Latest Contributions by Suzanne-Boden

Updated March 20, 2024 The use of ArcGIS maps and apps has expanded well beyond traditional GIS roles. Business analysts, data scientists, researchers, operations managers, and many other non-GIS professionals find value in using ArcGIS to streamline field data collection, conduct advanced spatial analytics, create compelling visualizations, and share information that leaders, policy makers, and the public can easily understand and act on. Any organization that wants to get results with technology has to prepare its workforce to confidently apply the technology. As of August 14, 2016, all Esri customers with current maintenance receive unlimited access to e-Learning on Esri Academy. Organization-wide access to e-Learning enables the entire workforce to build skills and gain confidence with ArcGIS tools at any time, from anywhere. The e-Learning benefit is not tied to product licensing or user type status—all employees, interns, contractors, faculty, and students at customer organizations are eligible to take e-Learning. It is up to the organization to decide whom to enable and how to enable access. We realize that enabling e-Learning access at an enterprise scale requires planning. Below are considerations for managers and others who will be supporting e-Learning access at their organization.  1. Whom do you want to enable for e-Learning access? This is the most important question to consider. To get the full value of your maintenance benefit, your organization may want to provide e-Learning access to employees outside the core ArcGIS user group. Perhaps you'd like to support professional development paths for individuals in other departments. Perhaps you've received requests from these individuals to use ArcGIS tools. E-Learning is a great tool to ignite enthusiasm and build practical skills related to mapping and analytics.  Step 1 in crafting your plan: Determine the approximate number of users you want to enable and the organizational roles that will participate. 2. Where do you want to manage e-Learning access?  Location, location, location—everything always comes down to where. There are two places where you can manage e-Learning access: ArcGIS Online — Members of an ArcGIS Online organization can access all e-Learning as soon as Esri access is enabled for them in ArcGIS Online. These individuals will need to sign in to Esri Academy with their ArcGIS Online organizational account. If they're logged into the ArcGIS Online organization when they visit Esri Academy, their access to e-Learning is seamless (no additional sign-in is required). Benefits: It's easy. ArcGIS Online administrators routinely enable Esri access so that members can access this community and other Esri websites. Members can use the same username and password they already use for ArcGIS Online.  Disadvantages: Only organization members will be enabled for e-Learning access. Members who have taken Esri training previously may want to use their existing ArcGIS public account so that all of their learning activity is associated with a single account. When members are removed from the ArcGIS Online organization, their e-Learning access terminates and they will need to contact GIStraining@esri.com to have their training history transferred to an ArcGIS public account.  If the ArcGIS Online administrator disables Esri access before removing members from the organization, their training history may be difficult to recover.  Tip for Administrators: Do not disable Esri access before removing members from your ArcGIS Online organization. What about ArcGIS Enterprise? While members of an ArcGIS Online organization can seamlessly access e-Learning while logged into their organizational account, we are not able to validate ArcGIS Enterprise organizational logins. Members of an ArcGIS Enterprise organization will need to be connected in My Esri to access e-Learning on Esri Academy. My Esri — Anyone who is not a member of an ArcGIS Online organization must be connected to your customer organization in My Esri. Once connected in My Esri, e-Learning access is automatically enabled. Benefits. Individuals who are already connected to your My Esri organization have e-Learning access enabled by default. No additional setup is required. My Esri administrators can invite many people at once to connect (up to 1,000 at a time). Individuals can use their existing ArcGIS public account for e-Learning. If they don't have a public account, it's easy and fast to create one at https://accounts.esri.com. Administrators can limit e-Learning access to a specific time range if desired. Disadvantage: If you have many e-Learners, your My Esri organization will also have many connected users. Administrators may not like seeing a long list of connected users. Tip: From Manage Users, you can filter your user list to view only those with e-Learning permission. Use the column heading filters to view the user list based on other criteria. Step 2 in crafting your plan: Decide where you want to manage access—ArcGIS Online, My Esri, or perhaps both. After this decision is made, consider implementation details. 3. How will you enable e-Learning? ArcGIS Online: An administrator simply needs to enable Esri access for each member and notify members to use their ArcGIS Online organizational account for e-Learning on Esri Academy. It's important to explicitly tell members to use their organizational account because many people have multiple ArcGIS accounts. If members of your ArcGIS Online organization sign in with a public account, they will not be able to access e-Learning that requires maintenance. My Esri: Connect new users to your My Esri organization by using the Invite Users option on the Home > Users menu. You can type or copy/paste email addresses into the tool or upload a file (XLSX or CSV). The file should contain only one column of email addresses and no header row. XLS files are not supported. Do you have a large number of users (hundreds or thousands) who need e-Learning access? Designate one or more individuals to be My Esri Training administrators by granting them the "Assign training permissions" permission, which allows them to invite and manage users. Tip: If Training administrators will need to view e-Learning activity reports, they will need both the "Assign training permissions" and "View training information" permissions. You can also use tags to categorize connected users (by department, role, location, academic course, etc.). Using tags, it's easy to filter the Manage Users table view and perform administrative tasks from there. Do you want a specific account used for e-Learning? Individuals that receive a My Esri invitation can connect with any Esri-enabled ArcGIS account. If you want a specific account used for e-Learning, add a custom message to the invitation with instructions. 4. How will you manage e-Learning access over time? Many organizations have internal approval processes that regulate how employees and contractors request and take training. If yours does, integrate Esri e-Learning access into the existing processes. Decide whether an administrator should proactively enable all approved users (by enabling Esri access in ArcGIS Online or connecting them to your My Esri organization). As individuals are hired or end their association with your organization, make sure that adding and removing them from the My Esri or ArcGIS Online organization is part of your existing new employee/departing employee administrative processes. After you've decided whom will be enabled for e-Learning access, where you will manage the access, and how you will manage access over time, you have a great start to a good plan to get the most value from your organization's maintenance benefit. All you need to do is execute. ... View more

