ArcGIS Desktop Retirement in Education Programs - Affects ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro Single/Use Concurrent Use

GeriMiller · ‎05-24-2023

*Updated February, 2024

There has been a change in product direction for ArcGIS Desktop - the date on which ArcGIS Desktop delivery will end for all existing customers, has been changed from March 1 to July 1 2024. The product lifecycle remains unchanged - ArcGIS Desktop enters Mature Support phase on March 1.

Education Colleagues:

For a few years now , we have encouraged the GIS Education Community to teach Modern GIS workflows, adopting a cloud-first approach and moving away from ArcMap in curriculum and research. Modern GIS skills (requirements gathering, application configuration, data as services, automation and scripting, cloud infrastructure and architecture) are crucial in today’s environment.

We’ve worked hard to provide supporting resources and guidance on transitioning from teaching only ArcMap to teaching the entire ArcGIS system to help the community prepare for the retirement of ArcMap.

In addition, Modern GIS uses named user licensing to provide access across the suite of ArcGIS web, mobile, and desktop apps. We have been recommending ArcGIS Online as a licensing portal, leveraging Single Sign On/SAML logins as the most efficient way to provide access to ArcGIS both in lab environments and on students’ personal devices. Moving forward, ArcGIS named user will be the only method to license ArcGIS Pro and other ArcGIS applications in the future.

We want to share a timeline, along with answers to some frequently asked questions, on what to expect with the retirement of ArcGIS Desktop (ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro Single Use/Concurrent Use).

TIMELINE

In 2022-2023, depending on your customers’ license renewal date, the quantity of ArcGIS Desktop (ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro Single Use/Concurrent Use) licenses delivered by default with an Education Institution Agreement decreased from 5,000 to 250. Additional licenses may be requested for specific needs.
In 2024, ArcGIS Desktop (ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro Single Use/Concurrent Use) will be removed from the Education Program. ArcGIS Desktop enters the Mature Support phase of the product lifecycle on March 1, 2024. ArcGIS Desktop will no longer be delivered in Education Institution Agreements or Education Department Licenses as of July 1, 2024.

Notes:

Changes to the quantity of ArcGIS Desktop licenses delivered are made at renewal. License quantities will not change in the middle of your license term.
To emphasize, ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro Single Use/Concurrent Use licenses will NOT be included in future terms of your Esri Education Program license for renewals after ~~March 1 2024~~ July 1, 2024. ArcGIS Pro WILL continue to be included and enabled via named user licensing.
Customers whose licenses renew between March 1 and June 30 2024 will receive 250 license of ArcGIS Desktop for the next term.

RESOURCES

There are many resources to help guide you through this journey, between ArcGIS tutorials, Esri Academy courses, and Esri Press books, among others. In addition, we have hosted, and will continue to do, several workshops and discussions to share best practices and address your questions. Below are links to some of these resources. Please use them as stepping stones and/or supplements for your curriculum and research activities.

ArcGIS tutorials, specifically this Modern GIS tutorial series
Esri Academy, specifically the guide to Modern GIS e-learning
Esri Press books
Modern GIS Blog
Modern GIS User Stories
Access to other Esri subject matter experts (in USA, please reach out to your Account Manager, Outside USA please reach out to your distributor).

COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT MANAGING ARCGIS LICENSES

Q: What about ArcGIS Pro licenses?

A: The quantity of named user licenses (GIS Professional user type) did not change. As before, the recommended method for licensing ArcGIS Pro is via a named user. The quantity of ArcGIS Pro single use/concurrent use licenses delivered did change starting in 2022-2023; it was reduced to 250. If ArcGIS Online (or ArcGIS Enterprise) cannot be used as a licensing portal for GIS Professional user types, additional quantities of ArcGIS Pro single use licenses could be requested, as needed. However, after March 1, depending on your renewal date, 2024 the GIS Professional User Type will be the only method of licensing ArcGIS Pro.

Q: How do I license ArcGIS Pro in lab environments?

A: As stated already, we encourage customers to adopt a Modern GIS pattern, which includes ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online and Apps. By definition, Modern GIS requires named user licensing and we have been recommending ArcGIS Online as a licensing portal, particularly leveraging Single Sign On (SSO) as the most efficient way to provide access. We discourage use of concurrent use licenses in labs, and many institutions successfully use ArcGIS Pro in lab environments using the named user model. This eliminates the need to run a license server. Please work with your IT/lab managers to enable proper settings for logging out (to alleviate concerns of students continuing to be logged in to ArcGIS Pro for extended period of time).

Q: Distributing ArcMap licenses was easy. We serve a large body of students, faculty and staff, how do I manage access for everyone with this newer model?

A: As ArcGIS has grown beyond a single desktop application, the way we manage access and licenses has changed. Please follow these recommendations on Managing ArcGIS, if you do not already. Using SSO and New Member defaults are the most important approaches to minimize time managing access to ArcGIS. In addition, it is important to have good communication about software distribution and options for using ArcGIS Pro on Apple devices.

Q: How do I notify all my stakeholders (students, faculty, staff) of these changes, or any changes?

A: This is an institution-dependent question. We recommend a combination of “push” and “pull” communication such as email (push) and notification on a website (pull). The blog ArcGIS access website for your institution describes how to create a website that enables self-service access to ArcGIS software and support. Please ensure your institution has such a website, and the website clearly describes how to access ArcGIS software, support and learning resources at your institution.

ChrissyRothgeb · ‎05-25-2023

Is there the possibility of a small number (perhaps 10 or so) of perpetual licenses for ArcMap, contingent on the maintenance of the site license? I do not expect that to support instruction, but I could see the interest in keeping access to the application for legacy purposes.

GeriMiller · ‎05-26-2023

@ChrissyRothgeb that would not be possible (perpetual ArcMap licenses), however, we do understand dependency for 3rd party applications. Please send us a note for the specific situation.

CurtisAbert · ‎06-28-2023

This is surprising news. Does ESRI realize that the Educational licensing goes beyond just those that teach GIS? Many (if not most) universities have programs that utilize GIS for fundamental scientific research. Some of this research has been going on for many years (if not decades) and has developed standardized workflows that are based on ArcMap.

I am a user that has avoided making the switch to Pro partly because it has lacked some of the basic tools required in my workflow. We've known for many years that ArcMap was being phased out but those dates have been pushed back and some of us have come to accept that ESRI "really means it" when it says that ArcMap will be phased out in 2026. To surprise the Educational community like this with a 2024 phase-out date seems really unfair. What is a wider University GIS community to do?

BrianBaldwin · ‎06-29-2023

@CurtisAbert - Can you let us know what basic tools you are seeking that are currently lacking in Pro?

SaraJL · ‎06-29-2023

Everything for the most part makes sense to me - I get why the changes are being made and it's probably for the better. With the amount of difficulties that we have with ArcMap (at least at my org) - it's solved a lot of issues switching to ArcGIS Pro. From an IT perspective, this will also make it a lot easier and reduce the amount software installations/versions/etc that we have to support.

The only complaint I have about this process - I only can find communication about these things on the ESRI Community forum. Apparently there is a "higher-ed" email list serv that also communicates changes.

I am not on the higher-ed list serv, so I don't receive those emails. If I didn't participate in the ESRI Community forums, I wouldn't have received this information. There hasn't really been a lot of really good communication surrounding license updates for education. If you're not part of certain communication lines, then you simply don't get the messages.

Information on big license changes should actually be communicated by the customer rep contacts. That would ensure that we get this information in a timely manner - when I first started as an admin managing the ArcGIS software, I wasn't part of anything other than just having admin permissions. Occasionally license changes would happen, and there would be no communication at all. I would just find out about it when the renewal process happened and the software broke the next day for users.

I definitely vote for all of these changes! However - I wish it would be communicated better by ESRI so we can better support it. Customer reps should reach out directly with plenty of notice so we have the opportunity to discuss concerns - instead of the expecting everyone to dig through emails, forum postings, and posts on the ESRI website in order to find the information we need.

SamPalmer · ‎06-29-2023

@BrianBaldwin For us, it isn't specific tools, it's 3rd party software that requires ArcGIS Desktop. This is the list to the best of my knowledge:

ArcSWAT - https://swat.tamu.edu/software/arcswat/

HAZUS - https://www.fema.gov/flood-maps/tools-resources/flood-map-products/hazus/software

TBEST - https://tbest.org/

SaraJL · ‎06-29-2023

I echo the note for HAZUS! That's a common program used for higher ed courses if they are teaching disaster management and prediction mapping

Government sector projects in general have been problematic for us as well - I had a student project Fall semester that was analyzing data for a local government agency. They needed to use a specific ArcToolbox that only worked in ArcMap - or rather, the government agency hadn't created one for ArcGIS Pro yet

AmyWork3 · ‎06-29-2023

One functionality that I have someone looking for in ArcGIS Pro is the integration to a CAD surface modeler. Desktop has a very old plugin that exports directly 3D supported files to sketchup. It's a plugin that was created for version 9.X but has been working since then. It gives you the option to export any vector and raster data to a sketchup file with an option to add base height and extrusion from table fields.

JosephKopera · ‎06-30-2023

I have been a big proponent of switching to Pro, and have put in a lot of time and effort on ESRI's behalf as our vendor, urging users across our multi-campus consortium for years even though for much of that time it could best be described as being in beta-stage. Even so, it still has several bugs, or is missing key functionality that ArcMap has, that has thrown big wrenches into 101 courses and other parts of our curriculum and for established publication workflows for public research agencies housed out of our Universities. And, as others have noted here, there are several cases where ArcMap is still required for research due to 3rd party products. Where applicable we've been pointing our researchers to other vendors / options for similar tools

I agree with others here about the Higher Ed Team's process and communication around this being far from optimal. For over 5 years we were told we had until 2026 to make the transition. Needless to say, the sudden introduction of friction in obtaining ArcMap licenses in 2022, followed by the surprise announcement above that ESRI changed its mind and is only giving Higher Ed until 2024 to make the switch, seems weirdly punitive/bully-ish and not respectful of its customer base, let alone receptive to the under-resourced realities of many of their customers in Higher Ed and the various obstacles we face. ESRI's process around this conveys a belief at ESRI that GIS staff on campuses can somehow make money, staff, equipment, infrastructure, and streamlined bureaucratic processes appear on the spot out of thin air to rapidly pivot to vendor desires.

Many of our procurement timelines around getting newer machines that meet recommended, let alone required, specs for ArcPro were based on the 2026 deadline: we have entire labs of relatively new machines that only just barely meet ArcPro's minimum specs from last year. Many smaller campuses with only a single part-time GIS instructor were also basing their curriculum and staffing changes on that 2026 deadline. These sudden changes, on top of perennial SNAFUs on ESRI's end with our licensing creating several dire emergencies on our end, has created hundreds of hours of additional, and completely preventable, work for our IT staff, instructors, license admins, etc. over the past few years.

This whole process of suddenly moving the goalposts, and the poor "last-minute" broadcast communication style around it, has eroded much of the good faith and trust our campus community has historically had with ESRI as a software vendor. While we get one heck of a deal with the Higher Education License agreement, for what most of us are paying we deserve better from the Higher Ed team in this regard.

GeriMiller · ‎07-06-2023

@JosephKopera and @SaraJL

Thanks for all your feedback. We fully realize change is not easy - it is a long process, and it does take some time to implement – both for you as a user of this technology, and for us/Esri process-wise. We did start talking about this transition many years ago, encouraging everyone to do it. We are also following the ArcMap Product Lifecycle – the referenced dates are not arbitrary - https://support.esri.com/en-us/products/arcmap/life-cycle. When ArcGIS Desktop ends the Extended Support phase of the Product Lifecycle (~March 2024), and there are no more updates, patches and certifications, is when we plan on stopping delivery of ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Desktop Extensions by default. The reality is that will depend on your renewal date, majority being Summer, Fall or end of year 2024, which is more than a year from now. Many have done this transition, and for those who have not yet, even if prior messages have not reached them, our hope is that next year could be used to do this.

Something else we’d like to point out – you mention switching to ArcGIS Pro, particularly in 101 courses. For a while now we’ve advocated, and continue to encourage, a cloud-first approach, a web approach – that for majority of introductory courses, curricula or research activities, ArcGIS Online ought to be the starting point – if/where applicable. It is not a direct 1:1 translation from ArcMap to ArcGIS Pro (when migrating away from ArcMap), especially with the recent improvements in ArcGIS Online capabilities, such as Spatial Analysis tools, Raster Analysis tools (ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online), Media layers (georeferencing), etc. It makes for an easier transition, and easier access (not as stringent system requirements).

You also mention additional functionality missing, and @BrianBaldwin asked earlier – what is this other functionality? We fully acknowledge the need for 3rd party application support (thanks to everyone who chimed in with specific applications), stay tuned for more info, though even those are likely dated applications that a substitute ought to be thought of at some point.

As to communication - we certainly can be doing better with communication processes; the reality is that different folks leverage different modes of communication, and there is not one consistent model that fits all. So we do try to communicate via multiple channels – messages regarding this have gone out, and will continue to go out, to emails (to admins and educators), listsservs, forums, social….

And for anything else, we encourage everyone to please work with your Account Manager , or email highered@esri.com, if there is anything else we can do to provide additional help and support. For folks globally (outside US), please work with your local distributor. Rest assured that our goal is to be supportive of the academic community, above all.

SaraJL · ‎07-06-2023

@GeriMiller I appreciate the response!

Since we've switched to ArcGIS Pro, we've had a lot of improvements in using ArcGIS software in general. Our campus mostly uses ArcGIS Online and Story Maps, but we have more groups venturing out to try ArcGIS Pro. We only have one GIS course, but it's always max or over enrollment. It has definitely been a huge plus to be on Pro instead of ArcMap.

The biggest functionality struggle that we have, which was also the same with ArcMap, is that raster tools are not compatible with Google Drive. While I understand that the point is to use a Server, geodatabase, etc - our campus is a Google campus, so the majority of our storage options are involved with that. When I've worked at other jobs in the past, sometimes we've used Dropbox - which works great with ArcGIS software. But some orgs don't have the budget or the man power to invest in having an ArcGIS Server built up - so it would be nice to be able to utilize other cloud storage options.

Vector tools work just fine with Google Drive, but we have to use Network Drives with any projects that involve raster tools. Since ArcGIS Pro is more of a web-based/cloud approach, it is my hope that in the future this will be worked out! It would make it considerably easier for students and other users to utilize the software.

Thank you for your feedback!

JUSTINCOLE3 · ‎07-18-2023

I have switched 99% of my material to ArcGIS Pro but I am stuck with one significant gap in my spatial database course, the lack of X-Ray ArcGIS Solution functionality. This addin has a lot of database design and documentation tools https://hub.arcgis.com/content/9ea218ff575f4a5195e01a2cae03a0ae/about and replaced the even older ArcGIS Diagramer. I know there is an idea (which I posted many years ago) https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-ideas/x-ray-for-arcgis-pro/idi-p/968285 that has been under consideration for years. @BrianBaldwin suggested https://github.com/Esri/utility-network-properties-extractor but it is a lot more work both to compile/install and to use, as it extracts each feature class's component to a CSV analysis one at a time, and it does not have the graphical exports. What makes the X-Ray addin so nice is I open the geodatabase and it is one button for the complete data dictionary and two button options for SVG versions of the same geodatabase (features and domains). So any suggestions or if you can nudge the under consideration to in progress for 3.2 will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

BrianBaldwin · ‎07-19-2023

@JUSTINCOLE3 - I remember you asking about X-Ray awhile back.

It has certainly received a fair bit of traffic/up votes here: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-ideas/x-ray-for-arcgis-pro/idi-p/968285/

The other thing to note - that we can get more detail on is the 'near term' enhancement to Pro that will include 'Schema Reporting' - but I don't know any of the details on that yet: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-pro-documents/arcgis-pro-roadmap-february-2023/ta-p/1261591

JUSTINCOLE3 · ‎07-19-2023

@BrianBaldwin Thanks, I did not see the Schema Reporting in the update before but that hopefully is exactly what I am looking for.

BrianBaldwin · ‎08-02-2023

@JUSTINCOLE3 , @AmyWork3, @SaraJL, @SamPalmer

Just an FYI that I just put this basic blog together tracking each of the add-ins - if there are others that are missing from this list - please let us know!

https://community.esri.com/t5/education-blog/i-can-t-live-without-arcmap-because/ba-p/1314065

LoreyStinton · ‎12-15-2023

I'm a newer GIS administrator for a university and had reviewed the ArcGIS Desktop Life Cycle before advising a faculty member that he ArcMap wouldn't be completely retired until March of 2026 and that he would be able to use the software until then. I just happened to come across this discussion to learn otherwise. I'm not thrilled that I reviewed documents by Esri before consulting a faculty member only to learn after-the-fact that I gave him wrong information.

I just went back to the ArcMap Life Cycle page. There is nothing to imply that we (higher-ed) will not have access to the software after 2024 licensing. That seems like a major over-sight.

SaraJL mentioned that, "Apparently there is a "higher-ed" email list serv that also communicates changes." How do we get on that listserv?

Are there other resources available to make sure "we" are getting all of the information we need, such as when we will no longer have access to various software such as ArcMap?

I think JospehKopera makes a good point when he said that, "This whole process of suddenly moving the goalposts, and the poor "last-minute" broadcast communication style around it, has eroded much of the good faith and trust our campus community has historically had with ESRI as a software vendor." How would it not?

It's also concerning to see the response by GeriMiller that Esri has been pushing the move to AGOL over ArcGIS Pro. I have attended Esri's UC every year for nearly 20 years and I don't recall that. Perhaps that was within higher-ed sessions, but that was not communicated to the overall GIS community. I've mainly heard the need to move to ArcGIS Pro from ArcMap.

LindsayRaabe_FPCWA · ‎08-13-2024

This has been an enlightening (and concerning) bit of reading!