Best ArcGIS Hub Open Data Design for a Large Organization

[KristenWobbe1]

Hello!

We are about to launch into building a Hub site for our large organization and we think the best way to start would be with an Open Data site similar to the one created by the US Forest Service - Geospatial Discovery Site. We have a requirement to deliver our published content to Data.doi.gov and consider the DCAT configuration tool that comes with the Open Data (template) a nice feature to assist us in meeting this requirement.

We want to start small with the Open Data site, but have considered the fact we might eventually need a Root site to link all the Sites and Pages into with future expansion. For now, we think the Enterprise Open Data site would allow public users access to search/discover our Agency offerings and allow for data downloads.

We want to plan ahead for future expansion, and we are an agency made up of a Nat'l Center, with an additional 11 State locations. As I mentioned we wanted to start small but plan for future expansion. We don't want to give all our State locations their own Hub site to be linked into the Root site in our initial deployment. Instead we want to set up our architecture in the best possible way to be able to expand to allowing state-center Hub sites in the future (linked in to the Root enterprise site). 

Our requirements are that 1) we want to have one search box on our Open Data site that searches all the content provided by our Agency for public users to search/discover all our offerings because they might not know about out internal structure (Nat'l vs State locations). 2) Also it would be nice to allow users to be able to search each Nat'l or State location's content separately. My question to you is could this be accomplished by creating an Open Data Group for each Nat'l and State Center location's content? Or is it a better design to give each Nat'l and State Center location their own Hub/Content Library to be linked into the Root site for searching?

Remember we want to start small with an Enterprise Open Data site, and not allow all the locations to create additional Hub web pages in the beginning design. We also want to plan for future expansion.

Please advise. Welcome your thoughts!

[AndrewTurner · Accepted solution]

Thank you for reaching out with such a great question @KristenWobbe1 . 

I agree that your outline seems like the best approach:

- Create Open Data Groups for each of your Nat'l & State Centers. 

- Create a single Hub Site that includes all of these groups

- On your Hub Site homepage, or another page, add Category Cards (or similar) linking to the search filtered by each Centers Group ID. 

- Later, as you allow each center to create their own Site, they would be able to associate the existing Group and its content to this new Site. You'll still be able to keep their Center's group in your main Hub site as well as their Site (item) so the actual site is discoverable too.

- You can also update the Gallery Page to refer to the sites directly.

To clarify one specific phrase, you say "Enterprise Open Data Site". Do you specifically mean and "ArcGIS Enterprise Site" for sharing open data? Or do you mean an "ArcGIS Hub (in Online) site" for your Government Enterprise (organization)?

For some similar examples:

- US National Park Service has an NPS main Hub and several park specific sites like Rocky Mountains, Great Smokey Mountains, Yellowstone, and more.

- California has a great Organization Page that links either to search filtered by Groups. 

- 

[KristenWobbe1]

Hi Andrew:

Thanks for confirming a design that I was thinking could work for our given situation. When I referred to "Enterprise Open Data Site" I was picturing something like the NPS Main Hub, or the California one. To get started and for now we didn't want a bunch of Hub sites spun up that are "islands in and of themselves." I could see why NPS does that because their Nat'l Parks are separate islands so-to-speak. Hope this helps clarify and I am appreciative of your reply. 🙂