Batch uploading shapefiles to ArcGIS Online

ZacharyUhlmann · ‎07-13-2020

Google, StackExchange and GeoNet have been less fruitful than I had imagined for a seemingly bread and butter task. I currently manage data on an ArcGIS Online Group (Organizational account) and have multiple shapefiles to upload and serve. I don't want to package them as a database - I want the individual shapefiles to be listed individually with their specific metadata, filename, etc. My best solution is to upload shapefiles individually - let's say 5 - 30 at a time on a weekly basis. I really want to script this and seems the ArcGIS package on Python has this functionality? I use Python.

I would appreciate links to any scripts, packages or python code to help me get started. I do have access to Arc Pro as well. Thanks.

LukasFalk · ‎07-13-2020

Hey Zachary!

After doing some research into your inquiry I found a code sample at the URL below to achieve your desired task.

Bulk upload and publish shapefiles to ArcGIS Online · GitHub

Let me know how that goes for you. Additionally, I found some posts on the ArcGIS Ideas page supporting the added ability to upload multiple items at once to ArcGIS Online. I would recommend up voting this suggestion, and as it gains more traction development may consider implementing it!

https://community.esri.com/ideas/8175

I hope this helps!

ZacharyUhlmann · ‎08-05-2020

Thanks Lukas (late response by me!!). I briefly tried your first link awhile back but since then I was able to get going on ArcGIS Pro and easily access the Python ArcGIS API. The SECOND link you posted includes similar code to mine below in a response by Dong-gyun Kim. I partially cannibalized parts from this Tutorial on the ArcGIS Python API page - Accessing and managing groups | ArcGIS for Developers. Here is what I settled on...pseudocode = 1) Prepare lists for Titles, Tags and Snippets. 2) Login to AGOL 3) Upload shapefiles (zipped):

# 1) Tags, Titles and Snippets
# Create a list for each of the three where len(list) = n shapefiles
# 1a) TITLE
zipped_dirs = ['full/path/to/file1.zip', 'full/path/to/file2.zip', 'full/path/to/file2.zip']
# Option A - use file names for Title:  'file1.zip' into 'file1' OR do this:
title = [dir[:-4] for dir in os.listdir(zipped_dirs)]
# Option B - list file names manually/custom
# title = ['wetland birds', 'wetland sasquatch', 'wetland skunk cabbage']
# 1b) TAGS
# tags get a little wierd because I make a list of lists.  I wanted multiple tags
# for each shapefile.  There are programmatic ways to make lists of lists if
# you have a bunch of shapefiles and manual creation is time consuming...  
tags = [['wetland', 'birds'], ['wetland', 'sasquatch'], ['wetland', 'skunk cabbage']]
# 1c) SNIPPETS
# snippets could have separate items within the list for each shapefile as well.
# For my purposes I was find with the same for each.  
snippet = ['wetland observation data current as of 7/13/2020'] * len(title)

# 2) GIS stuff: login with credentials
zach_gis = GIS(username = 'myusername.com', password = 'mypassword')
print('Connected to {} as {}'.format(zach_gis.properties.portalHostname, zach_gis.users.me.username))
# Group object for a group.  The string of letters, numbers is from url
some_group = Group(zach_gis, 'a6384c1111111a43bfd91f5d9723912b')

# 3) AGOL Add data to Content and Groups
for idx, shp in enumerate(zipped_dirs):
    properties_dict = {'title':title[idx],
                        'tags':tags[idx],
                        'snippet':snippet[idx]}
    fc_item = zach_gis.content.add(properties_dict, data = shp)
    fc_item.share(groups = 'a6384c1111111a43bfd91f5d9723912b')

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