An upgrade to ArcGIS Hub's hosted service download experience is coming in February!
Data downloads and interoperability are cornerstones of ArcGIS Hub's open data principles. To better support user workflows and reduce headaches by content manangers, the ArcGIS Hub team is pleased to announce an upgraded downlaod experience starting with hosted Features Services. In this article, we will explain what is changing, how you can take advantage of these features today, and what download features are coming next.
We would love to hear from you, so please share your feedback in the comments and let us know what download and reuse features you would like to see next for ArcGIS Hub.
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Table of Contents
- Table of Contents
- What's new with the upgraded download experience?
- How can I use the upgraded download experience?
- What else should I know?
- What else has changed?
- What's coming next?
What's new with the upgraded download experience?
On February 27th, 2024, Hub’s improved download experience for hosted feature services, in beta during 2023, will become the default download experience for all users. Visitors to the content view of an item that uses a hosted feature service will automatically see the upgraded download experience. For details on what's changing and steps you can take to use the upgraded experience, keep reading.
Once released, users will see:
- Additional download formats including File Geodatabase (FGDB), Feature Collection, Excel, SQLite Geodatabase, GeoPackage.
- A progress indicator that tells users when the system is "processing" a request to generate or update a file, and the percentage completed.
- Download speed increases for items with a large number of records and/or complex geometry.
- Download reliability improvements for fewer errors and generic messages.
- Filtering support for public and private content; use the attribute table filters or precise on-map draw tools to download the exact records you need.
How can you tell if your item is already using the upgraded download system? In the top right corner of the download panel, you will see a "Hosted Downloads" badge and additional formats.
Figure 1. Hosted download badge is visible in the top right corner of the download panel.
How can I use the upgraded download experience?
At this time the upgraded experience is only available on items that 1. reference a feature service, and 2. that feature service is hosted. These items most commonly created either through the ArcGIS Online "Content" tab > "New Item" action or through a workflow when publishing a hosted service from ArcGIS Pro.
We encourage all content managers to try the upgraded download experience (in beta) today. Start by visiting an item's edit route in ArcGIS Hub by selecting the edit pencil. Then, select the download tab and enable both settings for 1. "Extract Capabilities" and 2. "Hosted Downloads."
If neither the download tab or those settings are available then the item is not a hosted feature service. Also, if the "Export data" setting is already enabled on the item within the ArcGIS Online home application, then extract capability is already enabled for the hosted service. Once completed, simply select the 'X' in the top left to view the content; open the download panel to see the upgraded download experience.
Figure 2. Try out the upgraded download experience today by enabling "Extract Capabilities" and "Hosted Downloads" within an item's Content Details in ArcGIS Hub.
What else should I know?
As mentioned previously, the upgraded download experience is only available for hosted feature services. Due to faster update cycles and increased reliability and performance, we strongly encourage content managers to shift existing non-hosted services over to hosted services when possible. However, we recognize that this is not an easy process and may not be feasible for all customers. We're working closely with the ArcGIS Enterprise team to expand support for downloads so that in a future release non-hosted services will also benefit from the upgraded download experience.
What else has changed?
Technically hosted downloads use the "create replica" operation on a hosted feature service. As noted above, create replica offers more download formats as well as reliability and speed improvements. However, several features are no longer supported including: option to download a previous version, download file size metadata, and file names that match the item name. We're working with the feature service team to re-introduce these features.
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What's coming next?
We know how important reuse and downloads are to you and your end users, which is why in the first half of 2024 the Hub team is focused on improvements to the download features. Here's what we're considering:
- Scheduled download updates will allow content managers to set an update schedule and simply forget about manually checking for updated download files. Scheduled download updates are ideal if you have items that are updated very infrequently and so Hub shouldn't check the service for updates. Conversely, if you have frequently updated data, schedule a daily download update and your users won't have to wait for files to generate.
- Improved error messaging will give simple explainations to end users and detailed actions to content managers when a download error occurs.
- Rearrangeable download formats will let customers showcase the most valuable formats at the top whether they are out-of-the-box supported formats like CSV or Shapefile, or the custom links you've added to your metadata distributions.
Excited for more? Again we would love to hear from you, so please share your feedback in the comments on the experience and let us know what download and reuse feature's you would like to see next for ArcGIS Hub.