A new administrative setting – Shared Theme – has been introduced recently by Esri in ArcGIS Online to help improve the experience when creating web apps with configurable app templates, including several popular Story Map apps.

Esri’s Ian Wittenmyer said, with Shared Theme, users will have the ability to easily apply a consistent thematic flavor to information products created using our suite of configurable apps. . . . once configures in the organization settings, the Shared Theme properties offer the ability to easily provide more consistent branding for newly created web apps.

Prior to the introduction of Shared Theme, Wittenmyer said organizations could achieve a common theme only after training and coordination of staff to correctly enter the appropriate values when publishing a web app.

With Shared Theme, an organization’s administrator to define the color for different elements of an application once and then these settings will become the default options for newly created application items. The shared theme includes more properties than many of the apps support, but each one will apply the relevant properties, resulting in a consistent look and feel for apps created in the organization.

The following properties in the shared theme can be defined:

• Header background color
• Header text color
• Body background color
• Body text
• Body link color
• Button background color
• Button text color
• Logo url

For more information about the Shared Theme, go here.