Esri Technical Support Blog - Page 2

Have you ever wanted to create an empty feature service to use in ArcGIS Online, and found yourself stuck with no easy way to get this done? If you’re asking why in the world anybody would want to do this, this blog may not be for you – but keep reading anyway, because you may find new ways to leverage your ArcGIS Online account!

There are cases where you are planning on going out and collecting data, maybe using the Collector app … the point is, you don’t have any existing features. However, you need to provide the structure and format that field staff, volunteers, or community members use to add data to the feature service.



Since you’re using ArcGIS Online, your natural instinct is to go to the documentation and search for “create empty feature service.” You find a section of documentation called Publish an empty hosted feature layer. Steps 1 and 2 go by quickly - no sweat. But then you get to Step 3 and you can't go forward. You find yourself saying things like, “I don’t have an existing feature layer that is right,” or “this template just doesn’t work at all for what I want to do. It’s going to take way too much time to get this to work. This should be easier. Sigh.”Pssst…  Here’s the secret. Every named user for an ArcGIS Online Organization account has access to developers.arcgis.com. Go to the website and sign in from the upper-right corner using your ArcGIS Online Organization username and password. Once signed in, you will see options to the left of your profile. Hover over the options until you see Hosted Data.

My Hosted Data section of developers.arcgis.com

New Feature Service section of developers.arcgis.com

Create Fields section of developers.arcgis.com

Review and Publish service section of developers.arcgis.com

Edit empty feature service from developers.arcgis.com in ArcGIS Online

ArcGIS Pro is the latest addition to the Esri Desktop suite of software. It offers a brand new way to do GIS, and with that, a brand new way to license and distribute the software. Check out these six great tips to get started, and you'll be a pro in no time!1. You need an active ArcGIS Online Organizational Account.*

Your software purchase that is current on maintenance includes what we call an “Entitlement account” to use ArcGIS Online. In other words, an Entitlement account is a fancy term for the licensing structure that includes: one named user, and 100 annual credits per Desktop license purchased. This account comes at no additional cost and provides access for your organization to use ArcGIS Online, Esri Maps for Office, and ArcGIS Pro.

An activation e-mail was sent to the primary maintenance contact for each account. The e-mail included instructions and a hyperlink for activating and configuring the ArcGIS Online Organization. The person who activates the account is automatically set as the organization administrator and will have the necessary permissions to invite other users to the organization and then provision those users' ArcGIS Pro licenses.

Esri also provides a free version of ArcGIS Online called a public account. This type of account does not support licensing ArcGIS Pro. An Account Troubleshooting guide has been created to provide more information.If your organization does not have an ArcGIS Online Organizational account or you would like to upgrade your public account, please contact Esri Customer Service.* It is also possible to setup ArcGIS Pro to get a license through Portal for ArcGIS. 2. You can download the software from My Esri.

My Esri is a new customer solution that integrates your ArcGIS Online, Support, and Customer Care accounts into a single site. In order to install ArcGIS Pro, sign in to your My Esri account as the Primary Maintenance Contact.

If your account is current on maintenance, the Primary Maintenance Contact should have permission to view an Organizational dashboard. The dashboard includes the option to filter by products and then by downloads in order to download the software.If you do not see the option to download software in My Esri, please contact the primary maintenance contact for your account or Esri Customer Service.3. Provisioning the licenses in ArcGIS Online is flexible based your needs.

With an ArcGIS Online Organizational account and administrator permissions, you should see the following option when you sign in to your account:

Click “Manage Licenses” to get started provisioning your ArcGIS Pro Licenses. The licenses are assigned to named users in your organization. You can provision each user individually, or select multiple users to batch provision the licenses. After making your selection, click the “Configure” button to grant the license levels and extensions.

Good news: the ArcGIS Pro licenses and extensions can be reassigned at any time! As an administrator you can update or revoke the use of license in real time. It may help to think of ArcGIS Online as a cloud-based licensing manager driven by the named users in your organization.If your organization does not have a “Manage Licenses” option, please contact Esri Customer Service.4. ArcGIS Pro Licenses can be “checked out” for offline use.

