you can embed your story map directly in the page, so people landing on the page can immediately start using it. See this blog post for tips about embedding story maps in web pages. You can find some good examples of both of these approaches in the Story Maps Gallery: click these links to see linked or embedded examples.
Story maps are also good to show at presentations, classes, and workshops to engage people and influence decision makers and stakeholders.
If your story map is intended for the general public, you can promote it via blog posts, email blasts, and social media. See this blog post for tips about promoting your story map on social media.
One way to maximize the reach of your story map is to issue a press release to try to get a media outlet to write about the subject covered in your story map or use it to illustrate a story they are already working on. Good maps are compelling, and journalists are happy to include them in their articles to help engage their readership.
For general tips about things to check before you go public with a high profile story map, see this blog post.
You can discover tips, best practices and info about new features in the Story Maps blog.
If you are a developer looking to enhance and customize the Story Map apps, see the Story Maps Developers' Corner.
To browse or search all Esri blog posts about story maps, including posts from both of the sources mentioned above, click this link to get a listing of every post. We maintain this listing in Geonet, the Esri Community. You can filter the listing by typing in a search term.
You can ask questions in the Story Maps Forum on GeoNet, the Esri Community. You can browse questions and answers other authors have posted. Esri Story Maps team members also monitor the forum and frequently respond to questions. We also add posts into Geonet letting you know about new software releases, new blog articles, and upcoming events like workshops.
Go to the My Stories section of the Story Maps website. My Stories lets you administer and manage the story maps you create. If you are not already signed in with your ArcGIS Online account, you'll be prompted to sign in when you go to My Stories.
My Stories automatically checks your story maps for issues that would prevent them from working correctly for your audience, and tells you how to fix any issues it finds. For example, if your story map is intended for the general public but one of the web maps it contains is not currently shared publicly, My Stories will alert you and enable you to correct the issue.
As Story Maps are part of ArcGIS Online, you can also access your story maps—along with all your other ArcGIS Online-based web apps, web maps, and data—in the Content > My Content section of ArcGIS Online or My Content in your ArcGIS Enterprise Portal. The difference is that My Content lists everything you own, whereas My Stories filters the listing to show only your hosted story map applications. Think of it as a story map-centric view of your ArcGIS Online content. So if you are working on story maps, My Stories makes it easy to manage your work.
You probably have web maps or layers in your story map that are not shared publicly. All the content in your story map needs to be shared publicly in order for the public to use it. Go to My Stories, sign in with your account, and expand that story map's entry in the listing, and My Stories will notify you if any of your story map's content has issues that will cause your users to be prompted to sign in. Alternatively if you are using Story Map Journal or Story Map Series, you can open your story and the builders for those apps will automatically check your story content and warn you of any issues.
Note that My Stories does not check the status of Story Map apps that you have embedded into a story map. For example if you have embedded, say, a Story Map Swipe and Spyglass app into a public Story Map Series, and that Swipe and Spyglass app is not shared publicly, people who read your Map Series app will be prompted to sign-in. My Stories does not alert you about the status of apps you embed so take care to ensure they are shared correctly.
The My Stories section of this website lists the story maps you have created in ArcGIS Online using any of the Story Map applications, with the exception of Story Map Basic. Story Map Basic will be supported in a future release.
If your story map is not appearing in My Stories, it may be using an earlier version of that application. Story Maps using early versions of our hosted applications are not listed in My Stories until they are updated. The "Not Seeing Your Story" button in My Stories lets you find and automatically update these stories.
If you deployed your story by downloading and self-hosting one of the apps, it will only be listed in My Stories if your story is configured via an application ID. If it is configured via a web map, it will not be listed.
Yes. My Stories lets you work directly with the items you own in ArcGIS Online representing hosted story map applications. So if you add a thumbnail or tags to an item, edit its title or summary, and so on, that change is reflected in ArcGIS Online. So, for example, the more relevant tags you add to your story map in My Stories, the easier it will be to find when people search ArcGIS Online or any searchable gallery based on ArcGIS Online content. Similarly, if you delete a story map in My Stories, you are deleting that story from ArcGIS Online.
If you have deployed a story map by downloading and self-hosting the code for the app (for example because you wanted to customize the code), and you configured your self-hosted story map by referencing the AppID of an underlying application you created with the template's interactive builder, you will see that application listed in My Stories. This enables you to check and monitor the status of the underlying application that is used in your self-hosted story map.
If you configured your self-hosted story map by referencing a web map, your story map will not be listed in My Stories.
You can manually add a web mapping application item entry into ArcGIS Online to represent your self-hosted story map (by using the Add Item > An Application button in Content > My Content in ArcGIS Online) so that people who search ArcGIS Online can find your self-hosted story map, and so that it can be added into ArcGIS Online-based galleries, such as the Story Maps Gallery. However, story maps represented by these manually added item entries are not displayed in My Stories.
Yes. If your enterprise is using Esri's ArcGIS Enterprise, you can create story maps using the hosted story map application templates built into that product, and My Stories can be used to manage those stories. My Stories is available in ArcGIS Enterprise starting at version 10.4. My Stories can be accessed in your ArcGIS Enterprise Portal at https://[myportal.com]/[arcgis]/apps/MyStories. Story maps can also be managed in your ArcGIS Enterprise Portal using My Content.
