Latest Contributions by GeriMiller

INTRODUCTION To access ArcGIS, one needs an account or login – an identity - which is tied to a Named User in ArcGIS Online. Via this Named User model, ArcGIS users (also called members of the ArcGIS Online organization) get access to a suite of ArcGIS web, mobile, and desktop applications. As ArcGIS Online usage grows across educational institutions, an increasing number of Named User licenses is required. Since the number of Named Users is not unlimited, Education customers need to proactively manage their quota of named users. With the cyclical nature of incoming and graduating students, it is important to think about governance standards related to Named Users, including offboarding of graduating students. This is part of a broader message of governance in Education - setting institution-wide standards and policies that apply to how Named Users, and their associated content, are managed. Such a governance plan for managing ArcGIS is a key component in planning for institutional growth in GIS. The purpose of this blog is not to address everything that goes into a governance plan, rather, to focus specifically on Named Users, which ultimately encompasses considerations for content and groups. It is part of 5 blog series: Blog 1: Content and Storage Management Blog 2: Credit Management Blog 3: User Management and offboarding Blog 4: Monitoring Usage and Health-checking your ArcGIS organization Blog 5: Proactive Content Management by Users NAMED USERS IN ARCGIS ONLINE – UNDERSTANDING Understanding of named user model Named User licensing is based on a login or account associated with a user. Therefore, every member of the organization has their own login or identity. Various applications are accessed via this login. When a named user signs into an application, such as ArcGIS Pro, they are authenticated and authorized via ArcGIS Online and to access the application. ArcGIS Online has a flexible system for adding members to an ArcGIS Online organization. Organizations add members by inviting them to join or adding them directly - check documentation here. Given the constant addition of new members (students, faculty, staff), a recommended best practice is to use SAML logins  (previously known as enterprise logins), which leverage the institution's authoritative systems for authentication and authorization. Such integration with the institutional identity store, versus manually adding users, will save valuable time and effort. It is not possible to transfer named users between different ArcGIS Online organizations. It is possible to have named user accounts in multiple ArcGIS Online organizations. Named Users from one organization can be invited to Groups in a different Organization, which provides read only access. Understanding patterns of named users in Education For institutions with Education Institution Agreement, the license is meant to serve the entire campus community. Therefore, the potential user base includes your entire institution. In reality, not every student, faculty and staff use ArcGIS, rather, a fraction of the population does. In some instances, members are part of a “GIS-centric” community, such as GIS instructors, students in GIS courses, staff in GIS roles, etc., who use a wide variety of ArcGIS products. Increasingly, a much larger, “non-GIS-centric” community is leveraging web-based, simple ArcGIS tools for their work or studies. This includes all other disciplines outside of GIS/Geography. For the purpose of user management and ArcGIS administration, it is easier and simpler to treat the above groups equally, providing all of them with the same ArcGIS access and licensing. The nature of Education organizations is such that there is a constant influx of incoming students who are enrolling in GIS courses or using the technology in various disciplines (as part of course work or research projects). Ultimately these students graduate, so there is a constant cycle of onboarding/offboarding. Understanding how your institution handles other technologies Consult your IT colleagues/centralized IT support to determine if there are existing institutional data governance practices that need to be applied to ArcGIS Online. If not, then your IT colleagues can also be a resource for helping develop data governance practices for ArcGIS Online, based on existing institutional data governance practices for similar systems (e.g., Sharepoint, Google Drive, DropBox, LMS such as Canvas, Blackboard, etc.). Some modifications may be required but you can leverage your colleagues’ expertise to build a strong foundation. USER MANAGEMENT – BEST PRACTICES Our goal with the recommendations below is to help you understand when you need to act, and plan proactively. Being a good steward of resources and operating within the bounds of existing named user allocations is important for future management of ArcGIS resources. The sections below outline options for managing named users, including communication for offboarding.   Implement SAML logins As mentioned earlier, a highly recommended best practice for educational institutions is to set up SAML logins, which leverage your institution’s identity provider, and eliminate manual management of users/account creation. SAML logins also prevent unauthorized access when a student graduates or faculty/staff leave the institution. In other words, SAML logins help regulate access in an authoritative way, once students graduate - SAML configuration will only grant eligible users access. In conjunction with setting up SAML logins, a best practice is configuring New Member Defaults – enabling new users with everything they will need (licenses, Esri Access/training, etc.), which eliminates manual administration. When combined with SAML logins and its "Automatically" join option, the result is a fully automated process, often referred to as auto-provisioning, for providing access to ArcGIS to your entire campus community. Identify whether users are active or not While it is not easy to identify whether users are active or not, it is a good practice to do periodically. This is an out-of-band task, which falls beyond GUI tools process. You will have to collaborate with the IT team who maintains the system of record/identity provider at your institution. This will be easier if you already have implemented SAML accounts, and potentially harder if you don't. If given a list of SAML accounts or arcgis-only accounts in ArcGIS Online, current status can be checked against the system of record to determine which students are, or are not, authorized. In the case of arcgis-only accounts, depending on how your institutional systems are set up, it may be possible that in addition to collaborating with your IT colleagues, you’d have to check students' status with the Registrar's Office, and faculty/staff status with HR Office. Bottom line, most likely as an ArcGIS Online Administrator, you will have to share a list of ArcGIS Online accounts to your IT colleagues and get a list back of authorized/unauthorized users. With this information, you can assess the true usage statistics of ArcGIS Online (as part of monitoring practice), as well as work toward deleting users who are no longer active. Deleting users - example approaches to user management    Careful thought and consideration should be put in place before deleting users. Deleting users is a complex task, which cannot be reversed. It should involve considerations such as: 1) when is the right time to delete users and 2) what to do with user’s content and groups. When is the right time to delete users? There is no “one size fits all” answer. Organizational standards should be put in place. For example, identifying ineligible users who have not logged in for a period of time, such as 2 years, could be deleted. Depending on institutional policies or legal obligations for certain countries (such as GDPR), this time period, i.e. the decision of when to delete users, can differ between institutions.    