Latest Contributions by PeterKnoop

Our current workaround is to provide a person with multiple Named User identities. This comes with its own challenges, however, as users need to keep close track of which identity they are using to login where. ... View more

In the context of ArcGIS Online, the terms "feature layer (hosted)" and "feature layer collection" are equivalent. The former is typically used in user-facing contexts, like the documentation and user-interface, while the latter usually appears in systems administration and programmatic contexts. Both are generally synonymous with "feature service" too. A "feature collection" is different. It is a sub-type of "feature layer", supporting a specific, limited set of functionality (see Feature collections.)  For example, when you save a route from Map Viewer, it is stored as a "feature collection", and in the Online interfaced, it is listed as a "Route layer" with a source of "Feature collection". ... View more

FYI, it looks like a recent release of the ArcGIS API for Python (perhaps 2.4.2?) removed the problematic warning about a user being logged in with an administrator role, when all the user has is the privilege for creating Shared Update groups. The warning is no longer present in the latest ArcGIS Online Notebook runtime (version 12) from the October 2025 update. ... View more

Another use case of confusion and lack of functionality resulting from having a separate ArcGIS StoryMaps landing page. If a user goes directly to https://storymaps.arcgis.com, then when they login successfully they do not see the ArcGIS Online Information Banner message. At the end of each semester we need to encourage graduating students to do something proactively with their ArcGIS Online content. We do send an email notification out four weeks before the end of the semester; however, emails are often ignored. So we also add a note to the Information Banner four weeks prior to the end of the semester, and remove it at the end of the semester. That can be ignored as well, though the more channels we use to reach our people, the better our chance of success. The separate ArcGIS StoryMaps landing page does not display the ArcGIS Online Information banner. Instead it has its own message banner over which administrators have no control. (Right now it is showing a message about Classic Esri StoryMaps retiring, which is not helpful in our organization, as we have already addressed that.) (The same problem with not displaying the Information Banner exists with other siloed products that are supposed to be part of ArcGIS Online, such as https://experience.arcgis.com/ and https://survey123.arcgis.com/.) ... View more

@ThomasHoman perhaps this existing Idea captures what you are after: Use machine name as the default workstation alias in ArcGIS Pro? ... View more

@KellyHutchins thanks for sharing the example. It works for me as well. It looks like the issue is a bit more complicated, as to how the plus signs are introduced. It seems our URL shortener service generates QR codes that return URLs with the plus sign in them, but not for the shortened URL itself.  Using the URL for your South Dakota example, I've created a shortened URL: https://myumi.ch/G2E7E That URL works fine in browsers, including on an iOS mobile device, as the shortener returns the expected URL with %20s: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?appid=3205e45f82c64dbd8bb704f82b4f7891&state=South%20Dakota Here is the QR code from the URL shortener: Unfortunately the QR code encodes a modified version of the shortened URL:  https://myumi.ch/G2E7E?source=qrcode When our URL shortener is contacted at this URL, it returns: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/instant/basic/index.html?source=qrcode&appid=3205e45f82c64dbd8bb704f82b4f7891&state=South+Dakota So when you scan the QR code, the URL you get doesn't work as expected, as ArcGIS fails to interpret the plus sign as a space.     ... View more

The solution noted by @GabrielMarcus_C, using the built-in email notification feature of Groups in ArcGIS Online, has been an easy to use, reliable workaround for us: Send E-mail Notifications with ArcGIS Notebooks - Online It also enables you to avoid potentially complicated troubleshooting with security configurations to use your own SMTP server to send mail out. You can extend the approach in the example as well, and include creation of a group on the fly, sending your email, and then deleting the group, if you only need things temporarily. ... View more

If you have a lot of content in your organization, you will find it faster to include your search constraints directly in the search. Such an approach is identical to what happens when you use the GUI for searches like this. For example, if you want to get a list of items "shared to the world" in the GUI, then you would go to the Content view, and filter Sharing to "Everyone (public)". The equivalent with the ArcGIS API for Python is the Item search() method, including the "access" parameter to filter on a sharing level of "public": publicly_shared_items = gis.content.search( query = "1=1", # scopes search to examine all content filter = "access:public" # filters results to publicly accessible content ) If you do have a lot of content in your organization, then I would recommend switching from search() to advanced_search(), as the latter supports paging for efficiency and improved performance. (Also, use the search method's filter parameter, rather than query, to specify "access:public". Filter is the preferred option when you want to search for exact parameter values; see Query Vs Filter in the underlying REST API.) For identifying a list of items "shared to specific groups", the starting point in the GUI would be to go to each group and view their content. Similarly, with the ArcGIS API for Python, you would use the Group search() method to generate a list of items shared to a group: # Retrieve the group whose contents you want to list. # (You could also search for the group by title or other properties using GroupManager's search method.) group = gis.group.get('id_of_group') # Retrieve a list of items shared with the group. items_shared_with_group = group.search( query = "*" ) If you expect any group to have more than 100 items shared with it, then leverage the paging support in the Group search() method. For example, expanding on the above example: # Retrieve the group whose contents you want to list. # (You could also search for the group by title or other properties using GroupManager's search method.) group = gis.group.get('id_of_group') # Compile a list of items shared with the group. items_shared_with_group = [] # Set initial record start parameter to 0. This will be incremented for each search batch. next_start = 0 # Loop until there are no more search results to return, as indicated by nextStart = -1. while(next_start != -1): # Retrieve batch of search results result = group.search( query = "1=1", # scopes search to examine all content max_items = 100, # do not set higher than 100, or a bug will return duplicate results start = next_start # start from end of last batch of search results ) # If there are results returned, add them to the list of items shared with the group. if( 'results' in result ): items_shared_with_group.extend(result['results']) # Update the starting record for the next batch (-1 indicates no more batches to return) next_start = result['nextStart'] # Display count of items found shared with group print(len(items_shared_with_group)) And, if you want to generate a list of items across multiple groups, then wrap the above code block with another loop that iterates through each group, and generates an overall, aggregated list of items.   ... View more

An example use case: Create a new privilege that allows members to reassign ownership of content in a Shared Update group to other members of the Group ... View more