As part of ArcGIS Online, story maps use ArcGIS Online's security model. As an ArcGIS Online app, a story map can normally only be edited by its owner. However if you are using an ArcGIS subscription (and are therefore the member of an ArcGIS organization) there are three ways in which you can collaborate with colleagues on editing web maps and apps, including story maps. Firstly, the Administrator of your organization can edit any item in that organization. For example, if a grammatical error or typo was found in a story map that has been released to the public an administrator can correct the change immediately. Secondly, certain members of the organization who are not administrators can be given a 'custom role' that enables them to edit any item in that organization. Thirdly, ArcGIS groups called 'collaboration groups' can be set up inside an organization to support project-based or team-based activities. All the members of a collaboration group can edit any items that have been shared into the group. With all these workflows, you have to take care not to have multiple people trying to edit the same items at the same time, because this will result in changes being overwritten. Note that in order to edit Story Map Tour, Shortlist, or Crowdsource stories in a collaboration group, both the app and the web map in which the app stores its places, have to be shared into the group.
See this blog post for more information.
Duplicating your story map can be useful for a variety of reasons, such as making a backup copy or reusing the same look and feel for another story. This is not currently supported directly in the Story Map app builders. You can use the community-supported ArcGIS Online Assistant tool to help duplicate your application. You can make a backup copy of any web map by opening it in ArcGIS Online and then choosing Save As.
When your story map is posted on social media like Facebook and Twitter, the post will use the thumbnail, title, and summary of your story, as defined in the web mapping application item entry in ArcGIS representing your hosted story map app. So make sure that entry in ArcGIS has a good looking thumbnail, a title that matches the actual title of your story map, and a useful summary. You can edit your entries either in My Stories or in Content > My Content in ArcGIS. See this blog post for more info about socializing your story maps.
Delete protection is a setting you can enable for any item in ArcGIS, such as your story map and any web maps that you authored for it. To delete protect any item in ArcGIS, go to Content > My Content and open its item details. Note that some web maps created automatically by Story Map apps, such as the web map that gets created if you import point data into Story Map Shortlist as places, are delete protected for you by default. We also recommend using folders in ArcGIS My Content to organize your work. For example, you could make a folder for each of your story maps and put any web maps created for that story into that folder. See this blog post for more info.
Yes. We provide the source code for each of the Esri Story Map applications licensed under the Apache 2.0 license and distributed on GitHub. The source code can be freely downloaded and modified by developers, and the modified application can be deployed on a web server. Esri also welcomes your contributions to the code. You can find the link to each GitHub repository on each application's overview page on the Story Maps website. You can also access all the GitHub repos here.
To get started with hosting a Story Map app's source code, please see this blog post.
You can find more info and tips for developers in the Story Maps Developers' Corner.
While most story maps are created using one of the Story Map app templates we provide, story maps can also be created from scratch by developers using the developer APIs and tools in ArcGIS for Developers. We call these custom story maps or custom designs. You can find examples of custom designs in the Story Maps Gallery here. The Esri Story Maps team regularly creates custom designs to provide storytelling user experiences that aren't available in the standard Story Map apps to help prototype new user experiences and patterns. Our most popular custom creations often go on to be turned into Story Map application templates that anyone can use. So if you see a custom story map you like, stay tuned, because we may be working on making it a template!
You can also customize the Story Map app templates that we provide. You can download the source code, make changes, and then host the code on your own website or web server. You only need to host the code yourself. Your maps and data remain hosted in ArcGIS. When the Story Map app templates are customized, these aren't called custom designs, they are simply customizations. To get started with hosting a Story Map app's source code, please see this blog post. To see some great examples of customizations that developers have made to the Story Map app templates, click this link to open the Story Maps Gallery with the 'Customized' option in the gallery's 'Format' menu already selected. Note that if you choose to download and self-host the source code for an app, your source code will therefore not automatically reflect updates that we make to the version that is hosted in ArcGIS as we fix issues and make enhancements.
Yes, story maps can be viewed on all commonly used web browsers on computers, tablets and phones. Apart from Story Map Basic, the apps have responsive layouts that adjust automatically when displayed on smaller screens, such as on mobile devices, or if they are embedded inside smaller frames on web pages.
Story maps can be authored on all commonly used web browsers with the following exceptions:
For best performance and experience, use the latest web browser version. Internet Explorer users should use version 11. We don't support earlier versions of Internet Explorer, and you may see features that don't work or unexpected issues if you use them to view or author a story.
For viewing or authoring Story Map Shortlists on Windows 10 we don't recommend Internet Explorer: there's currently a technical issue that sometimes causes an incorrect screen refresh. This is not an issue with Internet Explorer on Windows 7.
For authoring Story Map Tours we don't recommend Internet Explorer or Edge: there's currently a technical issue that prevents dragging over text to select it for editing.
Yes. Story maps are part of the ArcGIS platform, so Esri technical support is available.
Currently story maps do not support offline usage. To use your story map, your end users need to be connected to the Internet, or to your enterprise network in the case of ArcGIS Enterprise. The Story Map Journal app has a print option (accessed via the Link button in its header) that can be used to create a PDF file.
