Latest Contributions by GeriMiller

*Updated 2023 The Education Institution Agreement enables students, faculty and staff to leverage ArcGIS technology, such that any ArcGIS product can be accessed on any device and in any location. ArcGIS has grown beyond the confines of a single desktop GIS application, and ought to be managed as an institution-wide system available to everyone, similar to a learning management system (LMS) or cloud storage. More importantly, it must be managed at scale to take full advantage of the Institution Agreement benefits - maximizing access to the technology and minimizing administration time.    To successfully deploy and manage ArcGIS in a sustainable and secure manner, please follow the below recommendations. These recommendations are designed to help you take full advantage of the Institution Agreement benefits.   Single ArcGIS Online organization – use a single ArcGIS Online organization for the entire institution to avoid impeding collaboration and minimize management workload.   Enable SAML logins – leverage your institution’s identity provider to eliminate manual management of users and to prevent unauthorized access when student graduates or faculty/staff leave. Make sure to enable “Automatically” join for new users. Check the Why Single Sign On for academia (SAML logins) blog and the Enable Enterprise Logins video.   Configure New Member Defaults – enable new users with everything they will need, 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. User Type (GIS Professional Advanced). Role (Publisher or Custom Role to give users all the privileges they need) – have one role for everyone (no need to create digital divides). Add-on licenses – such as ArcGIS Urban Suite, ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Business Analyst Web, ArcGIS Insights, ArcGIS Drone2Map Standard, ArcGIS Pro Extensions, etc.  Groups - empower users to create their own groups (including Shared Update privileges). Integrate groups with other institutional, authoritative systems for managing groups of users (SAML groups) Credits – set the credit allocation high enough that most users can get their work done, there is ample amount of credits available with your Institution Agreement Enable Esri Access – enable users to help themselves by providing access to Esri Training (e-Learning) and Esri Community. Check the Setting New Member Defaults video.   Software distribution – provide executables and any applicable license files (if needed) via your institutional file share system (Box, OneDrive, GoogleDrive, etc.). Check the Best way to share ArcGIS license files and executables blog.       ArcGIS Pro licensing - with the move to Modern GIS, and the upcoming removal of Single Use/Concurrent Use licenses for ArcGIS Pro from the Education programs, ArcGIS named user will be the only method to license ArcGIS in the future. Hence, it is crucial that organizations implement SAML logins for efficient access, as well as license ArcGIS Pro in lab environments via a named user model.   Check How do I license ArcGIS Pro in lab environments blog.       Maintain ArcGIS access website for your institution - it is important to provide a clear explanation of how users across the institution will obtain access to the technology itself, as well as be aware of any support and learning resources available to them. Check the ArcGIS access website for your institution blog.     Monitor Usage - demonstrate to stakeholders the breadth and depth of GIS on campus. The ArcGIS Online Usage Reports (Organization>Status) are a start and provide easy access to total usage data. Further analysis and efforts are needed to provide information for ongoing, repeat usage, as well as daily reporting. Check the GIS for Everyone (...and how to build your own ArcGIS Dashboard to show it!) blog.     Communicate when offboarding users - ensure that proper messaging is in place when off-boarding users leaving the institutions – students graduating, faculty retiring, etc. Proactively remind users – before they leave – about their options for transferring content, and what happens to their content after they leave. Ensure that you take the approach of empowering users to take care of themselves as much as possible. Check the Messaging for ArcGIS Online users leaving the university (students, faculty, staff) blog.   Manage inactive users and stale content – if you are in the early stages of deploying ArcGIS to your entire institution, the recommendation is that you do not delete content and users, as deleting content and users takes time and effort, it breaks the audit trail of ownership, and may break dependencies that others may have on that content. Deleting content cannot be recovered! Over time, you can work on best practices and data governance standards for your institution on how to manage old content and inactive users, which should be comparable to policies your institution has for similar business systems. Check the Storage and Data Governance Recommendations in Education blog.   ... View more

