Best way to share ArcGIS license files and executables

GeriMiller · ‎08-27-2018

*Updated 2023

We often get asked “I’d like my students, staff or faculty to use ArcGIS Pro, what is the best way to distribute the executable or the license file?” This applies to any other Esri application that needs to be downloaded and installed, such as ArcGIS CityEngine, ArcGIS Enterprise, ArcGIS Drone2Map, etc.

License files:

With Modern GIS, licenses are managed through an ArcGIS named user account linked to an individual rather than through a license file linked to a device. Hence, it is crucial that organizations implement SAML logins for efficient access to all ArcGIS apps, including ArcGIS Pro. There will be no need for sharing ArcGIS Pro license files, as Single Use and Concurrent Use licensing will not be available.

Certain applications, including ArcGIS Enterprise, ArcGIS Business Analyst, and ArcGIS StreetMap Premium, still require a license file. Our recommendation is to use your existing software distribution mechanisms or institutional file share system to distribute those license files (OneDrive, Box, Google Drive, etc.).

Executables (installer files):

We recommended that ArcGIS Pro be downloaded directly from ArcGIS Online. A signed-in user can click on their name in the upper right corner and choose My Settings and then Licenses. The advantage of this method is that the student, faculty or staff do not have to go to an additional application (file share system) to obtain the executable.

The recommended method for sharing the executables for ArcGIS Drone2Map, ArcGIS City Engine, ArcGIS Enterprise, etc., is to use your institution's existing file share system (OneDrive, Box, Google Drive, etc.). This method is also useful for sharing older versions of ArcGIS Pro. Advantages of this approach are:

Access to the executables is managed with the same single-sign-on (SSO) as your ArcGIS Online organization, LMS or other business systems. This makes it easy for students, faculty and staff to login with their known enterprise credentials and download software.
One location for accessing the executables is used by everyone in the organization - a familiar workflow for obtaining software.
In addition to sharing the executables, other common instructions could be shared, as well as access to older versions of applications could be provided, as needed.

Note: Typically, the above approach of sharing executables and license files is appropriate for ArcGIS applications for which licenses available to everyone (i.e. ArcGIS Drone2Map Standard). For more advanced technology, such as ArcGIS Enterprise, additional communication about support, requirements to install, etc. should be in place with the executables, to ensure successful experience in using the application.

Commonly asked questions

Can I use My Esri to share license files and executables with everyone?

We do not recommend using My Esri as a method for sharing executables or license files for your campus at large (i.e., providing access to many students, faculty and staff). It may be appropriate to enable IT managers at the college/business-unit level to use My Esri for provisioning licenses, downloading software, and submitting technical support requests. However, we generally discourage using My Esri with transient student users because of the administrative overhead required to manage permissions to the other areas of My Esri.

Invitation to My Esri will need to be initiated by the administrator, which means this could result in multiple transactions. Depending on whether the My Esri account is already in the system, there may be additional interaction to Request Permission (for Downloads in this case).
There are notification emails that go out to student, staff, faculty who are being given those permissions, such as “your permissions request has been received”, or “your request has been approved” notifications. These could be confusing for new users.
This can be burdensome for administrators (to have to manage the requests), for instructors (to have to instruct their students where to go to download), and for students (to have to navigate My Esri to get to downloads)
From Administrator standpoint, this does not scale well for increased number of users.

What is the best way to share licenses when working in a disconnected environment, i.e., taking ArcGIS Pro offline?

In the future, Single Use files will not be an available option to license ArcGIS Pro in the field and when disconnected. Therefore, the recommendation for licensing ArcGIS Pro when disconnected is to “Take ArcGIS Pro Offline”, under Organization->Licenses.

We have made a number of improvements, and will continue to do so, to simplify this process. One of the upcoming improvements will be that the license can be taken for a period of time only (X number of days, lower than the organization's expiration date). This will help with offline license recovery, which has been a pain point as it necessitates a transaction with Esri - the offline license will be checked back in upon expiration of the days set for taking it offline - this will be done automatically even if the user does not return the license.

Feel free to share feedback.