If you need to work with ArcGIS Pro in a disconnected mode, you can check out a license. You can check out a license on only one machine at a time, so you won't be able to sign in or use ArcGIS Pro on any other machine while your license is offline. To use ArcGIS Pro on other machines, you need to check in the license on the original machine where you took the license offline.How to check out a license: Open a project > Click the “Project” tab > Licensing > check the box for: Authorize ArcGIS Pro to work offline.How to check in a license: Uncheck the box for “Authorize ArcGIS Pro to work offline”. If you find this box is greyed out, it is because you are no longer signed into ArcGIS Online. To resolve this, Open a project > Click the “Project” tab > Portals > right-click your portal connection > Sign in. Now you should be able to check in your offline license in the Licensing tab.If you are having trouble checking in or out offline licenses to use ArcGIS Pro, please contact Esri Technical Support.5. Installing ArcGIS Pro is a breeze!

Once the software has been successfully downloaded from My Esri, ArcGIS Pro can be installed. Please review the install guide before getting started. You do not need to uninstall any previous version of desktop products; ArcGIS Pro can run side-by-side with any version of ArcMap, giving you the flexibility to test your ArcMap workflows in ArcGIS Pro.If you have a question or issue with installing ArcGIS Pro, please contact Esri Technical Support.6. ArcGIS Pro gives you brand new functionality.

ArcGIS Pro has a 64-bit architecture and leverages your machine's GPU and multithreading to keep the user interface responsive and to utilize additional CPU cores on the local machine. It supports multiple layouts and map views that can be linked and explored in both 2D and 3D. The new drawing and output engine in ArcGIS Pro also includes new output capabilities, such as the ability to export your maps with native transparency support. It also includes some brand new geoprocessing tools, such as Space Time Cube and Emerging Hotspots. For more information about platform GIS or ways to integrate ArcGIS Pro into an existing workflow, please refer to the help or Learn GIS.

If you are a Business Analyst Online (BAO) user, then you are familiar with all the great information you can find about a place. You can generate reports for your specific areas of interest based on thousands of data variables ranging from demographics and census to consumer spending and employment data as well as traffic counts.

Now, what if you are out and about and just have to have that information right now? The BAO Mobile app is what you need.

The next-generation BAO Mobile app is now available on the Apple App Store. Customers who have purchased BAO as a premium app get the mobile app as part of the subscription. BAO users who are a member of the organization’s Group (normally named ‘My BAO Group’) containing the BAO application will have access to both the BAO web app and the BAO Mobile app. If you believe that your organization has BAO but you are not able to log in, please refer to this post.

If your organization currently does not have BAO and you would like to try it out, sign up for a 30-day trial.

Keep in mind that if you’re using the old BAO mobile app, this will not automatically be updated to the Next Gen BAO Mobile app. You will need to download the new BAO Mobile app from the App Store and log in with your ArcGIS Online username and password. The old mobile app will remain available for a short time to allow users to download and start using the new app.

Old BAO app released 2012 (left) and new BAO Mobile app released 2014 (right)

While we understand there might be some confusion regarding which authentication credentials to use, it is necessary to have both the new mobile app and the preexisting product available for a short time to allow users time to download and start using the new BAO Mobile app. The new mobile app requires ArcGIS Online credentials (username/password) and the user must have the BAO web app to use the new version, which should streamline the login process between ArcGIS Online, the BAO Web app, and BAO Mobile.

Previous BAO mobile app users that do not have a current subscription to BAO will not be able to use the new app unless they purchase a subscription. This is the primary reason to keep the previous BAO mobile app available so these users will have time to transition to the new app if they want to continue using the mobile app.

If you try to log in to Business Analyst Online or Community Analyst and you receive the message, "Error: Invalid username or password", see the following reasons and ways to troubleshoot.

Reason 1: You’re using a username/password for the legacy application.

To see if this is the case, log in to the legacy Business Analyst Online or legacy Community Analyst. The legacy applications are retired and only available to allow you to migrate your sites from the legacy application to the new application. For more information, go to:

• Learn how to migrate sites from the legacy Community Analyst application to the new version
• Learn how to migrate sites from the legacy Business Analyst Online application to the new version

Reason 2: Your ArcGIS Online subscription administrator has restricted access to the application.