What should an Administrator do with the user’s content and groups? If you are deleting a single member who owns content and groups, you must first transfer their content and groups to a different member or delete their content and groups. If you are bulk deleting members, you can either transfer or delete their content. You cannot transfer groups when bulk deleting members; their groups will be deleted. There are two approaches which can be taken to delete members. Using the ArcGIS Online tools (GUI) – while this approach could work, it does not scale and typically results in haphazard enforcement of retention guidelines and policies. See Delete Members section of the documentation. Scripting – below is an example scriptable workflow. This could be put in place annually, before the start of the academic year. Identify ineligible users who have not logged in recently Using a cutoff of 2 years (or as defined by your institutional policy) Delete any of their content that is not shared No one has accessed it in the last 2 years; therefore it is deemed safe to delete Check groups owned by user, and delete group if it has no content If user owns no content nor groups, delete them Un-share remaining users' shared content, capturing sharing settings in a tag This provides a grace period (for example, 1 year); this content will get deleted in step #2 upon the next iteration of the process. Here is an ArcGIS Online Notebook which can be used as an example: Demo User-Group-Content Lifecycle Management (credit: Peter Knoop, University of Michigan). After opening link, Sign in to your ArcGIS Online organization You must use an administrator account to run this notebook Use at your own risk, ensure that you are collaborating with IT stakeholders who are knowledgeable about policies and scripting procedures. Use of Service Accounts Instead of deleting content, to satisfy the requirement to delete a user, another option could be to transfer the content to another user. Many institutions have taken an approach of using Service Accounts – an account which can be used to ‘house’ content from multiple users. Typically, this is content which is still being used. In other words, institutions may choose to employ a workaround of moving content to a single account, so that it can continue to be hosted (hence being able to delete the original user who created the content). ArcGIS Online is a SaaS system, and accounts need to be tied to individuals - except for Service accounts. As general practice, Service Accounts can be used if the individuals managing it (typically ArcGIS Administrators) have their own named user accounts (i.e. the Service account is not their only account). Alumni According to the Esri Institution Agreement, an "Authorized User" means registered students, educators, and staff members of the Institution. For certain institutions, ‘registered students’ could also encompass alumni. As an organization, Esri is always supportive of the Education community, and allows for general interpretation of the above description. Therefore, it is up to the institution to decide if alumni could be considered an ‘authorized user”. The intent of the Institution Agreement is to provide access to students, and we recommend that institutions do not provide access to alumni but will let the institution decide the meaning of the definition above - depending on institutional practices.  Offboarding users There are several approaches to offboarding alumni and departing/retiring staff and faculty - depending on institutional preference: Delete content and user on the same timetable that determines when users lose access to similar institutional systems. Un-share content on the same timetable that determines when users lose access to similar institutional systems. Keep content for some predefined time period, for example one year, so there is time to restore content upon request (if needed), or transfer to another user, then delete it after that time period expires. Delete user after content is deleted. Keep content as-is for some time period, then un-share any shared content and wait an additional time period (restoring on request), then finally deleting content, and deleting user. Communication example/pattern when offboarding users Communicating clear guidelines and appropriate messaging with graduating students or departing staff/faculty is key. This communication must proactively remind users – before they leave – about their options for transferring content, and what happens to their content after they leave. It is important that you take the approach of empowering users to take care of themselves as much as possible. Below are general best practices: Proactively inform users of their responsibilities Post guidelines and policies publicly Send periodic reminder emails Use the ArcGIS Online internal messaging mechanisms during critical time periods (e.g., prior to graduation) - include an Information banner message and Access notice. Empower users to take care of themselves Advise users to dispose of their groups and content before they leave (i.e. change ownership to another eligible user in the organization, or transfer to a different organization). This means that all users should have a custom role with privileges that enable changing ownership of their content and groups (enabled via New member defaults). A user can request Esri's assistance in transferring their training history (i.e., Esri Academy) to an account in a different organization – check Managing Enterprisewide Access to Esri E-Learning. Enable Recycle Bin for your organization to provide some protection against mistaken deletion, as users clean their content. Scripting can help automate communications As described above under the "Identify whether users are active or not" section, it is possible to collaborate with your IT colleagues to identify a subset of users, groups, and/or content that meet a set of criteria for which you want to target a specific message. It is possible to collaborate with IT colleagues to script sending of emails, as an option. This again will be specific to your institution bulk email procedures and solutions. The attached "Sample Message for Users Leaving the University" template could be leveraged for communication and changed to your institutional preferences. Note that the links in the email referring to FAQ (Google Doc) are internal to University of Michigan, and will not work outside of the University of Michigan. Therefore, please leverage as a template and adjust to your institutional preferences and resources. (Credit: Peter Knoop, University of Michigan). Additional examples are: Northeastern University User Agreement and ArcGIS Longevity and Data Retention policies outline what happens with user's content and how to preserve and access it after graduation and departure. Clemson  University policies and options for for archiving, moving, transferring or deleting content for  graduating students or departing staff/faculty are shared here.  CONCLUSION – NEXT STEPS AND WHERE TO GO FOR HELP Invariably, there is complexity associated with the various options above. What is important is that good stewardship of resources is maintained. The most important takeaway from this blog is to enable SAML logins for your ArcGIS Online organization and to implement policies that apply to your institution in terms of managing/deleting members and what to do with associated content. In addition, proper offboarding messaging must be in place. Some of the solutions above will continue to evolve, and we’d like you to be part of this journey – a contributor with ideas, processes and workflows. Please share any comments and feedback here. If you have a workflow in place that has worked well, we’d like to hear about it. For any additional questions, please contact your Account Manager or highered@esri.com. ... View more