Our next Esri Geodata Academy will be on April 21 in downtown Washington. The topic is an introduction to making web maps using ArcGIS Online. This hands-on, half-day training session is free of charge. Esri provides all the hardware, software, and materials used in the session. Attendees get access to the ArcGIS Online Organization for two weeks following the session. If you're in the DC area, you can find out more and register from the Esri Geodata Academy web page. ... View more

In recognition of their achievement, Esri-certified individuals now receive digital badges in place of the emblems that were used when the program publicly launched in 2011. Digital badges feature metadata that allow others (including prospective employers) to immediately verify Esri certification information.  Badges feature a fresh, updated design that will enhance resumés, business cards, and social media profiles. If you're an Esri-certified individual, access your badges and usage guidelines by going to your certification profile page and downloading them. Digital badges are part of Esri's ongoing commitment to provide certified individuals with modern, engaging products and leading-edge functionality that supports their professional goals. ... View more

Updated June 25, 2020. This post was originally published in 2017. As of August 2016, all customers with a qualifying Esri product that is current on maintenance receive unlimited access to e-Learning on the Training site. With hundreds of e-Learning options in the Training catalog and more added each week, this benefit is pretty amazing. Perhaps more amazing, anyone at a maintenance customer organization is eligible to take advantage of e-Learning to grow their geospatial knowledge and build ArcGIS skills. There's no requirement to have a product license or named user status.  When we launched this benefit, access to e-Learning was enabled when an individual's ArcGIS account (public or ArcGIS Online organizational account) was connected to their customer organization on the My Esri site. My Esri administrators will still need to connect the accounts of individuals who are not members of an ArcGIS Online organization. ArcGIS Online organization members, however, no longer need to be connected in My Esri. Instead, their e-Learning access is enabled automatically when an administrator enables Esri access for them in ArcGIS Online. If you're a member of an ArcGIS Online organization with Esri access enabled, you can visit the Training site at any time, sign in with your ArcGIS Online organizational account, and access any e-Learning option that catches your fancy. If you're signed into your ArcGIS Online organization when you arrive at the Training site, e-Learning access is seamless (no need to sign in again). If you're a My Esri administrator at a university or college, you no longer have to invite hundreds of student users to connect to your My Esri organization each semester. My Esri does offer the ability to set a time range for student access, however. If that feature is important to you, continue to connect learners in My Esri. Note: E-Learning access cannot be automatically enabled for ArcGIS Enterprise portal users. Those individuals need to be connected through My Esri. ... View more

Today marks the start of our February Esri Technical Certification giveaway, and the first one for this year. This giveaway runs through the 24th, which means you have 14 days to enter for a chance to win a free exam voucher (valued at $225 USD). The voucher can be used to register for any of the available Esri certification exams. As with previous giveaways, the rule is one entry per individual. If you entered one of last year's giveaways, you’ll need to enter again to be included this time. Two winners will be randomly selected and announced on March 1st. Our 10.5 exams are in development and will be released throughout the year. This giveaway is a great opportunity to advance your professional development goals if they include achieving an Esri technical certification. Good luck! Enter the giveaway now. ... View more

