Community Place Managers Guide

Place Managers Overview

A Place Manager is the person(s) who are responsible for oversight of a specific place within the community (like a product, developer or industry place). In the previous version of the Esri Community (GeoNet) this role was referred to as space admin or owner. In the new Community platform. The Place Manager role is slightly different, with a stronger emphasis on the content and less on the place overhead (layout/design).

Place Manager Role and Permissions

Staff and/or distributors can be assigned a Place Manager role (which is permission based). The place Manager’s main responsibility is to monitor the place and boards within it, including;

Assist with discussion as needed
Mark accepted solutions where needed
Assist with engagement

*Note: Place Managers are not expected to be the primary responder to questions, we recommend allowing 48 hours for peer to peer replies before Esri jumps into the conversation, unless of course Esri is the only one who could answer the question.

Place Manager permissions will allow you to: (actions found in the options menus)

Float topics for all users (pin to the top of a board activity feed)
Block New replies
Move posts
View edit history of posts, blogs, documents
Edit Documents
Manage the Documents dashboard
- Nominate and approve topics as documents
- Approve any new documents created by regular active user

Also, by default all staff and distributors will have permissions to:

Post blogs
Create documents
Post questions and videos
Create events across all places
Export search results to a CSV
Subscribe to RSS feeds

*Note: Staff and distributors will have this access across all open places in the community, so there is no longer a need to request access place by place. We trust that staff and distributors use these open permissions wisely and thoughtful when deciding where to post.

Place managers should also be aware of and follow the Community Employee & Distributor Guidelines

If you need to make a change to your place, i.e. place name or description, or would like to request a new place, please submit a request here.

How Places are structured

Mostly flat. All places will be organized under one of the Top-Level Communities:

Products (i.e. ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Survey123, ArcGIS Solutions…etc.)
Industries (i.e. Education, Transportation, Telecommunication etc..)
Developers (i.e. Python, ArcGIS API for JavaScript, ArcGIS Runtime SDKS etc..)
Worldwide (i.e. Esri India, ArcNesia, Czech GIS…etc…)
Services (Esri Training, My Esri, PS, etc…)
Cross-Platform (Open Data, Spatial Data Science, Imagery and Remote Sensing…etc.)
Networks (YPN, Women’s Geospatial Forum etc..)
Learning (Esri Press Books, Learn ArcGIS)
Events (Conferences: FedGIS, DevSummit, UC etc..)

What’s new for places

Place layout will be standardized & consistent throughout the community (no option to change page components/ design)
Similar UI/UX across all places will make it easier for users to find what they are looking for on any page
Searchability at a place or even board level
Less overhead for place managers, allowing more focus on the content
Better analytic reports for a place will be available by request to the Community team
ArcGIS Ideas will be decentralized – an ideas board will be created within the Place for all the current ArcGIS Ideas categories and current ideas will migrate accordingly to that Place’s Ideas board
Each place and board landing page will display activity feeds, leaderboards, search options, post options, subscribe options
Labels are pre-defined and are applied at the Board level, they allow for deeper filtering and subscriptions. To have new labels created, contact the Community Manager at EsriCommunity@esri.com

Best practices for Place Managers and how to use the features

Be sure to subscribe to your place, reference this guide: How to set up subscriptions, notifications and email settings
Creating announcements for a place is a useful way to get your subscriber’s attention - Creating an Announcement Label
Pulling RSS feeds to link elsewhere like on Esri.com site: How to pull RSS feeds for places and groups
Look for replies that answer the question, How to mark a reply as accepted solution, note a post may have more than one accepted solution, as a place manager you can revoke a solution or provide commentary if one solution is better suited over another
If a post doesn’t belong in your place, move it to a different place
Search and apply filters, as a place owner you can also export search results to CSV
Not all users can create and publish a document in the community, staff, distributors and advanced users can without oversight, but a general user may create a post and submit it for approval. As a Place Manger you will have access to the Documents (Knowledge Base Article Dashboard) where you can view documents submitted for approval and you can determine whether to approve and publish them.

More how-to documents can be found in the Community Resources, Community Help Documents section.