The Esri Innovation Program (EIP) is proud to announce the 2025 Student of Year nominations. EIP encourages students and educators to create innovative applications using ArcGIS technology - as part of research projects, course work, or skills development.   Every year, university members of EIP select one student to be their Student of the Year recipient. Benefits for the nominated students are cash prizes, certificates, and Esri Press book - awarded to those who are nominated as Students of the Year. This Story Map Collection highlights the 2025 projects – thank you to all the students for their inspirational work, and to their mentors for the support and encouragement. Out of all submissions, one student is selected as International Student of the Year and invited to attend the 2025 Esri Education Summit and/or 2025 Esri User Conference. This year, this special nomination goes to Christina Zorenboehmer, a student at University of Salzburg, Recipient of the University of Salzburg EIP Student of the Year nomination. Congratulations to Christina for her work on this Semantic Big EO Data/Sen2Cube.at project. Currently, many EO data cubes such as the semantic EO data cube  Sen2Cube.at (in-house development at the Department of Geoinformatics at Salzburg) operate as powerful, yet largely isolated systems. Due to the vast amounts of data storage, a heavy-duty, big-data optimized infrastructure is usually required. Christina developed a technologically ambitious solution, which allows any semantic inference in the Sen2Cube.at implementation for > 30 000 Sentinel-2 images anywhere in Austria for the last 10 years, visualizing the results directly in ArcGIS Pro. Thank you, Christina, for your wonderful work and creativity, and congratulations to all Students of the Year! ... View more

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. ... View more

INTRODUCTION Credits are the currency used across ArcGIS – they are the basis of how costs are incurred and computed. Credits can be consumed for specific transactions, for storage or for using premium content.  As ArcGIS Online usage grows across educational institutions, so do the costs incurred by credits. Therefore, Education customers should manage credits proactively to maximize the value received from their Esri license. This is part of a broader message of governance in Education - setting institution-wide standards and policies that apply to how credits are used and consumed. A governance plan for managing ArcGIS, and credits in particular, can help institutions plan for growth. The purpose of this blog is not to address everything that goes into a governance plan, rather, to focus specifically on managing credits, including discussion of alternative options for high credit consumption items/transactions.  It is part of 5 blog series: Blog 1: Content and Storage Management Blog 2: Credit Management Blog 3: User Management and offboarding Blog 4: Monitoring Usage and Health-checking your ArcGIS organization Blog 5: Proactive Content Management by Users  CREDITS – UNDERSTANDING Understanding how credits are consumed The Understanding Credits section of the documentation outlines what credits are, and how they are consumed. Many ArcGIS Online activities do not consume credits, such as viewing maps and scenes, using ArcGIS Living Atlas basemaps and imagery, exporting data, and performing single address or place searches. Other activities do consume credits, such as performing analysis, publishing or storing content, and batch geocoding addresses.  It is important to understand costs related to credits, i.e. what actions/items consume most credits. Broadly speaking, the items below are examples of high-credit consumption items or transactions. Storage (feature, file and image storage) Batch geocoding Analytics Premium content Check the Credits by Capability section of the documentation for specific examples on the above. Understanding the pattern of consumption specific to your organization is important, as outlined in next sections. The monitoring and management of credit expenditures is a crucial component for efficient credit administration for any organization. Understanding patterns of credit use in Education For Education customers, on average, 85% of credit use is consumed by feature services storage. Geocoding and Network Analysis are the next workflows which consume majority of credits in Education organizations (percentages below are approximation). Feature Services – 85% Geocoding – 7% Network Analysis – 4.5% GeoEnrichment – 1% Data Storage – 1% Spatial Analysis – 0.5% Imagery – 0.5% Tile Services – 0.1% Notebooks – 0.1% Data Pipelines – 0.1% Demographics – 0.1% Scene Services – 0.1% Therefore, closest attention needs to be paid to workflows associated with responsibly managing the size of Feature Services (i.e., hosted feature layers). Please check the Storage and Content Management blog. In addition, for Education customers, a typical pattern of use is below (percentages below are approximation): A few users use most of the credits (~2%). Most users don't use many credits, if any (~98%). Therefore, it is important to understand who the key GIS users are (who consume most of the credits), and work with them proactively, as needed. CREDITS – BEST PRACTICES Our goal with the recommendations below is to help you understand when you need to act, and plan proactively. Being a good steward of resources and operating within the bounds of existing credit allocations is important for future management of ArcGIS resources. The sections below outline options for managing and monitoring of credits. Credit Budgeting   Enabling credit budgeting is the first step Education customers should take to ensure responsible use of credits. Next you should set a credit allocation, so that all new members who join the organization will be provided that specific credit amount. They will not be able to run tools or processes that consume credits above this allocation. There are several goals of credit budgeting: Protect users from mistakes – items such as infinite loops during programming, or working with incorrect extents can cause unnecessary credit consumption. Enforcing a credit allocation will prevent exhausting the organization’s credits due to such mistakes. Safeguard users’ access – it is best not to impose limits on what someone can do in ArcGIS (i.e. do no limit licenses or privileges), rather, ensure appropriate use through credit budgeting/allocations. Promote