Add students to organizational ESRI Training account

[MaryWhelan]

I have been granted the “Assign training permissions” permission (shades of Monty Python) for the new configuration of ESRI Training.  How do I add students and faculty from my university?  I don't see anything in My ESRI.

[BobWaltrip]

Hi Andrew, as part of an overhaul of the My Esri user interface, we are adding much improved filtering, sorting on the manage users page to allow wading through the large numbers of connected users.  We'll add a quick view of the permissions and better permissions editing as well.   Lastly, we are discussing how synchronization with ArcGIS Online settings/permissions could work to ease administrative tasks.  Thanks,  Bob

[JoshuaBixby]

Bob, thanks for the reply.  Honestly, I don't understand how meeting the needs of thousands of small organizations impedes meeting the needs of large organizations, and vice versa.  I guess if developing an information system is viewed as a zero-sum game pitting small customers versus large ones, but I don't see it that way, and fortunately most other companies we work with don't either.

I don't really see bulk inviting 100 users as much of a workaround.  Beyond the reasons that aewilson‌ lays out, there are technical oddities with the current implementation.  There appears to be no validation of e-mail addresses to see whether someone is already associated with our organization in My Esri.  I guess getting an invite when you are already at the party is fine for the individual, but those invites tend to be ignored by users, which creates lots of chaff to sift through.

Another issue with invites in general, they don't appear to have an expiration.  Although we can assign permissions with an expiration date, the invitation itself doesn't appear to have one, which leads to even more chaff.

What my organization is advocating for is a e-mail based verification and self-enrollment system.  Similar to how other systems we engage with work, a user submits a request and provides his/her organizational e-mail address.  A verification e-mail is sent to the user.  Once the e-mail is verified, the profile is automatically enrolled with training permissions and a set expiration.

The auto enrollment wouldn't be perfect, but it would sure be a lot more enterprise than what exists now.

Also, why did the tokens for classes have to go away?  Tokens may not have been perfect, but it seems one imperfect system was replaced by an equally or more imperfect one.  Why not support tokens and organizational association? 

[BobWaltrip]

Hi Joshua, 

I've long pondered how best to handle invitations/tokens that aren't responded to in a timely manner.   I agree old invites add to the chaff.  We are adding better sorting and filtering so those can be filtered out as a partial solution.  Another option is to simply delete old invites after a specified period of time (e.g., 30 days?).  We could email the user and the sender of the invitation to let them know about the delete as well (although some admins already wish for less emails).   Another option is to let the sender of the invitation set an expiration date (or have a default that they can edit if desired).   What are your thoughts on that?

On the auto enrollment, let me make sure I understand what you are asking.  I believe it to be that if a user with a validated email address requests permissions in My Esri, that user is automatically connected.   The validation would include emailing the user to ensure they actually own the email address.   Is this correct?    The two concerns I have for such as system are 1) the user may be requesting more permissions than just training which would require an admin to determine, and 2) many of our customers do not have unique email domains.  That is, there are often distinct entities that do business with Esri separately that share the same email domain.   

Thanks,

Bob

[JoshuaBixby]

Regarding invitations, one, make it easy to see when the invite was initially sent.  Two, allow for an expiration.  Three, allow a default expiration to be set as a number of days (not specific date) for all new invites so that I don't have to pick dates for each user every time I send a new invite.  For example, I would want a default expiration of 30 days for all new invites I send with the option to change it at the individual request level is necessary.

On auto-enrollment, you get the gist of it.  In terms of your first command, the vast majority of users, and I mean nearly all, will be added simply for "e-Learning" access.  Seeing that is already the default permission, it would make sense to auto enroll with just that permission.  Someone who needed higher permissions could request higher permissions after auto enrollment.

Regarding your second, maybe auto-enrollment can be enabled or disabled by customer number.  I would hate for some other businesses' decision on e-mail domain sharing to prevent a simplified and streamlined user enrollment for all of those customers that don't share e-mail domains.

Wait, maybe the auto-enrollment verification involves putting in a customer number as well.  The combination of customer number and e-mail verification.

