Administrators Unable to Access Maps with Location Sharing Enabled in Field Maps

[KirkMason]

Hi everyone,

I’ve encountered an issue in ArcGIS Field Maps where Administrators are unable to view maps that have location sharing enabled.

When attempting to open a map, the following error appears:

“Location sharing is unavailable. Using this map requires location sharing to be turned on, but you aren’t licensed for location sharing.”

I am one of the Administrators and administrative contacts for my organisation.

I’m familiar with the process for enabling location sharing (as outlined here), but it doesn’t appear to work for users listed as administrative contacts. I created a custom member role with location sharing permissions, but I can’t change the role of an administrative contact — meaning I can’t grant them access to location sharing. I’ve attached two screenshots below to demonstrate this behaviour.

It seems this issue has been raised previously, and I’d like to echo that concern. It’s important for our operations that Administrators are able to use location sharing, as they also undertake fieldwork and often need to test offline maps and workflows before deployment across the organisation.

Is there any known workaround for this? And if not, is ESRI planning to allow administrative contacts to be assigned location sharing permissions in future updates?

I’ve noticed the original discussion (linked above) continues to receive engagement since 2023, which suggests there’s strong interest in a resolution.

Thank you for your time, and I appreciate any guidance or updates you can provide.

[LindsayRaabe_FPCWA]

HI Kirk. It's a shame to see this is still the case. We don't actually utilise Location Tracking in our org at present, but for someone who is an Administrator or who holds a Professional/Professional plus license, you would expect full functionality to be included! Especially for smaller organisations where there may only be 1 to a few staff doing multiple functions. 

[ColinLawrence]

I can understand the concern around Administrators not being able to do everything. Just some history, not long ago the Location Sharing license become bundled with the Mobile Worker user type by default so this user type would always be provisioned for Location Sharing as opposed to needing an app bundle or add on license. We are considering adding additional User Types following this pattern, like the Creator User Type. I believe the Creator User Type is commonly used by administrators. I am not sure if this plan includes Professional User Type at this time. For now, you would have to assign an Add on Location Sharing license to the administrator if they want to user this functionality in the mobile app. However, the Admin should still be able to provision the Location Sharing Service and Views in the organization and consume those layers. 

The team will consider the feedback and I hope this information above helps!