Fellow Educators: ArcGIS Online User Types have been in use for some time now as a way of providing apps and privileges to ArcGIS users. The Creator User Type has been available for Education program licenses.   With recent updates to the Education Institution Agreements, the GIS Professional Advanced Use Type was added as the default option, versus Creator. GIS Professional Advanced User type differs from the Creator User type in the fact that it provides ArcGIS Pro Advanced licensing. Everyone who has migrated to the new Institution Agreement (and has the GIS Professional Advanced user type as an option):        Please switch all ArcGIS Online users to GIS Professional Advanced User Type. Instructions are listed here and this video demonstrates the process. Further info is below.        If you do not assign GIS Professional Advanced User Type licenses, you will likely get a message “The number of user types and licenses assigned exceeds the number available”. The reason for this message is that users are now all GIS professional User Type licenses instead of Creator, while you may have Creator User Type licenses assigned.   Please ensure that you utilize the New Member Defaults to auto-provision licensing for new users, preferably with Enterprise Logins (SSO). Note that the GIS Professional User type does NOT include all ArcGIS Pro extensions. When you set your add-on licensing on New Member Defaults, please note that you will have to add the extensions (and not ArcGIS Pro, since it is now part of the user type). Extensions count as one of the 5 add-on apps. Note: If you have any ArcGIS Pro licenses who have been taken for "offline use", they will have to be recovered prior to making the switch from Creator to GIS Professional User type (for those specific users with offline licenses). All other users can be converted. We generally encourage administrators to "disable" taking ArcGIS Pro offline: Organization>Licenses>"Prevent Members from Taking ArcGIS Pro Offline". How to Change User types – documentation here:       Login as an Administrator – Organization>Members tab.       On the left, filter by User Type – Creator.       Ensure that you are showing 100 members per page (maximum default currently), bottom right.       Check the box to in the upper Left to select all Members.       In the Upper Right, Manage User Types.       Select GIS Professional Advanced and Save.       Maintain the selection and click Manage add-on licenses in the Upper Right and enable ArcGIS Pro extensions, then click Save. Changing User Types also can be done in an efficient manner via an ArcGIS API for Python script. Further feedback is welcome! ... View more

Educators,   Some of you have asked - there are two components/access points for QuickCapture – it is very similar to how Survey123 is accessed/licensed.   Mobile app – download from Apple or Google Play (Note, as of today, June 27 th , 2019, the QuickCapture mobile app has not been indexed yet by Apple or Google play, and it will be in 24-48 hours).  You can download  it directly on iOS from: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1451433781 QuickCapture designer (web tool) - https://quickcapture.arcgis.com . You can go directly to this URL. It will be part of the AppLauncher in September (for the time being, as an Administrator, you can manually add it to AppLauncher).   Educational institutions currently get Creator user type, which includes the Field Apps bundle that QuickCapture is part of, along with Collector, Survey123 and Workforce. No additional license assignment is needed. For more info and tutorials: https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-quickcapture/overview https://community.esri.com/community/arcgis-quickcapture/  AppLauncher (QuickCapture Designer web tool will be part of it in September) Field Apps Bundle (bottom), available with Creator user type (no additional license assignment needed)   ... View more