Yes.
In the Story Map Cascade app you can include an ArcGIS 3D web scene in a section. You can choose a scene via the Media Picker dialog in that app's builder.
In the Story Map Journal and Story Map Series apps, you can use an ArcGIS 3D web scene instead of a web map for a journal section or series entry. Once you've created your web scene, or found an existing one you want to use, open it in ArcGIS Online and copy the URL of the web scene viewer. In the Story Map Journal or Story Map Series Builder, choose the option to embed a web page. Paste your URL into the dialog box. For the best results, append &ui;=min to the end of your URL to hide the viewer's header and scene creation tools that won't be needed in your embedded scene. See the following example:
http://story.maps.arcgis.com/home/webscene/viewer.html?webscene=91b46c2b162c48dba264b2190e1dbcff&ui;=min
See this blog post for more details.
It is possible to do this in Story Map Journal, Story Map Series and Story Map Cascade using the option to embed a web page. Note that this may cause your story map to load more slowly depending on what you are embedding. Always use the Fill option in Story Map Series and Story Map Journal when you embed web content into them so that the embedded content expands to fill the available display. Story Map apps can be embedded into the three apps mentioned above. For example you can embed a Story Map Journal into a Story Map Series tab. Another common pattern is to embed a Story Map Swipe and Spyglass into a Story Map Journal section. When you embed the Story Map Tour or Story Map Swipe and Spyglass apps, you can append the &embed; parameter to the app's URL to remove the app's header.
See this blog post and this blog post for more info and tips about embedding web content into your story map.
To troubleshoot embedded content in story maps, including info about using mixed HTTP/HTTPS content, please see this blog post.
For important information about web security and story maps going forward, please see this blog post.
In order to use premium services in a story map, you need to authenticate the service. This may consume credits from your organization when others access your story. See this blog post for more details.
For technical reasons it is no longer possible to use Facebook photos in a story map. Support for Facebook has been removed from all Story Map apps as of September 2016. Please be aware that Facebook photos added before this date may no longer appear correctly. If you have used Facebook photos, we recommend that you check your stories in the My Stories section of this website. My Stories will alert you if any of your story content is broken, including Facebook photos.
Yes. Autoplay mode is useful if you want to show a story map on a public display monitor such as a kiosk in a visitor center or an exhibit and have the story automatically advance. In this mode, a control appears that enables autoplay to be paused and the speed adjusted. During autoplay pause, people can interact with the story map normally and then autoplay resumed. Autoplay is supported in these apps:
To enable autoplay for a story map, click the Link button in the header and in the dialog that appears, which gives a short URL to the story map, click the Autoplay mode check box. This will add the autoplay parameter into the short URL that is generated. Note that autoplay mode is not supported on small displays like phones or in small embed frames. See this blog post.
Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is a United States Government law that requires federal agencies to make their web content accessible to people with disabilities. Many other countries have similar laws and regulations concerning accessibility.
The Esri Story Maps team started working on Section 508 compliance for Story Maps apps in 2015 and has focused on keyboard navigation, screen reader support, and color contrast as outlined in the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Specifically the Story Map Tour, Story Map Journal, Story Map Series, and Story Map Cascade apps have received accessibility enhancements including optimizations for screen readers and keyboard navigation. More enhancements are planned in this area.
Story Map Journal has in particular been updated recently to improve accessibility. See this question in the Story Map Journal section of this FAQ page for details of some recent keyboard navigation improvements in that app. Story Map Journal also supports assistive technologies like screen readers. Map Journal authors can add alternate text for all media including images, videos, maps and web maps in the "main stage" or narrative panel. If you are using assistive technology such as VoiceOver you can use landmarks to navigate between functional areas of a Map Journal. The following areas in the Map Journal have ARIA landmark roles: narrative panels, the main stage media, the header and the section navigation.
Story Map applications have two components: 1) a Builder that lets an author create a story, and 2) a Viewer that presents the story to the audience. Our approach to accessibility for Story Maps is to focus on accessibility of the Viewer since this is the part of the application that is made available on internal or public websites with which audiences of federal employees and/or citizens interact.
Story Maps are integrated into Esri technologies that provide geographic content, and both ArcGIS Online (VPAT) and ArcGIS Enterprise (VPAT) are compliant with Section 508. For more information about the Section 508 compliance of Esri's technology see Section 508 and Esri's Commitment to Accessibility or send specific questions regarding Esri's compliance with US, EU, and other similar regulations to Section508@esri.com.
Get full details about what's new with the Story Map apps in our latest What's New blog post.
Your images can be stored in a variety of places as long as they are accessible on the web. We provide easy access to images in Flickr and Google+/Picasa (note that existing photos in Picasa can be used but Picasa is no longer accepting new uploads). If you are using an ArcGIS subscription account with publisher privileges, you can upload images from your computer directly into the Map Tour Builder so they are hosted in Esri's cloud. This is a convenient option if your images aren't already online, or if you are creating a Map Tour that will be shared only inside your organization using images that you don't want to be accessible publicly.
