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  CHAPTER 5: CAPACITY   Introduction   This chapter outlines options to equip GIS administrators and GIS support staff with knowledge, skills, and resources needed to administer ArcGIS. The main goal is to build capacity for administration, which can be accomplished with training, documentation, web courses, and technical support, as well as being involved with the user community and learning from peers.         Build capacity to administer ArcGIS   Administration is a continuous, involved process that requires various responsibilities and skills that might not be available currently in-house. You must get the right training to bring existing staff up to speed or hire team members or external consultants who have the right skills. Some of the responsibilities and skills to manage daily operation of ArcGIS and enforce governance policies are below. Administrators have the following key responsibilities: Administer users, groups, roles, and privileges Manage content lifecycle, sharing rules, and ownership Monitor performance and system health Manage data services, publishing standards, and metadata ArcGIS administration requires the following knowledge and skills: Cloud systems ArcGIS as a system of software components (apps, desktop, mobile, server, developer, and database) ArcGIS licensing (Named User or stand-alone options) ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise administration Web GIS publishing, sharing, and service optimization Scripting or automation (Python, ArcPy, REST API) Monitoring tools (dashboards and logging systems) There are instances in which an institution may choose to build, or bring, such capacity within the organization. In other instances, an institution may choose to invest in professional services or additional capabilities to accomplish the desired outcome. An example of acquiring additional capability at cost is purchasing Premium Feature Data Store, in contrast to spending time managing content storage through archiving and deleting. This guide provides recommendations for governing ArcGIS and is intended as a starting point. At times, other resources may be necessary to provide GIS administrators or GIS support staff with necessary skills to implement the recommendations in this guide or determine the best course of action.   Use existing resources     You can use professional development resources to learn and stay updated. These resources may include documentation, training, blogs, and industry websites.   Esri resources   Whether you need a quick tutorial or a deep-dive set of training materials, there are many resources available to you. The following collection of ArcGIS Online administration resources can help you acquire needed skills. Some of these resources are self-paced, stand-alone documents. Some provide a sequence of activities for in-depth learning. Get started with the following introductory resources:   Get started as an ArcGIS Online organization administrator documentation—Get started with ArcGIS Online, including activating the subscription, learning basic navigation and administration tasks, and using additional resources. Administer your organization tutorial series—A collection of videos, tutorials and articles focused on setting up ArcGIS Online, learning how to manage members, content and groups, and working with credits and reports. ArcGIS Online Fundamentals learning plan ArcGIS Online Basics web course—Learn about accessing web maps, apps, and other GIS resources that have been shared to an ArcGIS Online organizational site. Publish GIS data as services to an ArcGIS Online organizational site. Create, configure, and share web maps and apps. Manage ArcGIS Online user roles and privileges. ArcGIS Online: Administration Essentials instructor-led course—Find content on an ArcGIS Online organizational site that meets your project needs. Create and configure web maps and web apps. Share maps and other content on your ArcGIS Online organizational site. Creating and Sharing GIS Content Using ArcGIS Online—Publish hosted feature services and tiled map services. Create and configure a web map. Use a template to share a web map as a web app.  ArcGIS Online implementation guide—PDF guide with essential tasks and best practices for setting up ArcGIS Online. Extend the reach of your GIS—PDF guide with additional ArcGIS Online tips and best practices. GIS in a minute video series—Short, focused video series on various ArcGIS Online uses, capabilities, and functions.   Go further with advanced resources: ArcGIS Online: Administration Essentials learning plan Configuring an ArcGIS Online Organization web course—Learn about and modify ArcGIS Online organization settings. Administering ArcGIS Online Members web course—Add members and assign user types, roles, credits, and licenses to members of an ArcGIS Online organization. Modify member access to an ArcGIS Online organization. Administering ArcGIS Online Content web course—Organize ArcGIS Online content to make it more discoverable for your organization. Manage content created within your ArcGIS Online organization. Monitoring an ArcGIS Online Organization web course—Explore the impact of usage and activity on an ArcGIS Online organization through an interactive dashboard and reports. Architecting the ArcGIS System: Best Practices document—Understand ArcGIS systems architecture and implementation strategy. ArcGIS Architecture Center—Workflows for designing, architecting, and building ArcGIS as a system.   Esri Support    Esri can provide support in various ways: Technical Support—If you have an Esri license agreement, you are entitled to several Esri authorized support callers (the number of authorized support callers varies depending on the type of agreement). As a GIS administrator or GIS support staff member, you should be one of those support callers. Contact Esri Technical Support about technical issues you may encounter. Professional Services—One option for developing capacity to help with ArcGIS governance is working with Esri Professional Services in a consulting engagement. The Esri experts can help if developing capacity within your organization is not a viable option or if your institution has a complex ArcGIS deployment. Account Management Support—Institutions with Education Institution Agreements have a dedicated education account manager. Contact your account manager for additional support or to ask any questions. If you do not know who your account manager is, use the Account Manager Assignments app. Alternatively, reach out to [email protected]. For customers outside of US, reach out to your local Esri Distributor office.   Your organizational resources   Your institution may have its own training resources. Seek out guidance from colleagues with similar roles who are managing analogous institutional systems. If you do not have any current training resources or plan created specifically for your own organization, consider creating a workforce development plan for managing and governing ArcGIS.   Get involved with the community   There is a large network of GIS administrators or GIS support staff with similar needs. Ask your questions, join an online conversation, read the latest blogs, and connect with colleagues to help answer any additional questions.   Leverage peer network for learning and best practices   To communicate, collaborate, and learn from peers, join the Esri Community, particularly the Education Community and Education Blog. Subscribe to the Education Blog for news and posts, including automatic emails when a new blog article is posted. You can filter blogs for GIS administration or licensing-related topics, specifically by choosing the Administration and Licensing Best Practices labels. Being part of this community, you will learn information about product updates, education program changes, educational resources, events, and many other education-related matters. Discussions and contributions are welcome in this community. You can also subscribe to other Esri Community areas, which focus on specific products, industries, or capabilities. You can browse, search, and subscribe to the ArcGIS Blog to learn information about specific ArcGIS applications.   For additional information, check the Higher Education community pages, along with the IT Support section of the Education Industry pages.   Join events   Regularly check the Higher Education Events website for upcoming events, including webinars, conferences, summits, and more. You can also sign up for the Esri education newsletter to receive timely updates and relevant content for administrators. You can also browse past proceedings and event recordings for specific topics of interest. Some of these events are geared toward instructional resources and instructional materials, while others focus on GIS administration and governance best practices.   Conclusion   In this chapter, you learned about various resources you can use to get equipped with GIS administration skills. These resources include documentation, blogs, web courses, training, and various ways to engage with community and learn from peers. In addition, if building capacity within your institution is not possible, various Esri-provided services, such as consulting services, are available to help you implement ArcGIS governance standards.    Next Steps Read the rest of the chapters: Chapter 1 Mission from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 2 Governance from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 3 System from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 4 Engagement from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 5 Capacity from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  E-book PDF will be available soon. Contact your Account Manager or [email protected] with any questions.  ... View more

  CHAPTER 4: ENGAGEMENT   Introduction   This chapter outlines steps and recommendations associated with providing continuous support and communication to GIS users across the organization. Some of this communication relates to how and where users get help as they join the institution. Some of the communication is directed to users during their tenure at the institution. And last, as users leave (for example, as students graduate and faculty or staff retire or depart the institution), it is important to provide information on various options regarding content and future access. All throughout, continuous monitoring is integral to the governance process and serves multiple goals, such as understanding your system, raising awareness of how GIS is used, and promoting the value of geospatial technology. Communication and monitoring practices should follow your institution’s governance standards established in Chapter 2.         Communication goals   Clear guidelines and appropriate messaging must be communicated to incoming, active, and graduating or departing students, faculty, and staff. One goal is to proactively inform users of their responsibilities by posting guidelines and policies publicly. Another goal is to allow users within your organization to be self-sufficient. Tell users how to access ArcGIS and provide them with resources to learn skills and solve problems themselves. Advise them on how to archive or dispose of unneeded content and groups. Explain their options for transferring content before leaving and what happens to their content after they leave. All communication must comply with the institutional policies and guidelines you set.   ArcGIS access and support   Before onboarding users and communicating instructions to them, first create an ArcGIS access website. This website will provide information on how to access GIS technology, learn through training resources, and find help and technical support.   Create an ArcGIS access website   Having an internal website to explain how to access ArcGIS and get support saves time and effort for users, stakeholders, and ArcGIS administrators. The purpose of this website is to provide a one-stop shop for GIS information. Seek to answer the following questions with your website content: What GIS technologies are available and to whom? How can a user learn more about GIS? How can a user get GIS support? The website should include the following, at minimum:               Institutional guidelines and policies related to ArcGIS User responsibilities Data retention Proactive content management A single point of contact for assistance, an outline of what kind of support and training are provided, and where to go for help Email address Support options Training options How to get started with technology and a list of available software, along with next steps of how to access it For ArcGIS Online, link users directly to your institution’s ArcGIS Online organization. For ArcGIS Pro, provide instructions on how to download and install the application.   Provide support for ArcGIS   Having an ArcGIS access website is the starting point of supporting users, but you must also provide support options to offer additional advice and answer questions they may have that are not covered by your website.   Provide internal support to GIS users   There are various organizational structures—including centralized and distributed models—that can be successful. The following are examples of how support is provided and funded: An IT team with a part-time or dedicated role for GIS support Libraries or GIS centers with a part-time or dedicated role for GIS support Consulting services with a part-time or dedicated role for GIS support Experienced GIS users across several departments  Regardless of organizational structure, ensure GIS support aligns with existing approaches at your institution. Where do users go for help with other institution-wide software offerings? Keep the following general principles in mind: Provide a single point of contact for users to find the support they need. If user requests need to be assigned to another support team, the point of contact can help the user find the next steps and appropriate resources. Specify options and pathways to get help. Depending on your institutional standards, you may provide an email address, a web form, a ticket system, a phone number, a Slack channel, or another contact method. Set clear expectations and boundaries with your users, including the support staff’s typical response time and institutional policies about support inquiries.   Use Esri Support for GIS inquiries    If your GIS support staff cannot support inquiries, Esri Support is an option. As part of your Education Institution Agreement, or a Departmental Agreement, you can designate Esri authorized support callers who are on your GIS support staff or are consistent and experienced ArcGIS users. The number of authorized support callers varies depending on the type of agreement. Set expectations and boundaries with your users, such as the following: Prepare by gathering information to include when placing an Esri Support ticket (such as the operating system, software, and description of the issue) and tell users how this information is collected. Communicate the response time to place an Esri Support ticket.         As an authorized support caller, you can elevate the user to be the main contact for a technical support case. You can still monitor cases and their solutions.   Provide training and documentation to GIS users   You can provide training resources that you create, that Esri Training has made available, or that are recommended by the Esri Community. Ensure training content you share with your users is updated and relevant. If you include screenshots, budget time and resources to keep them up to date. Maintain a database of documentation to track what to review when a new product version is released. As a GIS support staff, find a balance between creating and maintaining resources and using existing resources provided by Esri or your institution.   Communication approaches   There are several considerations to keep in mind when communicating with users: Intended audience Everyone—Instructions to access ArcGIS, existing policies and guidelines, ways to get help, resources for support and training, and so on A subset of users—What do during offboarding (such as a specific guide for graduating students), updates to specific products only used by a subset of users, and so on Timeline and urgency Critical—Information related to a major update, product retirements, student offboarding prior to graduation, and so on Routine—Information such as reminders of institutional policies, what to do proactively with content during tenure at the institution, and so on Purpose Prompt action—Requests to delete or find alternative storage methods for large items, reminders to use metadata, and so on Provide information—Available support and training options, upcoming updates, product retirement, and so on   Use a variety of communication channels, depending on your institutional policies and preferences: ArcGIS capabilities, bulk emails, or your institution’s internal channels Use the ArcGIS Online information banner and access notice mechanisms during critical time periods (prior to graduation, for example, or after a major update). Send periodic reminder bulk emails, following institutional governance, about managing content. Collaborate with IT colleagues to use your institutional bulk email solutions. Use your institutional preferred communication methods, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, or internal messaging apps. GEO Jobe email capabilities to communicate with users or a subset of users Scripting Collaborate with IT colleagues to identify whether users are authorized and to identify a subset of users, groups, or content that meet a set of criteria for which you want to target a specific message. Collaborate with IT colleagues to use scripting and ArcGIS APIs to send email notifications, in compliance with your specific institution bulk email procedures and solutions. The following sections provide examples of communication during onboarding, ongoing and active, and offboarding periods.   Onboarding   The goal of onboarding is to allow users access to ArcGIS, set expectations for reasonable and appropriate use, and supply next steps to learn more. It is important to do this in an automated, scalable manner. Do the following for new users:  Provide information about how to access ArcGIS. For institution members, set up SAML logins and new member defaults. For external collaborators, consult your institution’s policies and terminology for affiliates. While it’s possible to use an ArcGIS login, it is recommended that you provide a SAML login as it is a scalable workflow and puts responsibility in the correct hands, without requiring a GIS administrator to monitor or remove access at the end of the project. Provide information about how to get help, support, and training by linking to your ArcGIS access website.   Ongoing and active communication   Communication with users throughout their tenure at the institution is important. Sharing product updates and new capabilities, as well as product retirements, is key to uninterrupted use. In addition, you can train users to manage their own content. Note: When new capabilities are added to ArcGIS, review and add appropriate privileges to users' roles. Users taking actions proactively, throughout their tenure at the institution, can help manage storage space, reduce the amount of content that is accumulated in ArcGIS Online, and improve curated data and app experiences. Communicate content management guidelines with users consistently as part of your institution’s data governance strategy. At least once per semester, as per the governance strategy you have established, communicate with users on the following topics: Clarify expectations of users who are part of collaborations (for example, research projects or course group projects), including responsible content ownership, what happens to this content once a collaborator leaves (such as graduation), and who manages the content if the collaboration comes to an end. Provide guidance on proper metadata, including established tags to flag important content.  