reasonable use – proactively direct users to better solutions instead of consuming credits beyond that reasonable use, i.e. ensure “the right tool for the right job” in the ArcGIS ecosystem. It is a good best practice to reset the credit allocation each semester, to ensure members of your organization have an adequate amount of credits to do their work. It can help reduce inquiries to administrators for additional credits. This can be done manually or automated via a script. IMPORTANT: Credit allocation limit does not apply to user's storage consumption, therefore, storage has to be monitored and managed separately. Please check Enable Credit Budgeting section of the documentation on how to enable credit budgeting and set credit allocations, if you have not done it yet. Approaches vary by Education users in terms of the right amount of credit allocation. Typical Education customer needs could be served by 500-2000 credits in terms of allocation amount. This does not mean that everyone will consume their credit allocation limit. As stated above (under Understanding patterns of credit use in Education), most users in Education organizations will not consume credits, rather, credits will be consumed by a few GIS users doing intensive work.  If the credit allocation is set too low - an excessive number of "credit allocation exceeded" notifications could be received, and users may not be able to accomplish their work done in a timely manner, i.e. they will have to ask for additional credits, and administrators will have to act upon the request. If the credit allocation is set too high – your organization may need to purchase additional credits, as the credits could get exhausted. Therefore, setting a reasonable allocation to allow GIS users to do their work is advised, as well as regularly revisiting the amount to accommodate your organization's evolving  patterns of use. Checking credit use What does credit usage look like at your institution? How do you determine what most users consume credits on, so that they can be helped and supported? As a best practice, we recommend monitoring credit usage weekly or monthly. For a quick view of your credit consumption, on the Organization, Status page, go to Dashboard, which can show credit usage over time and credit usage by type. Specifically, you can drill into the Credit Utilization Chart for a percentage breakdown by type of items. Further, you can click into the categories (Storage, Analytics, Subscribe Content, Published Content) for further information.    For additional, ongoing monitoring of your credit consumption, on the Status page, go to the Reports section and generate a credit report. Once you have the report created, you can sort the fields to understand your credit usage. You can also schedule the report to run automatically every week or month. ArcGIS Online only retains 2-years of history, therefore it is important to schedule reports and start accumulating data now, if you haven’t started yet. You can use the past to predict future consumption. For additional credit budgeting strategies, see Understanding and managing credits in ArcGIS Online. Alternatives to Credits Below are additional options to consider if you/your users are consuming excessive credit amounts due to feature storage, or if you will be doing a lot of geocoding, spatial analysis or geo-enrichment, i.e. those high credit consumption actions. The below options will have an associated cost. Storage – as identified above, for Education customers, approximately 85% of credit usage is consumed by feature services storage. Therefore, to reduce the number of credits being consumed by storage, review the recommendations in the Storage/Content Management blog, specifically, under the Reduce Content section. NOTE: Purchasing Premium Feature Data store is more cost effective than buying additional credits to cover storage costs. Again check the Content and Storage management above on how to generate a report for feature storage, and what alternative options are. Geocoding and Routing Solutions – ArcGIS Street Map Premium Geocoding is the process of converting text to an address and a location. It is a commonly used operation in GIS, please check the Geocoding documentation for additional information.  The purpose of this blog is not to dive into deep detail on Geocoding, rather, to encourage you to estimate potential use of credits, and evaluate alternative solutions such as ArcGIS Street Map premium.  Using the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service or views of this locator for batch geocoding in ArcGIS Online consumes credits. Same applies to Routing/Network Analysis services. However, credit estimation is available at the top of the tools, before running the geocoding (or routing/network analysis) job. Therefore, encourage your users to estimate the number of credits they will use, and have a discussion of what makes sense. A common solution and alternative to geocoding/routing is to obtain ArcGIS StreetMap premium, which provides enriched street dataset on premises (not running in the cloud, and therefore, not consuming credits). It is a subscription product renewed yearly, and it is available at a cost. Please work with your Account Manager for additional information on obtaining ArcGIS Street Map Premium.   Different institutions will have different approaches in terms of recommendations on what geocoding should be done in ArcGIS Online, versus offloaded to an alternative solution – there is no one size fits all. In addition, there are different types of Education licenses, which provide different credit allocations. Use your best judgement in terms of credits available to you in ArcGIS Online (including projecting for future use, which is why understanding your patterns of credit use, as outlined previously, will be important), before considering ArcGIS StreetMap Premium as a more cost-effective solution. Spatial Analysis Options – leverage ArcGIS Pro local tools Similar approach applies to running any of the Spatial Analysis tools in ArcGIS Online (though as earlier those only consume approximately ~0.5% of overall credits in Education). Use the credit estimator in ArcGIS Online Map Viewer to calculate the expected credits for a transaction. As an alternative, consider running the tools locally in ArcGIS Pro. ArcGIS Pro offers a more comprehensive and powerful suite of tools, especially for more advanced workflows.  CONCLUSION – NEXT STEPS AND WHERE TO GO FOR HELP Invariably, there is complexity associated with the various options above. What is important is that good stewardship of resources is maintained. The most important takeaway from this blog is to enable credit budgeting/credit allocation, start monitoring your credit use, and consider some of the alternative options, so that you are not unexpectedly exceeding your organization agreement's credit allocation.  Some of the solutions above will continue to evolve, and we’d like you to be part of this journey – a contributor with ideas, processes and workflows. Please share any comments and feedback here. If you have a workflow in place that has helped you responsibly manage your organization's credits , we’d like to hear it. For any additional questions, please contact your Account Manager or highered@esri.com. ... View more

