ArcGIS Online Training for Program Work Teams
- Part 2: Creating Basic Story Maps -
Steve Smith, Cornell University
Neil Curri, Cornell Cooperative Ext. Dutchess County Sean Carroll, Cornell Cooperative Ext. Dutchess County
Hello all, and welcome back to another step-by-step document from CCE Geospatial Mapping’s ArcgGIS Online Training for PWT’s!
This second document will consist of a follow up review to the past two trainings
regarding creating Story Maps through ArcGIS Online. It will go over the basics of how to organize the data you wish to use (location attributes, coordinates, photos/videos, etc.), how to choose an appropriate Story Map App for conveying your story, how to upload the data to ArcGIS Online via a CSV file (in Microsoft Excel), how to edit the points/add new points, and finally how to configure your Story Map to personalize it.
Step 1: Creating a CSV file for your Story Map points and photos
* For this example, I made a short sample CSV file based off of the Adirondack High Peaks, in New York State:
1. Open Microsoft Excel
2. Label columns A H with the following (capitalization-sensitive): - name - description - icon_color - long - lat - pic_url - thumb_url - is_video
3. “name” is where you enter the names of the map points you wish to add. In the example above (mountains in the Adirondack High Peaks region), these would be the names of the mountains – Mt. Marcy, Algonquin Peak, Mt. Haystack, etc.
4. “description” is where you can enter further text to explain attributes associated with your map points. In the example above, this included the elevation of the mountains, but could be any other text you wish to use to describe the map points.
5. “icon_color” is a single letter used to symbolize the color you wish to have for the icon on the map that represents a specific map point. For example: R for Red, B for blue, and G for Green.
6. “long” – map point longitudinal coordinate 7. “lat” – map point latitudinal coordinate
8. “pic_url” is a web URL with a link to the picture you wish to have as your larger, main image for the map point. The photo must be public and hosted on the internet; hence a URL link is required. If you wish to use one of your own
pictures, you will have to upload it to a photo-sharing program such as Flickr, which will provide you with an image URL/
9. “thumb_url” is a second URL for the same (or if you wish, different) picture. We recommend using a smaller version of the image (thumbnail) for this section, as it will show up as a small image and therefore does not need to be high quality. This will help your Story Map to load and run smoother and quicker. If you wish to use the same URL, this is also possible, but it may make the program run a little slower. You can also convert any uploaded image to a thumbnail sized photo on Flickr, which will then provide you with a new URL.
10. “is_video” is either a “TRUE” or “FALSE” statement that you enter. “TRUE” if the map point will contain a video, “FALSE” if not.
11. Once you have all of your data points filled out in this format (the template above), you must save your file as a CSV file:
Step 2: Creating your Story Map
1. Log into ArcGIS Online (AGOL)
2. Add any layers to the basemap that you wish to be present in Story Map 3. Save map to “My Content” (including Title, Tags, and Summary):
4. Go into “My Content”
5. Open up your saved map 6. Click “Share”
7. Select “Everyone (public)” or “Cornell Cooperative Ext. Geospatial Mapping” (organization) to allow the map to be shared. This is necessary in order to make a web application/story map.
9. Select one of the 16 free web-app templates available:
The one we will use for this example is a simple “Map Tour” web-app.
10. Select “Publish”
12. Under the “Share” pop-up, select “go to the item now”
14. In the Map Tour Builder, select “Advanced Options”
16. Select or drag and drop your saved CSV file containing the map point data that you created in step one.
17. You will see a message like this saying your points were successfully loaded:
18. Click “Import”
Step 3: Adding additional points to your Story Map
1. After you upload your CSV file, and ESRI plots the coordinates and creates your story map, you may want to add additional points. If there were many points you wanted to add, it might be easier to add them all to the CSV file and re-upload it, but if you have a single point you wish to add, you can add it manually through the web-app’s “Builder Mode” (the editable “back-end” of your story map). 2. If you wish to do this, click the “Add” button next to “Organize” and “Import”.
3. You will then be prompted to fill out the same information that is requested in the CSV file, but through a pop-up form; see above.
4. Here you will enter the media information (picture URL, thumbnail URL, and/or video URL), name, caption, and GPS coordinates (Lat/Long):
You can either enter the coordinates, or drag and drop the icon to the correct location.
Step 4: Editing your Story Map
You may want to change the order in which your map points show up along the “slide” of your Story Map:
2. Here you can drag and drop to sort your tour points, and check to select to “Use the first point as an introduction slide” (which will not appear in the “slideshow carousel” along the bottom of your story map). After reordering, be sure to click “Apply”.
** Any time that you make changes to your Story Map in builder mode, you must save them!! See below: **
3. To edit the appearance of your story map (layout, colors, header, extent, and zoom level), click on “Settings”
*
!
4. Here you can toggle between a 3-panel layout and an integrated layout,
…change the theme colors of your story map,
…select data,
…change the extent your map shows at the original slide,
