We want to setup a third party account inside our organizational ArcGIS Online to securely obtain data from a Feature Layer we have setup. We set the Feature Layer to allow export and we then setup a minimum permissioned Level 1 user with access to that Feature Layer. To our surprise the exporting of data was not allowed. Upon more investigation we discovered the following:
Currently, in order to download data from a Feature Layer in ArcGIS Online requires two things. You need a Level 2 organizational user and that user is required to have Create, update, delete permissions.
Why is this one may ask? ArcGIS Online requires you to first save the exported data as content before you can download the file. The only way to save content in ArcGIS online is to be a Level 2 user. This is problem for a couple reasons. 1. You must now supply a more expensive level 2 user and you must now use credits for storing additional content that is technically already stored in ArcGIS Online.
In the history of the internet typical default behavior is when you try to download data, the data is streamed so that you may save the file locally. Even ArcGIS Online's Open Data site allow you to directly download the data.
This is a request that, as default behavior, ArcGIS Online allow direct download of "Export Data". Non-default behavior would be to provide an option to save as content if you need it. (of course setting this as Default will obviously break setups that expect the save as content to be default I will accept having a button to automatic download and bypass the requirement to save as content 🙂 )
