Managing Groups in ArcGIS Organizational & Public Accounts

[deleted-user-W17i9rKaOdiH]

I understand that a Public Account cannot apply to join a group owned by an organization. However, can an organizational account administrator invite a public account user to join a group set up by her organization?

Can someone please clarify this?

[SethLewis1]

Carlynne -

Check out the following link and look under the section titled Join with existing public account

Join organization—ArcGIS Online Help | ArcGIS 

[deleted-user-W17i9rKaOdiH]

Thanks for the reply, Seth.

I have read these materials, but the instructions don't solve my original problem, which is:

As the administrator for an ArcGIS Online organizational account, I cannot invite any users who have public accounts to join my group because organizations cannot invite public members to join.

Thus, it is not possible for me to follow the steps outlined in Join with an Existing Public Account, which state: "After the administrator of the organization has invited you to join...."

 1. Open the email and click this link to join.

2. Click by converting an existing ArcGIS Public Account.

In addition, converting from a public to an organizational account would involve purchasing an ArcGIS Online subscription, correct? So this doesn't solve my problem of wanting to invite specific public users to join my group.

[MichelleHovorka · Accepted solution]

Hi Carlynne,

No, it's not possible for an Admin to add a public account to a group.  This is a limitation on public accounts.  You need to be an Org member (same Org or in another Org).  

Michelle

ArcGIS Online Team

[deleted-user-W17i9rKaOdiH]

Thank you, Michelle. That's what I thought.

The ArcGIS Online documentation is clear that a public account user cannot join a group that is part of an organizational account. However, it was unclear to me if administrators of organizational accounts could create a group and invite users with a public ArcGIS Online account to join.

I wonder why organizational accounts are limited in this way. I think it would be useful if administrators of organizational accounts could create groups that allow them to send a limited number of invites to public users so they could update data products that relate to a common project layers that the group does not want to make public. 

Another way to accomplish the same objective would be adding functionality to allow organizational account users to create a web app that requires a user name and password to access. What I am trying to get at here is that I would like to see functionality to create a Geo-Form that is accessible to public users who I grant access to either by customizing the form to be accessible by a user sign in or by allowing public users to access the Geo-Form by joining my group.

I hope this makes sense!

Thanks,

Lyndy

[KellyGerrow]

Hi Lyndy,

Thanks for sharing your feedback. I'd suggest taking a look through ArcGIS Ideas and adding this to some similar ideas or logging a new idea. Also, chatting with your account manager about licensing options may be helpful.

-Kelly