Delete inactive content (for example, test items or old work). Provide suggestions for data management in a system that has a finite amount of storage. Keep only relevant versions of datasets or move old versions of the data outside the system. Share the Delete items help documentation, which includes considerations and tips to know before you delete content. Train students to properly dispose of their content prior to graduation (for example, how to transfer their work, how to delete unneeded items, and the timeline for doing so). Explain how to seek assistance from administrators to store large items. You can set alert options so that the owner of any item larger than a certain threshold (for example, 100 MB) will receive a message from the administrators. In certain instances, you can make exceptions to policies (such as your institution’s per-user feature storage limit) if there is an established process, including documentation of how an exception is handled and the responsibilities tied to it. Consider various options to increase storage capacity. Ask GIS instructors to make content management part of their syllabus. Consider placing excerpts in course syllabi or assignments. This could be a learning opportunity to understand cloud storage, various content management models, credits, and costs, especially since once students are employed in GIS roles across various industries, they will need to understand these business models. In the private and public sectors, the availability of licenses and credits is much more restricted than in education. Dispose of unused groups and share the Manage groups documentation.   Offboarding   As users prepare to depart the institution, it is important that you provide guidelines on what they need to do before they leave and what will happen after they leave, specifically about what happens with their account and content. Proactively inform users of their responsibilities. For example, they need to dispose of their groups and content before they leave. Post policies and guidelines publicly. Send periodic reminder emails, referring to policies and guidelines. Allow users to change ownership of their content or transfer their training history. Give users a custom role with privileges that allow them to change ownership of their content and groups. This can be set as part of the new member defaults. A user can request Esri's assistance in transferring their training history in Esri Academy to a different account (for example, a public account). See Managing Enterprise-wide Access to Esri E-Learning. Communicate account information and data retention guidelines with users consistently as part of your institution’s data governance strategy. Communication about offboarding should happen prior to the end of each semester, at least two or three times per year, to allow ample time for users to take action. Provide guidance on the following: How long will they be able to access ArcGIS How to transfer ownership of items within the organization How to transfer ownership outside of organization What will happen to their content if they do not take any actions How collaborators in a group can proactively work with users who are leaving to transfer ownership of group content to a remaining member Review Messaging for ArcGIS Online users leaving the university (students, faculty, staff) to share similar communication.    Continuous monitoring and organizational transparency   When you establish processes and procedures for monitoring ArcGIS use, ensure compliance with organizational transparency. This information may be important to the larger university community, including many stakeholders who don’t have administrator access to the organization to see internal reporting structures like the administrator dashboard and reports. As you collect this information about your organization’s health, you can share it with stakeholders for transparency and informed decision making.   Monitor usage   There are multiple ways to monitor usage, each adding additional capabilities and levels of complexity.   Use ArcGIS Dashboards with no customization.   You can use the ArcGIS status dashboard to understand and monitor how ArcGIS Online is used. The dashboard is organized into five sections: Credits, Content, Apps, Members, and Groups. There is no scripting or customization required to use the ArcGIS status dashboard. Learn more about dashboards in View and report status.    Customize the Admin Insights Template.   The Admin Insights Template is built using ArcGIS Notebooks and ArcGIS Dashboards. It provides insights about an institution's users, content, and groups. It is composed of three dashboards, which are snapshots of your organization’s information: Users and Licenses—The Users and Licenses dashboard provides visibility into how an ArcGIS organization’s users are structured and how they are being used over time. You can identify inactive or underused accounts, validate licenses, and spot trends that may signal the need to adjust onboarding processes, licensing strategy, or user management policies. Content—The Content dashboard helps you understand what content exists across the organization and how it is being used. It highlights stale or unused items, supports validation of sharing and metadata standards, and tracks the growth of non‑authoritative content. You can also monitor high‑impact items (publicly shared, highly viewed, or large content) and explore upstream and downstream content dependencies. Groups—The Groups dashboard provides insight into how groups are being used to organize content and manage access across the organization. It helps identify groups that support critical sharing workflows, surface unused or low‑value groups (such as empty or single‑member groups), and validate that group sharing settings align with organizational access and collaboration policies. The Admin Insights Template is a two-step deployment, and scripting is part of the deployment process. One notebook creates all of the items in the ArcGIS Online organization that are necessary for the toolkit (a data table, the three dashboards, and an ArcGIS Experience Builder app), and the second notebook populates the content with the organization's information.   Build a custom usage dashboard   For additional transparency to your university community, you can build a usage dashboard and integrate information from external institutional systems, such as a user's degree programs or majors. A customized dashboard allows for clearer visualization of named users and apps. When integrated with other institutional systems of record, the dashboard can provide additional information on usage across majors, degree programs, affiliation, and so on, which go beyond what ArcGIS Dashboards and the Admin Insights Template could provide. Refer to the GIS for Everyone (...and how to build your own ArcGIS Dashboard to show it!) blog article by a user from the University of Michigan, which uses a Jupyter notebook as a starting point. An alternative approach is shared by Claremont Colleges. Start collecting data as soon as possible to develop a historical record that can help with predicting future growth trends.   Dashboard examples   The following links are examples of how institutions have implemented their own customized dashboards to show the growing impact of ArcGIS across their respective communities and integrate information from other institutional systems. University of Michigan main user dashboard Credit Dashboard Item Dashboard Empowered Data Stewardship story teaching users to view how much feature storage they are using University of California, Merced  University of California, Davis  Penn State University of Maryland The Claremont Colleges   Conclusion   The recommendations in this chapter can help you understand various options for providing continuous support and communication to users across the organization. Continuous monitoring of ArcGIS is also important to assess trends and needs, as well as plan for the future. All of these actions should align with governance policies that you have put in place for managing ArcGIS.   Next Steps Read the rest of the chapters: Chapter 1 Mission from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 2 Governance from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 3 System from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 4 Engagement from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 5 Capacity from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  E-book PDF will be available soon. Contact your Account Manager or [email protected] with any questions.  ... View more

  CHAPTER 3: SYSTEM   Introduction   ArcGIS can be implemented and operated in multiple ways. Choosing the most efficient, robust, and scalable implementation for your institution is important, especially as more users learn and use the technology. This chapter focuses on implementing ArcGIS as an enterprise system and operating it in compliance with the policies and guidelines established in the previous chapter. This chapter applies to two types of organizations: New deployments—Institutions establishing ArcGIS for the first time. This includes a checklist of items to implement to achieve efficiency in managing the system. Existing deployment—Institutions with established ArcGIS environments that need to formalize and implement governance policies for user accounts, data retention, monitoring, and communication for maturing governance practices. This chapter will cover solutions and recommendations for managing lifecycle of content, users, and groups while maintaining good stewardship of ArcGIS resources.      NEW DEPLOYMENT   This section is for administrators who are starting a new deployment of ArcGIS. If your institution already has an ArcGIS deployment, see the Existing deployment section for more information. If you’re new to ArcGIS, or deploying a subscription for the first time, reference the help documentation alongside this guide. The documentation provides detailed definitions and context for capabilities and actions such as configuring the website, managing members, managing content, and so on. In addition, explore My Esri, a self-service portal that allows you to manage your organization's information. You can learn more by taking the My Esri 101 web course. Use the new deployment checklist below to ensure efficiency in deploying and operating a new ArcGIS Online subscription.     Complete the new deployment checklist   Complete the following steps when establishing a new deployment:   1. Identify an administrator and ensure proper administrative contacts in ArcGIS Online and My Esri.   First, identify a small group of people to take on the role of administrators. Who should be an ArcGIS administrator and what are the skillsets associated with this role? They should meet the following criteria: Have experience with managing software and accounts in a software as a service (SaaS) model Ideally, have experience with ArcGIS  Understand institutional policies and guidelines for data governance (user and account information, data retention, security, communication, and so on) Administrative contacts must be updated in both ArcGIS Online and My Esri. See the Technical Support resource page that outlines differences between My Esri and ArcGIS Online.  The following best practices are recommended for ArcGIS Online administrators: Ensure you have more than one administrator to share responsibilities.  Ensure that you have one account per administrator, not a single, shared account. This is important for accountability purposes.  Ensure you have and use an ArcGIS account, not a SAML account, for administration. That way if there is an issue with SAML logins, an administrator can always still sign in directly through www.arcgis.com. Create and use separate accounts for administration work and day-to-day work. Administrators have broad access to organizational data and accounts and can accidentally overwrite or change data. For additional information, refer to the Know who holds the keys: Review your organization administrators blog article.  The following best practices are recommended for My Esri administrators: Review permissions for team members who manage ArcGIS. Make sure permissions are set correctly and are current. Ensure the organization details, organization contact, and security contact are provided. As a best practice, use email aliases or other group identities for the organization contact and security contact. That way, there is not a single point of failure. Set up authorized support callers. Given the authorized support callers are limited in number, it is important to prioritize granting this privilege to individuals who have the role of providing geospatial support on campus (such as a GIS help desk). If there are authorized support caller spots left, those can be shared with faculty and staff who use ArcGIS the most. Set up a cadence (quarterly, bi-annually, or annually) to audit the settings above and ensure that the right users still have the right access. It is important to verify and update administrative contacts at least once per semester, or when an administrator’s role in your university changes. If for any reason your administrator leaves or otherwise can’t be reached and you do not have backups, it is difficult to regain administrative access to your ArcGIS organization. Refer to the Write an ArcGIS Online Admin Change Letter of Authorization article.   2. Enable SAML or SSO.    It is recommended that you manage ArcGIS Online accounts by using SAML logins or OpenID Connect logins, commonly referred to as single sign on (SSO). SSO is a capability supported by many vendors to allow a user to access multiple systems with a single username and password, maintained by the institution. Students, faculty, and staff can use the same credentials coming from their institution’s enterprise identity store to sign in to ArcGIS Online. SSO provides the following capabilities: Ease of access for students, faculty, and staff—One set of credentials will be used, which allows users to remember passwords, save projects, and access geospatial portfolios without multiple log-ins. Simplified user management for administrators—No additional account logins need to be created for ArcGIS Online.  Proper access permissions—When students, faculty, or staff are no longer affiliated with the university, access is prevented automatically. They will no longer be able to sign in to ArcGIS Online. Tracking ArcGIS Online usage—Monitoring usage is important for showing the value of ArcGIS. Once you are using institutional identities, you can integrate information from other sources, such as a user's degrees and programs.  For additional information, refer to the Why Single Sign On for academia (SAML logins) blog article. The following SAML practices are recommended: For academic ArcGIS Online organizations, allow the option to automatically join users to the organization, giving users immediate access the first time they sign in. Note, it is recommended that you scope access at the IdP (for example, app assignment and group membership) to restrict who can authenticate into ArcGIS Online. For administrative ArcGIS Online organizations, enable the option to manually invite users to join the organization (since there is a stricter limit of available accounts).     Create a custom sign-in for your organization. See the Create a custom sign-in documentation.   3. Customize your login configuration.   By default, ArcGIS desktop and mobile products are configured to point to the generic public ArcGIS Online address (www.arcgis.com). This means users must go through a multistep workflow to sign in to their ArcGIS Online organization; however, that can typically be alleviated by configuring your ArcGIS Online organization to only show relevant login options and allowing the apps to default to your organization. In ArcGIS Online, click Organization > Settings > Security > Custom sign-in. Configure it to display your SSO experience first and then the Not a member... route to the full, generic sign-in dialog box. In ArcGIS Pro, click Settings > Licensing, and set your Licensing portal to the URL for your ArcGIS Online organization. This will be done by the end user directly if they download the application from ArcGIS Online (the administrator cannot do this for everyone). If the ArcGIS Pro download is shared with an institutional file share, the installer could be customized by an administrator, and the end user will not have to make changes, which could save time and avoid support requests related to sign in.   4. Enable credit budgeting.   Enabling credit budgeting is the first step you must take to ensure responsible use of credits. Next, set credit allocation under New Member Defaults, so that all new members who join the organization do not exceed the allocated amount. They will not be able to run tools or processes that consume credits above this allocation. See the Enable credit budgeting documentation to learn how to enable credit budgeting and set credit allocations. This is under Settings and Credits.         There are two main goals of credit budgeting: Protect the organization from user mistakes—Issues such as infinite loops during programming or working with incorrect extents can cause unnecessary credit consumption. Setting a credit allocation will prevent such mistakes from exhausting the organization’s credits. Promote reasonable use—Proactively direct users to better solutions instead of consuming credits beyond reasonable use. Credit budgets encourage students to find the right tool for the right job in the ArcGIS ecosystem. For additional information about various options, check the Credits section under Existing deployment below.   5. Configure new member defaults.    It is most efficient to instantly grant new users access to licenses and capabilities. Therefore, it is recommended that you configure new member defaults to assign capabilities and privileges automatically. This facilitates maximum access and minimizes inquiries to administrators, ultimately saving time and costs. Credit budgeting will determine appropriate use of resources. New member defaults include user type and role, groups, credits, Esri access, and username format.   User type and role    For Academic use (teaching and learning) ArcGIS Online subscriptions, enable the Professional Plus user type. For Administrative (operations, infrastructure, and facilities management) subscriptions, there are different options depending on your goal. Reach out to your account manager or [email protected] with any questions about Administrative use deployments.       It is recommended that you create a custom role—for example, a new role called Publisher (New User) based on the built-in Publisher role—and add all relevant privileges. See the example in the image below. This allows users access to necessary capabilities while minimizing requests to administrators.       Groups   It is recommended that you create a group with curated content and add all new users to this group. It will help them get started with access to relevant content and information.         Credits   You previously enabled credit budgeting tools for the organization. Now, you’ll apply credit budgets to users by setting the credit allocation. To do this, click Settings > New Member Defaults > Credits.   NOTE: The credit allocation limit does not apply to the user's storage consumption. Monitor and manage storage separately. Storage consumption is covered in the next section.   Determine credit allocation   Credit needs for users in higher education vary. Often, a small number of advanced users require high credit budgets to do large geocoding projects, detailed spatial analysis, and other credit-intensive work. In setting a credit budget that works for both these high-intensity users and more typical education users, consider the 80/20 rule. Find a credit budget amount that satisfies 80 percent of users while recognizing that there may be outliers that require special handling as usage occurs. It’s important to find this compromise for the following reasons: If the credit allocation is set too low, an excessive number of Credit allocation exceeded notifications could be received, and users may not be able to accomplish their work in a timely manner. They will have to ask for additional credits, and administrators will have to act upon the request. If the credit allocation is set too high, your organization may need to purchase additional credits, as the credits could be exhausted too quickly. What is considered a reasonable credit budget varies. A large research university might allocate 2,000 credits per user. For a smaller institution where GIS is used primarily in teaching, 500 credits per user might make more sense. Setting a credit budget does not mean that everyone will consume their credit allocation limit. Most users in higher education organizations will not consume credits at all. Therefore, setting a reasonable allocation to allow GIS users to do their work is advised, as well as regularly revisiting the amount to accommodate your organization's evolving patterns of use. It is recommended that you regularly view the administrator dashboard to monitor the credit burn for your organization and use this information to make an informed decision about updating credit allocations. Also consider generating weekly, monthly, or quarterly reports on credit usage for tracking over time. It is recommended that you reset users’ credit allocation each semester to ensure members of your organization have an adequate amount of credits to do their work. It can help reduce inquiries to administrators for additional credits. This can be done manually or automatically with a script.   