New Feature - My Favorites

Feature to maintain a list of monitoring locations you are interested in and to see the latest values of real-time data.

We are excited to announce a new page called My Favorites . This page allows users to create a custom list of monitoring locations that can be bookmarked and shared for repeated viewings of key locations.

My Favorites is a centralized place to keep track of the monitoring locations you are interested in. The latest values for real-time data are available at-a-glance with an emphasis on helping you navigate to related data pages like All Graphs and the Monitoring Location Page which have graphs for trend analysis. This page is intended to be interactive, with easy access to customization options and the capability to share the configured URL with your collaborators.

My Favorites is a new offering to ensure our modernized web presence continues to meet the needs of our users. This is the first of the network pages we are developing, which groups and summarizes data from multiple locations and connects to specialty pages for more information. As Water Data for the Nation replaces our legacy NWISweb, we are reviewing content, talking to users, and ensuring that major use cases are supported in our new system. Learn more about how this page, as well as other new features, fit into the WDFN ecosystem .

Key Features

My Favorites shows a list of monitoring locations you’ve added and the latest value for all real-time data collected at each location. You can click the check box at the top to limit the list to data available within the last 120 days.

The action buttons across the top of the page allow you to customize your list and connect you with other sources of data and information about your favorite monitoring locations.

In the “Customize favorites” button you can change the locations and data types that show in your favorites list. You can add locations to your list using the monitoring location identifier and remove them with the check boxes in Step 1.

In Step 2 you can alter the data types shown in your favorites list. Review the data types and the count of your favorite locations where the data type is available and use the Select All/None option at the top right of the list or the checkboxes to customize the data types in your list.

The My favorite locations list shows you the latest value for all real-time data types. Convenient access to data graphs is available in the expandable Details section under each data type in your favorites list with links to the Monitoring Location Page and All Graphs page.

You can also create graphs from the locations in your favorites list using the action button “Graph favorites”. There are two graphing options available—you can create a Combined Location Graph to display a single data type for multiple locations on a single graph, or create a My Favorites-graphed page, a new offering in WDFN where you can view any number of data graphs from all your favorite locations on a single page. To create a Combined Location Graph, select the first radio button in the graphing option, then follow the steps to select up to five locations from your favorites and pick a data type you would like to graph to create a link to your customized Combined Location Graph.

To create a My Favorites-graphed page, select the second radio button in the graphing options, then select any number of data types from the locations in your favorites list in step 1. You can use the “All” and “None” selectors to quickly select and deselect data types to graph. In step 2, you will find links to view your graphs, with the option to group the graphs by location or to group by data type.

Once you click the link to My Favorites-graphed, you will see data graphs for all the data types you selected from your favorite locations. There are radio buttons to change the time span, with options ranging from 2 to 120 days. On each graph you can view the latest continuous data collected, and see operational limits, public reference levels, flood levels, and field measurements when available. There are links to take you to the location’s Monitoring Location Page or to subscribe to WaterAlert.

The My Favorites-graphed page can be bookmarked to make it easy for you to return to and view the graphs you’re interested in—all of your location and data type selections are stored in the URL. To change the locations or data types displayed on My Favorites-graphed, just return to My Favorites via the link at the top right of the page and change your selections to produce another customized list of graphs.

My Favorites is designed to be easy to return to and share with others. The URL tracks all the location and data type choices you’ve made for your favorites list. You can bookmark the page in your browser or easily access the full URL to copy and paste through the “Get more information” button.

What’s next?

My Favorites and My Favorites-graphed are currently in beta while we collect information on how they are working for our users. Our team uses user-centered design processes to determine what to prioritize next. Let us know how the page is working for you by emailing wdfn@usgs.gov .