Removing Duplicate add-on license messages in Education ArcGIS Online Organizations

[GeriMiller]

BACKGROUND

Due to User Type changes, administrators of Education ArcGIS Online organizations are seeing messages related to duplicate add-on licenses. In addition, if your license has been renewed, you may see messages related to licenses exceeding what is available. This is due to licenses that have become part of the user type, or licenses which have retired (GeoPlanner, Community Analyst).

This blog explains these messages and advises next steps.  

There are two types of licenses:

• Licenses that are part of the GIS Professional User Type (several of the ArcGIS Pro extensions, such as 3D Analyst, Spatial Analyst, etc., ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online, and others – check here for complete list).
• Licenses that are NOT part of the GIS Professional User Type (additional ArcGIS Pro extensions, such as Aviation Airports, Bathymetry, etc., ArcGIS Data Interoperability, and others – check here for complete list).

There are two situations your organization could be in:

• Your organization has not yet come up for renewal since the initial license changes were implemented (only seeing Duplicate license messages).
• Your organization is renewing or has renewed, and the second set of license changes are happening (seeing both Duplicate and Expired license messages).

MESSAGE: “Some members have licenses assigned twice.”

This message is occurring because of user type changes that now include licenses that used to be add-on licenses in the user type.

Education customers can choose to take no action, which will not have an impact on current workflows. However, the initial user type changes took place in June 2024 and for those who have not renewed (before June 2025), it is best to act and remove the duplicate messages.

• If you have not renewed your ArcGIS Online organization before June 2025, it is best to “Unassign duplicate add-on licenses” and remove the duplicate licenses.
• If you wait until after renewal (after June 2025), you will see messages related to expired licenses, which causes New Member Defaults to not function properly (existing bug which is currently being worked on). New Member Defaults will not assign the add-ons that are NOT part of the User Type (additional ArcGIS Pro extensions, such as Aviation Airports, Bathymetry, etc., ArcGIS Data Interoperability, and others). Further, those licenses cannot be assigned in bulk, one will have to do it through the GUI (page by page 100 at a time), or via a script.  

Action to take

• Recommended: Remove the duplicate licenses using the “Unassign duplicate add-on licenses” option which displays next to the message. Note that this is an enhancement of ArcGIS Online capabilities which allow changes to all users in “bulk”.

If Education customers do not remove the duplicate warnings before their renewal (before June 2025), workflow will be:

• Revoke all expired licenses.
• Assign missing add-on Pro extension licenses that are not part of the user type (usually assigned by New Member defaults) to new users that didn’t get them automatically.

Items to keep in mind

• When a process to unassign duplicate add-on licenses is started, administrators can monitor the process in another browser tab on the Licenses --> Add-on licenses page. If the process is interrupted (machine goes to sleep, for example), the process will terminate. You will need to restart the process, and it will pick up where it left off, i.e. no progress is lost. The license revocation processing rate is ~200 users per minute, so if you have a lot of members in the ArcGIS Online organization, the process will take some time to complete.
• Currently, if an administrator makes the change for one of the ArcGIS Pro extensions, all the rest of ArcGIS Pro extension duplicate licenses will be unassigned (this may not be intuitive/clear, as in the GUI it would appear that all the ArcGIS Pro extensions will need to be done individually).
• If you previously assigned licenses for ArcGIS Image Hosting to users, then the incorporation of its licensing into the Professional Plus user type will also trigger the duplicate licensing message. These duplicates can be removed by an administrator in the same way as described above for the duplicate ArcGIS Pro extensions.
• If you have any ArcGIS Pro licenses which have been taken offline, you may see additional messages related to those checked out licenses (specifically, if you follow the workflow above before you renew your ArcGIS license). The offline licenses would include the duplicate ArcGIS Pro extensions, so the license would need to be checked back in, before the duplicate licenses could be removed.  

NOTE: After the June 2025 ArcGIS Online update, you will have to manage the duplicate license warning, specifically for ArcGIS Urban, which is now part of the GIS Professional Plus user type. The easiest way to resolve is to click on the link in the message to resolve the duplicate warnings (do not go through New Member Defaults, Manage add-on licenses). It is a two-step process - one to un-assign the duplicate licenses, and next to update New Member Defaults.

MESSAGE: “The number of licenses assigned exceeds the number of licenses available."

This message will appear to those who renew their ArcGIS Online organization after the above mentioned changes to user types were made, specifically from GeoPlanner, Community Analyst, and Urban Suite licenses being retired.

• There is no option to un-assign those in bulk.
• To remove this message, an administrator has to do it via the License page, where changes can be applied to 100 members at a time. Alternative is to use a script.    

 CONCLUSION

For the “Duplicate License” messages to disappear, any license that will, or has, expired should be revoked. Waiting until after it has expired means Education customers will get impacted by the New Member defaults bug, which may prevent certain licenses from being assigned properly. Recommended course of action is to remove the duplicate licenses using the “Un-assign duplicate add-on licenses” option which displays next to the message.

Further, we continue to make improvements in bulk managing license assignments in ArcGIS Online. Please feel free to add yourself to this ENH-000161264 : Bulk assignments/revocations of Add-on licenses in ArcGIS Online could be enhanced for organizations with large numbers of members.