Arcgis.com: Collaboration with Maps?

Question

Hi all,

I'm wondering if its possible to cooperate with other users in making a map. Only the ArcGIS.com viewers (Explorer online, WebMap) and Explorer Destkop should be used.
Actually I'm trying to make a 'vacation map' for the next vacation. Everyone should be able to add information (restaurants, hiking trails,....) to the map.
I have made a group, invited all people and made a new map. The client of choice is Explorer Online.
But now everytime a different user adds some notes to the map, he has to save it as a new map. So with each edit we are generating a new map and every time someone wants to add more notes, he has to look first which one is the most recent.
Also using only one account to edit is not practicabel. In the case of parallel editing the last one wins.

It seems to me ArcGIS.com can be use to share (or better: present) maps and services to the community but not to work together. At least not in the easy way I was hoping for.
Am I using the wrong client? Or do I miss something?

Regards,
Joerg

MikeMinamiP1 · Answer

Yes, if you have an organizational subscription, the workflow to allow multiple people to edit a layer is to publish a feature service (either hosted or running on arcgis server) from your data. When this data layer is added to a web map, anyone who can access the map can edit the layer.

Thanks,

Mike

KerryShakarjian · Answer

Mike, since this thread was started in 2010, does ArcGIS.com support multiple people editing a layer? The organizational version?

I'm interested in doing the same thing with a high school class where 4 students at a time can edit a layer in ArcGIS.com.

Thanks

You are correct that ArcGIS.com doesn't really support the workflow you describe. There is only one map author and only he/she can edit the map.

Here's an idea you could try...

The different people in your group could create their own version of the map by doing a "Save as" then sharing the new version back with the group. As long as people created versions sequentially, all the edits could end up in one map. Not the ideal solution, but it could achieve your end goal.

Thanks,

Mike

JörgMoosmeier · Answer

Mike,

thank you for your fast feedback!
I think I will try the ideas website. I've allready found some of my issues there...

Regards,
Joerg