I first had the chance to use ArcGIS Experience Builder (ExB) in 2024 when I competed in my first ECCE App Challenge. While I didn’t get the chance to do much exploring of the product during that insane week, I did get a peek into the world of geospatial app making — and I loved what I saw!

Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to help out with several projects requiring the use of ExB, whether through work or school. After spending hours formatting and configuring things in ExB, I’ve unknowingly created a mental list of features I’d love to see integrated. Turns out, I’m not alone in this!

I came across ArcGIS Ideas, an Esri community site where users describe capabilities they’d like to see added to a variety of ArcGIS products — including ExB. You can even sort ideas by their status, like “Already Offered,” “Under Consideration,” or “In Product Plan,” which is super helpful for seeing what might be coming up in future updates. It’s encouraging to know that the development team is listening to community feedback. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I highly recommend giving it a look.

I wasn’t surprised to discover that all five of my most-wanted features had already been noted by other users, so I made sure to leave kudos on the posts to hopefully help them gain more attention.

So, here they are — my top five most-wanted features for Experience Builder.

1. Ability to assign labels to each side of a map when using the swipe widget

I built an ExB that lets users swipe between two sets of layers on a web map — one with male data and one with female data — to quickly observe the differences. I did include notes in the side panel explaining what’s on each side, but I’ve learned that the less users have to search for context, the better. Ideally, they should be able to just glance at the map and instantly understand what they’re looking at.

What I’d love to see is a feature that adds labels directly to either side of the swipe bar — something that moves along with it as users drag the divider. That way, it’s very clear what each side displays without needing to read extra text.

Link to similar Ideas post – “Add option to include map labels for Swipe Widget“

2. Ability for users to switch between languages for text displayed within the app

When building public-facing apps in Canada, it’s important to make sure users can access the content in both official languages. I’ll admit, I’m not entirely sure what this would look like on the development side of ExB, but I imagine it could involve entering translations for all text elements and linking them to a language toggle or dropdown menu.

Based on what I’ve seen online, the current go-to solution is to duplicate the entire ExB project and manually rewrite everything in the desired language. That’s a time-consuming workaround and probably not realistic for many organizations.

Given that this is an accessibility issue impacting users across the world, I imagine it will be considered for development soon.

Link to similar Ideas post – “Experience Builder Language Switch for Accessibility“

3. Support for increased version control

While building ExBs to pair with the Nova Scotia Health Atlas StoryMap Library, there were many times when I needed to save multiple versions of the app to showcase different potential improvements to my supervisors during meetings. This quickly resulted in a cluttered AGOL workspace filled with slightly different copies of the same app.

It would be incredibly useful if there were a way to save an ExB configuration as a “draft” within the same item, allowing you to store and toggle between multiple versions without creating separate, duplicate apps. In my case, being able to keep several drafts in one place would make it much easier to present different update options and proposed deliverables without the chaos of keeping track of several independent copies.

Link to Ideas post – “Multiple Draft Versions for One ExB Project“

4. Increased customization options when setting default map extent

I’ve found that setting the default extent for a map widget in ExB could use more customization options. Right now, you can pan to a location and alter zoom levels to save a default view. This works fine in simple cases, but it leaves the designer with limited control over configuring the first thing users see when a map loads.

It would be super helpful to have more control here! For example, being able to set the default extent based on a specific layer’s extent would save time and make the initial map view more meaningful. Another issue I’ve noticed is that the default zoom can look different depending on the user’s screen size. Being able to manually set a map scale (like 1:10,000,000) would help keep things consistent no matter what device someone’s using.

On top of that, having the ability to match the default extent across multiple map widgets — especially in multi-page apps or when toggling between views — would really support making complex ExBs feel more cohesive.

Link to similar Ideas post – “Allow default map extent/scale to be defined numerically“

5. Ability to add rows to a table within the table widget

While working in consulting, I had a coworker ask if their ExB could include a table where they could enter daily measurement values. I imagined it would be relatively simple to put together: I’d set up and load in a table with the right fields — including a date — and they’d be able to open the app, add in new data each day, and update values as needed.

It was my first time really using the Table widget, and I figured it’d be pretty straightforward, especially since I’ve had good experiences using the Edit widget with feature layers. However, I was surprised to find that while users can edit existing rows, they can’t add new ones directly in ExB.

Thankfully, the workaround wasn’t too complicated. I added placeholder rows in Excel with a default value like “ENTER_DATE” in the date field before uploading the table to Portal and bringing it into ExB. That way, there were already rows available to update. Still, it would be smoother if users could just add new rows right within the app itself.

Link to Ideas post – “Option to “Add new row” or record when editing a table in Table widget“

Even with the limitations, I’ve really enjoyed working with ExB on a variety of projects and consider it my go-to low/no-code app-building product. These five features are just a few things that would, in my opinion, make building apps smoother, quicker, and more accessible. If you also use Experience Builder regularly — or any other Esri product — I’m sure you have your own wishlist of features you’d love to see! I’d encourage you to check out ArcGIS Ideas, post your suggestions, and leave kudos on others’ posts you support.