Improving Esri Enterprise Agreement Flexibility for Local Governments: A Proposal for More Customizable User Types

[rsun_TQB]

Hello everyone,

I am the Manager of IT & GIS for a small municipality with a population under 10K. Currently, we have around 70 employees and are looking to implement ArcGIS Enterprise using enterprise solutions such as ArcGIS Field Maps and Survey 123.

As a small local government, we face budget constraints when it comes to IT spending. In order to optimize our budget, I believe it would be helpful if Esri could provide more flexibility in their enterprise agreement with local governments.

Specifically, I would like to propose the ability for local governments to choose a total of different user types, rather than being limited to a fixed number of "Creator" user types. While we may not need a large number of Creator user types, we may require a greater number of Field Workers or Editors.

Currently, the cost for each user type varies, with 1 Creator User Type costing approximately the same as 1.4 Field Workers User Type or 2.4 Editor User Type.

For instance, a small local government might not need 50 Creator user types, but would instead benefit from a combination of 10 Creator, 28 Field Worker, and 48 Editor user types.

I believe that having this flexibility in the enterprise agreement would allow us to allocate our budget more effectively and ultimately save our taxpayers' money.

If you agree with this idea, please support it and help us to make a case to Esri for greater flexibility in their enterprise agreements.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

[jcarlson]

Agreed! We're a county, and at our population level, we would end up with more Creators than we have staff to utilize them. It's hard to look at the pre-packaged Local Government EAs and not see a lot of excess, and having the option to trim that down a bit would be awesome.

[MichaelVolz]

Have the posters here already transitioned from ESRIs original licensing model of Creator and Viewer accounts only?  Does ESRI not allow you to determine how many of each category of user you can purchase?

[rsun_TQB]

Hi @MichaelVolz ,

Thank you for your response regarding our contract renewal. I really appreciate Esri's ongoing efforts to improve its products these days, and we are interested in exploring how we can better utilize them in our organization.

However, we have concerns about the current agreement structure, which only allows for Creator and Viewer user types. We understand that this structure is designed by Esri Inc. in the United States, but we were hoping that there might be some flexibility to accommodate our needs.

Specifically, we would like to reduce the number of Creator user types and increase the number of field workers and editors, to allow our entire organization to use applications such as Field Maps or Survey123. We believe that Survey123 would be an excellent platform for our digital forms, but unfortunately not everyone in our organization can be assigned Creator user types due to the lower allowed user count.

We understand that there may be limitations to what can be changed in the agreement structure, but we would appreciate any insights or suggestions that Esri can provide to help us maximize the value we get from our Esri products. Our goal is to have all users in our organization be able to add, update, and delete data across departments and workflows, and we are hoping to find a solution that meets our needs cost-effectively 🙂

[jcarlson]

https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/enterprise-agreement/government

For small governments specifically, the packages are take it or leave it. We were told in no uncertain terms that these are non-negotiable.

[Kara_Shindle]

Also a County and at the enterprise agreement level, we'd have gone from $50,000+ a year to >$100,000 a year with our population, but no need for that many licenses.  Most Counties in PA don't have more then 5 staff that would utilize the creator level.  We have enough trouble convincing them to spend money, especially as OP said on IT stuff or imagery.  Especially when you add in things like storage, hardware, and administration for non-tangible items that they have a hard time understanding why you need them in the first place in order to be able to serve your needs, that of your customers, customers and administer this stuff.  GIS is not cheap!  I would love more options that aren't geared towards a state budget level.

[rsun_TQB]

Hi @jcarlson, @Kara_Shindle and all other US and Canadian local government representatives who have shown support for this post,

Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your support and shared interest in finding a more cost-effective approach to obtaining the user types that are essential for our local government operations.

If you have extensive GIS networks on LinkedIn, email contacts, or other platforms, I would greatly appreciate it if you could encourage other GIS professionals and managers within local government to back this initiative. The goal is to foster more flexibility and sustainability in our local government Enterprise Agreements (EA).

Esri offers a variety of excellent products. It would be unfortunate if financial constraints hindered their adoption across our organizations, preventing staff from leveraging powerful tools such as Field Maps and Survey123.

Furthermore, I encourage each of you to reach out to your respective Esri Account Managers to express this issue. Request them to escalate this concern to the higher echelons of Esri Inc.'s management. This could potentially prompt a more direct review and response to our collective needs.

Your support, along with that of others, can make a significant difference. Collectively, we have the potential to make our voices heard by Esri Inc. and influence their pricing structures and licensing models to better suit the needs of local government.

Let's keep the momentum going in our quest for more affordable and flexible GIS solutions.

Thank you once again for your support.

Best regards,

Reno