The ArcGIS Online September 2018 Update and a Look at 10 Awesome New Features

Posted by GEO Jobe,

The last time ArcGIS Online received a major update was July 2018, just prior to the annual International ESRI User Conference. ArcGIS Online is Esri’s complete cloud-based GIS mapping and analysis platform. For users of the platform, a recent update’s new additions give even more functionality and capabilities. Below, we’ll explore the September 2018 update and share ten new capabilities and features.

The new Layer Showcase - Displays a collection of layers to support exploration of geographic content in both 2D and 3D views
The Layer Showcase displays a collection of layers to support exploration of geographic content in both 2D and 3D views

Bern Szukalski (@bernszukalski) went in depth sharing many of the new capabilities, while also reminding us how you can make and share beautiful maps, explore data, perform spatial analysis, and do everything in between. You can add your own maps and layers to use in a variety of configurable apps and story maps. Best of all, no programming required! In this blog post, Szukaslki shares how, with this latest update, users of ArcGIS Online get new spatial analytics capabilities, new configurable apps, and lots more. As a reminder, the previous update granted users new smart mapping capabilities, a redesigned organization home page, and new ways to mark your content as authoritative, among other features.

Below, you’ll find a list of ten new, awesome capabilities you’ll find in the ArcGIS Online September 2018 update:

  1. Better Joins – Results from the Join Features tool can now be created as a hosted feature layer view for all attribute joins. This also includes one to many relationships.
  2. 3D Scene Navigation – For the 3D fans, Scene Viewer now supports gamepads and 3D mice.
  3. New Map Symbols – Cartographers in government will appreciate the Updates to the Local Government, State Government, and National Park Service symbol sets in Map Viewer.
  4. More Editing – You can now rename hosted feature layer items and layers.
  5. More Data – Updates to The World Imagery basemap include the latest DigitalGlobe Basemap +Vivid imagery for several countries. Also, updates to the demographic maps for Canada are a point of note.
  6. View Organization Changes – Administrators can download an audit log of changes to the organization. This also extends to logs for organization’s members, groups, and content (the thousands of admins that use Admin Tools will like this!)
  7. More Insights – Updates to Insights for ArcGIS 3.0 include increased customization options, additional communication functionality, and more.
  8. Pocket Theme – Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS introduces a new, minimalist theme with one widget in a left or right panel. This theme is for apps embedded in websites, story maps, or other locations with surrounding context. In addition, we see improvements with multiple widgets!
  9. Survey 123 – A number of new features and minor fixes for the website and field apps, including Webhooks, nested repeats, and a new filtering option.
  10. The ArcGIS Online update includes new configurable apps in the Esri default app gallery. Display a collection of layers with the new Layer Showcase (beta) app.
Lots of new content in the Living Atlas for your Web Apps and Web Maps! 
Lots of new content in the Living Atlas for your Web Apps and Web Maps!

Want to know more?

Read more about what’s new in the September 2018 update to ArcGIS Online here. Additionally, the Esri Canada Education blog has also recently looked at this latest update to ArcGIS Online.

If you missed some of the updates from the summer build, check out this report. ArcGIS Online got some great improvements just before the 2018 ESRIUC. For example, that release included smart mapping capabilities, a redesigned organization home page, and new ways to mark content as authoritative.

Staying informed of updates to ArcGIS Online technology is important to our team. Similarly, being in the know enables us to continue to provide our clients and users with top-notch applications, custom services, and implementations. A reminder to GIS administrators managing teams of ArcGIS Online users,  Admin Tools for ArcGIS Online boasts more than 60 handy tools and is available in the ArcGIS Marketplace.

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