When the built-in widgets aren’t enough
Experience Builder comes with a long list of widgets, and for most apps they do the job. But sooner or later you hit a task they don’t quite cover. Maybe you want a panel that summarizes the features in view a certain way, or a tool built around one step in your team’s workflow.
Until now, building your own widget meant learning JavaScript and React. That’s a big ask for most GIS folks. Our new one-day course, Creating Custom Experience Builder Apps and Widgets Using AI, takes a different route: the AI writes the code, and you learn how to direct it, check what it built, and put it to work.
How the course works
You’ll work in ArcGIS Experience Builder Developer Edition, running on your own computer, alongside a cloud-based AI agent. The agent uses Esri’s own Experience Builder widget skill, a set of instructions that teaches it how Experience Builder widgets are built.
The pattern is simple. You describe the widget you want in plain language. The AI writes the files. You drop them into Developer Edition, try the widget in an app, and work with the AI to fix and improve it.
All the AI work happens in a web browser, so there’s no AI software to install. Everything is tested on your own machine, and nothing built in class gets published. We’ll walk through how to deploy your widgets and apps afterward, so you can take that step with your own projects. We’ll also cover installed AI coding tools and how they differ from the browser-only approach we use in class.
What you’ll learn
The course has seven modules:
- Developer Edition environment check
- How Experience Builder Developer Edition is organized
- Anatomy of a custom widget
- AI agents and Esri’s Experience Builder widget skill
- Building custom widgets with a cloud AI agent
- Adding and configuring custom widgets in Experience Builder
- Troubleshooting and refining AI-generated widgets
The last module matters most. AI-generated code rarely works perfectly the first time. Knowing how to spot what went wrong and ask for the right fix is what turns a rough first try into a widget you’ll actually use.
Who it’s for
This is an advanced course. It’s built for people who have taken our Introduction to Experience Builder and Intermediate Experience Builder classes, or who already have similar experience building Experience Builder apps. You don’t need to know JavaScript, React, or any other coding language.
The course covers ArcGIS Online only, not ArcGIS Enterprise. You’ll need:
- An ArcGIS Online Creator user type or higher, with a role that can create, update, and delete content
- A computer with at least 8 GB of memory and a current 64-bit browser
- A text editor (Notepad works; VS Code is recommended but optional)
- Permission to start Developer Edition from a command prompt and copy files into its widgets folder
Before class, you’ll install Developer Edition 1.21, set up an ArcGIS Online Client ID, download Esri’s widget skill from GitHub, and set up an account with an approved cloud AI agent. We send setup steps for students, ArcGIS Online admins, and IT staff when you register. All course data comes from a public web map, so there’s nothing to upload. The course is worth 8 GISP credit hours.
Sign up
The first live online class runs March 15, and the cost is $319. In-person and self-paced versions are coming soon.
Register for the March 15 class, or see the full details on the course page. If you’d rather not buy online, you can also sign up with our registration form.