INTRODUCTION As ArcGIS Online usage grows across educational institutions, Education customers should start thinking about managing the amount of content and storage - depending on their institutional policies, as well as Esri license allocations. The concept of governance is instrumental - setting institution-wide standards and policies that apply to how data is gathered, stored, accessed, processed, and disposed of. A governance plan for managing ArcGIS Online can help institutions plan for growth and avoid issues in the future.   The purpose of this blog is not to address everything that goes into a governance plan, but to focus specifically on addressing storage-related issues for content, and options for increasing capacity prior to encountering storage limits.  It is part of 5 blog series: Blog 1: Content and Storage Management Blog 2: Credit Management Blog 3: User Management and offboarding Blog 4: Monitoring Usage and Health-checking your ArcGIS organization Blog 5: Proactive Content Management by Users CONTENT/STORAGE – UNDERSTANDING Understanding the three different types of storage in ArcGIS Online Feature storage is specific to feature layers hosted in ArcGIS Online.    File storage includes other types of layers and files, including attachments in your hosted feature layers. Imagery storage is specific to image layers in ArcGIS Online. While all storage types can account for increasing the overall storage credit consumption in ArcGIS Online, the feature storage is most important to address, as it consumes most of the overall credits in Education ArcGIS Online organizations. Understanding feature storage quota in ArcGIS Online By default, an ArcGIS Online subscription comes with Standard Feature Data Store, which includes 500 GB of feature data storage and supports the full range of hosted feature layer operations. This quota includes feature storage only and does not include file or imagery storage. As Education customers start getting near this quota, they need to start thinking of content stewardship and maintaining their feature data store threshold below this limit.   Administrators and members will receive quota (and other) notifications, as outlined in the When do I get email notifications related to ArcGIS Online documentation. Understanding patterns of use in Education On average, for Education ArcGIS Online organizations, 85% of credit use is consumed by feature storage. Check Credits by Capability section of the documentation. Additional information is available in the Credit Management blog. Further, the costs associated with monthly or yearly feature storage - if one consumes the entire 500GB of storage - are as follow: 500 GB per month = 120,000 credits per month = 1,440,000 credits per year Therefore, you will need to check your credit consumption, as outlined in the Credit Management blog, and work toward a threshold that is within your Education license allocation, or take actions of removing content or adding storage, as described later in the blog.  For some institutions, a few items consume most feature storage (typically associated with research projects or student/faculty testing of various workflows). For others, there is no small number of “big” items, rather, a lot of small items that add up, such as student content created through course work. Removing old users/content is not often efficient in terms of freeing up storage – in the past, content/items were relatively small. Instead, focusing on the ~Top 50 feature storage items and addressing them, works better in terms of freeing up storage. However, this should be done with caution and verified with content owners. In a future blog about managing users, we will address removing smaller items that have accumulated over time, that no one is using or accessing – as a way of reducing the overall storage. Understanding how your institution handles other technologies Consult your IT colleagues/centralized IT support within your institution to evaluate whether existing data governance practices for other systems (e.g., Sharepoint, Google Drive, DropBox, LMS such as Canvas, Blackboard, etc.) can be applied to ArcGIS Online. Some modifications may be required but you can leverage your colleagues’ expertise to build a strong foundation. CONTENT/STORAGE – BEST PRACTICES Our goal with the recommendations below is to help you understand when you need to act, and plan proactively for future years. Being a good steward of resources and operating within the bounds of existing allocations – credits, storage, users, performance - is important for future management of ArcGIS resources. Create organization item report Leverage the reporting capabilities of ArcGIS Online (Organization > Status page > Reports) to create an “Item” report. You can gain insights on items which consume large amounts of file or feature storage. To identify items in the organization that consume large amounts of file or feature storage, download the report, open it in your preferred spreadsheet software, and sort the respective fields.   For further information, please check the View and report status documentation and the Tracking your ArcGIS Online Feature Data Store Key Health Indicators blog. You can also schedule the report to run automatically every week or month – for future record keeping and predictions. Once you have an idea of your items/content, below are options that you can take – you can choose one that works for you, or a combination of them. Reduce content   Delete items that consume large file or feature storage After running an Item report as described above, consider removing any large items that are not being accessed or are redundant. Students inevitably leave the institution and become inactive users with inactive content. In addition, redundant data can result from course activities in which dozens of students follow the same workflow. This section of the ArcGIS Online documentation provides additional guidance for actions such as identifying old or unused items and finding large, hosted feature layers. NOTE: It is important before removing any items to verify with item owners whether the items are still needed. If the items are still used, alternative options for hosting this content could be discussed. A suggested workflow, if applicable, could be a practice of un-sharing items for a grace period, and then deleting (if no inquiries are made about the missing data). Archiving content, discussed later in this blog, is an option as well, to ensure data is not lost, if needed. Transfer of content between organizations  In certain instances, a strategy for reducing space in an ArcGIS Online organization could be exporting content to another format, for delivery in another organization, then deleting the content once it has been exported.  Below are additional options, some of which are unsupported, to transfer content between organizations. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. The important point to take away is that one needs to verify whether certain content really belongs to the academic ArcGIS Online organization. We have seen instances of academic ArcGIS Online organizations hosting content that should be hosted in administrative/operational ArcGIS Online organizations. Or, instances where content should be hosted by outside entities, such as State Data repository items, that should be widely available to the public. Guidance on transferring content could be found here, and options are below: ArcGIS Assistant (note, while useful, this tool is not supported by Esri Technical Support) 3rd Party tools, such as Geo Jobe’s Admin Tools, Back Up My Org, and Clean My Org   ArcGIS API for Python clone_items method is best option (requires scripting) Migrate Content for ArcGIS Enterprise/ArcGIS Online – additional resource Implement backup and archival It is always a good idea to have a workflow in place for disaster recovery and make your own backups/archival of ArcGIS Online content to an external destination. Backup is a process of duplicating data that can be retrieved in the event of a data loss – an organization could consider layers of importance to be backed-up. Archival is the process of storing historical data for future reference, which is often a practice for other data management systems. Backups do not reduce storage, though backup is a recommended practice for critical content (i.e. important research projects, publications, etc.). Archival could reduce storage, if the original content is removed from ArcGIS Online and archived in a separate system. As an institution, you’d need to decide what should be backed up or archived, and what actual backup or archival option would work for you.  For archival purposes, consider items that need to be immediately accessible (which would stay in the ArcGIS Online organization), versus items that only need to be accessible once in a while (that could be placed in “cold storage” and archived). Some examples of options are below: Backup hosted feature layers to cloud storage as file geodatabases Backup ArcGIS StoryMaps as a JSON and file resources Leverage ArcGIS Enterprise as an archival solution ArcGIS Online Notebook: Demo Backup to Dropbox After opening link, Sign in to your ArcGIS Online organization Requires developer access to Dropbox, usually included with Education institution licensing Check Introducing the ArcGIS Well-Architected Framework for additional considerations. Increase Storage Options for increasing feature storage capacity are listed below - both have an associated cost. License Premium Feature Data Store For organizations who are reaching the Standard Feature Data Store storage limits, and for which reducing feature storage usage is not a viable option, then a Premium Feature Data Store is available at a cost. In addition to providing additional storage, the Premium Feature Data Store provides additional dedicated database resources such as memory, CPU, and input/output (I/O) and could improve your organization's overall performance.  To make a clear distinction between the two feature data store types - with a Standard Feature Data Store, which is the default with the Education agreement - feature storage typically consumes a significant number of your agreement's credits, thus it is the most important type of storage to manage. If you have upgraded to a Premium Feature Data Store, then feature storage consumes no credits. Rather, you need to manage your feature storage to remain within the quota defined for your Premium Feature Data Store level. Note: Purchasing Premium Feature Data store is more cost effective than buying additional credits to cover storage costs. Leverage ArcGIS Enterprise to host large datasets  ArcGIS Enterprise runs on infrastructure your institution provides, and while licensing for ArcGIS Enterprise is included as part of the Education Institution Agreement, there is the additional cost associated with using your own infrastructure/servers (on premises or cloud), as well as effort costs associated with setting up and maintaining it. In addition, moving content from ArcGIS Online to ArcGIS Enterprise, will  require effort to update links and apps that depend on the migrated data. ArcGIS Enterprise can be leveraged for hosting large datasets, but also, for storage/archival purposes, or for storing restricted information. Below are considerations for possible configurations of purchasing Premium Feature Data Store or standing up ArcGIS Enterprise. Upgrade ArcGIS Online to Premium Feature Data Store that covers an institution’s projected feature storage needs for the year - M4 Premium Feature Data Store being the ‘largest’, which provides total of 4TB of feature data storage. Upgrade ArcGIS Online to a "smaller" Premium Feature Data Store (M2 or M3 Premium Feature Data Store) and move select "big" projects to an institutional supported ArcGIS Enterprise set up. Keep ArcGIS Online with Standard Feature Data Store and move select "big" projects to an institutional supported ArcGIS Enterprise set up. Options 2 and 3 are hybrid approaches, where institution would choose to host big feature storage items on ArcGIS Enterprise to help manage costs, and the rest of the feature storage needs could be handled by one of the Premium Feature Data Store options, or the Standard feature data store - depending on projected storage needs. Either of the above approaches could be a viable option and it is up to your organization to consider which storage solution provides the best ROI in your specific context. In one of the options (Premium Feature Data Store), Esri is providing the infrastructure and management at a cost, while in the other (ArcGIS Enterprise), the technology itself is available with your existing Esri license agreement, but there is an associated cost with standing-up, operating, and maintaining your own infrastructure (on premises or cloud) for ArcGIS Enterprise. Note: Cost comparisons of “Premium Feature Data Store” versus ArcGIS Enterprise are not easy to compute, as they are dependent on individual institution's policies and practices. Assessment could be done by Esri Professional Services to compare staffing, support, hardware, software to run ArcGIS Enterprise, to cost of purchasing Premium Feature Data Store. Esri Professional Services can provide recommendations on specifications for hardware depending on your requirements/systems, cost of doing installations, etc. Experience has shown that often purchasing Premium Feature Data Store, could be cheaper as an option, compared to standing-up ArcGIS Enterprise (once the costs of servers, ongoing maintenance, people, etc., are accounted for). Regardless of approach, it is crucial that enough lead time is provided to allow for conversations and proper scoping of requirements. A lot of pre-cursor conversations would need to occur with other business units/divisions in the university (IT, Budgeting, etc.) and since the solutions above take time to discuss, it is always good to start early. The resources below are helpful to share with IT colleagues, who are knowledgeable in supporting similar requirements for other systems: Introducing the ArcGIS Well-Architected Framework ArcGIS Architecture Center CONCLUSION – NEXT STEPS AND WHERE TO GO FOR HELP Invariably, there is complexity associated with the various options above. What is important is that good stewardship of resources is maintained. Some of the solutions above will continue to evolve, and we’d like you to be part of this journey – a contributor with ideas, processes and workflows. Please share any comments and feedback here. If you have a workflow in place that has worked for you, we’d like to hear it. For any additional questions, please contact your Account Manager or highered@esri.com. ... View more