Esri access   Allow users to learn independently and help themselves by providing access to Esri resources and interactions. Enabling this option allows users to do the following: Access Esri Training Participate in the Esri Community Comment on ArcGIS Blogs Manage Esri emails Access My Esri       Username format   The default format is recommended. This will use the organization’s short name, which was set when the ArcGIS Online organization was created.   6. Enable the recycle bin.   Enable the recycle bin for your organization to provide protection against mistaken deletion. The recycle bin retains deleted content for 14 days. There is no backup functionality in ArcGIS Online. Sign in to your ArcGIS organization as an administrator. Click Organization > Settings > Items. In the Recycle bin section, click Opt in to the recycle bin and click Close to dismiss the recycling details. For additional information, refer to the Recycle Bin—What you need to know blog article.   7. Enable AI assistants.   Generative AI assistants can streamline the ArcGIS user experience. AI assistants can help create content, search and summarize data, provide suggestions and recommendations, and write code. There are different AI assistants available for various applications. To enable AI assistants, click Organization > Settings > AI Assistants and turn on the Allow use of AI Assistants by members of your organization toggle button. For additional information, refer to Configure AI assistants. For additional information and to verify compliance with specific AI policies at your institution, check ArcGIS Trust Center – Trusted AI.   8. Share installers and executables.   When users get started with ArcGIS, they will first sign in to ArcGIS Online to gain access to the many apps that are available. In certain instances, they will use applications such as ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Drone2Map, ArcGIS CityEngine, that require an install file. Access to install files for ArcGIS Pro can be provisioned directly through your organization, providing a self-service approach to eliminate barriers to access for users and allow scalability, while minimizing requests to administrators. For ArcGIS Pro, instruct users to download the latest version from ArcGIS Online in Settings. See Download ArcGIS Pro from ArcGIS Online in the documentation.   For all other ArcGIS products, including older versions of ArcGIS Pro, use the institutional delivery method or file share of preference for your institution, such as OneDrive, Box, and so on. Do the following: Ensure you provide institution-specific instructions for users. Ensure files are accessible only to authorized users (not shared publicly). Provide access to multiple versions. Deliver custom installers that point to your ArcGIS Online organization (rather than www.arcgis.com). Note: It is not recommended to use My Esri for all your users, as this requires manual management and scales poorly as the number of users across your institution increases. For additional information, refer to the Best way to share ArcGIS license files and executables blog article.   9. Provide guidance on using ArcGIS Pro in a disconnected environment.   If students, faculty, and staff need to work in a disconnected environment (such as field work without internet connectivity or in secure enclaves), the options depend on their use case: For users who are disconnected intermittently (such as during field work), taking an ArcGIS Pro license offline is recommended. For users in a secure enclave (air-gapped, no connectivity), a stand-alone ArcGIS Pro license is recommended. It is recommended that you enable offline licensing of ArcGIS Pro as an organization-wide setting (click Licenses > Add-on Licenses). There are options available for maximum allowed duration (end of license term) or for a specified period of time.       If a user checks out a license beyond the institution license renewal end date (the renewal date can be found on the ArcGIS Online overview page), the license will stop working. In such instances, the user and administrator must plan ahead for the license to be refreshed and checked out again for the new term. If that is not possible, an early renewal can be initiated, or the license term can be changed permanently so that typical field work timeframes are not impacted. Contact your account manager or [email protected] for assistance. If users are working in an air-gapped or black-box environment without internet access, a stand-alone ArcGIS Pro license is available, if needed (free for the first year). Contact your account manager or [email protected] for assistance. Note: You may need to recover a lost Named User license if a user’s computer is reimaged without the user first returning their license, if the user took their license offline in a virtual environment without returning it, or if the user’s computer is lost or stolen. Contact Esri Technical Support to reset lost Named User licenses. For additional information, refer to the Taking ArcGIS Pro Offline blog.    10. Follow established ArcGIS governance policies and guidelines.   While at this stage in your new deployment, you do not have accumulated content and user accounts, it is important to ensure policies are in place and will be followed as usage of ArcGIS evolves. See the Existing deployment section for information about evaluating, reporting and health-checking your system, as well as options and solutions for managing content or storage, credits, users, and ongoing communication.   EXISTING DEPLOYMENT   This section is for administrators who are managing an existing deployment of ArcGIS that already has users and content and for which governance practices need to be implemented or revised. This section covers the following topics: Migrate existing ArcGIS accounts to SAML accounts Evaluate your existing system with reporting and health-checking Manage storage Reduce credit usage Manage users Note: It is recommended that administrators of existing deployments review the new deployment checklist to verify if their existing system can be enhanced.    Apply policies and implement management solutions for GIS content, credits, and users    As ArcGIS Online usage grows across educational institutions, higher education customers should think about managing the amount of content and storage, depending on their institutional needs and policies, as well as Esri license allocations. As discussed earlier, governance is instrumental in setting institution-wide standards and policies that apply to how users and content are gathered, stored, accessed, processed, and disposed of. In addition, it is important to establish processes and procedures for monitoring this usage. There are multiple reasons for doing so, including the following: Illustrating the impact of GIS on the university’s educational and research mission Communicating the growing breadth and depth of GIS use to university stakeholders responsible for funding Maintaining and supporting institutional systems like ArcGIS Ensuring adherence to governance policies Planning for future needs Preventing potential storage shortages or other related issues down the road   In addition to monitoring ArcGIS use, it is important to have procedures in place for health-checking your ArcGIS Online organization to support expansion or contraction planning—such as adding or removing storage, users, credits, and so on—to ensure sustainable use. The notion of health-checking, which is periodically reviewing a checklist of items as described below, is important to ensure optimal performance and uninterrupted service.    Complete the existing deployment checklist   Complete the following steps when evaluating an existing deployment:   1. Optionally, migrate existing ArcGIS accounts to SAML accounts.   If you just enabled SAML and have been using ArcGIS already, you will have existing ArcGIS accounts. While administrators can choose to let both ArcGIS and SAML logins exist, taking proactive steps to migrate minimizes confusion of having two accounts and provides an opportunity to delete older or unused content and groups. If you choose to transition from ArcGIS accounts to SAML accounts, see the following recommendations: Communicate required changes and advise users of steps they must take to change ownership of their content and groups. Provide a well-advertised cut-off deadline. Consider implementing a grace period, such as disabling accounts and unsharing content, before finally deleting. Ensure you provide support to users as an administrator, and provide information on who to contact, where to go for help, and so on. For additional information, refer to Transition your ArcGIS accounts to organization-specific (SAML or OpenID Connect) accounts.   2. Evaluate your existing system with reporting and health-checking.   Before governance policies and solutions are implemented, you must evaluate your existing ArcGIS system. There are various reports and health checks that can be performed to understand the state of your system and evaluate it against your governance policies to take next steps and implement solutions. Therefore, periodic checking of your ArcGIS Online organization is recommended to ensure optimal use of the system. It is recommended to do this once per semester or at least once per year.        Review feature data store usage   By default, an ArcGIS Online subscription comes with Standard Feature Data Store, which includes 500 GB of feature data storage and supports the full range of hosted feature layer operations. This quota includes feature storage only and does not include file or imagery storage. The feature data store also determines the computational resources available to your organization. Administrators must maintain their feature data store threshold below this 500 GB limit to ensure availability for users as well as optimal performance. On average, for higher education ArcGIS Online organizations, 85 percent of credit use is consumed by feature storage. The costs associated with monthly or yearly feature storage—if one consumes the entire 500 GB of storage—are 120,000 credits per month and 1,440,000 credits per year. Reducing the amount of content can decrease credit costs, or increasing storage capacity can ensure the organization maintains computational resources and that credit consumption is within the Education Institution Agreement credit allocation. Monitoring storage and resource usage allows you to anticipate the need to upgrade or take other actions to sustain a reasonable user experience. To learn more about recording usage from the status dashboard, see Use the dashboard.   Review the status dashboard   One way to understand and monitor how ArcGIS Online is used is to glean information from the status dashboard. It provides administrators with tools to monitor and analyze various aspects of their organization's usage, such as tracking feature data store use, credit consumption, app use, member activities, and so on. See View and report status. The dashboard provides detailed information about credit consumption. You can see overall metrics about the organization, or you can go deeper into this data from either an item or individual user perspective. For example, if you notice credit consumption from an analysis spike suddenly in the organization, you can use the dashboard to pinpoint which user or users are responsible for this spike as well as what kind of analysis or workflow they were running. This allows you to do quick checks or on-the-spot monitoring. For more in-depth capabilities or batch monitoring, reporting may be more suitable.   Review storage with an item report   In ArcGIS Online, you can click Organization > Status page > Reports to Create reports, specifically an item report. To identify items in the organization that consume large amounts of feature storage, download the report, open it in your preferred spreadsheet software, and sort the respective fields. For further information, check the View and report status documentation and the Tracking your ArcGIS Online Feature Data Store Key Health Indicators and Supercharge your ArcGIS organization management with reports articles. You can also schedule the report to run automatically every week or month for future record keeping and predictions. Once you have an idea of your items or content, you can choose a solution that works for you or a combination of them to help comply with your existing policies. Even if you’re not close to reaching the 500 GB limit, you can review the solutions below to understand your options for scaling the organization if it becomes necessary.   Review credits with a credit report   What does credit usage look like at your institution? How do you determine what most users consume credits on so they can be helped and supported? It is recommended that you monitor credit usage weekly or monthly. For a quick view, check the dashboards in ArcGIS Online to see credit usage over time and by type. For ongoing monitoring, check the Reports section in ArcGIS Online and use the following steps: Generate a credit report. Schedule reports to capture data going forward. Schedule the report to run automatically every week or month. Manually run reports to capture past data and predict future consumption. Download the report .csv file. Open in spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel. Filter, sort, and summarize to explore your credit usage. For additional credit budgeting strategies, see Managing credits in ArcGIS Online. Once you have an idea of your credit consumption, you can choose a solution that works for you or a combination of solutions to help comply with your existing policies.   Review named users for inactive users   Education customers must proactively manage their quota of named users. With the cyclical nature of incoming and graduating students and the finite number of Named Users, it is important to think about governance standards related to Named Users, including offboarding of graduating students. For a quick view of your members, use the Status dashboard. For ongoing monitoring, click Organization > Status > Reports and do the following: Click Create report > Report schedule > Member report and choose the time period, including daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Schedule reports to capture data going forward. Manually run reports to capture past data (ArcGIS only retains one year of history). Download the report (.csv file). Open in spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel. Filter, sort, or summarize to explore your users’ usage. Explore data in conjunction with other reports (Item, Activity, Credit, and so on).   Identify whether users are authorized    For institutions with an Education Institution Agreement, the license is meant to serve the entire campus community. Therefore, the potential user base includes your entire institution. In reality, not all students, faculty, and staff will use ArcGIS. Identifying whether users are authorized should be done once a semester. This task requires collaborating with the IT team who maintains the system of record or identity provider at your institution. If you have implemented SAML accounts, or ArcGIS-only accounts in ArcGIS Online, you can use that list to compare the status of users to the system of record to determine which students are, or are not, authorized. In the case of ArcGIS-only accounts, depending on how your institutional systems are set up, you may need to both collaborate with your IT team and check students' status with the registrar's office and faculty or staff status with the human resources office. As an ArcGIS Online administrator, you must share a list of ArcGIS Online accounts with your IT colleagues and receive a list from them of authorized and unauthorized users. With this information, you can assess the true usage statistics of ArcGIS Online (as part of a monitoring practice), and you can delete users who are no longer authorized.   Ensure your administrator contacts are up to date   It is important to verify and update administrative contacts at least once per semester, or when an administrator’s role in your university changes. Refer to Know who holds the keys: Review your organization administrators blog article.   Ensure you have more than one administrator   It is important to have more than one administrator assigned to each subscription. ArcGIS Online security has been increased to meet FedRAMP certifications, and as a result, Esri can no longer easily add new administrators on behalf of an institution. For example, if your administrator leaves and if you do not have a backup, you must follow a formal process to add an administrator. This process will include a letter with an executive signature approving the change. This process could take time and resources to complete, resulting in a significant delay in service interruption. Refer to the Write an ArcGIS Online Admin Change Letter of Authorization article for steps to follow if your administrator leaves and you have no way to get in touch with them.   Review My Esri permissions for team members who manage ArcGIS   Review your My Esri contacts for proper permissions. Make sure permissions are set correctly and they are current. Then verify that your authorized support callers are still accurate.   3. Manage storage.   In this section, you will review and selectively identify solutions that will help comply with the governance policies and guidelines you created in the previous module. Once you have an idea of your storage needs, content, users, and credits, consider the following for your organization.     The approach you take to storage and content retention must be tied to the governance policies that you put in place.   Reduce storage   After running an item report, consider removing any large items that are not being accessed or are redundant. This includes content that is no longer needed, that can be stored in other systems equally or more efficiently, content that is redundant (for example, copies of data), or content that violates your governance principles. Students inevitably leave the institution and become inactive users with inactive content. In addition, redundant data can result from course activities in which dozens of students follow the same workflow. Removing content from ArcGIS Online isn’t always a question of deleting content. In some cases, it’s a question of archiving, transferring, or identifying alternative storage for content.   IMPORTANT: Before deletion, transfer, archiving, or backup take place, it is important to communicate with potentially affected users. Verify with item owners whether the items are still needed. If the items are still used, alternative options for hosting this content should be discussed. A suggested workflow, if applicable, could be a practice of un-sharing items for a grace period, and then deleting them (if no inquiries are made about the missing data). Archiving content is an option as well to ensure data is not lost, if needed. Factor the purpose of this content into your decision. For example, research data should be treated with more caution than a student’s class exercises. Communication options and considerations are covered in the next section.   Export content from the system before deleting   One strategy for reducing space in an ArcGIS Online organization could be exporting content to another format or to another ArcGIS Online organization and then deleting the content once it has been exported.  Ensure you have the right data in the right place—It is recommended that higher education customers verify whether certain content belongs to the academic ArcGIS Online organization. At times, academic ArcGIS Online organizations host content that should be hosted in administrative or operational ArcGIS Online organizations. Other times, content that should be widely available to the public should be hosted by outside entities, such as state data repositories. Transfer content during the offboarding process—In some cases, departing users should transfer content to another location for permanent storage after they no longer are part of the educational institution. For example, as students graduate, they might want to transfer GIS portfolios and capstone or thesis work to an ArcGIS for Personal Use organization. There are several options for transferring content, listed below. Guidance on choosing the appropriate method can be found on the Esri Community blog. ArcGIS Assistant—Not supported by Esri Technical Support. Use at your own discretion. GEO Jobe—Administration tools for ArcGIS Online or for ArcGIS Pro. ArcGIS  API for Python clone_items method—Recommended, but requires scripting. Migrate Content for ArcGIS Enterprise/ArcGIS Online—Additional resource.   