Fellow Educators:   We are excited to share an update about the upcoming release of ArcGIS Online, which was heavily influenced by the Education community (you) – new functionality is added to make it easier to assign licenses and ease access to ArcGIS technology across campus. In addition, we will see improved member search and filter options – two other big asks from Education users. In the June release of ArcGIS Online we will introduce a new Organizational setting: New Member Defaults. This setting grants Administrators the long-sought ability to configure default Add-on License options, alongside the previous options for default User Type, Role, Credit quota, Groups, and Esri Access.  The New Member Defaults are applied when creating accounts for any new user who is added/invited to the organization. When combined with enterprise 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. (Some campuses achieved this in the past by implementing automated scripts that granted licensing entitlements when new users were detected in the system. This update eliminates the need for such scripts.) To easily geo-enable your campus community, please consider taking the following steps: Enable enterprise logins, commonly known as SSO – integrate with existing business systems and do not create arcgis-only accounts (unless when working with outside affiliates). Enable "Automatically" join for enterprise logins (also known as auto-provisioning), so that new users are automatically granted access to ArcGIS. Configure the "New Member Defaults" so that people have access to everything in ArcGIS they might need to do their job: Set the default user type set to "GIS Professional Advanced". (FYI, most Education Program licenses have the GIS Professional Advanced user type as the primary user type.  If your organization does not, use the Creator user type.) Set the role to "Publisher" – empower everyone with the abilities to do the work they need to do Configure default Add-on Licenses (ArcGIS Pro, Insights, Business Analyst, Community Analyst, GeoPlanner, etc.) Set a Credit Quota (1000, 2000, 5000, etc.) whatever fits your institution -- enable your community to do their work, yet protect them from accidental mistakes Enable Esri Access for everyone – allow them to utilize Esri Academy (E-Learning/Esri Training), GeoNet, etc. Encourage students, faculty, staff to leverage all free options for self-learning, such as Learn ArcGIS, Esri Academy, documentation, etc.   In addition, you will also see improved filter and member search options – enhancements influenced by education community as well - which will make administration easier.   For those of you joining us at Education Summit @ Esri UC, we’ll have this, and more, in some of our workshop offerings.   New Member Defaults: New Filters: Improved Search (consolidated) – Full name is no longer the default (no dropdown): ... View more

We wanted to ensure that everyone saw the below, and communicated it to your IT collaborators, as it will impact anyone using ArcMap versions prior to 10.7, and ArcGIS Pro versions prior to 1.3, when making connections to ArcGIS Online.  ArcGIS Enterprise, some client apps and custom third-party applications built on ArcGIS Runtime, depending on versions, may get affected also.   Though unfortunately this important security update does not comply with our academic calendars, action must be taken to ensure smooth transition… please visit the main TLS page for further details and next steps.   Thank you and feel free to post any questions on GeoNet – this is a page dedicated to this update.   Q. I have ArcGIS Pro 2.3, am I ready to go for April 16? A. Yes.   Q. I have ArcGIS Pro 1.2 and earlier, am I ready to go for April 16? A. No, action must be taken.   Q. I have ArcGIS Map 10.7, am I ready to go for April 16? A. Yes.   Q. I have ArcGIS Map 10.6.1 and earlier, am I ready to go for April 16? A. No, action must be taken. A2. Perhaps an opportunity to update workflows to ArcGIS Pro.   Q. I have ArcGIS Enterprise version 10.6, am I ready to go for April 16? A. It depends, likely action must be taken. Version of Portal for ArcGIS higher than 10.4.1 are unaffected. Versions of ArcGIS Server are dependent on underlining OS. From: Esri <[email protected]> Subject: Reminder! Immediate Action Required — ArcGIS Security Update   On April 16, 2019, we are making an important configuration change to ArcGIS for TLS support.     View email in web browser. Important Update for ArcGIS and TLS Esri is committed to providing strong security for the ArcGIS platform by using the latest industry standards and best practices for security protocols. To meet these requirements, starting April 16, 2019, we are updating ArcGIS Online to enforce the use of TLS (Transport Layer Security) version 1.2 only. This date has been adjusted due to the partial shutdown of the US Federal Government and customer feedback. This update is likely to affect most ArcGIS software and customer solutions. If you have not updated and validated your system's support for TLS v1.2 only, you may lose your ability to connect to ArcGIS Online. More details about Esri's support for TLS, including patches and instructions for updating software, can be found by visiting support.esri.com/en/tls. Who Is Affected? Users of most ArcGIS software or custom solutions using Esri technology may be affected by this planned update to TLS protocol v1.2. What Do I Need to Do? Go to the Esri TLS Support page for information, patches, and instructions for updating software for TLS v1.2. Patches for all versions of ArcGIS Desktop back to 10.2.1 are now available. How Do I Validate My Systems Beforehand? Esri is providing a validation web service that can be used to quickly verify that ArcGIS Desktop will work when TLS v1.2 only is enforced. Esri is also providing validation services for customers utilizing third-party apps and custom components including map services, geocoding services, and basemap services. Information about these validation services is available on the support site link above. If this email is not applicable to you, please forward it to the one who manages your ArcGIS software or custom solutions using Esri technology. Read More You received this because of the impact of this announcement on your organization. Update your subscription preferences. Esri.com | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright © 2019 Esri. All rights reserved. Esri, 380 New York Street, Redlands, CA 92373, USA. ... View more