Please see your administrator.

Reason 3: Your organization has not purchased or not requested a trial.

a. Try Business Analyst Online Now or Try Community Analyst Now.

b. Call 1-800-447-9778 to purchase (for U.S. customers only), or visit this page.

Reason 4: The application is not provisioned to a group within your ArcGIS Online subscription.

WARNING: Procedures described in this section must be performed ONLY by your ArcGIS Online Administrator.

• Log in to ArcGIS Online > click Groups > click the 'named group' (e.g. My BAO Group)
• Click the Invite Users link, add the users, and click Send Invitation. Here is an example:

Note: If you have more than one administrator for your ArcGIS Online subscription and if another administrator activated it, the group may not appear in ArcGIS Online. If this happens, you can click on 'The organization’s groups' on the right of the page and see if the group is created. If it is, you can click 'Join this Group' at the top, and an email will be sent to the administrator who originally created the group.

If the above links don’t work, log in to ArcGIS Marketplace > My Console > My Purchased Items.

Scenario 1: If you don’t see the application, return to the home page and click the application (Business Analyst Online or Community Analyst). Click 'Get it Now' and follow the instructions.

Note: When you click 'Get It Now', an Esri representative will contact you to get you set up.

Scenario 2: If you see the application, click View Item.

The Share dialog box appears, allowing you to create a new group (if one doesn’t exist) or select existing groups.

You will invite users; see the Invite Users section above.

Why the change?

We’ve created a better way to manage access for Business Analyst Online and Community Analyst in ArcGIS Online subscriptions. These changes allow better control in the sharing and use within your organization.

Pavan Y. - Technical Lead - Location Analytics

This blog post is the first in a series of debugging tips and tricks to help you on your way. 

It’s a jungle out there. And like it or not, it’s a jungle inside your application as well. Working through the bugs isn’t as simple as slowly sifting through lines of code; it takes dedicated tools and candid curiosity. In the jungle, the momma gorilla has little more to rely upon than her courage and her cunning. But as a web developer, you have a variety of tools at your disposal.  Today, we are going to take a look at the Network tab inside Google Chrome’s Developer Tools.

Accessing the Chrome Developer Tools is easily done using shortcut keys (Control + Shift + I) or by navigating to the top right of the browser, clicking on the three grey horizontal lines, then choosing “Tools”, then “Developer tools”.

Unlike the momma gorilla, Chrome Developer Tools cares about you and your applications. It likes you. It thinks you’re a really good developer. But you need to do some work. It’s kind of like Esri Support. We like you. We want to help you, and we’ll be there when you take the first step.

While the developer tools are open, you can clear the browser cache by simply clicking and holding the refresh button.  This action presents you with three different options: Normal Reload, Hard Reload, and Empty Cache and Hard Reload. These options help you ensure that changes to your code are reflected in the browser. Otherwise, the application may load the older code from the browser’s cache. When I’m feeling blue, a couple of Hard Reloads always does the trick. If it’s near the end of the day, you may want to empty the cache first.

Now that you’ve cleared the cache and reloaded your application, we can continue.  Like the developer tools in other major browsers, such as Firebug, and standalone tools like Fiddler, the Network tab in Chrome logs individual requests spawned from the tab currently open in the browser.  Typically, a variety of resources are loaded when a page is refreshed and additional requests are executed while the user is interacting with the page.

The Network tab is my personal favorite. I always open this tab before running any test application. Here we can focus on inspecting web traffic to discover how the application interacts with online services. If there is a print service in the application, you can grab the webmap as JSON in the network tab, and compare it’s parameters against the REST API to see if the JSON is valid. You could also see all the resources the application is consuming, and where those resources are located.

If something has gone visibly wrong in the application, the first things to look for are requests that have failed entirely.  The most common errors are a 403, indicating that you don’t have permission to access the resource, and 404, which means the resource can’t be found.  In my own experience, 404 errors are most often caused by a typo I introduced when I wrote out the location of a service, because I write code like a momma gorilla.

