Allow feedback and discussion

A user can provide feedback to plan or project scenarios in Urban in the following ways:

• Use the public feedback feature on plans and projects that are shared with everyone (public). The comments made there are visible to everyone.
• Use the internal discussions feature on plans and projects that are shared with at least another user or with a group. The comments made there are only accessible to users with the appropriate permissions.

Public feedback

Everyone can provide feedback on plans and projects if the following conditions are met:

• Public engagement is enabled for the urban model.
• Public engagement is enabled for the plan or project.
• The plan or project is shared with everyone.

Enabling public engagement on an urban model automatically creates a Hub annotations layer if one does not exist in your organization. To learn more, see Configure public feedback and the ArcGIS Hub page.

Feedback is always linked to a plan or a project. If a plan or a project with feedback enabled is opened, a speech bubble button is available in the upper right corner of the header. Public feedback moderators can hide individual comments.

Enable feedback for a plan or project

To enable feedback for a publicly shared plan or a project, complete the following steps:

1. Ensure that feedback is enabled in the data manager. See Configure public feedback to learn more.
2. In the overview, select the plan or project for which you want to enable feedback.

   The plan or project opens.

3. Ensure that the selected plan or project is shared with everyone. To learn more about how to share a plan or a project, see Share a plan that you own or Share a project that you own.
4. Expand the drop-down menu named after the plan or project and select Configure plan or Configure project.

   The general plan and project settings appear.

5. In the plan or project settings header, click Discussion and select Public engagement.
6. Under Public engagement, click Enabled.

   A new Commenting open until section appears.

7. Define how long the plan or project will be open for public feedback.

   Public feedback is now enabled for the plan or project.

Provide public feedback

If a publicly shared plan or project has public engagement enabled, any user can provide feedback, including those who are not signed in. To provide feedback for a scenario in a plan or a project, complete the following steps:

1. Open a plan or project by clicking it in the view or in the list of plans and projects.
If the plan or project has public feedback enabled, a speech bubble button is available in the upper right corner of the header.
2. Click the speech bubble button in the upper right corner.

   The Discussion side panel appears.

   Note:

   As a licensed user, you may see a drop-down menu at the upper right of the side panel if the plan or project is also open for internal discussions. If that's the case, ensure that Public feedback is selected in the drop-down menu.

3. Use the scenario switcher in the header to select the scenario that you want to comment about.
4. Type your feedback in the text box at the bottom of the side panel.
5. Optionally, assign your feedback to a location in the plan or project. Click the pin button at the bottom of the text box and click the map to place it.
6. Optionally, click the speech bubble at the bottom of the text box to select a feedback category.

   You can configure feedback categories in the data manager. See Manage feedback categories to learn more.

7. Click Submit.

   Your feedback is added to the Discussion side panel as text and to the map view if a pin was placed.

Moderate public feedback

You can control the visibility of individual comments if you have the necessary privileges. Complete the following steps to moderate public feedback:

1. Ensure that one of the following is true:
   • You are signed in to your urban model with a user account that has the ArcGIS Online Administrator role assigned.
   • You are signed in to your urban model with a user account that is the owner of the Hub annotations layer.
   • The Hub annotations layer is shared with an ArcGIS Online group where the Shared update designation is enabled. You are signed in to your urban model with a user account that is a member of this group.
2. Open a plan or project that has public feedback enabled.
3. Click the speech bubble button in the upper right corner of the header.
4. For every comment in the list of public feedback, you can choose from the following options:
   • Click the Hide the comment button to hide a comment from being visible to everyone.
   • Click the Make the comment visible button to make a hidden comment visible to everyone.

   By default, public feedback is visible to everyone.

Internal discussions

Internal discussions are a way for designated users to comment and review plan and project designs within a specific scenario in the plan or project editor. Internal discussions happen between users who have access to the plan or project including those in the groups with which the plan or project has been shared. You must share the plan or project with at least one user or a group to use the internal discussion function. Once a plan or a project has been shared, users with an Urban license can comment with or without geolocation, add categories to comments, reply, resolve, edit, or delete their comments.

Share the plan or project with user groups

Only the owner of a plan or a project can configure the sharing settings. Complete the following steps to share a plan or project with other users:

1. Open a plan or project by clicking it in the view or in the list of plans and projects.
2. Click the plan or project name to the left of the header.

   A drop-down list appears.

If there is no drop-down list, you don't have an Urban license assigned.
3. Click Share plan if you are in a plan or Share project if you are in a project.

   Share plan / Share project is unavailable if you are not the owner.

4. Scroll to the Set group sharing subsection of the page to share the plan or project with individual user groups. See Share a plan that you own / Share a project that you own to learn more.

   The design plan or project is now shared with members of the selected groups.

Start a discussion

Complete the following steps to start a discussion on a scenario of a plan or project:

1. Open a plan or project by clicking it in the view or in the list of plans and projects.
2. Click the discussion button to the right of the header.

   A side panel expands.

3. Select the user group with which you want to share your comment in the drop-down menu at the upper right.

   The drop-down menu is unavailable if the plan is shared with only one user group.

4. Type a comment in the text field at the bottom of the discussion panel.
5. Click Submit.

Note:

• You can place a pin in a scene to locate your discussion point at a specific location. Click the pin button in the text field and click the scene to place it. Add a category to your comment by clicking the discussion button in the text field and clicking the appropriate category button to assign it.
• After placing a pin, you can click it and use the handles to reposition the pin. You can also move the pin of an existing comment in comment edit mode.
• Feedback categories are the categories that are available in the urban model with which the plan or project is associated. See Manage feedback categories for detailed information.
• Comments can be edited, deleted, or marked as resolved. These functions are achieved by clicking the options button to the right of the username in the discussions panel.
• You can copy comments from one group to another if your plan or project is shared with more than one group.