DanPatterson_Retired · ‎08-27-2018

We use option 2... My Esri

They need an account if they are continuing in the field anyway
We simply email a class list to the Admin, who batches the emails from there (so simple)
The students get instruction from our Library's website (all uni's/colleges have them)
The faculty provides the links on the learning management software.
They can download the software they need while they are covered as students by the educational license
When they graduate or are otherwise 'terminated' they no longer have access to the software as per license requirements

And the biggie!

If they can't figure out how to create an account, download their own software and install it by themselves... then …. maybe there is something else that will interest them at school instead

PeterKnoop · ‎08-28-2018

Option #2 is certainly a starting point, however, as Geri Miller points out in her last bullet in that section, the approach does not scale well in the long-run.

As the number of students and courses using ArcGIS grows, you eventually will be challenged to keep up in an appropriately timely fashion with all the course requests, students dropping and adding courses, etc. Even simple things start to add up when you have to do them over and over... Not to mention all the requests for ArcGIS software and licenses that fall outside of courses!

And, as you point out, option #2 unfortunately has the side-effect of erecting a barrier to people easily adopting GIS technology on campus. It creates a (hopefully!) undesired digital divide. (Are there institutions out there who still limit the use of Excel to just Business students and courses, or Word to English classes... 😉

Last semester, more than half of the University of Michigan's user-base came from fields outside of the traditional realms of desktop GIS. While most of those are users of Web GIS (e.g., ArcGIS , StoryMaps, GeoPlanner, Collector, Survey123), there are some who end up moving on to Pro, and even some who are jumping straight in with Pro; both for coursework and research.

Option #1 makes it easy for them get started with the software on their own timeline, as they already know how to use our institutional file system. Option #2 works, however, the sooner you can move on to Option #1, the easier you can make it for members of your institution to leverage ArcGIS, and the less time you'll have to spend on trivial system administration tasks.

DanPatterson_Retired · ‎08-28-2018

Peter... interesting points, but we have hundreds now and administration hasn't been a problem (now that distributing CDs is gone ).

We only have one general intro course... the rest are for those in Geomatics (GIS/RS) programs. Other programs basically use AGOL and StoryMaps

JosephKerski · ‎08-28-2018

The University of Denver has implemented Single Sign On and their page below I think is a good example of what Geri is describing: It is simple, to the point, directs students to a Sharepoint site where they can download executables, the university sets them up as Publishers in their ArcGIS organizational account, and so on - https://www.du.edu/gis/

I am on the faculty there and to be perfectly honest with you all, this didn’t happen overnight; they like other campuses faced technical and organizational challenges. However, it was worth the effort and students and faculty alike are reaping the benefits in time saved and access. One of the additional benefits that I have noted is that, hinting at what Peter is referring to, because it is now much easier for faculty in multiple departments to access the tools, and the data as well, it is enabling GIS to be spread beyond Geography and Professional Studies (where the lifelong learning GIS program is housed) to health, business, data science, international relations, history, and other programs.

--Joseph Kerski

curtvprice · ‎03-01-2019

We use a shared drive folder "F:\install\ArcGIS" that contains

- readme files with instructions

- extracted desktop software with .bat install scripts that install software (and patches) with a single click.

The install scripts I have robocopy the folders locally, do the desktop installs, and if successful delete the local folder. (You really don't want the network to go down in the middle of an ArcMap or Pro install!) Most students just run my install script that install ArcMap 10.6.1 and Pro (with patches). Navigate to the folder, double click the .bat, wait for 15 minutes and they are done.

- full ISO packages for those with special needs (64bit arcmap processing, solutions, etc)

I also have workflow scripts to copy the quick install media and scripts to USB sticks. The scripts use relative paths so I can use the USB sticks (with the scripts unmodified) to simultaneously install software on student laptops during our first lab without killing the wifi downloading gigabytes of data to a dozen laptops at once.

I'm a big believer in automated-as-possible install scripts, have been doing this since back in Workstation time (mid Oligocene). Scripts help get everyone on the same page. This is a bit complex for us as we have 10.4-10.6 users (we have engineers running .NET software that requires the old versions for certain applications) so these scripts are a life-saver. The 10x install scripts also set the license server at install time (for desktop lab / faculty machines, students authorize with trial license EVA codes).

