Feature Layer editing for non-AGO account holders

[ademshark]

Can this be done? Feature editing access on ArcGIS Online for non-account holders, without exposing editing to the public.

I currently host a feature layer on ArcGIS Online for ultimate consumption within a Dashboard. This all needs to be public for other people within my company to view and share with the public. I also need certain internal non-GIS users to be able to go in and make minor edits to attributes and possibly add new features to the hosted feature layer.

I'll quickly run through what I use/tried/brainstormed: 1) survey123 forms for editing data within AGO - issue is having to expose the data editing to the public. I even tried adding a password to the survey123 XLSForm but editing still needs to be open to the public. 2) survey123 forms within our portal so that only folks within our org can open and submit surveys - issue here is a more convoluted workflow of transferring data from enterprise over to AGO every time they make edits. 3) get light weight user accounts for those needing to make edits - issue may be with having others keep accounts they don't frequent, and org restrictions on numerous user accounts.

I've seen various editors like Web Forms within AGO web maps, the new ArcGIS Web Editor, etc. These make me realize maybe the survey form route is a little too complex to maintain for this purpose. So, it seems like there a many ways to approach this, but nothing really seems to get at exactly what I need. As an added assumption, my thought is that there must be a way to have users access and edit data without needing to have a full fledged AGO account, but also not open to the entire world to edit.

All thoughts appreciated! Thanks.

[Ed_]

maybe not

maybe look into this 

Anonymous public editing in field maps -- no Create button

[EmilyGeo · Accepted solution]

Hi @ademshark, 

In order for anonymous users to edit the data, the layer would need to be shared with Everyone with editing enabled. As you know, there are some inherent risks in allowing the data to be edited by the public. 

Another option would be to use hosted feature layer views.  Views allow you to have different sharing levels and permissions that reference the same data...

For example you could have Layer A and View B.

Layer A

• Shared with everyone
• Appear in the Dashboard
• Not editable

and

View B

• Shared with a group
• Appears in a map shared with that group
• Editable

Of course, in order to do that, the editors would need to be ArcGIS Online users and part of a group that you create.

You can find out more about getting started with hosted feature layer views in this article.

More tips and tricks for editing in ArcGIS Online can be found in this article. 

[ademshark]

Thank you, I'll probably go this route pending our company policy on handing out various AGO accounts.

[ademshark]

Thanks for the idea - I will be using this route.

I'm curious what your thoughts are on reversing this method. In other words, creating an organizationally viewable layer view (for editing) of the public source hosted layer (non-editable) . The real reason being that the source data is already tied to various web maps and apps and I don't want to break those right now. As I have tested it, all the edits on the organizationally shared view flow to the public (non-editable) source layer. So, it seems this works.