Implement archiving and backups   It is recommended that you archive important ArcGIS Online content to an external destination. Archiving is the process of storing data for future reference, which is often a practice for other data management systems. Archiving could reduce storage if the original content is removed from ArcGIS Online and archived in a separate system. As an institution’s administrator, you’ll need to decide what should be archived and which archival option would work for you. Consider items that need to be immediately accessible (which would stay in the ArcGIS Online organization) versus items that only need to be accessible once in a while (that could be archived). Take into account any existing policies about data retention that you created. For example, you can do one or more of the following options: Archive hosted feature layers to cloud storage as file geodatabases. Archive ArcGIS StoryMaps stories as JSON files. Use GEO Jobe Back Up My Org. Use ArcGIS Enterprise as an archival solution. Use the ArcGIS Online notebook Demo Backup to Dropbox. After opening the link, sign in to your ArcGIS Online organization. This method requires developer access to Dropbox, usually included with Education institution licensing. Read Introducing the ArcGIS Well-Architected Framework for additional considerations. You may also want to consider backing up important content for the purpose of disaster recovery. Backup is a process of duplicating data that can be retrieved in the event of data loss. An organization could consider layers of importance to be backed up. Backups do not reduce storage, though backup is a recommended practice for critical content (such as important research projects, publications, and so on). Similar example options as above would apply. You can use third-party tools, such as GEO Jobe Back Up My Org, or Esri Professional Services can provide recommendations. If interested, contact your account manager or [email protected].   Delete content   After you’ve exported, backed up, and archived your content, and communicated with your users, you can delete content in accordance with the governance policy that you set for your institution. Once a process is in place, there should not be much to remove, other than ongoing maintenance and implementation of your policy. If you are deleting users and content simultaneously, keep the following in mind: If you are deleting a single member who owns content and groups, you must first transfer their content and groups to a different member or delete their content and groups. If you are bulk deleting members, you can either transfer or delete their content. You cannot transfer groups when bulk deleting members; their groups will be deleted.   Increase storage capacity or implement alternative options to ArcGIS Online    Buy additional credits   There are two feature data store types: Standard Feature Data Store (default with the Education agreement)—Feature storage typically consumes a significant number of your agreement's credits, so it is the most important type of storage to manage. Premium Feature Data Store (additional cost)—Feature storage does not consume credits. However, you must manage your feature storage to remain within the quota defined for your Premium Feature Data Store level. You can purchase additional credits to cover credit consumption beyond your Standard Feature Data Store license allocation.   License Premium Feature Data Store   For organizations reaching the 500 GB Standard Feature Data Store storage limits, and for which reducing feature storage usage is not a viable option, consider upgrading to Premium Feature Data Store. In addition to providing additional storage, Premium Feature Data Store provides additional dedicated database resources such as memory, CPU, and input and output (I/O) and could improve your organization's overall performance.   If you don't renew your subscription, Premium Feature Data Store will automatically revert to Standard Feature Data Store, and the storage credit model will resume, provided your subscription has less than 500 GB of storage in use.   What still consumes credits   Premium Feature Data Store does still require credits for the following: Credit-based transactions (for example, routing, geocoding, and spatial analysis) still consume credits when used. Each level provides twice the power of the previous, with the highest level (M4) offering 16 times the compute available with Standard Feature Data Store. Non-feature storage (files and attachments outside Premium Feature Data Store) still uses credits. Note: Purchasing Premium Feature Data Store is more cost effective than buying additional credits to cover storage costs.   Use ArcGIS Enterprise to host large datasets   ArcGIS Enterprise runs on infrastructure your institution provides. It allows you to control your deployment. It can be run on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Kubernetes, and it supports small single-machine deployments as well as large multimachine deployments in the following situations: Public cloud infrastructure Private cloud infrastructure On-premises infrastructure using physical or virtualized hardware It works similarly to ArcGIS Online but provides many additional capabilities. While licensing for ArcGIS Enterprise is included as part of the Education Institution Agreement, there is an additional cost associated with using your own infrastructure or servers (on-premises or cloud), as well as administrative costs associated with setting up and maintaining it. Moving content from ArcGIS Online to ArcGIS Enterprise will require effort to update links and apps that depend on the migrated data. ArcGIS Enterprise can also be used for storage or archival purposes or for storing restricted information (health or privacy protected information). Consider the following options for purchasing Premium Feature Data Store or using ArcGIS Enterprise: Upgrade ArcGIS Online to Premium Feature Data Store that covers an institution’s projected feature storage needs for the year. M4 Premium Feature Data Store is the largest, which provides 4 TB of feature data storage. Upgrade ArcGIS Online to a smaller Premium Feature Data Store level (M2 or M3 Premium Feature Data Store) and move big projects to an institutionally supported ArcGIS Enterprise setup. Keep ArcGIS Online with Standard Feature Data Store and move big projects to an institutionally supported ArcGIS Enterprise set up. Options 2 and 3 are hybrid approaches, in which an institution would choose to host big feature storage items on ArcGIS Enterprise to help manage costs, and the rest of the feature storage needs could be handled by one of the Premium Feature Data Store options or Standard Feature Data Store—depending on projected storage needs. Your organization must consider which storage solution provides the best ROI in your specific context. With Premium Feature Data Store, Esri provides the infrastructure and management at a cost, while with ArcGIS Enterprise, the technology itself is available with your existing Esri license agreement, but there is an associated cost with setting up, operating, and maintaining your own infrastructure (on-premises or cloud) for ArcGIS Enterprise. The advantage of storing items with ArcGIS Enterprise is that you use local resources and do not consume cloud storage resources. A disadvantage could be that now there are two separate portals and publishers must be aware of and share content to the correct portal. However, if the system is properly designed, it will appear seamless to end users of the content. Since they are consuming the content, they will not be concerned with what portal it being hosted on. Note: Cost comparisons of Premium Feature Data Store versus ArcGIS Enterprise depend on your institution's needs, policies, and practices. Esri Professional Services can compare staffing, support, hardware, the software to run ArcGIS Enterprise, and the cost of purchasing Premium Feature Data Store. Esri Professional Services can provide recommendations on specifications for hardware depending on your requirements or systems, the cost of doing installations, and so on. If interested, contact your account manager or [email protected]. Depending on this assessment of your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment (including the costs of servers, ongoing maintenance, staff, and so on), purchasing Premium Feature Data Store could be the cheaper option. For those who aren’t already running ArcGIS Enterprise, Premium Feature Data Store is the recommended option.  Regardless of approach, it is crucial that enough lead time is provided to allow for conversations and proper scoping of requirements. You must schedule, plan, hold, and follow up on conversations with other business units and divisions in the university (IT, budgeting, and so on). Share the following resources with IT colleagues who are knowledgeable in supporting similar requirements for other systems: Introducing the ArcGIS Well-Architected Framework ArcGIS Architecture Center   Monitor performance of a feature data store   In addition to monitoring the storage consumption of your organization's feature data store, it is also important to monitor the performance of its processing power. The feature data store's compute resources (for example, CPU, I/O, and memory) power its database engine to support your queries, edits, analysis, Extract-Transform-Load (ETL), and so on. Sustained periods of peak use result in poor user experience, with requests timing out or tasks failing to complete. As your user base grows, you are likely to require more and more feature data store compute resources to sustain your organization's workload. By monitoring use, you can predict when you need to consider upgrading to a more powerful feature data store. Each step-up in feature data store levels, from Standard to Premium M2 to Premium M3 and so on, delivers additional compute resources. ArcGIS Online administrators can monitor the resource usage of their organization's feature data store by clicking Organization > Overview and clicking the Feature Data Store link. The resource usage graph at the bottom of the dialog box shows the use over the last hour, 24 hours, or week. The data in the resource usage chart can also be accessed programmatically with ArcGIS API for Python. This allows you to capture a historical record of your organization's feature data store compute performance over time, longer than the one-week rolling window available with the chart. The historical resource usage record shows periods of sustained maximum usage (100 percent over several minutes or more). These reflect intervals when users are asking more of the system that can be delivered. Users will notice the system has slowed, or for prolonged periods of sustained load, users may experience unexpected time-outs or failures. For additional feature data store processing power and compute resources, see Tracking your ArcGIS Online Feature Data Store Key Health Indicators.   4. Reduce credit usage.   If you predict your institution's credit consumption will exceed what is included in your licensing agreement, you can use various alternatives that provide on-premises support and resources for computationally intensive needs. These options will have an associated cost (buying additional storage, credits, or products).   Use Geocoding and Routing Solutions – ArcGIS StreetMap Premium    Using the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service or views of this locator for batch geocoding in ArcGIS. Routing and Network Analysis services also consume credits. However, credit estimation is available at the top of the tools, before running the geocoding, routing, or network analysis job. Therefore, encourage your users to estimate the number of credits they will use and have a discussion of what makes sense. A common approach to reducing geocoding or routing credit consumption is to obtain ArcGIS StreetMap Premium, which supports institutional delivery of such services, rather than using ArcGIS Online resources. It is a subscription product renewed yearly, and it is available at a cost. Your organization must determine what geocoding should be done in ArcGIS Online or offloaded to an alternative solution. Consider your institution’s needs, such as whether bulk geocoding is needed for research projects (100,000 addresses or more) or course projects (dozens or a few hundred addresses). Also, consideration should be given to data sensitivity. For example, if you work with health-care patient data and security is a concern, ArcGIS StreetMap Premium would be required regardless of the number of records. Once an institution has purchased ArcGIS StreetMap Premium, it can be used by others in the campus community, so that could be an advantage. In addition, there are several types of Education licenses, which provide different credit allocations. Use your best judgment in terms of credits available to you in ArcGIS Online (including projecting for future use, which is why understanding your patterns of credit use, as outlined previously, will be important), before considering ArcGIS StreetMap Premium as a more cost-effective solution. Work with your account manager or email [email protected] for additional information on obtaining ArcGIS Street Map Premium.    Use Spatial Analysis tools in ArcGIS Pro    Running any of the Spatial Analysis tools in ArcGIS Online consumes credits, though those tools only consume approximately 0.5 percent of overall credits in higher education use cases. Use the credit estimator in ArcGIS Online Map Viewer to calculate the expected credits for a transaction. As an alternative, consider running the tools locally in ArcGIS Pro. ArcGIS Pro offers a more comprehensive suite of tools, especially for more advanced workflows.  You can also use ArcGIS Enterprise for analysis-heavy tasks.   5. Manage users.   Your practices for deleting or offboarding users must follow the governance policies that you put in place.   Delete or offboard users    Deleting users cannot be reversed. Before deleting users, decide the right time to delete users in your institution’s academic year, what constitutes old content, and what to do with the users’ content and groups, as defined by your governance policies. There are several approaches you can take to delete users, which must be used in conjunction with your policies: Using the ArcGIS Online tools (GUI) is recommended for working with one account at a time. As a result, it does not scale and typically results in haphazard enforcement of retention guidelines and policies. See the Delete members documentation for ArcGIS Online. GEO Jobe administration tools for ArcGIS include tools for the bulk deletion of users. Scripting, shown in the following scriptable workflow, could be run annually at the start or end of the academic year: Identify users who have not signed in recently. Use a cutoff of a specific period of time (or as defined by your institutional policy).  Delete any of their content that is not shared. Verify that no one has accessed it for the determined period of time and that it is safe to delete. View groups owned by the users and delete groups that have no content. Unshare the users’ remaining shared content and capture the sharing settings in a tag. This provides a grace period (for example, 1 year); and this content will be deleted in step 2 upon the next iteration of the process. If the users do not own groups or content, delete the user. To get started, you can use notebook templates for administrative tasks in ArcGIS Online. To access these, click Notebooks > New Notebooks > Template Notebooks > Administration.     You can also use service accounts or allow alumni access.   Use service accounts   To delete a user without deleting their content, you can transfer the content to another user. Service accounts can be used to store content from multiple users. Typically, this content is still being used. For example, a faculty member developed course materials and labs in ArcGIS that are used across the department but later leaves the institution. These materials need to be retained, so they are moved to a service account. This is a single account that can continue to host the content while allowing you to delete the original user who created the content. ArcGIS Online is a SaaS system, and accounts must be tied to individuals—except for service accounts. Passwords for service accounts should be stored in a password manager and maintained by IT managers. Service accounts can be used if the individuals managing them (typically ArcGIS administrators) have their own named user accounts. The service account should not be their only account.   Alumni access   According to the Esri Institution Agreement, authorized users include registered students, educators, and staff members of the institution. For certain institutions, registered students could also encompass alumni. The intent of the Institution Agreement is to provide access to current students, not alumni, but it allows the institution to set policies and practices regarding authorized users. For example, some institutions may choose to provide temporary access to alumni, such as while recent graduates are actively job-hunting and need to share their GIS portfolio from their time as a student.   Conclusion   The recommendations in this chapter can help you understand when you need to act and how to plan proactively for future years. Being a good steward of resources and operating within the bounds of existing allocations—storage, credits, users, and performance—is important for future management of ArcGIS resources. Given the policies you defined earlier, various solutions can be implemented to comply with those policies.   Next Steps Read the rest of the chapters: Chapter 1 Mission from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 2 Governance from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 3 System from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 4 Engagement from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 5 Capacity from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  E-book PDF will be available soon. Contact your Account Manager or [email protected] with any questions.  ... View more