[RebeccaStrauch__GISP]

... maybe auto-enrollment can be enabled or disabled by customer number.  I would hate for some other businesses' decision on e-mail domain sharing to prevent a simplified and streamlined user enrollment for all of those customers that don't share e-mail domains.

How about having a "key word" or some type of administrator set verification for auto-enrolling?  Being a State entity that has the same email domain, but many Departments with their own GIS customer numbers, I can see just having the domain as a check as something that will not work.  Also, it may be that the user doesn't use their work email for GeoNet access.

Also, auto-enroll or blocking just by customer number could have potential problems for agencies, especially for groups like us that have a customer number that is popular to use if you don't know your own (I keep watch and have to clean up unauthorized activity at time).

But if there was a way to set up a "key" or "secret word", I could email that out to all my users (and change occasionally) that would allow them to auto-enroll.  Maybe still have an option to also check the email domain.  They obviously also have to know our customer number already to be able to register.  In any case, I think we should be able to have a multi-faceted authorization for auto-enroll.

And as Joshua mentioned, I also like the (administrator modifiable) "expires after XX days" versus having to set an actual date.

[RebeccaStrauch__GISP]

I'm not sure if student setup is different than my organization, but at least at this point it looks like if I can grant them permission to the organizational myesri, they will automatically have access to the e-learning

When I hover over the yes, it says "user automatically gets this" (paraphrasing)

In this blog Important info about new Esri Training Site 

On My Esri, a new Training administrator role and tools have been created to help with user management.  For example, Training administrators will be able to invite up to 100 individuals to connect to the organization in My Esri at once using their email addresses. Training administrators also will be able to specify a time range for e-Learning access if desired. We expect that most organizations will elect to give Annual User License administrators the Training administrator role.

I think that could be handy if you have a list of all the email addresses. I think a time-limit and renew process might be in order, even for use, since I don't always know when a user leaves our organization.  Looks like the site is semi-live now, but I haven't looked or tested everything out, but I didn't see this 100 at a time option yet. They may not have released it quite yet....this is after all the first day it is supposed to be available.  I expect we'll see an email with more info in the next day or so (my guess).

[Suzanne-Boden · Accepted solution]

Hi Mary, on the My Esri site go to My Organizations > Manage Users > Invite Users. Though the email text box is small, you can type or copy/paste up to 100 email addresses into it (separate emails with commas, spaces, or semicolons). On this page, you can also set a time range for e-Learning access. Setting a time range is recommended for Training administrators at universities so you don't have to go in after the semester ends and remove all the students from the My Esri organization.

When students/faculty receive the email invitation, they just need to click the link in the email and login with their Esri account (or create one if they don't have one). Once the login is complete, they will be connected to your university's organization in My Esri and they will have full access to all e-Learning on our new Training website. 

If you have questions about the My Esri workflow, please email training@esri.com.

[BobWaltrip]

Hi Mary, per Suzanne's response above, are you now able to see the Manage User functionality?   I did a bit of searching on My Esri and can't find you connected to an organization so I'm either searching the wrong name, username, or there is an issue getting you connected.   

Feel free to call customer service to work this out and/or contact me directly on GeoNet.

Bob

[BobWaltrip]

Oops.  It helps if my searching was on the production My Esri system instead of our QA system.  Doh!   I see that you are indeed connected and have found the functionality and have been inviting users.  Good deal.

[ThomasColson]

One of the problems I'm dealing with is people coming into our shop with existing My Esri accounts and a training history, e.g. from college, and they want to keep that training history or add to it as they're in the org. Sending the invite to their non-corporate email that is associated with that existing account throws a monkey wrench into the auto-enable all org users workflow. Then we have to tell them that their AGOL login is different then their My Esri login and heads start to unscrew.....BTW I'm a big fan of the new workflow in principal, but it has put quite a burden on administrators. Lots of kinks need to be worked out, and there's a lot of caveats to how org users access AGOL and E-learning that don't fit in this one-size-fits-all box.