I have a page that has information helpful for developing deployment strategies for desktop software.

Enterprise Deployment Resources‌

And Geri, I finally broke down and we use single sign on to manage our AGOL accounts, with Esri Access enabled for the training site. It is so much easier for the students tot use that one SSO login for all resources. Call me a convert. If students need to have their training transcripts to go with them, Esri Customer Service can help them do that down the road.

curtvprice · ‎03-31-2020

An update, I have successfully done this with OneDrive. Students can click the link, click sync on the one drive page to sync the shared folder. They then can go into file explorer and install software, data with my scripts with one click.

UPDATE OneDrive synch can be problematic - it can take a long time and students give up. So I have modified this for the fall, the install scripts and instructions are inside a folder which they download from one drive, unzip, and run.

JosephKerski · ‎04-01-2020

Thanks Curtis for sharing! --Joseph K

ÁngelSánchez_de_la_Cruz · ‎07-01-2020

I need some help. First of all I have to say 2 things:

1 - My english is very basic. I am spanish speaker

2 - My knowlegement about ESRI software is more basic even. I am IT support personnel in my university and now is the first time that I have to face with this problem.

I am writing in this post due to some advice of my commercial contact. He told this:

"You can not provide more EVA licenses for the students to use ArcMap from the 10.8 version on".

Until now the process in my university to get the studes use ArcMap was summarized this:

1 - They have to create an Esri account

2 - They have to get an EVA license provided by us (IT support)

3 - They have to download ArcMap software using their account and EVA license

4 - They install and activate the software using heir account and EVA license

If now we can not provide more license we have some questions:

1 - How the students can get the software ArcMap 10.8?

2 - How can they activate it?

3 - In the main post form Geri Miller‌ she said " ...Sharing a single license file ..." How can we get and provide to the students this single license file?

As you can see I am a really rookie about this.

Thanks for your patient with me

GeriMiller · ‎07-01-2020

Ángel Sánchez de la Cruz‌ What university and what country are you from? I will ask the Esri distributor to contact you directly with further guidance.

In essence:

- We do encourage transitioning teaching materials to ArcGIS Pro (from ArcMap). Licensing with ArcGIS Pro is much easier with named user model (i.e. thru ArcGIS Online).

- Even if ArcMap is used, we do recommend that the executable/install file, as well as a Single Use authorization file is downloaded from My Esri - https://my.esri.com/ .

- Once the two (executable and authorization file) are downloaded from My Esri, they can be shared with students, faculty and staff (same file can be reused).

Do you have access to My Esri for your university? If not, your ArcGIS license administrator should help with this.

ÁngelSánchez_de_la_Cruz · ‎07-01-2020

Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain)

ÁngelSánchez_de_la_Cruz · ‎07-01-2020

As you can see I have access as administrator of my university. I did not remember it. Thanks

ÁngelSánchez_de_la_Cruz · ‎07-02-2020

Hello again. I have downloaded the software but I don´t see whre can I get the Single Use authorization file that you told me. Could you help me? In what option o MyEsri. com can I get it? Thank you

curtvprice · ‎07-08-2020

My Esri has a FAQ page that may help: https://my.esri.com/#/questions/ If that does not help, you should contact your Esri customer service account people, these should be listed under Informacion general (top left in your screen shot -- this is called "Overview" in English).

RobertoRossi · ‎11-04-2020

Ángel Sánchez de la Cruz‌, if you click on Licencias, you should be able to build (Obtener licencias de productos ArcGIS Comenzar, blue button on the left) you Licence file (something previously called provisioning), that you can provide to students.

CraigMacDonell · ‎11-10-2020

For ArcGIS Pro, we create AGOL organisation accounts for students/staff (either individually, or in bulk if we get whole class lists at once) and then have a tutorial video that they can also access to see how to find, download and install the software. Looking in the next few years to integrate our institutions SSO system to simplify even further, and also increase outreach? If we were teaching face-to-face in specialist computer labs on campus, students would sign-in with their accounts to access resources, but the licencing would continue to be run off a concurrent use licence file on server for these on-campus machines. Students with installations on personal devices use named-user method to access both resources and as licence. Our experience is that student's forget to log out of on-campus machines (no matter how explicit it is in Lab Manuals etc.), which can create extra work searching and removing these sessions.

