UPDATE: This blog is from 2015, and it shows the old way of pushing data from Fulcrum into ArcGIS Online. Today, we recommend using Shared Views and the Feature Service output. See this post from January 2021 for details.
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At Fulcrum, we have many customers that work in the field of GIS. Esri’s ArcGIS Online (AGOL) is a popular publishing platform for these users. AGOL is good for publishing static data, but coupled with Fulcrum it can be taken to the next level. Fulcrum provides the ability to publish real-time data, photos, and videos, which can be shared publicly to show disaster events, critical safety inspections, live event tracking or public awareness of issues. This blog post will demonstrate how to push real-time Fulcrum data into AGOL. I was able to get everything configured for pushing Fulcrum data within about ten minutes.
One benefit of using Fulcrum versus Esri’s Collector app is that if you need to make changes to your app, you can quickly make these edits without breaking the connection between Fulcrum and AGOL. Setting up a simple form in Collector can be complicated, so using Fulcrum in conjunction with AGOL for publishing gives you the best of both worlds: easy-to-use offline forms with the ability to still use AGOL for map publishing and sharing. Here is a side by side comparison video of setting up a simple form on the two platforms.
Enable Data Shares
To get started, you’ll need to enable the data share for the app from which you want to publish some data. Go to the dashboard page for your app and enable sharing for it. You want to copy the CSV link to your clipboard.
Add a Layer in ArcGIS
After logging into your ArcGIS Online account, go to the Map tab on the top menu bar.
Using the dropdown menu select “A CSV File” and paste in the CSV link from above.
If you get a warning message saying, “This file contains invalid characters or is missing some location data. Not all features have been added to the map”, just close it. It does not affect the connection. If some of your Fulcrum data was collected without longitude or latitude information then it won’t show up in AGOL.
Change Style
For my app, I want my status field to show as different symbology, but you might want to choose some other field. Once you chose a drawing style you can change the order of the legend and change the symbols according to your preference. You can also make these changes in the Layer Settings Menu below. Make sure you set the Visibility Range, Rename your Layer and change the Refresh Interval to suite your needs. Changing it to 0.1 minutes will make it update in real-time, but you might not need that frequency for your project.
Configure Pop-Up
By default AGOL will display all of your field attributes. Be sure to only enable the ones you want people to see and customize the way you want it displayed. If you want to show photos or even video thumbnails then use the following settings.
Photos Title: Photo Caption: {photos_caption} URL: https://web.fulcrumapp.com/shares/your-share-id/photos/{photos}/thumbnail.jpg Link: https://web.fulcrumapp.com/shares/your-share-id/photos/{photos}
Video Title: Video Caption: {photos_caption} URL: https://web.fulcrumapp.com/shares/your-share-id/videos/{videos}/thumbnail.jpg Link: https://web.fulcrumapp.com/shares/your-share-id/videos/{videos}/play
Note: Data shares are only available for small plans and above.
If you’d like an example of what we call SpatialVideo you can see that here.
Summary
As you can see, the integration is quick but the customization of symbology and pop-ups within AGOL can take some time to get right. Once you are done, make sure to press “Save As” or you will lose your added layer. It also helps to zoom into the area of the map (extent) you wish the viewer to see when initially opening the map.
If you have questions integrating Fulcrum with your AGOL web map, feel free to reach me at support@fulcrumapp.com.