Public but hidden?

[JenniferMinnick]

Hi -

I like the idea of ArcGIS online for an interactive way of sharing maps with clients however I have concerns about the privacy options.

What I'd like to be able to do is to create a map and send the link to the Map or a Web Application (?) to a client so that they can interactively review and print without needing to be added to groups and create an ESRI Global Account.

However, I also don't want it to show up in the Maps search.

I only want it to be publicly viewable by someone who has the link.

Can this be done? 

Thanks.

[MikeMinami]

No. Items that are public will also appear in search results.

Thanks,

Mike

[DanikBourdeau2]

I have also wanted this kind of feature available for Organization accounts.  We use ArcGIS Online for marketing quite a bit but it's quite a pain to create public services for the client to view and then take it down, hopefully, before anyone who is not supposed to view the material sees it.

I know it kind of defeats the purpose of a Public services, but it would be great if we could make services Public but not searchable.  Or make a service Private but not require authorization to view it?

[JenniferMinnick]

Mike -

Thanks for the succinct answer.  I suppose I should have specified Organizational version rather than Public/Free version.

So the obvious is:

1) Everyone is everyone is public whether free version or "organizational" paid version
2) If you have the paid Organizational version you can share with groups but restrict everyone/public.  However this still require a client to log in which frankly they are not going to do.  They can't be bothered and shouldn't be really. 

I'm testing out ArcGIS Online (Organizational) for my company but if there is no way to limit viewing (even if that just means you have know the link) then there is no point in our organization buying this.

I am a staunch ESRI user - is there some other not out-of-this-world expensive and complicated that I should be looking at?

ArcGIS Online seems like an ideal solution for sharing info with clients if only there were a better way to mete out permissions.  Similar to what PinnGIS commented.

[Anonymous User]

I've been using AGO Subscriptions since the beta. In my opinion, ESRI is going in the direction of making people buy ArcGIS Server to meet these kinds of needs. Right now whatever you post or host on AGO is either all public so every Tom Dick and Harry can view it, or you have to have users be part of your organization to keep things private, thus requiring logins. Even before last week's changes, you could share layers and maps with just a public group, but that still required people to have accounts and login. Now that that feature is gone, its either all public or all organization. The sharing is extremely messed up and complicated on AGO. I agree it would be nice to just make a map and send a link via email without having everyone in the world be able to access it. But that's what Server is for I guess....

[JenniferMinnick]

Nathan -

Yeah, that's what I was wondering.  However, we have 3 GIS users and there is no way that our company is going to buy us a server.  AGO just seemed so promising.

The three potential solutions I see so far are and none are ideal, two allow the data to just be out there:

1) Not searchable, but public.  Accessible via AGO by login (Organization) or by specifically shared link.
2) Not searchable, but public. Accessible via AGO by login (Organization) or by password protected link.
3) Not public. Have some user level so that each client has their own organizational login to the products made for them but we would not be charged for each one of them as a separate user.  No reason we'd buy a 200 user license if only 3 of us are actually using the product and the other 197 are just viewing products.

It turns out that if you don't put important (i.e. logically searchable) tags into your tags your item will most likely not be found except by those with whom you've shared the link.

However, any maps, applications etc you make will show up in that most recent maps section of the home page - meaning someone can scrape that page and get anything they want.  It's not that I think that there is some malicious person out there scraping for important data but that it can be done.  And our clients do not want their confidential information out there.

[Anonymous User]

Yep, that's what we ran into. We're a regional government and would have County Departments and Townships as our "clients". There has been no easy solution in sharing layers and maps since the beta. Everytime I asked if something was possible, the answer I got from ESRI was "yes, with server".

We have 2 GIS users in our office and would have 50+ users that would be viewers only. That's why ESRI's solution of "just add more organizational users" is laughable. We don't have 10 grand laying around to spend on just adding users so they can view maps that aren't "public".