  CHAPTER 2: GOVERNANCE   Introduction   This chapter will focus on defining governance policies and concepts that apply to ArcGIS. Having a governance plan for managing ArcGIS is a key component in planning for institutional implementation, aligning GIS use with the organization’s mission, and ensuring effective use of resources.     Governance   As outlined in Chapter 1: Mission, geospatial technology plays a critical role in advancing teaching, learning, research, and administration across higher education institutions. ArcGIS is no longer confined to a single department or discipline; it is an enterprise system that supports a broad and diverse community of students, faculty, researchers, and staff. As adoption grows, so does the need for clear direction, consistency, and accountability. This chapter focuses on governing ArcGIS—establishing the policies, decision-making structures, and responsibilities that guide how ArcGIS is accessed, used, managed, and sustained over time. This institutional framework allows you to effectively scale ArcGIS use for broader enterprise adoption, align it with existing policies, and keep your entire IT infrastructure secure, reliable, and sustainable. Governance is a foundational component of the geospatial framework introduced in Chapter 1. It connects institutional mission and strategy to the practical realities of operating ArcGIS as a system (Chapter 3) and supporting users through communication, engagement, and monitoring (Chapter 4). Without governance, system configuration and user engagement efforts become reactive and fragmented. With governance in place, institutions can make informed, consistent decisions that support long-term success. In this chapter, you will learn the following concepts: What ArcGIS governance means in higher education Why governance of ArcGIS is essential How governance establishes clarity around roles, responsibilities, and expectations   What ArcGIS governance is   In the context of higher education, governance defines who makes decisions, what is governed, and how policies are established, communicated, and reviewed. ArcGIS governance is the institutional framework for decision-making and accountability that guides acceptable conduct and practices. ArcGIS governance encompasses institution-wide standards and policies related to access permissions, user information, communication of responsibilities, and system monitoring and maintenance. How access to ArcGIS is provided and revoked How user information is managed How content—data, services, maps, and applications—is created, shared, retained, and deleted How communication with constituents about expectations and responsibilities occurs How usage is monitored to ensure a healthy and sustainable system Governance is not the same as system administration. Governance establishes direction, guardrails, and expectations. Administration implements and enforces those decisions through configuration, workflows, and operational practices. This distinction is critical: governance decides what should happen and why, while administration focuses on how it happens. Chapter 3 builds on this governance foundation by describing how policies are operationalized through ArcGIS system configuration and management. In higher education, governance must also account for the cyclical nature of the academic environment. Each year, there are new students, graduating cohorts, faculty transitions, research projects, and collaborations. Governance provides continuity amid this constant change by ensuring that policies and responsibilities persist even as individuals and roles evolve. Effective governance does not require inventing new rules in isolation. Instead, ArcGIS governance should align with and extend existing institutional policies. Your institution likely already has policies for identity management, data stewardship, privacy, security, records retention, and communication for other enterprise systems like email, learning management systems, and data storage platforms.   Why govern ArcGIS in higher education   A governance plan for ArcGIS is essential for institutions using ArcGIS as a trusted, enterprise-supported system. Governance is what transforms ArcGIS from a collection of tools into a strategic capability that can grow sustainably across the institution. Governance helps institutions do the following: Plan for growth and scale—As ArcGIS adoption expands across disciplines and administrative units, governance ensures consistent access, predictable usage, and manageable demand on resources. Set clear expectations–Governance establishes reasonable expectations for how ArcGIS should be used, what users are responsible for, and what support the institution provides. Support informed decision making–With defined policies and monitoring practices, institutions can make data driven decisions about access models, storage, credits, and future investments. Reduce risk and ensure compliance–Governance helps institutions align ArcGIS usage with institutional, legal, licensing, security, and privacy requirements, reducing the risk of misuse, data loss, or noncompliance. Provide continuity in a dynamic environment–Given the constant onboarding and offboarding of students, faculty, and staff, governance ensures that content, accounts, and access are managed consistently over time. Governance is especially important in higher education because ArcGIS often serves multiple purposes simultaneously: instructional use, research projects, administrative workflows, and public engagement. Stakeholders in these use cases may have different expectations, privacy concerns, and lifecycle requirements. Governance provides a common framework for balancing flexibility with security. The governance policies defined in this chapter directly inform how governance decisions are implemented and how governance standards are communicated. Governance ensures that ArcGIS remains aligned with the institutional mission, operationally sustainable, and trusted by the community it serves.   Who governs ArcGIS   Effective governance of ArcGIS in higher education requires shared ownership and clearly defined accountability. Because ArcGIS supports teaching, learning, research, and administrative operations, governance cannot reside within a single department or role. Instead, it must reflect the institution’s organizational structure, policies, and culture, while allowing for coordinated decision-making. Governance is typically exercised through a cross-functional governance team or council. This group is responsible for establishing policies, setting expectations, and ensuring alignment with institutional priorities. Governance teams do not manage day-to-day system operations; rather, they define the guardrails within which ArcGIS is administered and used. Chapter 3 builds on this foundation by describing how governance decisions are implemented by administrators through system configuration, automation, and operational practices. Governance model overview A governance team provides a formal structure for the following actions: Defining institutional policies related to ArcGIS access, use, and security Establishing accountability for governance decisions Coordinating across academic, administrative, and IT domains Revisiting policies as institutional needs and technology evolve The goal of governance is not to limit access or innovation, but to ensure that ArcGIS is managed responsibly, consistently, and sustainably as adoption grows across the institution.   Governance roles   Institutions vary widely in size, structure, and maturity. The roles described below represent functional responsibilities, not required job titles. In some institutions, one person may fulfill multiple roles; in others, responsibilities may be distributed across teams. GIS leadership and geospatial support—Coordinate governance activities and serve as the primary liaison between governance, system administrators, and the user community. This role often facilitates governance discussions, ensures policies are documented, and helps translate governance decisions into operational practice. Enterprise IT and security representatives—Ensure that ArcGIS governance aligns with institutional standards for identity management, cybersecurity, privacy, accessibility, and infrastructure. This role helps reduce risk and ensures ArcGIS is treated consistently with other enterprise systems. Data and content stewards—Provide guidance on stewardship of institutional data and content, including authority, ownership, metadata, retention, and disposal. These roles are especially important for administrative, research, and authoritative datasets that have long-term value or compliance requirements. Academic and research representatives—Represent instructional and research perspectives, ensuring governance policies support legitimate academic use cases while remaining sustainable. Their involvement helps balance flexibility for teaching and research with institutional stewardship responsibilities. Operations representatives—Represent campus facility, finance, and safety. Their roles focus on managing operations and infrastructure. Legal, records, or compliance stakeholders (as needed)—Provide guidance on records retention, contractual obligations, sponsored research requirements, and privacy considerations that influence governance decisions.   Decision rights and accountability   For governance to be effective, decision-making authority must be clearly defined. Governance teams are typically accountable for decisions such as the following: Who is eligible for ArcGIS access and under what conditions How accounts and affiliations are managed over time How content is created, shared, retained, archived, or deleted How usage is monitored and evaluated How exceptions to established policies are handled Governance is an ongoing responsibility. Policies and decision frameworks should be revisited periodically to reflect changes in institutional priorities, technology capabilities, and patterns of use.   What is governed   Governance defines what decisions are made and what areas are subject to institutional policy. For ArcGIS in higher education, governance typically focuses on a set of core decisions that together support responsible, scalable use of the system. These decision areas are not specific technologies or configurations. Chapter 3 describes how these governance decisions are implemented operationally, while Chapter 4 describes how they are communicated and reinforced.   Access and eligibility Governance establishes who is eligible to access ArcGIS and how access is granted and revoked. This includes the following: Eligibility criteria for students, faculty, staff, and affiliates Alignment with institutional identity and access management systems Consideration of lifecycle events such as enrollment changes, graduation, or separation Clear access policies help ensure that ArcGIS remains available to authorized users while reducing administrative burden and risk. Accounts and identity Account governance defines how user identities are managed within ArcGIS, including the following: Account creation and lifecycle management Privacy and security considerations for user information Alignment with institutional policies governing accounts for other enterprise systems These decisions directly inform the system configuration decisions you will make and support scalable onboarding and offboarding. Data stewardship and content management In the context of ArcGIS, content includes data, services, maps, applications, and other items created or shared within the system. Governance establishes expectations for the following: Authority and ownership of content Retention, archiving, and disposal of content Storage limits and responsible use of shared resources Metadata and documentation standards Data stewardship is especially important in higher education, where content may be created by students, faculty, researchers, and staff with varying account lifecycles and institutional obligations. Communication and transparency Governance defines how expectations, responsibilities, and policies are communicated to users. This includes the following: Publishing governance policies and guidelines Educating users about their responsibilities Communicating changes, updates, and lifecycle events Chapter 4 expands on this domain by describing specific communication strategies and engagement practices. Monitoring and auditing Governance also establishes expectations for monitoring ArcGIS usage to ensure system health and sustainability. This includes the following: Periodically reviewing usage patterns Monitoring of storage, credits, and activity Using monitoring insights to inform governance decisions Monitoring is a mechanism for understanding system health, tracking growth, demonstrating value, and planning for future needs. It is not punitive but rather a means to maintain awareness and address issues before they become problems. With governance roles defined and governance domains identified, institutions can move from deciding what should be governed to deciding how governance is established and maintained. The next section describes how institutions can develop, implement, and evolve ArcGIS governance policies over time.   How governance is established Establishing governance for ArcGIS is an incremental and iterative process, not a one-time exercise. Institutions do not need to create an entirely new governance framework from scratch. Instead, effective ArcGIS governance builds on existing institutional policies, practices, and decision-making structures already in place for other enterprise systems.     This section outlines a practical approach to establishing governance that aligns with the institutional mission (Chapter 1), informs system configuration and operations (Chapter 3), and supports communication and engagement practices (Chapter 4). Identify a governance team The first step in establishing governance is to formalize responsibility. Institutional leaders should identify a governance team or council that is accountable for defining and maintaining ArcGIS governance policies. This team should represent the key stakeholder groups and operate with a shared understanding of institutional goals and constraints. At this stage, the focus is not on detailed technical decisions but agreeing on a shared purpose for ArcGIS governance, clear ownership of governance decisions, and alignment with institutional mission and policy frameworks. Review existing institutional policies First, review existing governance policies that apply to other enterprise systems at the institution. Most institutions already have policies governing access management, data stewardship, records retention, acceptable use, privacy, and communication for platforms such as email, learning management systems, or data sharing services. Consider the following questions: What policies exist for managing access to institutional systems? How are accounts handled when individuals join or leave the institution? What are the expectations for retaining, archiving, or disposing of institutional data? How are users informed of their responsibilities and changes to systems? The goal is to align ArcGIS governance with existing institutional standards, rather than introducing conflicting practices. Define ArcGIS policies and guidelines Once relevant institutional policies are identified, governance teams can define ArcGIS-specific policies and guidelines that interpret those standards for the ArcGIS environment. These policies should focus on the governance domains described in the previous section and reflect the academic context in which ArcGIS is used. Policies should meet the following standards: Be clear, concise, and accessible Address the full lifecycle of users and content—from onboarding to offboarding Balance flexibility for teaching, research, and campus operations with institutional administration and stewardship responsibilities At this stage, institutional stakeholders define what the policies are and why they exist. Align governance with system implementation Governance decisions must be actionable. Once policies are defined, institutional leaders can assess their existing ArcGIS deployment to ensure it can support those policies. This alignment step bridges governance and implementation. For new deployments, governance decisions inform how the ArcGIS system is configured from the outset. For existing deployments, governance may require revisiting established practices and introducing new workflows to achieve compliance. Chapter 3 explores system-wide options for implementing governance decisions related to access, identity, content management, and monitoring. Communicate and reinforce governance Governance is only effective if it is understood and reinforced across the user community. Institutions should plan how governance policies will be communicated to users at key points in the lifecycle: onboarding, active use, and offboarding. Communication requires ongoing engagement, reinforcement, and monitoring to ensure policies remain visible and effective over time. Ongoing evaluation and adaptation Governance is not static. Institutions should establish a practice of periodic review and evaluation of governance policies and guidelines. Policies may need to evolve as ArcGIS adoption increases or shifts across disciplines, technology capabilities change, and institutional priorities or policies are updated. Governance teams should revisit policies annually or when significant changes occur to ensure continued relevance and alignment.   Governance principles   Governance principles provide the foundational lens through which ArcGIS governance policies are developed, evaluated, and applied. Principles are intentionally guiding rather than prescriptive; they help institutions make consistent decisions across diverse use cases, disciplines, and user communities. While specific policies may evolve over time, these principles establish continuity and ensure governance decisions remain aligned with institutional mission and values, as described in Chapter 1. Institutional alignment ArcGIS governance should align with existing institutional policies and practices, not operate in isolation. Governance decisions related to access, data stewardship, privacy, security, and communication should reflect how similar enterprise systems are governed across the institution. ArcGIS is one component of a broader institutional technology ecosystem. Treating it consistently with other enterprise platforms builds trust, reduces confusion, and simplifies administration. Good stewardship of shared resources ArcGIS is a shared institutional resource. Governance should promote responsible use of licenses, storage, and system capacity to ensure equitable access and long-term sustainability. Stewardship includes the following practices: Being mindful of finite resources such as storage and credits Encouraging appropriate use based on role and need Promoting practices that prevent unnecessary duplication or waste Good stewardship enables growth while protecting the system for future users. Clarity of responsibility and accountability Governance should clearly define who is responsible for what—from content ownership and metadata to managing access and lifecycle events. Clear accountability reduces ambiguity and prevents governance decisions from becoming reactive or inconsistent. Users, administrators, and governance teams each have responsibilities. Governance principles help ensure those responsibilities are understood and reinforced. Lifecycle-aware decision-making Governance must account for the full lifecycle of users, content, and groups—from creation and active use to transition and eventual removal. Decisions should not be made solely for the moment of onboarding or peak usage, but with an understanding of what happens over time. Lifecycle awareness is particularly critical in higher education, where turnover of users is expected and continuous. Transparency and communication Governance is most effective when policies and expectations are visible, understandable, and consistently communicated. Transparency builds trust and allows users to take ownership of their responsibilities. Clear communication is reinforced through the engagement practices described in Chapter 4 and should be treated as an integral part of governance, not an afterthought. Flexibility with managed exceptions No governance framework can anticipate every use case. Governance principles should allow for documented exceptions when justified, while maintaining overall consistency. Managed flexibility ensures governance supports innovation in teaching and research without undermining institutional stewardship.   Governance across the user lifecycle   Governance in higher education must account for the dynamic nature of the academic environment. Users regularly join, change roles, collaborate, and depart. Governance across the user lifecycle ensures that access, content, and responsibilities are managed consistently at each stage. The lifecycle perspective introduced here informs both system implementation (Chapter 3) and engagement practices (Chapter 4).     Onboarding Governance begins with onboarding. As users gain access to ArcGIS, governance policies define who is eligible for access, what level of access is appropriate, and what responsibilities users assume when using ArcGIS. Effective onboarding sets expectations early, reduces confusion, and minimizes the need for manual intervention by administrators. Automated and scalable onboarding practices help enforce governance consistently as adoption grows. Active use During active use, governance focuses on responsible creation and management of content, appropriate sharing and collaboration, and ongoing stewardship of data, maps, applications, and groups. Governance during this stage encourages users to manage their own content proactively, follow institutional standards, and make informed decisions about storage, sharing, and collaboration. Monitoring practices provide insight into usage patterns and inform future governance decisions. Offboarding and transitions Offboarding is one of the most critical—and often overlooked—phases of governance. As users graduate, change roles, or leave the institution, governance policies define when access should end, what happens to content and groups, and how ownership or stewardship is transferred or retired. Clear offboarding governance prevents orphaned content, unmanaged storage growth, and security risks. Proactive communication and sufficient notice allow users to take appropriate action before departure. Continuous reinforcement Governance across the lifecycle is not linear or static. Users may move between roles, collaborate across departments, or re enter the institution in new capacities. Governance must be reinforced continuously through communication, monitoring, and periodic review. Chapter 4 expands on how institutions can support this reinforcement through engagement strategies, while Chapter 3 describes how lifecycle governance is operationalized within the ArcGIS system. With governance principles established and lifecycle considerations defined, institutions are prepared to evaluate and refine governance practices over time. The next section focuses on ongoing evaluation and continuous improvement of ArcGIS governance.   