Hi Everyone,   If you use the ArcGIS API for Python to script provisioning of ArcGIS licensing, please read on…   As you may know, yesterday there was an update to ArcGIS Online. In conjunction, there was a release of the ArcGIS API for Python, version 1.5.2, which included better support for the new user types.   We recommend updating to version 1.5.2 of the Python API, which is now available on the Esri conda channel. Note, the developer website will NOT go live until Monday. Please take a look at the following blog for more information.   Please note that the name of the AppStudio entitlement has changed – it used to be “AppStudio for ArcGIS Standard”. Now it is “AppStudio for ArcGIS”. The key, “appstudiostd” stays the same. Please update your scripts accordingly, if you are currently provisioning AppStudio for ArcGIS Standard. Side note, this is to reflect a change of licensing for AppStudio – moving forward, and once migrated to the new institution agreement/site license, AppStudio Basic will be available to anyone via ArcGIS Online, while AppStudio Standard will be licensed through the ArcGIS Developer Subscription only. Further information can be found here.   Thanks to University of Michigan, University of Minnesota and Virginia Tech for testing early and confirming the above.   Let us know if you have any questions. ... View more

Simply sharing, AWS/Azure/GCP resources for research and teaching use - web meeting/presentations for instructional and research use, along with discussed resources.     Meeting recording and presentations AWS Educate   Google Cloud Platform Education Credits      Please let us know if we can be of further help.   ... View more

Dear Colleagues:   You have likely seen information about the new User Types coming out in the December 4th release of ArcGIS Online. Some of you have asked how these new User Types will affect Education program offerings, therefore we wanted to provide an update.   Overall, not much will change immediately for those of us with Education program licenses, such as Site/Institution licenses, Lab Kit/Academic Department licenses, or Schools bundles.  However, these changes lay the groundwork for streamlining ArcGIS administration even further and we will see additional changes in the coming months.   What is changing in this December 4 th release:   Level 1 named users will automatically be converted to Viewer User type. Level 2 named users will automatically be converted to a Creator User type. All capabilities of each user type remain the same. Roles remain the same (Administrator, Publisher, User, Custom Roles, etc.). An updated look/interface and updated Licenses and Members pages and workflows.   For existing users, any already assigned licenses/entitlements will remain assigned. For new users, licenses/entitlements of ArcGIS Pro and other apps (Business Analyst, Insights, etc.) will need to be assigned, as before.   Additional information on changes in this December 4 th release can be found here.   What does the introduction of the new User Types mean over the coming months (i.e. future releases):   We anticipate additional changes in the March 2019 ArcGIS Online release which will provide the ability to configure additional app assignments in enterprise login settings. We will continue to work towards automated provisioning of all apps included in Education program offerings so you can easily and efficiently provide your users with access to the full capabilities of ArcGIS.   In summary, this December release introduces some exciting new changes, and will see additional changes over the coming months. In the meantime, we continue to recommend enabling enterprise logins, if you haven’t yet, and following these best practices for administering ArcGIS.   Please let us know if you have any questions, feel free to post here. ... View more