For the past several months, the ArcGIS Dashboards (formerly Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS) team has been building a re-architected version of the product, built on top of the JavaScript API 4.x. These behind-the-scenes changes will enable dashboard authors to take advantage of multiple enhancements that have been introduced across the ArcGIS platform.
All ArcGIS Online users are invited to try a public beta of the next version of ArcGIS Dashboards, planned to be available in April. This beta will give users an opportunity to test drive some of the exciting new enhancements, including:
- Improved Usability: A number of user experience improvements include new and improved summary statistics for percentile and count, as well as support for Hex, RGB, and HSL formats for color input.
- Improved Performance: The ability to draw more features on the map and overall improved map performance.
- Support for Arcade: Arcade is a portable, lightweight, and secure expression language written for use in the ArcGIS platform. It can perform mathematical calculations, manipulate text, and evaluate logical statements. The ArcGIS Dashboards Beta will fully leverage all map authoring customizations using Arcade. In addition, the beta exposes an interface for users to compose Arcade expressions directly into ArcGIS Dashboards for both list and indicator elements, enabling customization of how data points are rendered.
Once available, users can access the ArcGIS Dashboards Beta through the ArcGIS Online app launcher – just look for the familiar ArcGIS Dashboards icon labeled “BETA”. The beta release is only available to ArcGIS Online organizations. Once the beta moves to general availability, the new ArcGIS Dashboards will be available in the subsequent version of ArcGIS Enterprise.
Help and FAQ documentation for the beta will be available through an ArcGIS Dashboards Beta GeoNet community. Discussion and feedback will be encouraged.
Stay tuned for additional announcements on the ArcGIS Dashboards Beta. We look forward to your participation!
-The ArcGIS Dashboards Team
Will there be an upgrade path for existing dashboards or will existing ones have to be recreated from scratch?
You will be able to open an existing dashboard inside of the beta if you choose to. Once you do this, the beta application will require that you save a copy of that dashboard in the beta version, leaving the original dashboard unchanged. Therefore, you won’t need to recreate them from scratch, and most dashboards should open without issue in the beta, but there may be some known limitations while it’s still in beta. We will have more details about this when it is released.
Hi,
Will the new Dashboards support scenes?
Thanks,
Marc
The initial beta release will have the same support for scenes as the current product – scenes as embedded content. We are looking into additional 3D support in future versions. If you have feedback or suggestions in how you’d like dashboards to support scenes, please let us know.
Does this update allow us to lock the extent of the map (preventing panning and zooming) in the dashboard?
Hi Natalee – Can you describe the use case for this? Have you seen this thread? Please feel free to add your comments or use case to that: https://community.esri.com/thread/244857-lock-map-to-extent
Will Dashboards be available for ArcGIS Personal Use license?
ArcGIS Dashboards (today, Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS) is currently available as part of the ArcGIS Personal Use license, as it is accessible with the ArcGIS Online Creator user type. The upcoming ArcGIS Dashboards Beta will also be available for you to use.
When the Enterprise version is released will you be able to connect directly to databases?
Hi Mike, can you elaborate on your question so I can be sure to get the correct answer for you. Connect directly to databases from within a dashboard?
A bit more from the development team:
Connecting directly to a database from within the dashboard authoring environment is not planned at this time. For our Enterprise customers, it is possible to register a database as a data store and then publish/share layers via query layers that you set up in Pro. These layers can be used as data sources in dashboard (and this is possible today … no need for beta).
Does this new release include additional operators for category selectors, like “contains”? That would be awesome… I’d love to be able to query a comma separated list with a selector. The answer may determine if I use Dashboards for a project, or not.
Hi Tanner. This is not planned at this time. Getting a use case for this would be awesome though. Thank you!
Sure, there is an idea posted about it here (https://community.esri.com/ideas/15955-more-query-operators-for-the-category-selector-in-arcgis-online-operations-dashboard). In my case, I have a field with a list of counties (Abbeville, Anderson, Bamberg…) impacted by weather events. There is no easy way (that I can tell) of using the selector to get all of the storms that impact X county. Another field has list of weather impacts (Heavy Snow, Ice Storm, Wind Chill), which presents the same problem. I can’t easily find all Ice Storm events with a selector. Thank you, looking forward to seeing the Dashboards Beta regardless.
Dear all, is there any plan, where the Beta will be available?
Thank you.
Very soon! We are hoping to get it out the door in the next couple of weeks. Look for an announcement when it is available.
Dear Diana, thank you very much!
Greetings! I created a new Dashboard in Beta, however it doesn’t recognize Stand-Alone tables within the WebMap as a data source in the Dashboard. I can’t see or select it as an option for creating an Indicator, Graph, etc. However, with our older version of Operations Dashboard in Portal this is not an issue. Any ideas? Thank you!
Hi Laura! I copied your question over to the ArcGIS Dashboards Beta GeoNet, as the development team is monitoring that forum closely and would be better able to assist. See it here: https://community.esri.com/message/922530-stand-alone-tables-within-the-webmap-as-a-data-source
Just wanted to leave some feedback. When we use Operations dashboard and embed a WebApp within it as Embedded Content, some of the layers and the default extent don’t seem to show up properly when viewing in Firefox. The initial extent set in the web app is not respected. When I view it in Google Chrome, we get better results. I have reverted, for our production env, back to the origignial Operations Dashboard for now. Looking forward to this coming out of Beta. Thanks!