Ongoing governance and continuous improvement   Governance is not a one-time activity. As ArcGIS usage grows, evolves, and diversifies, governance policies and practices must also adapt. Ongoing governance ensures that ArcGIS continues to align with institutional mission, policies, and priorities while remaining sustainable and responsive to change. Continuous improvement allows institutions to move from initial governance adoption to a mature governance practice—one that is proactive rather than reactive, informed by usage patterns, and grounded in institutional learning. Periodic review of governance policies Institutions should establish a regular cadence for reviewing ArcGIS governance policies and guidelines. At a minimum, governance should be revisited in the following scenarios: Annually When significant institutional policy changes occur When there are major shifts in ArcGIS usage, scale, or adoption After significant technological changes or new capabilities Regular review ensures that policies remain relevant, clear, and aligned with current institutional needs. It also provides an opportunity to retire policies that no longer serve their intended purpose or to clarify areas that have created confusion. Using monitoring insights to inform governance Monitoring plays a critical role in continuous improvement. Usage insights—such as patterns of access, content growth, storage consumption, and activity trends—provide evidence that can guide governance decisions. Monitoring should be used to do the following: Identify emerging patterns of use or misuse Understand where policies are effective or need refinement Anticipate future needs for system capacity or access Rather than serving as an enforcement mechanism alone, monitoring supports informed governance by revealing how ArcGIS is actually used across the institution. Adapting governance as the institution evolves Higher education institutions are dynamic. New academic programs emerge, research priorities shift, technologies evolve, and user communities change. Governance must be flexible enough to accommodate these changes without sacrificing consistency or accountability. Governance teams should expect to adjust policies as new use cases arise, revisit role definitions as responsibilities evolve, and refine lifecycle practices as onboarding and offboarding patterns change. This adaptability ensures governance remains supportive of innovation while maintaining institutional policies. Reinforcing governance through practice Governance is reinforced not only through written policies, but through consistent practice. Alignment between governance decisions, system configuration (Chapter 3), and engagement practices (Chapter 4) strengthens the credibility and effectiveness of governance over time. When users experience governance as predictable, transparent, and fair, they are more likely to take ownership of their responsibilities and contribute to sustainable use of ArcGIS. Governance as an institutional capability Ultimately, effective ArcGIS governance becomes an institutional capability—embedded into how technology is managed, supported, and evolved. Institutions that invest in ongoing governance position themselves to do the following: Sustain ArcGIS as an enterprise system Support long-term growth across disciplines Reduce risk and administrative burden Demonstrate the enduring value of geospatial technology Governance maturity is achieved not through rigid enforcement, but through continual learning, collaboration, and alignment with institutional mission. Governance provides the foundation that connects institutional mission to system implementation and user engagement. By defining decision making structures, governance domains, guiding principles, and lifecycle practices—and by committing to continuous improvement—institutions can ensure that ArcGIS remains a trusted, sustainable, and impactful component of their technology ecosystem. With governance in place, institutions are prepared to turn policy into practice.   Take action   Use this checklist to create a summary of policies and guidelines applicable to ArcGIS in the following domains: Access and eligibility Accounts and identity Data stewardship and content management Communication and transparency Monitoring and auditing   Consider the following as you define your policies: Access and eligibility—Create policies for general access and eligibility. Include information on how ArcGIS is accessed and supported. Create policies for account information that include account provisioning, how long to keep user accounts, and how long accounts stay active after separation. This will help answer questions such as “When is the right time to delete users?” There is no single correct answer. Think about your institutional policies that you researched earlier. Who is authorized to access software applications such as ArcGIS and for how long do they retain access? Your institutional governance policy will define what this means. What should an administrator do with the user’s content and groups before deleting user accounts? Data stewardship and content management—Create policies for retention and disposal of content, as well as the amount of storage allowed. Include information such as the following: How long should content be preserved at your institution? When should content be deleted? How should content be deleted? How much data are users allowed to maintain in the system? Keep in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. It varies depending on your organizational policies and standards. You can review a sample message for users leaving the university: Messaging for ArcGIS Online users leaving the university (students, faculty, staff). This kind of communication can be shared with your users. Communication and transparency—Create policies for communication. Proactively inform users of their responsibilities. Post guidelines and policies publicly. Empower users within your organization to be self-sufficient and help themselves. Include information such as the following: How to access ArcGIS What to do with existing content and groups How to dispose of their groups and content before they leave What happens after graduation? Provide updates. Include information such as the following: When updates happen to any of the apps (ArcGIS Pro, web apps, mobile apps) When new capabilities are added to ArcGIS and appropriate privileges to user roles are updated When a product is being retired Monitoring and auditing—Create policies for monitoring. How will you monitor ArcGIS? How often will you analyze feature data store usage level, tracking credit consumption, app usage, and member activities? Will you use ArcGIS Dashboards? Next Steps Read the rest of the chapters: Chapter 1 Mission from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 2 Governance from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 3 System from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 4 Engagement from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 5 Capacity from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  E-book PDF will be available soon. Contact your Account Manager or [email protected] with any questions.  ... View more

  CHAPTER 1: MISSION   Introduction This chapter outlines how implementing a geospatial strategy and geospatial support system can enhance the mission of educational institutions. It establishes an overarching vision of how to govern GIS technology to support teaching, learning, research, and administration.     Mission Higher education institutions aim to develop and apply knowledge through teaching, learning, research, and public engagement. This includes educating students, solving societal challenges through research, and contributing to society through public service. At the core, this mission is about fostering literacy, encouraging learning and discovery, and solving societal problems. Geospatial technology encompasses tools, workflows, and techniques used to capture, analyze, and visualize location-based data. It can advance the mission of educational organizations in a variety of ways:  Enhances education and learning objectives through spatial thinking and geospatial literacy Advances research through innovative geospatial analysis and visualization Supports service and civic engagement through data sharing and community engagement capabilities Promotes personal and professional development through geospatial skills applicable to any area of interest Improves institutional operations through location-aware decision-making The following sections outline goals for institutional leaders and educators learning how geospatial technology should be perceived, managed, and governed to support the larger mission of the institution.     Empower anyone with GIS Geospatial technology can help solve some of the world’s toughest problems by showing how and where to act. All fields–engineering, history, public health, business, anthropology, and more–require the ability to gather, visualize, analyze, and present information in a spatial context. GIS should be considered an institutional resource, not a departmental tool. This means that the potential user base could be all students, faculty, and staff. While some academic disciplines are more obviously geospatially intensive, such as geography and environmental science, any discipline can use GIS.   Make ArcGIS part of your enterprise IT strategy GIS is an evolving enterprise technology and should be viewed and managed accordingly. This system encompasses capabilities, software, data, technology infrastructure, people, and workflows that fulfill specific needs and help solve complex spatial problems—providing value to many departments and disciplines. ArcGIS is an enterprise system that includes cloud, on-premises, mobile, desktop, and developer components. It is important that it is integrated into your institution’s broader enterprise IT strategy. It requires a governance approach that includes access, availability, lifecycle management of users and data, maintenance, and communication. In addition, governance is not just about technology itself but also how you implement, collaborate, integrate, and work across various systems and policies on campus. The maintenance of this GIS system requires alignment with existing policies and guidelines that an institution has in place to handle data and users and comply with existing access, security, and privacy policies.   Collaborate with institutional stakeholders and knowledge holders Effective use of ArcGIS technology requires collaboration across institutional constituents, including IT, GIS professionals, administrators, faculty, researchers, and students who manage and use this system. Implementing and maintaining such a system requires a diverse set of skills that no one person may possess. It requires staff with enterprise IT skills to integrate it with other authoritative systems, such as identity and access management (IAM or SAML), and to comply with institutional policies and guidelines. It requires staff with enterprise administration skills to understand the operation of GIS at scale—for example, in software as a service (SaaS) or on-premises deployments. It may require GIS skills from those doing common GIS functions and tasks, such as mapping and visualization, spatial analysis, sharing, and presenting. It may require programming skills from those employing automation and application development. However, with these in place, the broader campus community may not need IT or GIS skills at all to use geospatial technology in their teaching, learning, research, and administration. Collaboration among various constituents is key to successfully deploying, managing, and maintaining this system across roles and departments. This collaboration involves stakeholders in GIS, enterprise IT, and administration, as well as faculty, staff, and students.   Geospatial framework: A path to geospatial excellence  Having a mission-driven, structured geospatial governance framework is required. Geospatial governance is a formal approach to creating policies, guidelines, and responsibilities that determine how your educational institution implements and supports GIS, including data, applications, processes, capabilities, and resources. Through a geospatial framework, you can manage change by building trust, creating ownership and accountability, valuing the organization’s intellectual property, and upholding best practices and standards. Building a geospatial framework consists of five key steps: Align educational mission with a geospatial strategy that establishes a vision for GIS. Establish policies, guidelines, and procedures for effective governance of GIS. Implement a modern and robust geospatial system. Engage teams in planning, communication, monitoring, and collaboration around GIS efforts. Equip stakeholders with the knowledge, skills, and resources to manage GIS at a sustainable capacity.     Conclusion Geospatial technology can enhance a higher education institution’s mission of teaching, learning, and research, benefitting many stakeholders across disciplines and departments. Modern GIS requires deployment, management, and maintenance by skilled professionals as well as alignment with institutional policies and guidelines, achieved by collaboration between various stakeholders. Now that you know how geospatial thinking and technology can support your institutional mission, you can set policies to guide ArcGIS governance, systems, engagement, and capacity.   Next Steps Read the rest of the chapters: Chapter 1 Mission from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 2 Governance from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 3 System from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 4 Engagement from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 5 Capacity from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  E-book PDF will be available soon. Contact your Account Manager or [email protected] with any questions.  ... View more

    The "Governing ArcGIS" guide outlines strategies and methods to govern ArcGIS in Education setting - supporting the mission of teaching, learning, research, and administration. The guide is available in a series of blogs and an E-book PDF (coming soon). The reader can choose their preferred style of reviewing this resource.    Introduction to the Guide ArcGIS is an enterprise technology and as such, it requires a governance approach that includes policies and guidelines related to access, availability, lifecycle management of users and data, communication and monitoring. The guide helps you develop and implement governance practices at your institution.  It focuses on establishing  policies, decision-making structures, and responsibilities of how ArcGIS is accessed, used, managed, and sustained over time.   It is your starting point to having a mission-driven, structured geospatial governance framework which is a required part of any enterprise technology.   Blogs:  The guide consists of the (5) chapters below:  Chapter 1 Mission from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 2 Governance from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 3 System from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 4 Engagement from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  Chapter 5 Capacity from the Governing ArcGIS - Guide to Higher Education.  E-book PDF will be available soon. Contact your Account Manager or [email protected] with any questions.    ... View more

The Esri Innovation Program (EIP) is proud to announce the 2026 Student of Year nominations. EIP encourages students and educators to create innovative applications using ArcGIS technology - as part of research projects, course work, or skills development.   Every year, university members of EIP select one student to be their Student of the Year recipient. A benefit for the nominated student is a cash prize, certificate, and Esri Press book awarded to those who are nominated as Students of the Year. This Story Map Collection highlights the 2026 projects – thank you to all the students for their inspirational work, and to their mentors for the support and encouragement. Out of all submissions, one student is selected as International Student of the Year and invited to attend the 2026 Esri Education Summit and 2026 Esri User Conference. This year, this special nomination goes to Jooyoung Yoo, a student from University of Southern California (USC), Recipient of the University of Southern California (USC) EIP Student of the Year nomination. Congratulations to Jooyoung for his work on his Democratizing Nationwide Urban Tree Canopy Mapping project, showcasing excellent use of GeoAI workflows and imagery to address the ‘shade divide’ – inequality of tree canopy distribution in different neighborhoods and marginalized communities. The project developed a high-accuracy model, which turned out to be a deployable GeoAI infrastructure that can operate directly within a municipality’s GIS environment – to help address these inequalities. A testament to the impact of the project – it was published on Esri Living Atlas as a deep learning package named "Urban Tree Segmentation With NAIP Imagery” and shortly after its release, it recorded over 1,000 downloads in just a week. The project addresses a need and enables reproducible, transferable GeoAI workflows for urban canopy mapping across the United States - helping countless municipalities and researchers worldwide. Image: Tree canopy annotation using the Label Objects for Deep Learning tool in ArcGIS Pro.   Image: Top row shows San Diego, CA (left) and Eureka, CA (right), and the bottom row shows Phoenix, AZ (left) and Atlanta, GA (right). The bright green polygons represent the model-predicted tree canopy. Thank you, Jooyoung, for your wonderful work and creativity, and congratulations to all Students of the Year!   ... View more

  EVENT FOLLOW UP WEBINAR – March 31, 2026   WEBINAR RECORDING IS HERE. SLIDES AND RESOURCES ARE ATTACHED (ESRI, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN). EXAMPLE GOVERNANCE POLICIES (UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN).   WEBINAR DETAILS AND MESSAGES WEBINAR PRESENTERS: Thank you to Peter Knoop, University of Michigan and Sam Palmer, University of Florida for sharing their knowledge! Geri Miller, Esri Peter Knoop, University of Michigan Sam Palmer, University of Florida  WEBINAR GOALS Understanding the importance of governance Create governance standards for ArcGIS Evolving governance practices to manage storage, content, credits and users Providing support and communication to stakeholders Monitoring ArcGIS usage Building capacity to manage ArcGIS TAKEAWAYS Mission and Governance ArcGIS Governance is evolving to encompass a structured approach - institutional mission and policies should guide how ArcGIS is governed. Governance policies must be established first. Establishing governance for ArcGIS is an incremental and iterative process, not a one‑time exercise. Institutions do not need to create an entirely new governance framework from scratch. Instead, effective ArcGIS governance builds on existing institutional policies, practices, and decision‑making structures already in place for other enterprise systems. How to establish governance policies. Create a governance team Review existing Institutional policies. Establish ArcGIS-specific Governance policies. Communicate and reinforce policies. Perform ongoing evaluation. What is governed? Access and Eligibility Accounts and Identity Data Stewardship and Content Management Communication and Transparency Auditing and Monitoring System Evaluate your existing system and implement consistent reporting – check slides and resources for further information: Review feature data storage usage - check your feature data storage on ArcGIS Online Overview page Review status dashboard - monitor and analyze usage - storage, credits, users, apps - Use the Dashboard. Review storage, run Item report