A previous post shared five Python code snippets to automate mapping tasks in ArcMap. This post walks you through how to accomplish those same tasks using the ArcGIS Pro Python window. In ArcGIS Pro, the mapping module is called arcpy.mp. To try the snippets below for yourself, make a copy of an ArcGIS Pro project file (APRX) and move it somewhere for testing purposes. You don’t have to be an experienced Python scripter—simply enter the code below into the Python window and check out the results.  You’ll soon see how a few Python tricks can speed up map management. Each snippet below works with ArcGIS Pro 1.x, an existing project file, arcpy.mp module, and Python 3.x. Snippet 1: Check Layer Definition Queries Suppose you need to check if any of the layers in your ArcGIS Pro project have a definition query applied, and if so, view the definition queries. Opening the Layer Properties dialog box for each layer in each map is a pain. Solution: Open the Python window instead and run the code below. The name and definition query of all the layers will be “printed” (i.e., displayed in the Python window). Code Breakdown The first line of code creates a variable called aprx that references the open project using the ArcGISProject function with the CURRENT keyword. The next line of code creates a variable called maps using the listMaps method that returns a Python list of Map objects in the project. A for loop is used to iterate through each map. For each map, the listLayers method is used to create a list of the layers. Another for loop is used to iterate through the list of layers. The Layer class has many properties that can be accessed, including the name and definition query of a layer. Because not all layer types support all properties, the supports method is used to test which properties a layer supports. The last line of code prints (displays) the name of each map, the name of each layer, and each layer's definition query. Snippet 2: Fix Broken Links At some point, you have probably moved map data from one workspace to another. Have you ever seen the dreaded red exclamation marks? If the path to map layers has changed, with just a few lines of code you can quickly find the old workspace path and replace it with the new workspace path for all layers and tables in your project at once. Run the following lines of code in the Python window (be sure to update the paths to reflect your old and new workspaces). Code Breakdown The first line of code is the same as the previous example, creating the variable aprx that references the open ArcGIS Pro project. The updateConnectionProperties method is used to replace the current connection information (first parameter) with new connection information (second parameter) for all layers and tables in the project. Learn more: Updating and fixing data sources Snippet 3: Identify Layers with a Broken Data Source Speaking of those red exclamation marks, you can also use arcpy.mp to print out the layers that have broken links using the code below. Code Breakdown The first line of code creates a variable called aprx that references the open project, just like the examples above. Like the first example, the listMaps and listLayers methods are used to create a list of layers in each map in the project. The for loops are used to iterate through each layer in each of the maps, printing out the name and isBroken layer properties for each. The “\n” adds a line before the map name and creates a separation between the layers for each map. Snippet 4: Inventory Layer Data Sources If you need to know the data source for all the layers in your project, but don’t want to open the Layer Properties dialog box for each, simply run the lines of code below in the Python window to print out the names and data sources of the layers. Code Breakdown This example starts the same way as the previous snippet, creating a variable for the project (aprx), and creating lists of the maps and layers in each of the maps. In this example, you print out the name and dataSource properties for each layer in your map. The supports method is used because not all layers support the dataSource property. Snippet 5: Combine PDF Documents Maybe you’re creating a map book or maybe you have a few PDF documents you need to combine (like your expense report and receipts). You can use arcpy.mp and the PDFDocument class to manipulate PDF documents. Run the code below to combine two PDF documents. Code Breakdown The first line of code creates a variable called pdf that references an existing PDF document. The appendPages method is used to add pages from a PDF to the end of the referenced PDF. To save the changes, the saveAndClose method is used. Want to learn more? If you’d like to learn more about working with the ArcGIS Pro Python window or migrating Python scripts from ArcMap to ArcGIS Pro, check out these resources: Tutorial: Getting started with the arcpy.mp ArcGIS Help: Migrating from arcpy.mapping to ArcGIS Pro  If you'd like an introduction to ArcGIS Pro, these courses are recommended: Getting Started with ArcGIS Pro ArcGIS Pro: Essential Workflows Migrating from ArcMap to ArcGIS Pro  This post was contributed by Esri instructor Brittney White. Based in Washington, D.C., Brittney’s passion is helping customers learn about and apply Esri technology to their own work. ... View more