You can also reference images directly by specifying their URL if they are hosted on your own web server or somewhere else on the web. Note that if you reference your images using URLs, those images aren't optimized for the Map Tour, so be aware of the recommended image sizes. See the question below on that subject. If you are not able to resize your images for best performance, we don't recommend referencing them via URLs, and you should host them in Flickr or upload them into your Map Tour instead.
No. When you launch the Story Map Tour Builder from the Story Maps website, a web map will be created for your tour automatically.
Yes. You can edit the web map used in your tour to add supporting layers such as study area boundaries or a line showing the route between your tour points. To edit the web map, go to My Stories, locate your tour and click Edit Map next to the web map that is listed for it, or go to Content > My Content in ArcGIS and open the web map.
You can use images of any size and shape in a Story Map Tour, but we recommend landscape orientation (i.e. images that are wider than they are tall) instead of portrait orientation. Map Tours generally look best if all the images have the same size and aspect ratio, so your users don't get distracted by differently shaped images as they go through your tour. The recommended image aspect ratio is 4:3. This fills the available area well and maximizes the space for your caption without covering up too much of the image.
If you use images stored in Flickr or Google+/Picasa, Map Tour takes advantages of optimizations in how these services store your photos, so you can upload an image of any size and it will load quickly in your story. If you upload your images into your Map Tour they are also optimized (and the Map Tour Builder gives you the option to reduce the size of an image if it is too large when you upload it).
If you reference images on the web directly via URLs, the file size of each image should ideally be less than 400 KB. Images that are larger than that can slow down performance. We recommend using JPG format and saving your images at 80% image quality to reduce file size. Map Tour images referenced by URLs don't need to be larger than 1000 pixels wide by 750 pixels tall, so resizing larger images to those dimensions can reduce their file size, but you don't need to resize your images if they are already 400 KB or less. For thumbnail images referenced by URLs we recommend a size of 250 pixels wide by 166 pixels tall.
Remember that large images referenced via URLs that slow down performance may seem to load quickly to you. This is because after you've displayed them once during the authoring process, they are cached in your web browser. However they'll seem slow to people viewing your Map Tour. If you are not able to reduce the file size of your images for best performance, we don't recommend referencing them via URLs, and you should upload them into your Map Tour instead.
Yes. You can load multiple videos from YouTube automatically. You can also reference individual videos in YouTube, Vimeo, and other systems by specifying their URLs. See this blog post for more details.
Yes. You can use standard HTML tags to format the text in your captions and also add hyperlinks. For example, this Map Tour uses HTML tags to format the caption text and add a hyperlink to a website. If you add hyperlinks, be sure to use the target="blank" parameter so that your target link opens in a new tab, so your users can return to your tour by closing that tab without losing their place. See this blog post about adding HTML formatting and links to Story Map Tour captions. You can also use HTML tags to format the title and subtitle of a Map Tour.
For security reasons, ArcGIS only allows a specific set of HTML tags to be saved. Other tags will be stripped out when you save. Here is the list of the supported HTML. Note that if your Story Map Tour uses a feature service, such as when you upload your images into the Map Tour Builder to be hosted in ArcGIS, there are additional restrictions on the supported HTML you can use to format the name and caption of your tour points. For feature services see this list of the supported HTML.
Yes. If you download and self-host the Story Map Tour app you can customize the marker symbols. You'll find them in the resources/markers folder in the source code. You only need to add new icons for the colors you want to use.
Yes. If you download and self-host the Story Map Tour app you can customize the app to show more than 99 points. See this section in the Story Map Tour GitHub repository. We don't recommend having more than 99 points in a tour, though, because that is a lot to expect your audience to view. One approach would be to divide your large Map Tour into several smaller, more focused tours that your audience can choose from.
Yes. You can create a layer that uses the set of fields that the Map Tour expects, add it to a web map, open that web map, and then share it by creating a Story Map Tour app. The Map Tour Builder will recognize your layer and use it to define the Tour. You can download a CSV file containing the Map Tour field template from the Advanced Options in the Map Tour Builder Welcome dialog. Images have to be referenced via URLs. Your layer can be based on a CSV file, shapefile or feature service. For example you can create your layer in ArcGIS Desktop and then publish it as a feature service. Shapefiles aren't recommended because of their 254 character maximum width for text fields. Make sure there is no scale visibility range defined for the layer in your web map, otherwise your Map Tour may fail to load. Note: if you author an ArcGIS Enterprise Server feature service to define a Map Tour, you need to enable attachments in that feature service even if you won't be using attachments for your images.
You can embed your Map Tour in an iframe:
<iframe width="100%" height="800px" src="Your App URL" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>Make your embedded tour as large as possible on the page to maximize ease of use. We also recommend including a link on the page near the embed so that people can launch your Map Tour in full-screen mode if they want to explore in more depth. This also makes it easier for mobile users to fill their screen with your tour. You can preview your embed in My Stories.
If you want to embed your Map Tour without its header, you can append an &embed; parameter to the end of your tour's URL:
http://story.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/?appid=d5b2c90d8a53466f9c3efb0f25d13325&embed;Yes. See these blog posts for more tips and tricks about Story Map Tour.
