Why does an Event create a Group in my ArcGIS Online Organization?

[DevinLavigne]

I've seen this in the documentation and I'm seeing this behavior and its leading to significant clutter in my organization's content:

"When you create an event, a group is automatically added to your ArcGIS Online enterprise organization. It's important that you do not delete this group because it shows you who is attending your event."

We are using hub for an initiative that will have 100+ events - and we were intending to use Hub for 30+ similar initiatives every year. In 3 years we will have 10,000 groups...that's simply not going to work. 

This seems very unnecessary simply to track who is coming to an event. Couldn't this be stored in data file in the Initiative's group?

[BrianRollison]

Hi Devin Lavigne‌ -- thanks for reaching out, great question and a valid concern.

We use groups with events and initiatives to allow seamless sharing of content and messages to and among members of the group.  This is particularly important to send messages to event attendees or initiative team members.  There is an additional security benefit of leveraging groups as it doesn't require the event's feature layers or the initiative data model to be editable by the public.

We acknowledge your concern -- it is very valid -- which is why we've been working with the ArcGIS Online team to pursue a lift in the group-to-user association limit and enabling groups and items (particularly those created by Hub) to be hidden from the user interface of an organization's content in ArcGIS Online.

We'll keep everyone posted as we continue this conversation with them.

[DevinLavigne]

Thanks Brian. I appreciate the prompt reply. I like the concept of hiding groups and items.

[DevinLavigne]

Perhaps a better/more immediate solution might be providing an option to create a group with the caveat that if you want to send messages and share materials with specific event attendees a group must and will be created. I would have to think that most events posted on the calendar are simply to drive attendance to those events and not necessarily create a "micro club" of event attendees. I would also add that for most public engagements and interest of transparency any information disseminated afterwards would be made accessible to everyone and not just those who attended a specific event.

[DanteLee]

Have you tried deleting a group for a past event to see what happens?