What’s New in ArcGIS Online, April 2018 – New Goodies & 10 Favorite Enhancements

As GIS professionals building on the ArcGIS Platform, and avid users of the technology, we’re always interested in the updates to the technology. Most recently, Esri has released their April 2018 update to AGOL. Keeping up with the technology is crucial for us, particularly as providers of the very popular, and useful, Admin Tools for ArcGIS Online!

What's new in ArcGIS Online (Credit: Esri)
What’s new in ArcGIS Online (Credit: Esri)

There really is a TON of updates to all the technology out of Redlands this month. In particular, ArcGIS Online has seen quite a few new additions. New capabilities, fixes, and enhancements have been rolled out affecting the user experience, mapping and data visualization tools, 3D improvements, Analytics , Data, and more. The following are just a few of the updates you’ll find:

  1. Content categories  – a new way to organize group content and content across the organization so others can quickly discover maps, scenes, apps, and layers.
  2. New Gallery Design – when you first see the new design of the gallery page, you will notice some layout changes. The Gallery is no longer a tabbed experience featuring both organization content and Esri content. The focus of this page is on the organization’s featured content. a new layout and options for searching, sorting, filtering, and displaying gallery items in different ways. (see image below)
    new agol gallery

    New Gallery layout in AGOL

  3. Map Viewer has an improved user experience for adding layers to the map. When searching for layers and browsing Living Atlas layers, you can view your search results in table view or list view
  4.  Styling layers in Map Viewer – you can now choose to show or hide color, size, or transparency ramps in the legend using the Show in legend check box.
  5. Map Viewer and several configurable apps have increased the number of features that you can visualize when viewing hosted feature layers.
  6. The Dissolve Boundaries tool now includes the Create multipart features parameter, which is used to allow or disallow features that are broken into noncontiguous parts.
  7. Scene Viewer is now supported on mobile devices. You can visualize 3D content on your modern phone or tablet directly in your browser without installing an app.
  8. The new Measure area tool lets you interactively measure areas in 3D scenes.
  9. Edge Rendering accentuates the outlines of your 3D buildings, including exterior walls, balconies, or roof structures – WOW!
  10.  Append data – now when you append to your hosted feature layers, you can use a Microsoft Excel or GeoJSON file as input.
  11. AND MUCH MUCH MORE!!

Bern Szukalski of Esri has shared a meaty blog post that covers the latest updates to ArcGIS Online, including a couple of his favorite new features, content categories, and edge rendering in 3D.  View the round-up from Bern HERE on the Esri blog. Note, it’s not just ArcGIS Online that has seen updates this month. Esri has announced feature updates to the entire portfolio. There’s updates and fixes for Configurable Apps, Survey 123, Story Maps, the Living Atlas, Web App Builder, Scene Viewer and more!  You can find blog posts describing all the recent updates HERE

The ArcGIS help document of updates – The April 2018 update introduces content categories and improvements throughout the site.

There’s loads of new stuff here… what’s your favorite new thing(s)? Please share with us or ping us on Twitter @geojobegis

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GEOspatial Evangelist & CMO

Geographer, GIS professional, writer, and fan of all things mobile.

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