Improving Member Categories

[AnthonyJonesRSK]

The new members categories are a useful feature for managing users but I'd like to make a few suggestions to improve their usability;

• Allow the ability to assign categories by non-admin users. We have custom user roles who can manage users but they can't currently assign categories.
• Make the assignment of categories a part of the user creation process otherwise it can be missed as it needs to be done later from the members list.
• Add a filter in the members list for users who have no category assigned. This will make assigning users much easier.
• Allow the creation of different category groups at the first level so more then one category can be assigned. At the moment you create categories and then the sub categories in a hierarchy but what if you need different category themes at the first level?
• Allow categories to be added via a csv file.
• This is already listed as an idea but adding categories to reports would really help with our user admin.

Thanks

Anthony

[AaronKoelker]

Agreed, categories are a great step in the right direction but could definitely use some of these additional features, especially Anthony's second point, as well as being able to read/edit members categories via the ArcGIS API for Python: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-online-ideas/add-new-member-categories-as-a-property-to-arcgis/...

[JShi_EsriStaff]

Hello Anthony, Aaron, 

Thanks for sharing your insightful feedback on this new member categories.  The team was aware of those suggestions and has been working through some of those for the upcoming June 2022 update. 

I have a question about one of the suggestions Antony brought up: 

• Allow the creation of different category groups at the first level so more than one category can be assigned. At the moment you create categories and then the sub categories in a hierarchy but what if you need different category themes at the first level?

Can you please explain a bit of more on why and how you need different category themes at the first level? In another word, why the current category structure is not sufficient for your use case? 

Much appreciated! 

Julia

[AnthonyJonesRSK]

Hi Julia,

Thanks for your response. The categories are a great addition and will be very helpful for managing our users. 

To clarify my point on the category groups in my use case I need categories for the internal business unit and whether a user is internal or an external subcontractor. At the moment it looks like I have two options;

• At the first level have different categories for internal and external and then each business unit as a sub category or vice versa
• Have each business unit as a category at the first level and the internal/external also at the first level

The first option is probably best but it does mean having to enter the categories twice for internal and external, which is a bit clunky. The duplication would become more onerous if you then needed a second sub category. The second option is easier in setting up the categories but then I can only filter by one so wouldn't be able to filter by both business unit and internal/external.

These are of course fairly minor inconveniences but if there was a way to set up two groups of categories for business unit and then external/internal and then filter by both that would be the ideal. Then if you needed new categories these could be added as a separate group of categories, without the need to duplicate them as sub categories.

I hope that makes sense!

Thanks

Anthony  

[JShi_EsriStaff]

Hi Anthony, 

Thanks for explaining your use case with us. It's very helpful. I will share back with the team. 

Regards,

Julia

[JacobLias1]

Hey Anthony,

As of today you should see a few changes in ArcGIS Online to meet the feedback you've provided here: 

• We've added new role privileges so that it is now possible to create a custom role with the ability to both manage member categories for the organization and categorize organization members.
• We have added a section to specify member categories when you're inviting/adding members to your organization.
• We have added a "No categories assigned" filter in the members tab for.
• We have added a "Member Categories" column to the member report

We're continuing to work through some additional ideas related to member categories, but wanted to give you a heads up on the latest enhancements.

-Jacob

[AnthonyJonesRSK]

Hi Jacob,

Thank you for the update on this, it's really encouraging to see these updates so quickly and is likely to make me want submit more ideas in the future!

Typically I have one other request though and just wondered if the role privilege could be split into two, one for creating the categories and one for assigning the categories? I think ideally we'd like to keep the creation of categories restricted but allow more users to assign them.

The other enhancements are going to be extremely valuable for managing our users so thanks again for your efforts on this.

Kind Regards

Anthony

[JacobLias1]

Hey Anthony,

You'll be glad to know that we did in fact split those operations into two separate role privileges.  When creating a custom role, "Manage categories" under "Administrative" > "Members" will allow a user to create/edit/delete the category schema for the organization.

The "Update" privilege under "Administrative" > "Members" will allow a user to assign/unassign categories to members in the organization. 

The privilege descriptions should be updated here to reflect the two changes mentioned above as well -> https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-online/reference/roles.htm#ESRI_SECTION2_DE533C0ED3D546E1BA5B47C871...

Thanks again for your feedback on all of this.  It has been invaluable to us and we look forward to more ideas!

-Jacob

[AnthonyJonesRSK]

Apologies Jacob!

That'll teach me to comment before reading all the documentation properly!

I did check the member settings and saw the "Manage categories" option and thought that was the only change. Hadn't realised that the "Update" option under Members had been tweaked too.

Thanks for this, that's exactly what we needed. 

Cheers

Anthony