No Publish button on Feature Layer

[KatyAppleton1]

I've got a Feature Layer, that I own, that does not have a Publish button when I see the Item Details. Why might this be?

The workflow up to this point was:

1. Publish an ArcMap document as a new service, for use with the Collector app. This becomes a Hosted Feature Layer.
2. Students add data points to the layer via Collector and via Online in a browser.
3. Data collection finishes, and I want to publish & share a copy layer to the students for further analysis and presentation (i.e. keeping the raw data as a backup). Looking at the layer in a Map, I do Copy and then Save Layer.
4. I now need to publish this copy layer as a Hosted Feature Layer but when I view its item details there is no Publish button.

I have turned off Edit and Sync on the original layer but this makes no difference. I'm not at all sure where to go from here. I'm now keeping my Feature Layer copy of the data as a backup, and the students will use the original Hosted Feature Layer. But I'd like to know how to fix this in future.

Thanks!

Katy

[JakeSkinner · Accepted solution]

Hi Katy,

When saving a new feature layer, the layer is referencing the original hosted feature service.  With a hosted feature service you will only have the option to publish to a Tile Layer, WMS, or Scene Layer.  You can publish other content, such as a CSV or zipped shapefile, as a hosted feature service.

If you would like to create a backup of the data, I would recommend downloading the hosted feature service to a local File Geodatabase.  Here is a tool that will allow you to do that.  Or, you can export the hosted feature service in ArcGIS Online.

[KatyAppleton1]

Thanks! I'm still very much getting my head around the various types of layer, service etc. in ArcGIS Online. This makes sense now - I was thinking of Copy as creating an entirely independent copy.