Collector Sync of Secured ArcGIS for Server Feature Services

719
1
06-17-2016 11:51 AM
Status: Open
LarryWiebe
Occasional Contributor

I am required to host most of my feature services on ArcGIS for Server on an internal DMZ that can be accessed by AGOL through the REST end point.  I am also required to secure my services.  Currently in AGOL you can add the REST endpoint directly to a web map, but when you view the web map you are prompted for the credential to see the layer.  AGOL also allows a Feature Layer item to be created with saved credentials pointing at the REST end point, but this is an unsupported feature for Collector and is prone to issues.  In recent interaction with ESRI I was told that this functionality is a bug, but not in the product plan to fix:

[BUG-000086198: An error, "Invalid URL" error is returned when attempting to download a map in Collector for ArcGIS 10.3 (iOS) when the web map contains an ArcGIS for Server feature service with credentials that are stored in an ArcGIS Online item.]
The status of this bug is listed as "Not in Current Product Plan". The suggested workarounds are to simply use the service as-is, without embedding credentials (i.e. without proxy).

What is also frustrating is that this does work part of the time, but not all the time.  It does not always error, and it is not always the error above, sometimes it is illegal token [<], or just unknown error.

In my case I am limited by corporate restrictions on where I host my data and this limitation makes it very hard to continue using Collector.

Larry Wiebe

Manitoba Hydro

1 Comment
ScottPrindle

Hello Larry,

Thank you for submitting this idea. The bug you referenced (BUG-000086198) is rejected due to the way the services have been registered with ArcGIS Online to store credentials. Collector can successfully consume secure ArcGIS Server feature services that have been added as an item when it is the full service that was registered with ArcGIS Online (ex. https://myserver.esri.com/arcgis/rest/services/securedService/FeatureServer). It looks like the bug was logged with a workflow that registers individual feature layers as items in ArcGIS Online (ex. https://myserver.esri.com/arcgis/rest/services/securedService/FeatureServer/0).

The explanation on why the second example will not work is because the createReplica operation used for sync in Collector is at the higher level /FeatureServer/. Are you able to add the secure service as an item again to your content in ArcGIS Online, using the less specific URL? Do you encounter the same errors when doing this?

Thanks,
Scott