Online Agenda Planner Hell

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9
06-30-2017 04:45 PM
DeanChiang
Occasional Contributor

Does anyone know if the complete user conference schedule is published somewhere as an Open Data table or flat file so we can just download it and use it the way we want instead of being forced to use the online agenda planner or app? 

When I tried to search by https://hub.arcgis.com/datasets?q=user%20conference%20agenda the site says no data found.

Why can't Esri trust and empower their customers, stand by its open principles, and facilitate a better solution to the nightmarish online agenda planner/app, enough to publish the full UC Agenda schedule in its ArcGIS Open Data portal in real data format and let their users use it and view it the way they want?  I could find the info I need quicker and set up my own schedule faster if the whole thing was just in a spreadsheet file, or even a PDF printout that I can manually highlight, than this.

9 Replies
RebeccaStrauch__GISP
MVP Emeritus

For what it's worth, Esri User Conference 2017 Agenda currently says

The downloadable PDF agenda will be available shortly.

(6/30/2017 5:30 pm pacific)

so I would check back later today or maybe the morning.   

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DeanChiang1
New Contributor

Thank you Rebecca and Erin Meier 

I did see the PDF link was available on Friday night so I downloaded it and eagerly started text searching by my topics of interest. Much to my dismay, each session item in the PDF shows the time and location but not the day/date (no indication in the header/footer of each page), so you have no idea what day the session belongs to unless you scroll all the way back up to the page showing the beginning of the day or printed out the whole 700 pages. So I resorted back to enduring the browser Planner having to drill down to each potential session detail page written with the smallest possible font size and faintest possible text color. 

Thank you.

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JamesShively
New Contributor III

The online agenda has not been available for the past two days. I agree that a spreadsheet list of all sessions would be a great addition to the current format.

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MargaretOhayon
New Contributor III

Hi James,

I'm sorry to hear that you have been having trouble accessing the online agenda.  It has been up and running without interruption, so you definitely should not be having any trouble accessing it.  Can you please let me know what browser and OS you are using so we can help troubleshoot the issue for you?

Thank you,

Margaret

MargaretOhayon
New Contributor III

Hi Dean,

I'm sorry to hear you're experiencing difficulties with the PDF version of the agenda.  You make a good point about including the date in each session listing however. I'll put in a request with the development team about this.

Regards,

Margaret

curtvprice
MVP Esteemed Contributor

There have been reports that special characters in your esri login username (for example @) break this app.

MargaretOhayon
New Contributor III

Hi Curtis,

That indeed was the case, special characters in your username prevented you from being able to log in on the web agenda.  We have fixed that issue however as of July 6th, and had several users that had reported the problem to us initially email us back saying it was working for them.

Regards,

Margaret

RandyKreuziger
Occasional Contributor III

My agenda didn't send me this year to the UC but each year the problems are the same with the online agenda.  Each year ESRI creates something different thereby improving on somethings but also breaking things or making them worse.

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FredTalon1
New Contributor

ESRI Online Agenda Application:

WoW, the app was extremely helpful in presenting agenda items that were current and previous.  Hundreds of items was filtered for my use and brought to my attention with enough time to run to the next agenda item.  I remember the small booklet with all the listings, it was giagormous.  This made my expierence more thoughtful and I attended an averge of about 5 to 6 presentations per day.  The calender syncing was a good reminder for each days priorites.  Improvements,  Yes let us set the bar higher for this app.  I found my "holy grail" at  the ESRI International User Conference using this tool.  We are anticipating the next ESRI International User Conference to help us with "The Science of Where."