This screenshot shows the Network tab open with a 404 error (Not Found) in the network traffic regarding a missing .css file on the server named localhost (I put the .css in the wrong folder)

In this installment, we learned how to access and use the Network tab inside Chrome Developer tools to reveal the individual requests launched by an application, and their success or failure. This information can greatly facilitate the debugging of an application when minimal other error information is available by indicating to the developer what is occuring behind the scenes, and on what areas in the code to place focus. This concludes part one of a multi-part series on JavaScript Debugging Tips. Join us next time when we delve even deeper into the Network tab with a real-world example. Happy debugging!

As you may or may not be aware, a recent security vulnerability was unveiled for servers using the OpenSSL cryptographic library that affects many different products and software worldwide. This vulnerability has been codenamed 'The Heartbleed Bug', and potentially allows attackers to read the memory of a protected server or client and retrieve encrypted personal information from that server/client.

As a result, Esri staff have been performing maintenance to validate, secure, and patch Esri servers and infrastructure to close this vulnerability and ensure Esri customers are protected.

Please read the following KB Article for further information regarding the Heartbleed bug and whether any customer action is required for your Esri software.

As of January 2014, the use of Bing imagery requires a ‘Bing key’ purchased from Microsoft. Before you can complete the steps below, you will need to contact Microsoft to obtain a key. You can email bing4esri@microsoft.com to get in touch with a Microsoft representative.

To install your Microsoft Bing key:

Additional resources:

Staying updated on the latest revisions to online templates can sometimes prevent problems from appearing further down the road, and is one way a user can avoid being in a situation where they would need to start customizing their template from scratch. Users are able to check on the updates for their application that they downloaded through the GitHub page.

Most applications that are showcased on www.arcgis.com have the option to allow users to view the source code.

The source code will have all of the code that has been written for every release of that application listed on the GitHub page. The most recent version of the source code can be downloaded from the GitHub page via the 'Download ZIP' button outlined in red in the graphic below.

If you have already downloaded the latest version of the application, be sure to write down the date somewhere so you can manage the updates as they become available. About once a month, log in to the applications GitHub page and click on the 'commits' button.

Here you are able to view every change that has been made to the source code, including the date that the code was updated. When using an application that can be customized, it is useful to stay updated with the source code, rather than re-download the source code and start customizing from the beginning when a major change has been made to the logic of the code.

When clicking on an individual commit, it will show you the name of the commit, the number of lines changed, the name of the file changed, and the line on which the file was changed.

From there, the users are then able to go into their own application and make the updates to the source code as they deem necessary based on the commits that were provided to the source code. Instead of worrying about changing the code in major portions, you can keep the application updated in smaller bits. This will allow you to use the latest application at all times, and you may even circumvent issues that may be present in the code with which you had originally started.

Good luck with your application!Alexander N. - Desktop Support Analyst

Virtual Campus courses are an online community of users that are receiving training in a fully self-paced environment. Several different kinds of Virtual Campus courses can be taken at training.esri.com. Sometimes, after registering for a course, users are unable to view the course videos. When this happens, the following steps are recommended for users to troubleshoot the issue.

1. Make sure a supported version of Adobe Flash player is installed. The operating system should be running version 9 or later. To find out what version is installed, go to http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about. Flash player is not required to view the course videos, but it is required to view the live training seminars.
2. The system must be running a supported browser. Esri currently supports Internet Explorer versions 7 through 11 as well as the most recent version of Firefox and Chrome. If the user has trouble with one browser, try viewing the video in a different browser.
3. If the user is unable to view the video in multiple browsers, your associated organization may be blocking the server that hosts our training videos. Please work with your IT department to add an exception to your firewall to allow streaming from the following location: http://trainingmedia.esri.com/webcourses/*
4. Resetting the browser cache may resolve the issue by clearing out old information that the browser is relying on.

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Del. This opens the Clear Recent History window.
2. Make sure that Cache is checked, and press Clear Now.

1. Go to Tools (Alt + X) and then click on 'Internet options'.
2. In the General tab, click on 'Delete...' under Browsing history.
3. Make sure that Temporary Internet Files, Cookies, and History are checked. Press the Delete button.

• The specific error messages that are being received, and at which point in the process that the error is received
• Which web browser (and version) is being used
• Which operating system the computer is using