Purpose With the continuous evolution of GIS technology, there is one constant – change. Regardless of our role (instructor, researcher, student), we all must keep our knowledge current and develop new skills—for personal and professional growth. Why is this important? How do we stay up to speed amidst the constant changes? How do we approach professional development? What is a learning style that suits us best as individuals, and what are the available methods/resources? This blog will address the questions above and focus on why professional development should matter. The purpose of the blog is to have us think about how we learn as individuals and what resources and options are available - depending on learning styles and budgets. What is it Professional development can be defined in many ways.  Ultimately, it is the notion of continuing education and career training after entering the workforce. It can be pursued in several options: Taking classes or workshops Attending industry and professional conferences/events Earning a certificate to expand knowledge in a chosen area Self-studying Why do we want to do it In a technology field, everything changes. People who work in such technology fields need to have their skill sharpened every so often to keep current - we constantly have to re-skill and up-skill.  Especially with advancements of technology (whether being changes in how we do GIS, or AI, or other shiny new methods), the need to be upskilling much more frequently throughout our lives has become paramount. Lifelong learning is not just a buzz word, it is how we work and exist today.  And broadly speaking, as adults we will just need to be learning much more throughout our lives. Yet why? Encourage career growth/career path. Whatever your job role is, professional development can promote skill development, build confidence, and lead to new qualifications. It can help secure employment, advance careers – especially important in a world of uncertainty. Enhance our teaching/work – as Educators.  Keeping ourselves up to speed gets conveyed to students via course work, projects, etc. , who themselves enter the workforce and introduce further advancements in a given field. How we learn (broadly) There are different learning styles – as individuals we have preferences, likes and dislikes, and lean toward certain options.  The future for Education, broadly speaking, in a sense may lie in in tailoring educational experiences to individual learners – and while that is difficult and we are not quite there yet, we can start thinking about what resonates with various learning styles and personalities. These learning styles are different methods of learning or understanding new information, the way a person takes in, understand, expresses and remembers that information. There are 4 predominant learning styles:  Visual learners, who learn by consuming visual content like videos. Auditory learners, who learn by listening (lectures, audiobooks, etc.). Reading learners, who need to read text to absorb information. Kinesthetic learners, who learn best by practicing and being hands-on.  Understanding your personal learning style can be a game-changer in your career development. How we learn (GIS) When it comes to GIS technology, and specifically Esri resources, there are many options to chose from, depending on the learning styles above. Visual learners Training Seminars/videos (live or recorded) Tech Workshops (live or recorded) Webinars (live or recorded) Tutorials (short, interactive, self-paced tutorials on focused workflows) ArcGIS Labs (e-learning format part of Esri Academy catalog) Auditory learners   Training Seminars/videos (live or recorded) Tech Workshops (live or recorded) Webinars (live or recorded) Reading learners   Web Courses (interactive, self-paced courses on various topics) Documentation (ArcGIS documentation on specific technology) Blogs (industry blogs) Tutorials (short, interactive, self-paced tutorials on focused workflows) ArcGIS Labs (e-learning format part of Esri Academy catalog) Esri Press (books) Kinesthetic learners   Tutorials (short, interactive, self-paced tutorials on focused workflows) ArcGIS Labs (e-learning format part of Esri Academy catalog) Web Courses (interactive, self-paced courses on various topics) Instructor-led training (courses taught by live, expert instructors) All of these different methods can be found here – easily searchable to find the topic/workflow you wish: Esri Academy ArcGIS Tutorials ArcGIS Documentation Industry Blogs Esri Press Concluding remarks There is a difference between Training and Education. While Training typically can include learning technical or soft skills, Education is much broader than that and focuses on learning skills way beyond technology – it encompasses a learning community, learning support, learning network, learning to engage, learning to collaborate, learning to communicate and work with others. Acquiring and leveraging such learning community network, support and collaboration, which are a fundamental aspect of Education, can be pursued in various ways, whether thru formal education (colleges and universities) or informal education (industry associations, events, certifications by private organizations, etc.). These will be addressed in another blog. In the meantime, whether we are learning ourselves, or teaching our students, consider thinking thru the options above that resonate to individual learning styles - to continually update our skills. Comments and discussion welcomed! ... View more

As you know, ArcGIS Desktop (ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro Single Use/Concurrent Use) were removed from Education licenses and are no longer available through Esri’s Education Program for customers renewing after July 1, 2024.   With the advancement of GIS technology over the last several years, and overall shifts in the IT industry, the focus has been on web-based licensing. This means named user licensing (i.e. using username/password) will be the only method to provide access across the suite of ArcGIS web, mobile, and desktop apps. Below are options to help you manage ArcGIS, along with learning resources for an easier transition away from ArcGIS Desktop - if you are a Departmental License customer.  BEST PRACTICES FOR MANAGING ARCGIS  Moving forward, supported Esri products rely on named user licensing. We recommend the following best practices for managing named users. Access – there are two options: Implementing SAML logins/Single Sign On, by invitation only, for managing user-based licenses (could be beneficial for Medium or Large Departmental licenses).  Advantages of SSO would be seamless access, and lesser likelihood of managing password resets/lost passwords/access issues. SAML logins will also ensure that when students graduate, they will no longer be able to access ArcGIS. Accounts will still have to be deleted manually, to free up space for the next class. Disadvantage is time spent upfront to setup for SAML logins. Manually creating arcgis-only user accounts. Disadvantage is that this must be repeated for every class/student/faculty who needs access to ArcGIS. Disadvantage is that passwords could be lost, and this would mean additional interaction to recover them/regain access. New Member Defaults - configure New Member Defaults to enable new users with needed licenses, set credit limitations, enable Esri Access for training courses and access to Esri Community. Licensing ArcGIS Pro in lab environments - if you are using ArcGIS Pro in lab environments, here is information on How do I license ArcGIS Pro in lab environments. Sharing of executables/installer files – if ArcGIS Pro or other executable/installer files are needed, best practices recommendations are in this blog. Delete users – follow the steps to delete members. Messaging for Students/Faculty whose accounts will be deleted or they will be leaving the university – check this blog for ideas on messaging for students/faculty whose named user account will be removed. OPTIONS FOR OBTAINING ADDITIONAL NAMED USERS    With Concurrent Use licenses, while license was capped to 5, 50 or 100 (for Small, Medium and Large departmental licenses), when used in a lab environment, technically larger student body could be served. Named user license is per user, and therefore the cap must be honored. Below are options for obtaining additional named user licenses, if needed.  