Which Field Maps activities do or do not use credits?

[TrentonWalker]

Hey everyone. Recently, the organization through which my group gets access to ArcGIS Online has transitioned from unlimited credits to credit rationing. Our primary use of this system is for Field Maps. I'd like to reduce or entirely eliminate our credit usage if possible, but I'm not exactly sure which actions use credits and which don't.

Here's a reference site: https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-online/administer/credits.htm

On this site, it says that web maps use credits. That's what we use in Field Maps: I create maps in ArcGIS Online and share them as web maps, and we access those web maps through the Field Maps application.

However, when testing this today, I was able to create and share a web map without requiring / consuming credits. The web map had around a dozen empty feature classes (for collecting data) and a few feature classes that already had data (a point layer with sites to check, a polygon layer with property parcel information, etc.) and it used the ESRI "terrain with labels" as the basemap. The empty feature classes allow photo attachments, which, according to the link above, also consume credits.

I ran a test by creating an offline area through the Field Maps application (rather than in ArcGIS Online), creating a "fake" test point somewhere in the offline map, adding a photo to that point, submitting the point, then syncing my offline map with the "master" web map in ArcGIS Online. It succeeded, yet this entire time I've used zero credits. I'm almost certain this is correct, because throughout this entire process my account has had zero credits, and it's still at zero credits.

So, what's the deal? The official link above very clearly says that web maps and feature class attachments consume credits. Yet in my testing, I was able to create and share a web map, add data to feature layers in that web map (and here I'm not sure if they treat the feature layers in a web map separately from the web map itself), and add attachments (photos) to data points in those feature layers, all - presumably - without consuming credits.

Does ArcGIS Online run a "credit check" on a schedule and simply hasn't noticed that I've performed actions that require credits? Or do these actions actually not consume credits? If they do, and ArcGIS Online determines after-the-fact that credits were required but not available, what happens to the data?

I apologize if my terminology isn't as precise or clear as it could be. I'm happy to clarify where I can. Thanks in advance for any help. I'll take anything I can get!

[erKay_nv5]

I'm not 100% how our organization uses credits, so I get the confusion. I know that credits are consumed by storage, hence web maps and photo attachments, and it may be that one photo hasn't activated the credit usage yet. They also require credits for running certain types of analysis through AGOL. I'm also not sure how credits are accounted for, and how long the system takes to recognize credit usage.

[ColinLawrence]

I'm no credit expert but as far as using Field Maps there is no direct credit consumption happening. It all boils down to storage. So you may be adding features and attachments in Field Maps which will be increasing the storage size of your hosted feature services. Storage credits appear to be calculated every hour so you may not see this reflected immediately and for a "testing" dataset with no features or attachments you may not see any impact due to the minuscule size. Other indirect uses of credits would be the generating and storing of tiles associated with any custom basemaps you may create for usage in Field Maps. I hope this helps!

[TrentonWalker]

Good to know! So there are two possibilities for why I can perform these activities - creating a web map, adding data to a point feature layer, attaching photos to those points - without appearing to use credits: 1) the data simply isn't enough to cross the "minimum credit unit consumption" threshold, or 2) not enough time has passed (i.e., one hour) for ArcGIS Online to calculate the storage usage.

It has been more than an hour since I created the points with photos, and they're still on the web map when viewed in the Map Viewer, so I think #2 can be ruled out. Either it's simply not enough to register as using the smallest unit of a credit (maybe it's 0.1 credits?), or there's something else going on that I'm not thinking of. It seems inevitable that our maps will eventually have enough data in them to require some level of credit usage, though, so we'll have to assume that everyone who uses Field Maps will need credits allotted to their accounts.

I'm also interpreting your comment, along with my testing, to imply that creating offline versions of our web maps without custom basemaps will not use credits since no tiles are created and stored in ArcGIS Online. We were using a lidar raster for a basemap (building tiles for offline use when sharing it as part of the web map), but I can confirm that this definitely requires credits because it wouldn't let me share a web map with the raster in it since my account has no credits. I've heard there's a way to side-load maps directly to users' mobile devices for use in Field Maps, but I've never done that, so I'll have to research it a bit further before trying it.

Thanks for the response.

[KerriRasmussen · Accepted solution]

Hi Trenton,

Good afternoon. ArcGIS Online credits are used primarily in 2 ways. First is storage, which can be storage of features, imagery, or files (attachments). Second, is transactions such as using geoprocessing tools such as geocoding, geoenrichment, or analysis.

When you created a new map(s), if you were using data that you already had stored on ArcGIS Online, you would not see a big increase in credit usage, since that data is already hosted. If you created a new empty feature, it’s possible that you aren’t seeing the credit usage yet. An empty feature would use a negligible amount credits, which are calculated hourly. It would probably take a while for it to show as using credits with little to no data.

You also mentioned creating offline areas in ArcGIS Field Maps, which would not use any credits, then you added points with photos. If you checked your credit usage right away, you probably wouldn’t see a difference unless you had very large attachments and you waited for the hourly calculation of credit usage. Credit usage for storage of a hosted feature layer is 2.4 credits per 10 MB stored per month (calculated hourly), so if you are adding just a handful of points to a map it would take time to accumulate any noticeable credit usage.

I recommend watching these short videos on credit usage. Please let us know if you have any additional questions about credits.

Thank you,

Kerri

[TrentonWalker]

Hi Kerri, thanks for the response. It seems clear that the way we're using web maps in Field Maps (i.e., to store field data in feature layers, attach photos to those features, etc.) will use credits, and it must just be that we haven't yet passed the threshold - either in terms of data size or the length of time we've been storing it - for it to show up right now.

You said that creating offline areas in ArcGIS Field Maps does not use any credits. Does this mean that creating the offline area directly from the ArcGIS Field Maps application does not use credits? Or can I also create offline areas in ArcGIS Online (from the web map settings page) without using credits as well? This is all assuming that we're not using a custom basemap - we're just using the ESRI "terrain with labels" basemap for now.

[KerriRasmussen]

Hi Trenton,

When creating offline areas in ArcGIS Field Maps Mobile App, you will not use credits, in that case you are making a copy of the map and storing it locally on your device. If you were to create offline areas in ArcGIS Online, that would use credits (1.2 credits per 1 GB per month). The other option for you, if you had a large data set or imagery would be to create a mobile map package in ArcGIS Pro and sideload it onto your device.

Thank you,

Kerri

[TrentonWalker]

Excellent, thank you for the clarification.