In our “What’s New in ArcGIS Hub-September 2025” webinar, we explored some of the recent updates in ArcGIS Hub. These include workspaces, the new site management experience, new flexibility with configurable catalogs, and advancements in collaboration.
Now, we'd like to share with you the recording of the webinar, as well as some key questions and answers from the webinar that we’ve compiled for you here.
1. Question-Why do we need ArcGIS Hub when we already have ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise?
Answer- You can use a restaurant analogy to understand where ArcGIS Hub comes into play. ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise can be thought of as your kitchen. It’s where you’re putting together all of your data ingredients, your maps, and apps. But it can be a little messy- you have draft copies and working material that you don’t want to necessarily expose to the world. What Hub provides is a dining room, the digital destination you can invite your community of practice and your internal and external audiences to visit, that provides context to your mission and priority areas. It provides a place to communicate about the things that you’re working on within a curated experience, allowing for comprehensive sharing, collaboration and engagement.
2. Question- What is the difference between Hub sites, initiatives, and projects?
Answer- ArcGIS Hub sites, available with both ArcGIS Hub and Hub Premium, empower non-technical users to create websites using drag-and-drop cards, eliminating the need for coding. These sites seamlessly integrate with GIS content and applications, facilitating information sharing among staff, stakeholders, and the community. With flexible design options, users can customize their sites to suit their needs.
Hub initiatives, a feature available with ArcGIS Hub Premium, have been revamped to work in tandem with Hub projects. Initiatives provide a robust framework for managing and coordinating projects and resources to achieve long-term objectives. As out-of-the-box items in Hub, initiatives require no custom coding and come equipped with useful tools, including metrics that can be configured to track the combined progress and impact of multiple projects. This enables users to effectively monitor and report on their progress towards their goals.
ArcGIS Hub Premium customers can use associations to connect related projects and initiatives. Initiatives can be featured on one or many sites, and sites can link to one or many initiatives.
Hub projects, an additional feature available only in Hub Premium, enable users to organize, track, and communicate their work towards specific objectives without requiring design or layout expertise. These projects are easy to configure and can highlight crucial information, such as target areas, milestones, and calls to action. By utilizing Hub projects, users can create a hierarchical structure within their Hub ecosystem. For instance, a broad initiative like "Making your community safer for cyclists" can be broken down into smaller, localized projects that promote the cause, encourage participation, and track progress towards the overarching goals.
3. Question- I have used ArcGIS Hub before and have created many sites. Now with workspaces, where are those sites going to be?
Answer- Workspaces is the new site management experience in ArcGIS Hub and does not impact the front-end of Hub sites. Hub sites stay where they have been. Workspaces affects only the back-end, site management experience behind the scenes.
4. Question- Currently, I have to go from workspaces back to classic edit mode to communicate via email to hub community members for my sites. Is there an easier way to message the followers of my sites?
Answer- The ability to message members of a group (For example: followers of a site are a group) was recently added to workspaces. To message members, open your user workspace and select the Members pane. Group managers can send email messages to group members by selecting the Send message button. To send a message to certain members, select those members first. The ability to message members of a group is a feature that is only available in ArcGIS Hub Premium.
5. Question-Is ArcGIS Hub WCAG 2.0 compliant?
Answer- ArcGIS Hub is designed with accessibility in mind and strives to meet various accessibility standards, including WCAG 2.0 and 2.1. The ArcGIS Hub Accessibility Report details Hub’s accessibility status for its various features, and our Design for accessibility in ArcGIS Hub and Enterprise Sites ArcGIS blog article can walk you through how you can make your site more accessible. Some of the accessibility features and capabilities of ArcGIS Hub include:
Layout builder: The Hub team strives for WCAG 2.2 AA compliance by making the site building experience navigable for both sighted users and those using assistive technologies.
Site setting and theme: If you set a theme for your site, you can compare contrast between background and foreground colors, allowing site creators to fulfill WCAG guidelines 1.4.3 Contrast Minimum and 1.4.11 Non-Text Contrast.
Structured narrative experience: Hub site creators can utilize WCAG guidelines 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) and 2.4.6 Headings and Labels for easy navigation for your visitors.
6. Question- Can internal and external applications both be shared through the same ArcGIS Hub site? For example, having public maps and dashboard displayed above a dashboard that is only viewable to logged in users? And what about data sources from Tableau or PowerBI applications, can these also be shared on a hub site?
Answer- Yes, ArcGIS Hub allows you to share apps and other items either publicly or privately. To specify access, navigate to the content workspace and select the Settings > Sharing pane, and under sharing level choose either Public, Organization, or Owner visibility options. You can also limit visibility by row.
And yes, applications from Tableau or PowerBI can also be shared through your hub site. Create a new Hub item as “Application” and supply the URL to your Tableau or PowerBI dashboard. This will not embed the app inside Hub directly (users will be redirected) but it provides a way to showcase and launch those resources from the Gallery. Make sure your privacy settings are appropriately configured. You would need to update the content of the item in ArcGIS Online, and for items like PowerBI dashboards, they would have to have the appropriate sharing settings in the Microsoft environment. PDFs can also be shared by uploading them as a file item in ArcGIS Online, or adding them as a link item if they’re hosted elsewhere. External web pages, similar to Tableau/PowerBI can be shared by creating an “Application” to an external site.
7. Question- When working on my sites, do I have the ability to publish only specific pages at a time or do I have to publish everything at the same time?
Answer- ArcGIS Hub allows you to publish a page at a time, without needing to publish the entire site. You can also create and share drafts of pages before publishing them.
8. Question- When you add community members to your ArcGIS Hub Premium, do those individuals get added to your primary ArcGIS Online organization or are they managed another way?
Answer- When you add community members in ArcGIS Hub Premium, they do not get added to your primary ArcGIS Online organization. Instead, they are managed separately, through a community organization that Esri provides as part of your Hub Premium subscription. Your primary organization is for your staff and internal users, and your linked community organization is for public collaborators, or community accounts. This distinction is designed so that you can share content with those in your community organization, and they can share content back, but they do not have full access to your primary organization. Members of the community organization can access content shared privately with them, and content that is public.
9. Question- When will the ArcGIS Hub assistant be released? And did I hear correctly that it’s for Hub Premium only?
Answer- We are pleased to announce that ArcGIS Hub assistant (beta) is now available. The ArcGIS Hub assistant (beta) leverages generative artificial intelligence (AI) to make open data more accessible and actionable. It is designed to help site visitors find and get answers using focused content. The assistant is scoped to the Hub site catalog. Enabling Hub assistant (beta) requires an ArcGIS Hub Premium subscription. Learn more about the Hub assistant (beta)
We hope you enjoyed the webinar, and that this Q & A has been informative. To stay up to date with what’s new in ArcGIS Hub, you can explore the resources below.