Check to ensure your institution does not already have an Institution Agreement. If it does, you could leverage your institution’s main ArcGIS Online organization.   Upgrade to a next level departmental license – i.e. if you have a Medium 50-user license, upgrade to a Large 100-user license.  Purchase another departmental license – purchase an additional Small, Medium or Large license. Additional named users can be added to your existing ArcGIS Online organization. Upgrade to an Institution Agreement - provides a much larger named user base – this is the best option for serving many users who constantly change. Delete users (to free up space for next set of users). Caution: This could be a disadvantage for students as they cannot save/show their portfolio of projects. LEARNING RESOURCES TO HELP YOU TRANSITION There are many resources to help guide you through this journey, between ArcGIS tutorials, Esri Academy courses, and Esri Press books, among others. In addition, we have hosted and will continue to host workshops and discussions to share best practices and address your questions.  Below are links to some of these resources. Please use them as stepping stones and/or supplements for your curriculum and research activities. ArcGIS tutorials, specifically this Modern GIS tutorial collection (could serve as an entire course) Esri Academy, specifically the guide to Modern GIS e-learning Esri Press books Modern GIS User Stories Core Concepts of Modern GIS blog and underlining resources Mapping & Cartography Spatial Analysis Imagery (remote sensing) Sharing & Presenting (upcoming) Mobile workflows (upcoming) Please contact highered@esri.com with any questions.   ... View more

The Esri Innovation Program (EIP) is proud to announce the 2024 Student of Year nominations. EIP encourages students and educators to create innovative applications using ArcGIS technology - as part of research projects, course work, or skills development.   Every year, university members of EIP select one student to be their Student of the Year recipient. A benefit for the nominated student is a cash prize, certificate, and Esri Press book awarded to those who are nominated as Students of the Year. This Story Map Collection highlights the 2024 projects – thank you to all the students for their inspirational work, and to their mentors for the support and encouragement. Out of all submissions, one student is selected as International Student of the Year and invited to attend the 2024 Education Summit and 2024 Esri User Conference. This year, this special nomination goes to Cathryn Hunt, a student in Penn State’s MGIS Program, Recipient of the Penn State EIP Student of the Year nomination. Congratulations to Cathryn for her work on this From Selfish to Selfless Routing project - an application which helps alleviate traffic congestion with GIS routing apps. The blueprint incorporates a selfless routing approach by distributing high-volume traffic flows over multiple routes and assigning vehicles to routes based on route capacity. Thank you, Cathryn, for your wonderful work and creativity, and congratulations to all Students of the Year! ... View more

When working with ArcGIS Enterprise and ArcGIS Pro, most Education customers choose to license ArcGIS Pro via ArcGIS Online named user. In certain instances, specifically for Administrative Use, we see customers wishing to license ArcGIS Pro via ArcGIS Enterprise (Portal license file). ArcGIS License Manager is required today when ArcGIS Pro or ArcGIS Pro-derived products are licensed via ArcGIS Enterprise named user. In other words, even though Education customers have GIS Professional Advanced user type (soon to be Professional Plus user type) with ArcGIS Enterprise, they will not be able to license ArcGIS Pro via that named user, without a License Manager. We understand that the use of ArcGIS License Manager may not be desired, as it adds additional administration overhead and extra infrastructure. The recommendation is to license ArcGIS Pro via ArcGIS Online.   For customers using ArcGIS Enterprise with ArcGIS Pro Named User licensing supported by ArcGIS Online, the use of License Manager is not required. When creating an ArcGIS Enterprise Portal provisioning file on My Esri for this scenario, you can put any values in the fields for ArcGIS License Manager Hostname, Port, and MAC address (random MAC address generator can satisfy the form validation). The generated license file can still be used, while bypassing the setup of License Manager altogether.   For customers using ArcGIS Enterprise that prefer to manage Pro Named User licensing within ArcGIS Enterprise (Portal for ArcGIS), which typically is to meet institutional guidelines or requirements for administrative use security or privacy, then you are required to first set up and configure an instance of ArcGIS License Manager. When creating your ArcGIS Enterprise Portal provisioning file on My Esri for this scenario, you will need to provide your ArcGIS License Manager's Hostname, Port, and MAC address. Work is underway to remove the need for traditional License Manager in future releases, timing of which is unknown at this point.    ... View more

Education Colleagues: We have a number of important licensing changes ahead of us. We have communicated the removal of ArcGIS Desktop (ArcMap and ArcGIS Pro SU/CU) consistently and in numerous ways. By now, you have also likely heard the announcement of Esri User Types changes. Please review the following blog describing what this user type configuration change means for Education.  Please also take a look at this video (Passcode: Sy!k0!2W) explaining some of these upcoming changes. In addition, we will also have a GIS Admins Community Meeting Q&A session, meant to serve as accompanying discussion to the above messaging and resources. The purpose of the meeting would be to answer questions, hear comments, address concerns, hear from fellow license administrators, learn from each other, interact as a community. Please join us, if interested, and please feel free to email any questions ahead of time to highered@esri.com. Date/time:  Wednesday, May 29th at 11:00 am PT | 2:00 pm ET Meeting: https://esri.zoom.us/j/778857623 (no registration required) Last, please review our updated Best Practices for Managing ArcGIS app, outlining many of the recommended practices for deploying and administering ArcGIS in a secure and safe matter, while saving valuable time. We have been discussing these recommendations for quite some time, and hopefully they are not news. Of course, as time progresses and things change, these recommendations have evolved and will continue to evolve.  Look forward to seeing you there! ... View more