- gain insights on items which consume large amounts of file or feature storage - Create and schedule reports, create an  “Item” report. Review credits, run Credit report
- understand your credit consumption patterns, generate a credit report. Review named users, identify whether users are authorized or not - decide whether you will need additional users. Ensure your Administrator contacts are up to date. Ensure you have more than one administrator - your Administrative contacts will receive important technology updates. Review My Esri permissions for team members who manage ArcGIS - ensure proper permissions are set correctly, verify Authorized Support Callers. There are various options and approaches for addressing storage, credits and users.     Reduce Storage Export content from system before deleting ArcGIS Assistant  GEO Jobe     API for Python clone_items Migrate Content for ArcGIS Enterprise/ArcGIS Online  Implement Archival and Backup Archive hosted feature layers to cloud storage as file geodatabases  Archive ArcGIS StoryMaps as a JSON and file resources  GEO Jobe Back Up My Org  Leverage ArcGIS Enterprise as an archival solution  ArcGIS Online Notebook: Demo Backup to Dropbox  Delete content   Increase Storage Capacity and additional options Buy additional credits $100 for 100,000 credits for academic use Leverage in near future, not a long-term solution, as price will change. License Premium Feature Data Store Provides additional storage – does not consume credits Provides additional dedicated database resources such as memory, CPU, and input/output (I/O) Could improve your organization's overall performance  Premium Feature Data Store  Leverage ArcGIS Enterprise to host large datasets Runs in your infrastructure, consider setup and ongoing costs  Manage Credits and alternatives for Credits Manage storage – as outlined above Geocoding and Routing Solutions ArcGIS StreetMap Premium Spatial Analysis Leverage ArcGIS Pro local tools or deploy ArcGIS Enterprise for analysis Manage Users Use of Service Accounts Account used to “house” content from multiple users Alumni Follow your institutional policy Delete/Offboard Users Using the ArcGIS Online tools (GUI)  GEO Jobe – provides tools for bulk deletion of users  Scripting Engagement Continuous engagement and continuous monitoring throughout the user lifecycle are key. Processes and procedures for monitoring usage of ArcGIS should be in place to ensure compliance with organizational transparency.  Proactively inform users of their responsibilities Post guidelines and policies publicly  Empower users within your organization to be good data stewards Send periodic reminder bulk emails about managing content  Advise users to dispose of their groups and content before they leave Advise users to utilize metadata See guidance from administrator on storing “large” items  Send emails about updates to technology When updates happen to any of the apps (ArcGIS Pro, web apps, mobile apps)  When new capabilities are added to ArcGIS When a product is being retired  Monitoring Usage Use ArcGIS Dashboards – as described above, check feature data store, tracking credit consumption, app usage, member activities, etc. Admin Insights Template – toolkit for monitoring 3 dashboards – Users & Licensing, Content, Groups Build your own Usage dashboard GIS for Everyone (...and how to build your own ArcGIS Dashboard to show it!) Capacity There are different approaches to build and maintain skills for GIS administration. Administration is a continuous, involved process which requires various responsibilities and skills that might not be available currently in-house, therefore it is important to 1) get the right training to bring existing staff up to speed or 2) hire team members or external consultants who have the right skills.  Some of the responsibilities and skills to manage daily operation of ArcGIS and enforce governance policies are below.   Key Responsibilities:  Administer users, groups, roles, and privileges  Manage content lifecycle, sharing rules, and ownership  Monitor performance, and system health  Manage data services, publishing standards, and metadata  Needed Skills:  Understanding of cloud systems (in general)   Understanding of ArcGIS as a system which includes various software components (apps, desktop, mobile, server, developer, database)  Understanding of ArcGIS licensing model (Named User, Standalone options)  Knowledge of ArcGIS Online and/or ArcGIS Enterprise administration  Web GIS publishing, sharing and service optimization  Scripting/automation (Python, ArcPy, REST API)  Monitoring tools (dashboards, logging systems)  Leverage existing resources (below) – Esri documentation and training, community resources or your organizational resources. Get involved with community - Education Community and Education Blog.        ADDITIONAL RESOURCES WEBINAR RECORDING IS HERE. SLIDES AND RESOURCES ARE ATTACHED (ESRI, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN). EXAMPLE GOVERNANCE POLICIES (UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN). Governing ArcGIS – Guide for Higher Education – coming out in June 2026. In the meantime, the following blogs with ideas on governance approaches could be helpful. Blog 1: Content and Storage Management Blog 2: Credit Management Blog 3: User Management and offboarding Blog 4: Monitoring Usage and Health-checking your ArcGIS organization Blog 5: Proactive Content Management by Users   FURTHER HELP Let us know how we can help. In US - Reach out to your Account Manager, or [email protected] Outside US - Reach out to your local distributor, or [email protected] ... View more

PURPOSE OF BLOG Classic Esri Story Maps will be retired in Q1 2026.  Communication has been sent to ArcGIS Online Administrators via email (those who have opted to receive communication).  In addition, there are several resources regarding this retirement. The purpose of this blog is to help you understand what will change and to help you make a smooth transition from classic Esri Story Maps to ArcGIS Story Maps. WHAT THIS RETIREMENT MEANS After retirement, the classic Esri Story Maps templates will no longer be available, and the stories will not be viewable at their previous URLs.  While the content items (text, media, maps, app links, etc.) will remain in your subscription as ArcGIS Online items, classic Esri Story Maps stories will no longer be accessible via their previous arcgis.com URLs. ACTION TO TAKE Please transition to ArcGIS StoryMaps or other current-generation ArcGIS apps to continue leveraging the latest web mapping technology and storytelling capabilities. For guidance on transitioning from classic Esri Story Maps to ArcGIS StoryMaps, see the blog Managing the classic Esri Story Maps retirement in your organization . The blog provides helpful instructions, tools, best practices, and recommendations to ensure a smooth and successful migration process. It contains information on how to identify existing classic Esri Story Maps, and how to plan for archiving or re-creation. As a common workflow, if you are looking for a way to search only classic Esri Story Maps, please leverage this search which filters the results to only classic Esri Story Maps:   https://www.arcgis.com/home/search.html?restrict=false&sortField=relevance&sortOrder=desc&searchTerm=type%3A%22Web+Mapping+Application%22+AND+typekeywords%3A%22Story+Map%22+#content < > In terms of the conversion process, we recommend that you identify the stories that you would like to convert by searching for most views or recently edited stories. Then you can leverage the conversion tools with Python or recreate them manually, as described in the above blog resource. PLANNED CAPABILITIES IN UPCOMING RELEASES In the October 2025 release, customers will be able to set a “replacement item ID” for any app that’s being retired (classic Esri Story Maps, ArcGIS Configurable Apps). This will allow customers to specify the new ArcGIS StoryMap they would like users to be redirected to in the future. However, the actual redirect behavior - where accessing the old app automatically sends users to the new one - won’t take effect until the February 2026 release or later. Until then, customers will only be able to preview and test their replacement setup from the item details page, but no automatic redirect will occur within the retired app itself. This two-phase approach gives customers time to configure and verify their replacement IDs before redirects go live. WHERE TO GO FOR HELP Please also refer to the Classic Esri Story Maps Roadmap for Retirement blog. For any additional questions or to continue discussion, please refer to the ArcGIS Story Maps pages on Esri Community. There is a section there specifically on classic Esri Story Maps. In addition, please contact your Account Manager or [email protected] for any additional questions. Esri Professional Services could help with mass migrations.         ... View more

INTRODUCTION - PURPOSE OF BLOG GIS has changed from desktop to web-centric technology. It also has evolved as a system which encompasses a myriad of moving parts and pieces – it is not just about technology itself, but also how we implement, collaborate, integrate and work across various subsystems and frameworks. How is this system implemented today by various organizations? How do we envision GIS fits in organizations’ IT ecosystem? How do we align GIS programs with such industry needs? What are changes and approaches that we must acknowledge, take action on, upskill ourselves, incorporate in curriculum? How do we build and evolve to encourage innovation? GIS Programs (graduate and undergraduate) which perceive GIS as a System (rather than just technology/software implementation) will be most successful in fulfilling the goal of preparing students for the workforce, as well as attracting new students eager to learn relevant skills. When we think about workforce readiness, it is important to recognize and cultivate those skills and knowledge that learners need to be successful in the workplace. It includes both technical skills and soft (also referred to essential) skills, and the ability to adapt to new challenges. In addition, balancing theoretical and practical knowledge is key. This is a series of two blogs which define GIS as a SYSTEM, along with technical and soft skills that are important to learn for today’s GIS environment. Workforce Readiness - The Systems Approach - Technical Skills  Workforce Readiness - The Systems Approach – Soft Skills   GIS TODAY Modern GIS is a SYSTEM – in recent years there has been changes in underlining technical architecture and as well as changes in how organizations and people operate. Thousands of cities, agencies, nonprofits, and businesses depend on GIS. Moving the focus of GIS from the desktop to the web makes it mobile, automated, responsive, interconnected, cloud based, and configurable—these themes are an integral part of a modern GIS curriculum. This “system’s approach” is a holistic framework for connecting people, processes, and technology - to solve problems.  A "systems approach" to GIS means considering a Geographic Information System not just as a standalone mapping tool, but as an integrated part of a larger organizational system, encompassing data collection, storage, analysis, visualization, and distribution, ensuring seamless interaction with other relevant systems within the organization to support decision-making across different departments and levels.  A system is composed of capabilities, software, data, technology infrastructure, people, and workflows that fulfill specific business requirements.   INDUSTRY NEEDS - WORKFORCE READINESS Various organizations (private, public) view and implement GIS as a System. Why - the benefit of implementing GIS as a System are: Enhanced Decision Making: By integrating spatial data with other relevant information, users can make more informed decisions based on a comprehensive understanding of the situation.  Improved Efficiency: Streamlined workflows and data sharing across systems can reduce redundancy and improve operational efficiency.  Greater Visibility: Visualizing complex data relationships through GIS maps allows for better understanding of trends and patterns.  Better Success Rate: By adapting a holistic approach to integrate people with developing and maintaining GIS through change management and governance frameworks. Delivered Business Values: Through alignment of GIS with changing business needs. Workforce Readiness Therefore, if industry cares and perceives GIS as a system, it is logical to think that workforce skills should align. While that means that technical skills are required, it also means that soft (essential) skills and associated competencies are required as well - skills and competencies related to connecting people, processes, and capabilities. Skills and competencies related to understanding the problem at its core, collaborating, communicating, managing projects, adapting, leading, and so on. The curriculum and instruction of GIS education must keep pace and ensure such technical and soft skills are acquired and supplemented by real-world examples and project-based learning, to become competencies. Focusing on maintaining a balance of 'keeping up with technology' and equipping students with 'durable' (or 'transferable' or 'soft skills') that will help them succeed throughout their career, is important. In addition, the foundational concepts change more slowly than technology. Some foundational concepts have evolved, and new concepts have emerged.  If one understands the concepts, it is easier to adjust to changes in technology.     SOFT (ESSENTIAL) SKILLS Understanding of process and organizational structure, as well as mastering people skills are at least as important (if not more important), than the technical skills for developing a GIS system. And often what is lacking is the understanding of the people and process side of a systems approach to GIS thinking. The durable/soft skills are not unique to GIS; how do they get incorporated through courses?               If we think about GIS as a System which has the components above, it is logical to organize skills as part of these components. Some require technical skills, some lend themselves more to soft (essential) skills. What are the soft (essential) skills that should be conveyed? Technical skills (Capabilities, Technology Infrastructure, Software, Data) are addressed in this blog. Soft Skills to “Systems Approach” People - continuous refining and upskilling. Understanding Organizational Structure Understanding people and their roles and responsibilities in the organization.  Part of planning process for a GIS System – from request for funding approval, to hiring the right people to build the right team, to continuous evolvement of stakeholder responsibilities. Team Skills, Problem-Solving Skills Communication – communicating and interacting with stakeholders (project members, customers, senior leadership, other relevant stakeholders), managing expectations, and resolving conflicts. Teamwork – collaborate and support each other, seek and provide feedback to improve team performance. Problem solving – ability to find win-win solutions to challenges. Leadership – the ability to inspire and motivate others, set clear goals, and provide guidance and support, and making decisions and taking responsibility for your own action for the team's performance. Adaptability – ability to adjust to changing needs in the workplace.  Positive Attitude – having a positive attitude and being respectful.  Time Management – finite timescale. Workplace expectations – understanding what is expected of employees in a given role.  Active listening – being able to understand what others are saying without formulating your own response and judgement. Perspective taking – view situations from multiple perspectives with empathy.  Workflows Business process to secure organizational support Create a business case and request initial funding. Define geospatial strategy. Develop program charter with success metrics defined and secure full funding. Project management framework - understanding business problems to solve, defining scope of work, researching, before coming up with a solution. Project lifecycle typically involves five phases: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control, and closure.  Initiation: The beginning of the project, defining the project at a high level and obtaining authorization to start the project. Planning: Creating a detailed plan for the project, establishing the project's scope, setting objectives, and developing resources, schedules, budgets, and risk management plans. Execution: Carrying out the project plan by coordinating people and resources, managing stakeholder expectations, and ensuring that project deliverables are produced. Monitoring and control: Tracking, reviewing, and regulating the project's progress and making changes to the project scope, schedule, and costs to ensure that the project stays on track. Closure: Formally closing the project by ensuring that all project work is completed, accepted, approved, and releasing project resources, and documenting lessons learned. Change Management framework   Awareness: make sure everyone in the organization understands the need for change and what it entails. Desire: fostering a willingness to support and participate in the change by addressing individual motivations, helping them to see the benefits of the change for themselves and reducing resistance. Knowledge: providing the information and training needed to implement the change. Ability: developing the skills and behaviors necessary to implement the change by hands-on training, coaching, and practicing building competence. Reinforcement: ensuring that the changes are sustained over time by recognizing and rewarding success.  RESOURCES AND APPROACHES What resources and approaches are there to balance theoretical and practical knowledge? Web Courses - Systems Thinking/Architecture  The Systems Approach to ArcGIS: An Introduction web course The Systems Approach to ArcGIS: Architecture of ArcGIS web course The Systems Approach to ArcGIS: Architecture Pillars web course eBook Why you need a Geospatial Strategy Technical Paper  The Value of  Geospatial Strategy    Online Resource The Path to Geospatial Excellence Documentation Define and implement a geospatial strategy Book – Crosswell-Schulte The GIS Management Handbook, by Peter L. Croswell, PMP, GISP, CMS. Book – Esri Press  Getting to Know ArcGIS Enterprise   Project Management Institute (PMI) https://www.pmi.org/ PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) Guide   The standard for program Management (Fifth Edition)    Prosci ADKAR model https://www.prosci.com/methodology/adkar The ADKAR Advantage: Your New Lens For Successful Change by Karen Ball, also on Amazon. Thinking About GIS: Geographic Information System Planning for Managers, Fifth edition by Roger Tomlinson Note, this is a dated resource, though its methodology is still applicable. Esri Press is in process of envisioning a Geospatial Strategy book, which could be a resource for the future. Ideas for assignments/practice that could be introduced in the classroom:   Develop a geospatial strategy Develop a proposal or business case for GIS implementation project Develop a comprehensive project plan Case studies on successes of GIS programs within various types of organizations Continuous Professional Development As instructors, or students who take the initiative to learn on their own - how do we keep up with all the above? As GIS is ever evolving, investing time in professional development is integral for Educators and life-long learners.  There are many different methods of learning that suit all needs. Check various learning approaches in this Professional Development: Are You on Top of Your Game blog.  Next Steps and Feedback Please leverage the resources above, in the classroom or for your own learning. Any feedback on what is valuable, or not, is appreciated! ... View more

