ArcGIS StoryMaps is the professional storytelling tool that enables you to transform your geographic work into interactive content to inform and inspire others. It makes it easy to explain complex topics related to your knowledge and experience. ArcGIS StoryMaps is updated regularly with new features and capabilities, and here’s what’s been added recently:

• Track engagement with Adobe Analytics
• Image editor enhancements
• ArcGIS StoryMaps on ArcGIS Enterprise 11.1
• And more…

Track engagement with Adobe Analytics

Knowing how many people are reading your story—and which parts of it they are interacting with—is valuable information. Many organizations have a need to track and understand engagement of the content they publish, and ArcGIS StoryMaps can capture all this information for you.

This month, the tracking capabilities of ArcGIS StoryMaps have been expanded to include Adobe Analytics in addition to the previously supported Google Analytics. These options can be found in the Story settings and are very simple to set up. Just select which web analytics service you’re using, paste in your configuration parameters, and publish your story. You’re all set! The data will start pouring in as your adoring fans read your story.

The video below shows how easy it is to configure your analytics service to track a story. For more detail on utilizing this feature, see Use Web Analytics to Measure Your Traffic in ArcGIS StoryMaps.

Image editor enhancements

Have you used the image editing capabilities that were added to ArcGIS StoryMaps a few months ago? If not, you should definitely give them a whirl! It’s easy to make simple adjustments such as crop, rotate, or flip any image you upload in the story builder. You can also markup your images with a host of drawing tools.

Choosing a good color for image markup drawings can be difficult, but it’s much easier now because of the new glow effect. In most cases you’ll notice your drawings will pop more because this effect helps markup stand out even on images with varied colors and shading. The effect is applied to all new markup drawings, but you can turn it off if it’s not needed.

You’ll also notice there’s now a Delete button right on the markup toolbar that provides another simple way to remove selected drawings from your image. Using the delete key still works too, of course.

The video below shows the new glow effect and markup tools. If you want to learn more about editing and working with images, see What’s New in ArcGIS StoryMaps (November 2022) and A Guide to Working with Images in ArcGIS StoryMaps.

ArcGIS StoryMaps on ArcGIS Enterprise 11.1

ArcGIS Enterprise 11.1 has been released (for Windows and Linux, Kubernetes is coming soon), and with it comes a slew of new features, enhancements, and fixes for ArcGIS StoryMaps. If you’re curious about the latest storytelling capabilities the 11.1 release has to offer, you’ll want to read through this page: What’s new in ArcGIS StoryMaps on ArcGIS Enterprise—ArcGIS StoryMaps | Documentation.

Something else you might want to review is this handy matrix that shows which major features are available at each version of ArcGIS Enterprise: ArcGIS StoryMaps on ArcGIS Enterprise feature comparison—ArcGIS StoryMaps | Documentation

These new capabilities will be available when your enterprise portal is upgraded to run ArcGIS Enterprise 11.1. Contact your enterprise portal administrator to find out when the next update is planned.

And more…

As usual, we’ve made several quality of life improvements this month that should enhance your experience when using ArcGIS StoryMaps.

For example, pop-up notifications appear for a longer time to help you read and process information in a more relaxed way, and dropdown menus have improved accessibility. These are part of ongoing work in which our team is applying additional accessibility best practices to make ArcGIS StoryMaps easier to use for everyone.

For a complete list of changes and fixes, see the Release notes.

Banner photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash