How to manage ArcGIS with your Institution Agreement

[GeriMiller]

*Updated 2023

The Education Institution Agreement enables students, faculty and staff to leverage ArcGIS technology, such that any ArcGIS product can be accessed on any device and in any location.

ArcGIS has grown beyond the confines of a single desktop GIS application, and ought to be managed as an institution-wide system available to everyone, similar to a learning management system (LMS) or cloud storage. More importantly, it must be managed at scale to take full advantage of the Institution Agreement benefits - maximizing access to the technology and minimizing administration time.   

To successfully deploy and manage ArcGIS in a sustainable and secure manner, please follow the below recommendations. These recommendations are designed to help you take full advantage of the Institution Agreement benefits.

• Single ArcGIS Online organization – use a single ArcGIS Online organization for the entire institution to avoid impeding collaboration and minimize management workload.

• Enable SAML logins – leverage your institution’s identity provider to eliminate manual management of users and to prevent unauthorized access when student graduates or faculty/staff leave. Make sure to enable “Automatically” join for new users.
• Check the Why Single Sign On for academia (SAML logins) blog and the Enable Enterprise Logins video.

• Configure New Member Defaults – enable new users with everything they will need, which eliminates manual administration. When combined with SAML logins and its "Automatically" join option, the result is a fully automated process, often referred to as auto-provisioning, for providing access to ArcGIS to your entire campus community.
• User Type (GIS Professional Advanced).
• Role (Publisher or Custom Role to give users all the privileges they need) – have one role for everyone (no need to create digital divides).
• Add-on licenses – such as ArcGIS Urban Suite, ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Business Analyst Web, ArcGIS Insights, ArcGIS Drone2Map Standard, ArcGIS Pro Extensions, etc. 
• Groups - empower users to create their own groups (including Shared Update privileges). Integrate groups with other institutional, authoritative systems for managing groups of users (SAML groups)
• Credits – set the credit allocation high enough that most users can get their work done, there is ample amount of credits available with your Institution Agreement
• Enable Esri Access – enable users to help themselves by providing access to Esri Training (e-Learning) and Esri Community.
• Check the Setting New Member Defaults video.

• Software distribution – provide executables and any applicable license files (if needed) via your institutional file share system (Box, OneDrive, GoogleDrive, etc.).
• Check the Best way to share ArcGIS license files and executables blog.    

• ArcGIS Pro licensing - with the move to Modern GIS, and the upcoming removal of Single Use/Concurrent Use licenses for ArcGIS Pro from the Education programs, ArcGIS named user will be the only method to license ArcGIS in the future. Hence, it is crucial that organizations implement SAML logins for efficient access, as well as license ArcGIS Pro in lab environments via a named user model.  
• Check How do I license ArcGIS Pro in lab environments blog.    

• Maintain ArcGIS access website for your institution - it is important to provide a clear explanation of how users across the institution will obtain access to the technology itself, as well as be aware of any support and learning resources available to them.
  • Check the ArcGIS access website for your institution blog.  

• Monitor Usage - demonstrate to stakeholders the breadth and depth of GIS on campus. The ArcGIS Online Usage Reports (Organization>Status) are a start and provide easy access to total usage data. Further analysis and efforts are needed to provide information for ongoing, repeat usage, as well as daily reporting.
  • Check the GIS for Everyone (...and how to build your own ArcGIS Dashboard to show it!) blog.  

• Communicate when offboarding users - ensure that proper messaging is in place when off-boarding users leaving the institutions – students graduating, faculty retiring, etc. Proactively remind users – before they leave – about their options for transferring content, and what happens to their content after they leave. Ensure that you take the approach of empowering users to take care of themselves as much as possible.
• Check the Messaging for ArcGIS Online users leaving the university (students, faculty, staff) blog.

• Manage inactive users and stale content – if you are in the early stages of deploying ArcGIS to your entire institution, the recommendation is that you do not delete content and users, as deleting content and users takes time and effort, it breaks the audit trail of ownership, and may break dependencies that others may have on that content. Deleting content cannot be recovered! Over time, you can work on best practices and data governance standards for your institution on how to manage old content and inactive users, which should be comparable to policies your institution has for similar business systems.
• Check the Storage and Data Governance Recommendations in Education blog.  

[ChrisMixon]

Does this new method also cover ArcGIS Desktop where we previously dispensed EVA codes?

Chris

[AngelaLee]

Hi @ChrisMixon 

Yes, it does.  The EVA codes provide license for ArcMap only, and you will now want to use ArcGIS Desktop Single Use or Concurrent Use authorizations instead of the EVA codes.  In MyEsri, you'll find the authorizations under "Education Site ArcGIS Desktop".

[ChrisMixon]

Thanks @AngelaLee 

Is this the place? Is it still a 1yr license?
I don't think we have a full site license but user departments chip in for our license. I was able to get the 1yr student licenses before. How does this affect our situation?

Christopher Mixon
Info Tech Spec
Auburn University Libraries
Innovation & Research Commons
231 Mell St.
Auburn, AL 36849
(334) 844-7424
http://lib.auburn.edu/irc