What permissions are recommended for general organizational users?

[Ann123]

I've searched this community and can't seem to find a best answer.  What are the recommended permissions to grant for a general GIS user?  I typically just allow view training information, access e-learning, view event and view technical information.   Are there any others?  

[jcarlson]

I don't think there's any "best" answer, as it will depend a lot on your organization's size, needs, etc.

At my last job, I managed organizational accounts for a university. We had ~70 active users any given semester, but many of those were students who may or may not be active after the end of the semester. In those cases, we did not enable a lot of the typical permissions you listed, since the account would more than likely be deactivated in less than a year.

Faculty and staff, on the other hand, we definitely added the same permissions you did. For a few faculty members in the GIS department, it would also make sense to allow them to initiate support tickets, as they may be overseeing a class and have the best firsthand knowledge about the technical issue.

At my current job, however, there are only three of us working for a small county mapping department. Other users of our system are primarily accessing resources through configured web apps, etc., and don't need anything as far as permissions go. The three of us in the department, though, all need most / all of the permissions available.

[Ann123]

Thanks @jcarlson 

My organization is 160+ people, with around 30 GIS users, with widely varying skills and knowledge sets, of which there are about 2 of us who I'd consider "super users".  There's additional confusion of those with ArcGIS Online access (whole different set of permissions and best practices) and those with my.esri.com organizational access (e-learning, tech support, etc).  

Is there a page somehwere that lists all the different permission types and a good explanation of what they are and examples of those types of people?  @TeresaDolan  has a series of good articles here on the community site about best practices, but I haven't found a complete summary yet.  Probably its in the help files or documentation?  

[JoshBeaton · Accepted solution]

@Ann123 

Thanks for your questions. When you edit or invite a user in My Esri, you will see all of the available permissions you can apply and if you hover over the information icon it will describe the permission (see below screenshot). We are planning for the future to introduce roles in My Esri where an organization can create their own roles (bundle permissions under them) or utilize templates. This will be something looked at in 2024.  For now to organize your users, you can add tags to each describing the role or type of user. You are correct that the My Esri help on the site and documentation supports this information. We also have a free Introduction to My Esri Administration course available.

https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/647f7a109631de19e3a4a156/introduction-to-my-esri-administratio...

As for ArcGIS Online, you are correct that the two environments have different access rules. Another item Esri is looking at to potentially streamline. 

Hope this helps,

Josh