INTRODUCTION - PURPOSE OF BLOG GIS has changed from desktop to web-centric technology. It also has evolved as a system which encompasses a myriad of moving parts and pieces – it is not just about technology itself, but also how we implement, collaborate, integrate and work across various subsystems and frameworks. How is this system implemented today by various organizations? How do we envision GIS fits in organizations’ IT ecosystem? How do we align GIS programs with such industry needs? What are changes and approaches that we must acknowledge, take action on, upskill ourselves, incorporate in curriculum? How do we build and evolve to encourage innovation? GIS Programs (graduate and undergraduate) which perceive GIS as a System (rather than just technology/software implementation) will be most successful in fulfilling the goal of preparing students for the workforce, as well as attracting new students eager to learn relevant skills. When we think about workforce readiness, it is important to recognize and cultivate those skills and knowledge that learners need to be successful in the workplace. It includes both technical skills and soft (also referred to essential) skills, and the ability to adapt to new challenges. In addition, balancing theoretical and practical knowledge is key. This is a series of two blogs which define GIS as a SYSTEM, along with technical and soft skills that are important to learn for today’s GIS environment. Workforce Readiness - The Systems Approach - Technical Skills  Workforce Readiness - The Systems Approach – Soft Skills   GIS TODAY Modern GIS is a SYSTEM – in recent years there has been changes in underlining technical architecture and as well as changes in how organizations and people operate. Thousands of cities, agencies, nonprofits, and businesses depend on GIS. Moving the focus of GIS from the desktop to the web makes it mobile, automated, responsive, interconnected, cloud based, and configurable—these themes are an integral part of a modern GIS curriculum. This “system’s approach” is a holistic framework for connecting people, processes, and technology - to solve problems.  A "systems approach" to GIS means considering a Geographic Information System not just as a standalone mapping tool, but as an integrated part of a larger organizational system, encompassing data collection, storage, analysis, visualization, and distribution, ensuring seamless interaction with other relevant systems within the organization to support decision-making across different departments and levels.  A system is composed of capabilities, software, data, technology infrastructure, people, and workflows that fulfill specific business requirements.   INDUSTRY NEEDS - WORKFORCE READINESS Various organizations (private, public) view and implement GIS as a System. Why - the benefit of implementing GIS as a System are: Enhanced Decision Making: By integrating spatial data with other relevant information, users can make more informed decisions based on a comprehensive understanding of the situation.  Improved Efficiency: Streamlined workflows and data sharing across systems can reduce redundancy and improve operational efficiency.  Greater Visibility: Visualizing complex data relationships through GIS maps allows for better understanding of trends and patterns.  Better Success Rate: By adapting a holistic approach to integrate people with developing and maintaining GIS through change management and governance frameworks. Delivered Business Values: Through alignment of GIS with changing business needs. Workforce Readiness Therefore, if industry cares and perceives GIS as a system, it is logical to think that workforce skills should align. While that means that technical skills are required, it also means that soft (essential) skills and associated competencies are required as well - skills and competencies related to connecting people, processes, and capabilities. Skills and competencies related to understanding the problem at its core, collaborating, communicating, managing projects, adapting, leading, and so on. The curriculum and instruction of GIS education must keep pace and ensure such technical and soft skills are acquired and supplemented by real-world examples and project-based learning, to become competencies. Focusing on maintaining a balance of 'keeping up with technology' and equipping students with 'durable' (or 'transferable' or 'soft skills') that will help them succeed throughout their career, is important. In addition, the foundational concepts change more slowly than technology. Some foundational concepts have evolved, and new concepts have emerged.  If one understands the concepts, it is easier to adjust to changes in technology.     TECHNICAL SKILLS If we think about GIS as a System which has the components above, it is logical to organize skills as part of these components. Some require technical skills, some lend themselves more to soft (essential) skills. What are the technical skills that need to be conveyed? Soft skills (People, Workflows) are addressed in this blog. Capabilities - these are typical GIS core functions which have been around for a while, but have evolved over time Data Management  Mapping and Cartography Spatial Analysis  Field Operations/Mobile Workflows Imagery/Remote Sensing   Sharing/Presenting  3D GIS Real Time Technology Infrastructure Enterprise GIS knowledge Cloud Systems On Premises Systems Hybrid Systems Designing a System and Systems Architecture with scalability, high availability and disaster recovery Enterprise application hosting and management with publishing/hosting of spatial data layers and non-spatial attributes Capacity Planning Networking, elasticity Integration and Interoperability Security and Compliance Software – technology itself Cloud Apps Desktop Server Mobile Database Developer Tools Support for the above technology, including: Collaboration and Workflow Automation Multi-user access Support for AI, Big Data and Cloud Computing Data Data Acquisition and Sources Data Management/Editing/Data Integration Data Quality Management Data Governance and Metadata Data Security and Privacy Database Management – relational databases, multiuser geodatabase, multiuser workflows, versioning, replication Integration with other business systems RESOURCES AND APPROACHES What resources and approaches are there to balance theoretical and practical knowledge? Below is a list of general resources which can help with introducing these technical skills. Web Courses - Systems Thinking/Architecture   The Systems Approach to ArcGIS: An Introduction web course The Systems Approach to ArcGIS: Architecture of ArcGIS web course The Systems Approach to ArcGIS: Architecture Pillars web course eBook Why you need a Geospatial Strategy Technical Paper   The Value of Geospatial Strategy    Online Resource The Path to Geospatial Excellence Documentation Define and implement a geospatial strategy Book – Esri Press  Getting to Know ArcGIS Enterprise   Thinking About GIS: Geographic Information System Planning for Managers, Fifth edition by Roger Tomlinson Note: This is a dated resource, though its methodology is still applicable. Esri Press is in process of envisioning a Geospatial Strategy book, which could be a resource for the future. Core Concepts and Capabilities Core Concepts of a Modern GIS Mapping & Cartography Spatial Analysis Sharing & Presenting Imagery (remote sensing) Mobile workflows Ideas for assignments/practice that could be introduced in the classroom:    Develop a geospatial strategy Develop a proposal or business case for GIS implementation project Develop a comprehensive project plan Case studies on successes of GIS programs within various types of organizations Continuous Professional Development As instructors, or students who take the initiative to learn on their own - how do we keep up with all the above? As GIS is ever evolving, investing time in professional development is integral for Educators and life-long learners.   There are many different methods of learning that suit all needs. Check various learning approaches in this Professional Development: Are You on Top of Your Game blog.   Next Steps and Feedback Please leverage the resources above, in the classroom or for your own learning. Any feedback on what is valuable, or not, is appreciated! ... View more

FOLLOW UP: - SLIDES AND RESOURCES ARE ATTACHED. - WEBINAR RECORDING IS HERE. You are invited to two events focused on ArcGIS Governance in Higher Education - ideal for license administrators, GIS administrators, and Enterprise IT Managers. EVENTS WEBINAR: Wednesday, September 17, 2025 | 10:00 AM–11:00 AM (PT) – 1 hour webinar, focused on ArcGIS Governance Best Practices. This webinar will present a high-level overview of best practices for governing ArcGIS and managing lifecycle of content, credit and users. Presenters: Peter Knoop, University of Michigan and Geri Miller, Esri. Registration is required, please register here.  WORKSHOP: Thursday, September 18, 2025 | 09:00 AM–1:00 PM (PT) – 4-hour workshop series, providing opportunity for additional details, including Q&A and discussion. Ideally, attendees will join the 1-hour webinar on September 17, then join the workshop for a deeper dive in these important topics. Presenters: Peter Knoop, University of Michigan and Geri Miller, Esri. There is no registration for the workshop, held via Zoom at 9am Pacific time on Thursday, September 18th.  WORKSHOP DETAILS Detailed description and times for the September 18th workshop series are below.  We welcome you to participate in all the workshop sessions. If you can join only at certain times, that is OK as well. -        Best Practices for Managing ArcGIS – providing access and support (9am – 9:50am) PT Implementing ArcGIS is part of a broad enterprise IT strategy for providing GIS at your institution. Learn core best practices for configuring and managing ArcGIS in higher education, including SAML logins, New Member defaults, Credit budgeting, taking ArcGIS Pro offline, among others. Support and collaboration models with stakeholders on campus will be discussed. -        ArcGIS Governance – Developing Policies and Managing Content (10am – 10:50am) PT The concept of governance - institution-wide standards and policies for managing resources - is instrumental to managing ArcGIS effectively. We'll discuss key ideas for developing governance policies for ArcGIS users and content and consider the lifecycle of users and their content and groups. Options for managing ArcGIS storage, such as increasing capacity or reducing content, and communication strategies for onboarding and offboarding users, will be covered. -        ArcGIS Governance – Managing Credits and Users (11am – 11: 50am) PT Discuss best practices for developing a governance strategy for ArcGIS at an institutional level, related to credits and users; as the number of users grows across an institution, so does the consumption of credits. Learn about strategies for managing credits proactively through allocations and monitoring, and redirection to alternative options for high credit consumption activities. Strategies will also be discussed for offboarding and deleting users, groups, and content. -        ArcGIS Governance - Monitoring Usage and system health (12noon – 12:50pm) PT Today, ArcGIS is a system composed of multiple software, data, and service components. As its use grows across an educational institution, it is important to monitor and understand use of the system to develop and implement effective governance policies. Learn how to monitor the health of ArcGIS, gather information for data-driven planning and maintenance, and support communication strategies empowering users to proactively manage their content ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Please review the following blogs/resources ahead of the events. Blog 1: Content and Storage Management Blog 2: Credit Management Blog 3: User Management and offboarding Blog 4: Monitoring Usage and Health-checking your ArcGIS organization Blog 5: Proactive Content Management by Users Let us know any questions. ... View more

Education Summit Workshops During the Esri Education Summit in July, 2025, we held a series of Governance Best Practices workshops: Managing ArcGIS in Higher Education: Providing Access and Support Providing access Funding, support and collaboration ArcGIS Governance – Developing Policies and Managing Content Upcoming changes, key concepts Content/Storage Management ArcGIS Governance – Managing Credits and Users Credit Management User Management ArcGIS Governance - Monitoring Usage and System Health Monitoring Usage and Health-checks Communication to stakeholders Goals for the series were: Discuss best practices for Managing ArcGIS in Higher Education Evolve Best Practices for managing Content/Storage Evolve Best Practices for managing Users  Evolve Best Practices for managing Credits Evolve Best Practices to implement ongoing governance tasks (monitoring usage, health checks, etc.)  Evolve Best Practices for proactive management of content (by users) Discuss support, collaboration and communication models Key Messages: Governance Goals Implement effective lifecycle management of content and users  Operate within the bounds of existing institutional policies Operate within the bounds of license allocations  Have the right data in the right place with right access Maintain security of users PI and data Maximize value of IT spending Considerations Credits are cost May have to consider alternative solutions – increase storage, buy credits  Storage is not unlimited, and it incurs costs May need to remove content and/or budget for alternative storage solutions Providing one's own infrastructure is not a free alternative for SaaS offering It comes with significant real-dollar costs as well Add-on licensing (StreetMap Premium, Premium Feature Data Store) is an option Will potentially reduce credit-based costs, but increase fixed-dollar costs Takeaways: Understand your usage Understand your storage and credit consumption. Implement periodic health-checks and monitoring. Institutional Policies Evaluate data governance practices and policies for other systems (e.g., Sharepoint, Google Drive, DropBox, LMS such as Canvas, Blackboard, etc.)  Align ArcGIS with these data retention policies. Collaboration Collaborate with IT and legal stakeholders to verify and implement relevant practices and policies for ArcGIS. Communication Formulate a communication plan for your ArcGIS users.    Have proper offboarding messages. Proactively encourage users to manage their content. Timing Start planning now, so you can make changes on your schedule. Do not wait until “crisis mode’ / last minute. Slides Slides from the workshops, elaborating on the messages above, are attached in PDF form. Additional Resources The series of blogs below could be used as additional resources. Blog 1: Content and Storage Management Blog 2: Credit Management Blog 3: User Management and offboarding Blog 4: Monitoring Usage and Health-checking your ArcGIS organization Blog 5: Proactive Content Management by Users For any additional questions, please provide feedback here, contact your Account Manager or [email protected]. ... View more

Purpose of Blog AI has had profound impact on how we do our work. This blog aims at elaborating on how we get started with Teaching with AI Assistants in GIS – where do we incorporate in curriculum, what the resources are, as well as possible limitations. It is a series of 4 blogs: Why AI in GIS Education   What is possible with AI in GIS Education   Teaching with AI – GeoAI   Teaching with AI – AI Assistants   Teaching/How do I get started Educational approaches and objectives vary – please review the resources listed within these blog series to get ideas of what could be applicable to you. Think about how to prioritize topics or infuse existing content with AI examples – you could be faced with a scenario of “too much content/what to give away” in a course, or better yet, consider how existing topics/concepts could enhanced/infused with AI Assistant approaches.   Think about prerequisites/foundational knowledge - it is very important for students to understand those foundational concepts before using AI Assistant tools. This is very much course-objective dependent, but consider prerequisites ahead of time, before modifying any materials. Should students have basic knowledge of GIS/Remote Sensing analytics and technologies (e.g. data visualization, overlay, visual interpretation)? Should students have Programming skills?  Should students have Statistics skills?  Items to keep in mind Ensure students understand limitations of using AI in learning - importance of developing a healthy critical view of data and outputs produced with AI tools.  Think about what kinds of analyses make sense to offload to a bot, and which will require a lot more human interaction? Should we be driving complex, subjective analysis using bots? Probably not.  In other words, think about what types of problems are appealing/could be solved with AI Assistants? Is it effective? There is a general concern by some of whether students are really learning with AI. Evaluate this for your own scenario/student learning. AI Assistants Technology/Options Note that the Esri AI Assistants leverage generative AI and large language models to help you with specific tasks, like search or mapping or survey design. And they are often embedded directly within the ArcGIS apps you’re already using. This allows us to focus on the experience of using assistants within ArcGIS to deliver concrete value. Please be aware that the AI Assistants in ArcGIS are all in different stages of development. Some are already available for ArcGIS Early Adopters. Others are in the early development phase. ArcGIS Assistants must be enabled in ArcGIS Online – this is an ArcGIS Online organization setting. For now, once enabled, the capability will apply to everyone – it cannot be granted to individual users in the ArcGIS Online Organization. For more information, check here. AI Assistant in ArcGIS Pro (Beta) – the most obvious place for us to leverage generative AI is through ArcGIS doc assistants. Over the years Esri has written detailed documentation about ArcGIS functionality and about foundational GIS concepts and best practices. ArcGIS doc assistants will give you a new, more effective way to explore this information through a chatbot-like experience. ArcGIS Doc assistant for ArcGIS Pro is currently available in Beta. A separate installation is required. More information here. AI Assistants in ArcGIS currently in beta - below are the various options. Join the Esri Early Adopter Program to learn more and provide feedback. ArcGIS Pro assistants (Beta) ArcGIS Survey123 assistants (Beta) ArcGIS Business Analyst assistant (Beta) ArcGIS Hub assistants (Beta) ArcGIS Instant Apps translation assistant (Beta) ArcGIS Arcade assistant (Beta) AI Assistants outside of Esri - easily accessed via a browser (such as ChatGPT). Many options are available, check your institutional policies to see if your institution has guidelines of use. Note: AI Assistants in ArcGIS are not supported in ArcGIS for Student Use, ArcGIS for Personal Use or ArcGIS Public accounts. Governance, Compliance, Ethics Check your institutional policies and resources as there is a lot of variation and guidance on using AI, which vary by institution. Check your institutional AI resources (if any exist) – some institutions offer the below. AI Guidance, Approved AI Tools, and AI Training AI project checklist to gather information about AI projects AI-related external workshops and webinar links AI Learning Community space to share, learn, and discuss teaching with AI lessons learned, challenges, and solutions. Provide action items and safeguards for students (example items below). Sample Syllabus disclaimers, outlining user responsibility, ethical use, data security and privacy, potential risks, support. Again, those vary institution by institution. IT Risks Assessment Processes (checklists, procedures) – also vary by institution. Department or institution level guidelines. Some institutions employ policies that everyone must undergo, or undergo if certain conditions are met, such as access to institutions systems, logins/authentication, physical hosting of data on institutional IT systems, etc.) Resources, where to go for help Feel free to refer to previous blogs in the series: Why AI in GIS Education   What is possible with AI in GIS Education   Teaching with AI – GeoAI   Teaching with AI – AI Assistants   There are a lot of resources that can be used to get started. Please take a look at the below, and comment on what else could be helpful. Getting started AI + Location Intelligence AI in GIS – Promise, Progress, Possibilities Resources for unlocking the power of geospatial AI using ArcGIS   AI in GIS Education – Realm of Possibilities webinar recording  Higher Ed Guide to Esri E-Learning for GeoAI Pretrained Models on ArcGIS Living Atlas Learn Tutorials and Esri Academy (search for AI, GeoAI, AI Assistants, example tutorial series) Learn Tutorial Gallery Esri Academy Deep learning in ArcGIS (tutorial series) Documentation and sample packages Medium/GeoAI Pretrained deep learning packages Sample Notebooks Python module: arcgis.learn Deep Learning libraries installers for ArcGIS If you need to speak to a person, please reach out: United States Your Account Manager  [email protected] Outside United States Your Esri distributor ... View more