sign in experience

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11-14-2019 09:52 AM
ZorbaConlen1
Occasional Contributor III

Hi. I'm looking at deploying Explorer for ArcGIS and these are the instructions I sent for someone to sign in:

  • At the sign in interface choose ‘ArcGIS Online’
  • Then choose ‘Enterprise Login’ (ignore the initial login form)
  • For organization URL enter ‘xxxxx’
  • Next choose ‘City of Bellevue’
  • Now enter your AGOL login. This is your full email and your usual network password.
  • You may be prompted for multi-factor authentication too, so you would need to use the RSA app to get the code and enter it.
  • When you open the map, there are secured map services, and you will be prompted to authenticate. In this form, you will enter your username only (not full email) and your network password.

I joked to a colleague that the instructions for signing in are more complicated than the instructions for using the app. Not really a joke - that's a lot of opportunity for someone to mess up. They could choose enterprise rather than AGOL, they could enter their enterprise credentials in the prominent arcgis.com longin form, they can forget the organization url, in the enterprise login they can enter username rather than full email. In the secured service sign in they can use their full email rather than just username. The multi-factor part is an optional part that we implemented of course, but it's becoming more of a standard thing and ESRI should be aware of this.

<start rant>

Its understood that there are different approaches to authentication, and there are configurations or choices we have made that may be causing some of this confusion, but surely this can be simplified. As it stands its a big problem for casual or infrequent users. 

</end rant>

Now to the practical question. I noticed that Collector app for iOS handles sign in better than Explorer. With Collector, you see a checkbox with the enterprise login that says 'remember this URL'. if that is checked, the next log in is much simplified, allowing the user to skip some of the above steps. With Explorer, I'm seeing the following:

  • On one device, the checkbox is displayed, but checking it has no effect, and the user is continually required to enter the organization url part each time they sign in.
  • On another device, the checkbox does not appear at all.

Is this a known bug? It would be great to get this working for Explorer if possible.

Thanks

Tags (2)
7 Replies
AllWeatherHeather
Occasional Contributor

Hi Zorba - We have the same problem at our organization, have you had any luck making this better for your users?

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by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Hey Heather Morrison

I believe we've chatted before, so forgive me, but which platform are you using and does your organization deploy via an MDM? Organizations typically expedite signing in by using one of two mechanisms:

Joel

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AllWeatherHeather
Occasional Contributor

Hi Joel, thanks for your quick reply! (You too Zorba Conlen!) We are using AirWatch as our MDM, I will review the link provided with our deployment team. One of the challenges we will have to deal with going forward is that we have users that need to access more then one Portal URL (AGOL and Enterprise) for different content. This had a very handy solution in the previous version of Collector (Switch Accounts), but I see in the newer apps this capability is gone

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ZorbaConlen1
Occasional Contributor III

I was just going to reply, but Joel beat me to it. I would recommend the same options, as these really improve sign in experience. We found that it's not perfect though, especially if the user is disconnected when trying to launch, as the launch link uses safari, and if the device is offline, safari won't be able to launch the app for some reason.

Good luck

by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Zorba Conlen

The link should work when disconnected and should not open Safari. I just tried the following on my end while disconnected and all opened the Explorer app:

  • Tapping link from Notes app
  • Tapping link from web page in Safari
  • Scanning QR code with Camera app
  • AirDrop link to device

Maybe the OS has cached some preference for opening the links in Safari? Are you seeing the behavior you described on all devices? What OS is the devices you are using? What's your process for sharing and opening the links?

Joel

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ZorbaConlen1
Occasional Contributor III

It's been a while so trying to recall exactly where the problem occurred. It must have been with an offline map - no point trying to launch an online map if you are not connected. I think we had shortcuts generated by Meraki. It may be working perfectly now. 

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by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Thanks Zorba Conlen‌ I'll try some things on my end. Feel free to reach out if it comes up again and I will investigate further

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