Woodbwp,
I seems we have both hit the same road block. My challenge is that the ESRI personnel that monitor this forum are not commenting on our issue. I have seen numerous comments that indicate that what we are looking to do should be possible in the latest issue (and even previous issues) of the product, but no clear instructions on how to achieve the end we desire.
Given that the desktop product supports gps units you would think it only natural that it would support access to arcgis online content. Since their other mobile products collector and arcgis mobile for smartphones can do it it is clear that the technical capability exists. In 2010 Mike from ESRI wrote in this forum "The imminent ArcGIS Explorer 1500 greatly improves the integration of ArcGIS Explorer, ArcGIS Explorer Online and ArcGIS.com." We are in 2013 now right? Yet it still seems the ESRI format content that you place on the ESRI online servers (for which I pay an substantial organisation subscription) cannot be used in an ESRI product.
I hope I am wrong. I hope someone will show that this is so easy to do that I am ashamed of even placing this post (I an handle the embarrassment in the face of a simple working solution).
Maybe someone for ESRI will weigh in and provide some clarity on the issue.
Burlington.