Dennis Payk
November 21, 2013
As described in a previous post map.apps is ready for Esri's ArcGIS Marketplace. In this post, the technical steps that are required to bring your map.apps app to the marketplace will be described.
The main simple step to make your existing app "marketplace ready" is, to activate two bundles that are available in map.apps 2.1.5. Those bundles are named "webmap" and "agolauthn":
To register the app, you have to tell ArcGIS Online a callback url. There are two different options: "Popup Mode" and "Browser Redirect Mode". If you want to use ArcGIS Online functionality to configure your app (as described here), you have to use "Popup Mode", so that the login dialog opens in a new browser window.
The urls have to be set like this:
After this step, your item gets an App ID:
This App ID simply has to be added to your map.apps app configuration in the properties section. Add the following properties as follows:
...
"load": {
"allowedBundles": ["map","template","templatelayout","themes","system",...,"webmap","agolauthn"]
}
...
Once you have added those bundles to the list of "allowedBundles" in you app configuration, you can publish your app in ArcGIS Online as a web mapping application (see this previous blog post for further details).
Now, that you have added your map.apps app as a web mapping application to your ArcGIS Online account, you have to register this application on the item's detail page as seen below. Doing this, ensures that a user will be redirected to a central authentication page of ArcGIS Online, instead of showing an app specific authentication dialog.
To register the app, you have to tell ArcGIS Online a callback url. There are two different options: "Popup Mode" and "Browser Redirect Mode". If you want to use ArcGIS Online functionality to configure your app (as described here), you have to use "Popup Mode", so that the login dialog opens in a new browser window.
The urls have to be set like this:
// Popup Mode
http://://account/oauth-callback.html
// Browser Redirect Mode -> URL of the app index.html
http://://resouces/apps//index.html
In the following screenshot a url for the "Popup Mode" is set (further details can be found in your map.apps installation guide):
After this step, your item gets an App ID:
This App ID simply has to be added to your map.apps app configuration in the properties section. Add the following properties as follows:
"properties": {
...
"oauthAppId": "yourAppIDxyz123",
"oauthEnabled": true,
"oauthUsePopup": true
}
You now have "connected" your map.apps app with ArcGIS Online and you can go on and create a listing for ArcGIS Marketplace (from the items details view, just below the App Registration part, see screenshot above).
This is it! Your map.apps app is now available in the ArcGIS Online Marketplace.
What else?
- Marketing: Make your listing as appealing as possible. Invest in good and interesting descriptions and high quality logos, graphics, screenshots and videos. It will make a huge difference. The first impression of your listing is the most important.
- Pricing: As apps from the marketplace require named users anyhow, use a named user based price model. A tip is to create a price model that follows the ArcGIS Online subscription model. Your model could have the same subscription levels 1-7 plus packages of additional named users, you could calculate them as an additional percentage depending on the value add of your app. Why? Because it is a fair model and your customer already know it.
- Hosting: As provider of the app, you need to take care of hosting and management of the app. We are offering hosting services for map.apps and map.apps based solutions that will do the job for you. Several other good hosting options from third parties are there as well.