Yes. Highlight the text you want to convert to a link, then in the Story Actions section of the Side Panel toolbar, click the 'Navigate to a section' button. You'll be prompted to choose the section in your Journal you want the link to navigate your readers to.
In the Story Map Journal Builder, we've provided some great default colors to get you started. If you are using an account on an ArcGIS Organization, your administrator can also specify a set of custom colors as a "shared theme" that will be used by the Story Map Journal and Story Map Series apps. If you want to customize the colors even further, you can download and self-host the application. See this section in the Story Map Journal GitHub repository.
Yes. When you open a Story Map Journal you can use these keys to navigate through the sections: Up/Down Arrows, Page Up/Page Down, Space bar. You can press Tab to navigate through the interactive elements in a Map Journal, such as buttons and links. As you tab through, each element is shown with a highlight to indicate that it is selected. Shift+Tab navigates through the interactive elements in the opposite direction. Press Enter to activate the currently selected button or link.
Several hidden buttons are revealed when you use Tab to navigate with the keyboard. These buttons let you easily jump between parts of the story:
When you use Tab to navigate around a Map Journal, you’ll see a link appear in the narrative panel in each section that lets you send keyboard focus to the main stage in the Journal. When the main stage contains a map and you give the map keyboard focus, you can use the Arrow keys to pan the map, and the + and - keys to zoom in and out. To return focus to the narrative panel from the map, press the Esc key.
If you are using an assistive technology such as VoiceOver you can use landmarks to jump between functional areas of the story map. The following areas have ARIA landmark roles:
Given the choice, in your Map Journal we recommend that you use a small number of web maps, each containing many layers, instead of a large number of web maps with a few layers each. You can then configure each section in your journal to display the appropriate layers from that small set of maps, instead of having a separate web map for each journal section. Each web map makes a call to the server when it is opened, which means that the more maps your Map Journal has, the more round trips to the server need to be made. On the other hand, you may not find it convenient to author all your content in a small number of maps, so choose what works best for your project.
Story actions are links you can add into your Story Map Journal's side panel or floating panel text that your readers can click to change what's shown on the main stage. For example you can define a story action that your readers can click that will zoom in on the map in the main stage, toggle a layer on or off in that map, display a pop-up for a particular place, or all of the above at once! You can also define story actions that jump to a different section in your journal. They greatly extend the storytelling capabilities of the Map Journal. See this blog post for more details. It is also possible to create story actions that appear as buttons instead of links: see this blog post.
In general we recommend landscape orientation (i.e. images that are wider than they are tall) instead of portrait orientation.
If you upload your images directly into your Map Journal, those images are automatically optimized and managed for you to give the best performance, so you can use an image of any size and it will load quickly in your story. Similarly if you use images stored in Flickr or Google+/Picasa, Map Journal will take advantage of optimizations in how these services store your photos, so your images will also load quickly.
If you reference your images on the web directly via URL links make sure the images aren't too large. Images shouldn't exceed 800 KB but you should target 400 KB or less for most images. The recommended image widths are:
We also recommend using JPG format and saving your images at 80% image quality to reduce file size. Large images referenced via URLs that slow down performance may seem to load quickly to you. This is because after you've displayed them once during the authoring process, they are cached in your web browser. However they'll seem slow to people viewing your story. If you are not able to resize your images for best performance, we don't recommend referencing them via URLs, and you should upload them into your Map Journal instead.
Yes. See these blog posts for more tips and tricks about Story Map Journal.
In general we recommend landscape orientation (i.e. images that are wider than they are tall) instead of portrait orientation.
If you upload your images directly into your Cascade those images are automatically optimized and managed for you to give the best performance, so you can use an image of any size and it will load quickly in your story. Similarly if you use images stored in Flickr or Google+/Picasa, Cascade will take advantage of optimizations in how these services store your photos, so your images will also load quickly.
If you reference your images on the web directly via URL links make sure the images aren't too large. Images shouldn't exceed 800 KB but you should target 400 KB or less for most images. The recommended image widths are:
We also recommend using JPG format and saving your images at 80% image quality to reduce file size. Large images referenced via URLs that slow down performance may seem to load quickly to you. This is because after you've displayed them once during the authoring process, they are cached in your web browser. However they'll seem slow to people viewing your story. If you are not able to resize your images for best performance, we don't recommend referencing them via URLs, and you should upload them into your Cascade instead.
Yes. Like the other Story Map apps, Cascades automatically respond to the smaller screen sizes on mobile devices so they can be read easily. Some media that can be added into Cascades doesn't work on mobile devices. 3D web scenes don't work on mobile. Videos work on mobile with one exception: if you use a video as the media for the cover page, that video won't work on mobile. In these cases, the Cascade Builder allows you to specify an image as alternate media that will be automatically displayed instead when your Cascade is viewed on mobile. For media that won't work on mobile, if you don't specify alternate media, the Cascade Builder's Health Report will warn you by displaying an orange strip next to the media in question. You can also take advantage of the alternate media option to further optimize your Cascade for mobile use by replacing media that may not work well on mobile. For example, web maps in Cascades are supported on mobile, but maps with a lot of layers or that require a lot of interaction in your story may not work well for your readers using mobile devices. In these cases you can, optionally, specify images as alternate media instead.
