Improvements to Hub downloads
UPDATE 9/27/2024
Today's release brings you some highly useful updates to the ArcGIS Hub downloads system. These enhancements mean that Hub will always serve cached files if they exist. If a cached file is not available, one will be generated with a version cached for every available format.
For best practices on settings and workflows, available formats based on configuration, and details on cached files, please see the recently revised Hub web help on data downloads.
**************************************************************************************************************
Originally published 9-23-2024: Downloading data is an important part of ArcGIS Hub. With recent updates to the Hub downloads feature, customers have provided feedback. We have listened and we are making key improvements based on this feedback.
Over the past year, we announced and released several changes that allow you to configure scheduled updates and view activity logs in Workspaces. Read more about Workspaces (beta) now available in ArcGIS Hub. We want to make sure you know about these updates so you can configure your datasets now and also know what's coming.
What's coming
We know that being able to discover, explore, and download your authoritative data is important to you and your data users, whether internally or in your community. Based on feedback, we're already working on several improvements. This includes easier access to scheduling for all of your datasets by bringing the ability to schedule updates directly to content views. Updates to the download file caches will help ensure ready access to current data.
What you can do right now
Today, data managers opted in to workspaces (beta) can set up scheduled updates; configure an item to hide, show, and reorder download formats; and access activity logs. Workspaces is the new management experience for items across Hub.
The Content workspace includes the ability to set up an update schedule or manually update data download files. On the Dashboard pane, you can access an activity log for the item, giving you insight into any errors that occur during the scheduled update (or during any download request). You can opt out at any time without impacting the schedule configuration (each user can opt in or out).
Enable workspaces
- Sign into ArcGIS Hub.
- From a live view of your site, select Settings from your user profile (at top).
Select Settings from your user profile
3. Under Preferences, select the button to Enable workspaces preview.
Enable workspaces preview
Schedule content updates (create cached files)
Currently, the download system will only serve cached files if it can verify that they are the most up-to-date files. Part of this enhancement is to always serve cache files (if they exist) and to allow users to schedule an update cycle as needed. If a cached file is not available, one will be generated with a version cached for every available format.
- Navigate to an item in Hub for which you want to create (schedule) cached files.
- On the sidebar , select Manage content (gear icon).
Manage content
3. Now you are in the Content workspace.
4. Go to the Settings pane (at left).
5. Under Schedule content updates, you can configure an update frequency for content, metadata, and applicable cached download files. Choose: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly and other details as needed.
Note: A Default frequency means that updates may occur based on user request or by Hub checking (approximately daily) to detect any missing items and update the index, if needed. Select Manual to manually update the search index and cached download files for the item (better one time for static or unchanging datasets).
Schedule content updates in workspaces (Note, this image aims to convey the concept and basic function of scheduled updates, but the resulting interface will be different)
6. If needed, you can set up an update frequency but also update your data immediately by selecting Force update.
7. Select Save.
We appreciate your willingness to take a few quick steps and opt in to workspaces. This will also allow you to become familiar with the new interface and maintain productive workflows. And you have more control of your data and related caches by manually generating or setting up a schedule to create cached files. Please post any comments or questions on Esri Community.