Combining crowdsourced data and ArcGIS StoryMaps

You’re going to want a way to remove unwanted or inappropriate content (trust us on this one). This can be done manually by going into the survey data at any time and deleting responses, which might work for a few data submissions, but can become cumbersome as more and more responses roll in. A good alternative is to include a hidden question in your survey, then use a filter in Map Viewer to filter out any entries you reject. With that filter, you can quickly manage lots of data submissions, only mapping those that meets your standards.

To set this up, add a Dropdown question to your survey and write Review for the label. Make one choice Accept and one Reject, then delete the third choice. Scroll down in the design panel and check Hide from survey under Other. This creates an editable field in your data table that allows you to review and reject any potentially inappropriate submissions directly from the Survey123 data tab. You can even setup  web hooks  to get an email notification anytime someone submits a new response.

Next, head to Map Viewer and  create a filte r in your map with your view layer. The filter expression values should be Review, Is, and Accept. Your filter now ensures that any points you reject will not display publicly.

Once you've created the questions for your survey click Publish. You'll need to update your sharing settings to enable the public to submit responses to the survey. Test the survey and submit a point or two. Seeding your crowdsourced effort with a few sample submissions will encourage others to join it and provide examples of the type of submissions you're after. 

You have two easy ways to display your survey results: You can add them to your story using the map block or incorporate them directly through a  data driven map tour in ArcGIS StoryMaps. 

Let’s walk through each of these options.  

With you survey created, go to your ArcGIS Online account and find the correspondingly named folder in My Content. Next, open the  stakeholder view  in Map Viewer. 

You should see a map with any points you submitted to the survey. Now customize the map and style the points. You can also try  adding these points to a scene  instead of a map.  This may fit your story better and yield beautiful results.  

Next, use the tools in Map Viewer to configure your visibility range so that sensitive location information is protected. Different crowdsourced components will require different visibility ranges; just make sure the data does not display at a level that could identify a submitter’s exact location.  

You’ll also want to optimize your data for images (if you’re collecting them), make use of clustering options if you have a large dataset, and configure your pop-ups to directly communicate important information. 

Update alert: Automatically displaying image attachments in your pop-ups using gallery mode is an exciting new Map Viewer feature that makes it easy to incorporate images into your crowdsourcing efforts! 

ArcGIS StoryMaps makes it easy to add a map to your story. Add a new map block and choose your survey web map. You can do this inline or in the media panel of an immersive block like slideshow or sidecar. 

Add a new map tour to your story from the block palette and choose Start with a feature service. Select your survey's feature service and and watch your data automatically appear in a map tour!  

Next, take some time to configure what information gets displayed. Click Data options (the gear icon) to open a panel where you can pick which fields appear at first glance, how your data points are ordered, and even filter your data if needed. For more information about this workflow, check out  this detailed tutorial  about data-driven map tours.