The alternate media feature was added to Cascade Builder in the ArcGIS Online release at the end of June 2017. We recommend that you edit your existing Cascades to specify alternate media for any content that won't work on mobile, or won't work well, to ensure the best experience for your readers. See this blog post for more info.
Yes. See our Cascade tips blog post. Then browse these other blog posts for more tips and tricks about Story Map Cascade.
And be sure not to miss these 'How to Cascade' interactive guides, created using Cascade by Esri Story Maps team member John Nelson.
The maximum number of entries in a Story Map Series is 30. It is possible to increase this limit if you download the Story Map Series app and customize the source code. See this GeoNet question for details.
In general we recommend landscape orientation (i.e. images that are wider than they are tall) instead of portrait orientation.
If you upload your images directly into your Map Series, those images are automatically optimized and managed for you to give the best performance, so you can use an image of any size and it will load quickly in your story. Similarly if you use images stored in Flickr or Google+/Picasa, Map Series will take advantage of optimizations in how these services store your photos, so your images will also load quickly.
If you reference your images on the web directly via URL links make sure the images aren't too large. Images shouldn't exceed 800 KB but you should target 400 KB or less for most images. The recommended image widths are:
We also recommend using JPG format and saving your images at 80% image quality to reduce file size. Large images referenced via URLs that slow down performance may seem to load quickly to you. This is because after you've displayed them once during the authoring process, they are cached in your web browser. However they'll seem slow to people viewing your story. If you are not able to resize your images for best performance, we don't recommend referencing them via URLs, and you should upload them into your Map Series instead.
Yes. See these blog posts for more tips and tricks about Story Map Series.
As a beta release, Story Map Shortlist is stable and contains a basic set of features. If its features meet your needs, you can use the app in production situations. We are also collecting your feedback to help us improve this storytelling capability going forward. Story Map Shortlist is supported by Esri Technical Support and localized into all languages supported by ArcGIS Online.
Our plan for Shortlist is to incorporate this capability into our next generation storytelling platform. For this reason, Shortlist will stay in beta until that work is completed (planned for 2018). At that time, the Shortlist beta will be moved into the 'mature' phase of the ArcGIS product lifecycle. When Shortlist becomes a mature app, your existing stories created with the app will continue to work and be accessible to your users, and you will still be able to edit and update your stories. You'll also be able to create new stories with the app. However, as we don't add new features or fix issues in mature apps, we don't recommend creating new stories with apps once they enter the mature phase. For example we don't maintain mature apps if changes occur in ArcGIS or specific web browsers that affect app functionality.
Since it will remain in beta, Shortlist will not be made available in ArcGIS Enterprise in its current form. If you need to deploy Shortlist on your ArcGIS Enterprise Portal you can download the code from Github, host it on your Enterprise Portal, and add it as an item to your Enterprise Portal Configurable App Gallery.
Story Map Shortlists can't be authored on Microsoft Edge, but they can be viewed in that browser. For viewing or authoring Story Map Shortlists on Windows 10 we don't recommend Internet Explorer: there's currently a technical issue that sometimes causes an incorrect screen refresh. This is not an issue with Internet Explorer on Windows 7.
To provide feedback or suggestions about a beta app, or to let us know about issues, please share your thoughts on the Story Maps Forum on GeoNet, the Esri Community.
When you author a Shortlist in the Builder, you can define places without giving them an image or specifying their location. This enables you to enter your set of places first, and then locate them and give them images later. Any places that don't have names, images, or that have not been located yet on the map, are automatically omitted from the Shortlist your end-users see. If a place is missing on your Shortlist, make sure it has been located on the map in the Builder, has been given a name, and it has both a thumbnail image and a main image.
Also, by default, the Shortlist tabs only show your end-users the places in the current map area they are viewing. In the Shortlist Builder however, the tabs show you all the places in your Shortlist, irrespective of the current map area, to make the authoring process easier. If a place is missing on your Shortlist, it may be because it is located outside the default map location that your users see when your Shortlist opens. (Note that you also have the option, via the Settings dialog, to specify that your Shortlist tabs will show your users all the places, not just the places in the current map area).
Yes. In ArcGIS Online, open the web map used in your existing Shortlist, share it as a web application, and choose Story Map Shortlist from the application gallery. You'll be prompted to choose the layer or layers in your web map that contain your Shortlist places. Those places can be imported into the Shortlist Builder where you can configure your new Shortlist and perform any further edits and updates to your places interactively. For example in the Builder you can assign larger images to your places to take full advantage of the new look of the Shortlist app. When you create a new Shortlist by importing places from your web map, your original Shortlist app is unaffected because the Shortlist Builder automatically copies your imported places into a new web map. An option for your new Shortlist to reference the places in your original web map rather than import them is also available. With this option your new Shortlist will reflect on-going changes to your data in your web map. This is useful if you want to do your place editing and management in your map using ArcGIS mapping and editing tools, instead of in the Shortlist Builder. However this requires that all your places are in a single feature layer in your web map, not one layer per tab, and that there are two fields in that layer referencing images via URLs for each place: one for the thumbnail image and one for the main image.
