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!

[LindsayRaabe_FPCWA]

Hopefully the plan does end up including Professional user types for the same reason that Creators should include it (increasing levels of functionality with increase license price - not decreasing). At least with Creator including it though, that will make a big impact - hopefully the price per license doesn't significantly change because of it though!

[Will]

Location Sharing should absolutely be included with user types Creator and up.  Also, the "Add-on" license for Location Sharing seems to have disappeared from the Esri store.. once upon a time it was there as something to buy along with your user types, there's confusion about this in other forum threads.. I was hoping the disappearance of it from the store meant it was going to be included in more user types?

[EricaNova]

I have been very frustrated with the lack of support for location tracking and simultaneous point data collection in Field  Maps. Our entire field team uses Field Maps for advanced / nested data collection and navigation. Currently, they have to go to Quick Capture to capture tracks and then back to Field Maps for points/forms. I can't use Quick Capture for the other data streams in our workflow. This also means they can't see recent line features (tracks) in Field Maps until they've synced offline maps and means I have to maintain two mobile solutions for my field workers. It's messy and overly complicated!

[ColinLawrence]

Hi @EricaNova , thank you for the feedback. What is the blocker for you/your team to use Field Maps for Location Sharing? Is this related to previous comments about Admins not being provisioned for Location Sharing?

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the lack of support for location tracking and simultaneous point data collection in Field  Maps.

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If provisioned for Location Sharing, you can collect tracks while collecting data (ie points) for other layers in your map. Can you perhaps add some clarification and maybe I can help more? Thanks

[EricaNova]

@ColinLawrence what I'd like users to be able to do is record a line feature by streaming in Field Maps. The scenario is that I want 'drivable' roads (either by truck or ATV) mapped in our study area, which doesn't have good road quality data available currently. While they are streaming to a line feature in Field Maps, I want them to be able to collect other data. Right now, they can stream their location to a line feature, but they cannot concurrently collect data for other layers. So that means they cannot add data or edit data from any other layers while also recording the line feature representing 'drivable road'. Since they are usually driving down the road to collect other data, they usually forgo collecting road lines so they can collect other data.

So maybe my frustration is not so much with location sharing as it is with the inability to collect line and point features at one time (like you can do in Quick capture).