For ArcGIS Desktop, we still just operate Trial Licence EVA codes for staff/students that wish to use ArcMap. We as administrators at our institution are actively trying to discourage ArcGIS Desktop use and encourage conversion to ArcGIS Pro wherever possible, simply for easier administration. However, some courses/research uses require Desktop due to specialist add-ins/toolbars etc., some of which have no standalone/alternative options.

We have a system of a shared spreadsheet with EVA licence codes (amongst handful of administrators only) which can be accessed and distributed along with standard instructions and downloadable executables housed on University cloud storage. We also developed a system to distribute licence codes to students via our institutions VLE (in our case Moodle) using a "fake assignment", within which no submission from students is required but they receive "feedback" on the assignment which is their code.

GeriMiller · ‎11-10-2020

@Craig MacDonell

Please note that we will be retiring EVA codes, as described here. Instead, for ArcMap, we encourage you to use institutional file share and share the same single license file with everyone.

CraigMacDonell · ‎11-18-2020

@GeriMiller is there any contingency built into this new suggested way of working to allow for offline use (e.g. on heavy duty field laptops in the middle of nowhere with no cell coverage), especially given ArcGIS Pro's suggested offline settings are similar? Also, what if there is system interruption on the institutional file share?

GeriMiller · ‎11-18-2020

@CraigMacDonell Great question. In this instance (i.e. you know you, or your colleagues will be going out in the field with no connectivity), we recommend just using Single Use license file for ArcGIS Pro, and not take ArcGIS Pro offline option that is available by default in ArcGIS Online. I.e. if you know you are heading in the field, simply download/use Single Use file before you head out, in case institutional file share cannot be accessed either.

GregoryLund2 · ‎11-19-2020

Chiming in here because I just went through the process of obtaining a single use license file for ArcGIS Pro (for a Faculty member who goes 'offline' often.)

Process was rather simple, as is opening up ArcGIS Pro and switching to the single use authorization.

We are still distributing EVA licenses, but will retire that practice when they run out.

From where would I obtain the institutional executable/install file (from Esri) specifically, in preparation for this change.

GeriMiller · ‎11-20-2020

@GregoryLund2 great to hear all, Gregory, and you would obtain the executables/install files, along with the Single Use code to distribute, from My Esri.

GregoryLund2 · ‎03-30-2021

Hello Geri (et.al)

Regarding: "If you are licensing ArcMap, since named user licensing is not available for ArcMap, please share the same single use license file with everyone (which times out in 1 year), via your institution's shared file system. Please avoid ordering 1-year individual EVA software codes for your students when licensing ArcMap. We are moving away from them. Sharing a single license file is a preferred method and it alleviates administrative hassles. "

Aside from the answer... 'My Esri', where do I obtain the 'same single use license file' that times out in a year?

And, for those students that take more than a year's worth of courses from us, would I merely provide them with the same license file or a different license file when the first one times out?

I ran into a situation today (1st time in 10 years) that I could not get an EVA code (that was activated), to license the students 10.8.1 software. She had .Net 3.5, Internet Explorer, etc.

The EVA that didn't work, worked on my 'test' computer, thus it wasn't a code.

But, back to the most important item... Aside from the answer... 'My Esri', where do I obtain the 'same single use license file' that times out in a year?

Thanks in advance.

MarkStewart · ‎03-31-2021

Hi @GregoryLund2 .

To create the single use license file for ArcMap, you will login to MyEsri, and click the Licensing tab. That tab will display the License Esri Products button in the left sidebar:

When you click the button, it will start a wizard that guides you through the license file creation process. For your ArcGIS Desktop (ArcMap) single use license file, make sure to select "Core products and extensions". All of the ArcMap extensions except for LocateXT and Business Analyst are bundled into the license file by default, but you will be able to add these two discretely later in the wizard. At the end of the process, you will be given the ability to download the new file, and then you can share it with students through a file share, as Geri suggested in her post.

This license file will time out at the end of your license agreement term, so when your agreement is renewed, you will create a new one and ask students to use that one instead.

We are planning to create some very short videos for MyEsri tasks like this. They should be release soon.