Yes, you can create a Shortlist using existing point feature data in an ArcGIS Online web map. To create your Shortlist using point data in an existing web map, first go to ArcGIS Online and open that web map. Then share it as a web application and choose Story Map Shortlist from the application gallery. The Shortlist Builder will open and prompt you to select the point data you want to use.
You have two options. The simplest option is to import your points into the Shortlist Builder as places. In the Builder you can then add images and descriptive text to the places, organize them into tabs, delete and add places, etc. When you use the import option, the Shortlist Builder automatically copies your imported places into a new web map, so your original point data and web map are unaffected by any further changes you make to the places in the Builder. This option works with any point data in feature layers and doesn't require that your point data uses a particular set of fields or data 'schema'. You can choose which attributes in your data you want to display in the description for your places.
You also have the option for your Shortlist to reference the places in your original web map rather than import them into the Builder. This is the 'as-is' option. With this option your Shortlist will reflect on-going changes to the data in your web map. This is useful if you want to do your place editing and management in your map using ArcGIS mapping and editing tools instead of in the Shortlist Builder. The Shortlist Builder will display the places but won't let you edit or organize them, nor add or change images. This option requires that your point data uses the particular set of fields ('schema') expected by the Shortlist. You can download this schema from the dialog that appears when you create a Shortlist from a web map containing point data, or here. This schema requires that all your places are in one feature layer in your map and that there are two fields referencing images via URLs for each place: one for the thumbnail image and one for the main image. If you use this 'as-is' option, be sure to read the question below about recommended image sizes for images referenced by URL.
Yes. The release of the new hosted version of the Story Map Shortlist application does not affect existing Shortlists deployed using the original, non-hosted version of the app. If you have deployed a Shortlist using the original version of the app, the code for your Shortlist is hosted on your own website or webserver, and so is unaffected by the new release. The source code for the original version of the Shortlist (version 1.x) is still available for download from the Story Map Shortlist GitHub repository.
You can use images of any size and shape in a Story Map Shortlist, but we recommend landscape orientation (i.e. images that are wider than they are tall) instead of portrait orientation. Shortlists generally look best if all the images have the same size and aspect ratio, so your users don't get distracted by differently shaped images as they browse your places. The recommended image aspect ratio is 4:3.
If you upload your images directly into your Shortlist, those images are automatically optimized and managed for you to give the best performance, so you can use an image of any size and it will load quickly in your story. Similarly if you use images stored in Flickr or Google+/Picasa, Shortlist will take advantage of optimizations in how these services store your photos, so you can use an image of any size and it will load quickly in your story.
If you reference images on the web directly via URLs, the file size of each image should ideally be less than 400 KB. Images that are larger than that can slow down performance. We recommend using JPG format and saving your images at 80% image quality to reduce file size. Shortlist images referenced by URLs don't need to be larger than 1000 pixels wide by 750 pixels tall, so resizing larger images to those dimensions can reduce their file size, but you don't need to resize your images if they are already 400 KB or less. If you reference images by URLs, avoid using the same image for the main image and the thumbnail image. This can really slow down performance as your tabs load. You should ideally point at smaller images for the thumbnails. For thumbnail images referenced by URLs we recommend a size and shape of 280 pixels wide by 210 pixels tall. That thumbnail shape (aspect ratio of 4:3) fits exactly into the Shortlist thumbnail area and so won't get cropped.
Remember that large images referenced via URLs that slow down performance may seem to load quickly to you. This is because after you've displayed them once during the authoring process, they are cached in your web browser. However they'll seem slow to people viewing your Shortlist. If you are not able to reduce the file size of your images for best performance, we don't recommend referencing them via URLs, and you should upload them into your Shortlist instead. Note that if you use the option to create your Shortlist from a point layer in a web map and use those points 'as is' to define your places (as opposed to importing them into your Shortlist so they can be given images in the Builder) then you have to reference your images via URLs stored as attributes in that layer.
Every Shortlist has an associated web map which contains the places shown in the Shortlist. For example, if you create a Shortlist 'from scratch' the Shortlist will automatically create a web map for you in which the places you define will be stored. You can also create a Shortlist from an existing web map by sharing the map in ArcGIS Online. If you create a Shortlist from a web map that contains point data, and you choose to import that data into the Shortlist as places that you can edit in the Shortlist Builder, the Shortlist automatically makes a copy of your web map and uses that copy to store your places. You can edit the web map associated with a Shortlist in order to add supporting layers into your Shortlist to provide additional information on the map that your users see. For example, if your Shortlist is about hiking trails you can add those hiking trails into the web map as line features. Or you could add a layer representing a study area boundary, and so on. The symbology and popups you define for the supporting layers you add are displayed in the Shortlist, so be sure to configure the popups for feature layers you add if you want your users to be able to click on them to get more information. Turn popups off for layers you add that you don't want people to be able to click on. To edit the web map used in your Shortlist, first close the Shortlist Builder if you currently have it open. This is important because you can lose data if you try and edit a Shortlist's web map while you are also editing that Shortlist in the Builder. Then go to the My Stories section of the Story Maps website, find your Shortlist, click the Maps tab and then click the Edit Map button.
Important note: If you edit the web map used by a Shortlist you must not edit the point layer in the web map in which the Shortlist stores the places. This layer is normally called 'Shortlist layer'. Do not attempt to edit this layer in order to add, delete or modify the places in your Shortlist. This can result in loss of data because this layer is stored in the Shortlist's own format. The only except to this is if you use the 'as-is' option to create your Shortlist. With the 'as-is' option, you define all the places for your Shortlist in a point layer in a web map, and the Shortlist simply displays those places 'as-is'. This enables you to manage and maintain your places in the web map instead of being able to edit them interactively in the Shortlist Builder. When you use this option, editing the places in the web map is the only way you can update your Shortlist. If you want to manage your places by editing a layer in a web map, use the 'as-is' option. See this FAQ question above for more info on the 'as-is' option.
Yes. See these blog posts for more tips and tricks about Story Map Shortlist.
As a beta release, Story Map Crowdsource is stable and contains a basic set of features. If its features meet your needs, you can use the app in production situations. We are also collecting your feedback to help us improve this storytelling capability going forward. Story Map Crowdsource is supported by Esri Technical Support and localized into all languages supported by ArcGIS Online.
Our plans are to build crowdsourcing capabilities into future storytelling apps as a feature rather than support a stand-alone crowdsourcing story map app. For this reason, Story Map Crowdsource will stay in beta until we have incorporated its features into our next generation storytelling platform (planned for 2018). At that time, the Crowdsource beta will be moved into the 'mature' phase of the ArcGIS product lifecycle. When Crowdsource becomes a mature app, your existing stories created with the app will continue to work and be accessible to your users, and you will still be able to edit and update your stories. You'll also be able to create new stories with the app. However, as we don't add new features or fix issues in mature apps, we don't recommend creating new stories with apps once they enter the mature phase. For example we don't maintain mature apps if changes occur in ArcGIS or specific web browsers that affect app functionality.
Since it will remain in beta, Story Map Crowdsource will not be made available in ArcGIS Enterprise. Also note there are technical differences between Online and Enterprise that prevent it from being deployed on an ArcGIS Enterprise Portal.
Esri has several apps that can help you crowdsource information in different ways, so if Story Map Crowdsource doesn't meet your needs, we recommend looking at these ArcGIS apps: Survey 123, Collector, GeoForm, or Crowdsource Reporter/Manager. For more information about those apps, please see this page.
To provide feedback or suggestions about a beta app, or to let us know about issues, please share your thoughts on the Story Maps Forum on GeoNet, the Esri Community.
The content that people contribute to your Crowdsource story is automatically stored in an ArcGIS feature service. Their pictures are stored as attachments in that feature service. The Crowdsource app creates and manages this service for you automatically.
An ArcGIS subscription account with publishing privileges is required in order to create a Crowdsource story. This is because the Crowdsource app creates and manages an ArcGIS feature service to store the content your participants contribute. Services can't be created at the ArcGIS public account level. If you are using a free ArcGIS public account you'll need to upgrade to an ArcGIS subscription in order to make a Crowdsource story (see our Resources page for details about getting accounts). If you are not sure which account you have, the Crowdsource Builder will check your account when you launch it and will let you know if you can't build a story.
Yes, you can add additional layers to the map used in your Crowdsource story. For example if your story is asking people to contribute pictures about a park, you might want to add the boundary of that park into your map. However see the third question above for important information about doing this with this beta release of Story Map Crowdsource, because it might affect whether your story will continue to work when the final version of this app is released. To add additional layers to the map used in your Crowdsource story, you can open it from Content > My Content in ArcGIS. Be careful not to delete or modify the contributions layer in your map, which your Crowdsource story requires and manages for you, otherwise your story may stop working properly.
Yes, a Crowdsource story hosted on ArcGIS Online will consume a small amount of credits each month due to the storage of photos and data in a feature service. A typical story with several hundred photos will cost much less than US$1 per month. See more information about ArcGIS Online service credits.
It's important to note that Story Map Crowdsource is different from the other Story Maps apps in that it enables people to post pictures and information onto your map. Unlike the other apps, where you do all the authoring, you don't have complete control over what content appears in your Crowdsource story. You'll need to review contributions to check for inappropriate or unwanted posts, and you also need to consider privacy issues. For example, a contributor's current location, such as their current street address, can be exposed in a Crowdsource story, and appear with their post on your map both as a point location and as text. This is OK if your story is soliciting contributions about, say, great places to visit in a city, where that location is a public place and you want that place's location to appear on your map. But it may not be desirable for other subject matter, especially if people may be posting onto your Crowdsource story from their home. It is up to you as the author of a Story Map Crowdsource story to ensure that your application complies with the privacy and data collection policies and standards of your organization, your community, and your intended audience.
We recommend that you set up a limited pilot or internal test of any Story Map Crowdsource project before deploying and promoting a Crowdsource story publicly, in order to review if it meets those requirements.
You can change the labels and text on the Contribution panel to reflect the subject of your Crowdsource app. See this blog post.
Yes. See our Crowdsource tips blog post. Then browse these other blog posts for more tips and tricks about Story Map Crowdsource.