Configure ArcGIS Online: 'OneMap' Good Practices

Special Considerations for Organization Administrators

 Integrated geospatial infrastructure  is the modern pattern for connecting organizations across borders, jurisdictions, and sectors to address shared challenges. Implementation starts with a strategy, followed by the pillars of collaborative governance, data and technology, capacity building, and engagement. It is inherently multi-organizational.

Whether you call your initiative Open Data, Regional GIS, Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), Digital Twin, Knowledge Infrastructure, Digital Ecosystem, or otherwise, collaboration is key.

Throughout these guides, we use the term "OneMap" as a placeholder for your community GIS branding.

This guide shares good practices for new and existing ArcGIS Administrators to help you optimize ArcGIS Online for multi-organization collaboration.


If you are setting up a new ArcGIS Online organization, we recommend beginning with the following resources:


ArcGIS Online Organization Settings

Let's begin by (re)visiting  your organizational settings .

Verify that you are signed in as a default administrator or custom role with the correct  privileges to manage organization settings . Next, navigate to the ArcGIS Online 'Organization > Settings' tab. The General pane should be open for you. Continue to explore setting up your organization.


1. Assert your brand: Organization profile

Your brand is important! Trusted branding influences content search and discovery.

GOOD PRACTICE: Assert your brand with a clearly identifiable organization name, logo, and summary.

The following article provides some great ideas and examples:

Visit your Organization profile in the Settings > General section:

Name

Typically, your organization name should match your customer name, particularly if you want to have your organization designated as authoritative. (see below Organization Verification)

Logo

Your logo provides brand visual identification. (recommended size 100x100px)

Summary

Lead with your purpose in a brief description (max 310 characters). For example:

"This ArcGIS Online organization provides authorized users access to geospatial infrastructure vital for addressing jurisdiction-wide priorities, programs, projects, and initiatives."


2. Organization verification

Optionally, verified organizations can tag public Items – including your Hub site – as Authoritative.

Authoritative Items receive a badge, and the organization is displayed as the item owner rather than an individual user. In addition, search capabilities can filter based on an item's 'authoritative' status and boost these items in search results.

Thus, authoritative Items make it easier for users to find reliable, up-to-date content.

GOOD PRACTICE: Verify your organization is authoritative.

Before clicking ' Verify organization ,' ensure that  anonymous access  is enabled for your organization (see below 'Access and permissions') and that your  organization name  matches your customer name.


3. Organization defaults

Set organization defaults to reflect your location and your mission.

Region

Choose a default region for your organization. The 'Region' setting determines your default basemap gallery and default basemap.

Language

Choose the default language for members of your organization. The language you specify determines the language in the user interface and how time, date, and numerical values are displayed.

GOOD PRACTICE: Choose your organization's default Region and  Language; consider setting language to Browser Default

When you allow  anonymous access   (see below 'Access and permissions') and your organization's language setting is Browser Default, anonymous users will see ArcGIS Online in the locale of their browser. Likewise, signed-in users who have configured the language in their user  settings  will see that language.

Short name

Your 'Short name' is like registering a unique domain name for your website. Use a name that fits your jurisdiction or brand identity. For example, NC OneMap. Or the name of your jurisdiction, for instance, Assen municipality in the Netherlands.

GOOD PRACTICE: Use a Short name that fits your jurisdiction or brand identity.

TIP: Your short name forms the base URL for the default website domain name of your ArcGIS Online organization. When you begin using ArcGIS Hub, your short name will also be part of the base URL for your Hub site. Optionally, Hub supports using custom website domains.

Let's take a look. The “Assen” short name results in:

IMPORTANT: Carefully consider your short name – changing this later is not recommended.  Learn more about short name .


4. ArcGIS Online home page & navigation

The ArcGIS Online Home page is always visible to site visitors. Use the Page visibility setting to specify which additional pages – Gallery, Groups, and so on – show in the menu bar when anonymous users visit your ArcGIS Online website. If you make the Gallery, Groups, and other pages visible, be sure to configure them later.

Organization Home Page

The Home Page is the landing page of your ArcGIS Online organization and serves as a gateway for your ArcGIS Online members.

GOOD PRACTICE: Once you have a public Hub site, cross-link your Hub site and your ArcGIS Online Home page.

Add a button or gallery on your Home Page that links to your Hub Site. Learn how to  use the home page editor to create a great destination  for your ArcGIS Online organization visitors.


5. Map defaults

Setting map defaults provides location context to your site.

GOOD PRACTICE: Choose the 'Map Viewer' option as your primary map viewer in the Map Settings

NOTE: Publishing OGC API-Feature Layers requires the 'Map Viewer'. Users can switch to using 'Map Viewer Classic' as needed.

Default extent

Set your organization's default map extent. The Default extent determines the geographic area of focus when users launch a new map in the Map Viewer.

Units of measure

Choose the default units for the scalebar, measure tool, directions, and analysis. 

GOOD PRACTICE: Choose your organization's Default extent and Units of measure.


6. Metadata

Metadata are the Nutrition Facts for your GIS data.

Geospatial metadata provide information to answer questions about your data:

What is this dataset about? What does it include? Who is responsible for it? Why was it created? Can I use it? How do I get it?

Item Comments

Optionally, disable to hide comments on individual items.

Metadata

Your organization members can create metadata records according to the standard metadata style you specify for your organization (e.g., FGDC, ISO, or INSPIRE metadata style).

GOOD PRACTICE: Enable Metadata for your organization and choose a metadata style.

Metadata flow with content you share to your Hub catalog and automatically hydrate your Hub catalog when federating open data. In some jurisdictions, such as Europe, Metadata are also used for monitoring and reporting.

Learn more about metadata in our primer What is (are?) Metadata?


7. Categories

Categories help organize content and will aid search, browsing, and discovery in your Hub site catalog.

GOOD PRACTICE: Enable Categories for your organization; choosing ISO is recommended.

Click Configure categories and choose a category schema:

  • ArcGIS categories – A user-friendly way to categorize content, for example, the ArcGIS Living Atlas uses ArcGIS categories
  • ISO categories – ISO is an international standard recommended for SDIs
  • INSPIRE categories – Optional for European catalogs that exclusively contain INSPIRE data

8. Access & Permissions

Anonymous access is required for organization authentication and is a good practice for organizations hosting open data Hubs. 'Access and permissions' policies are found in the Security section of your Organization settings.

GOOD PRACTICE: Allow anonymous access to your ArcGIS Online website.

NOTE: Anonymous users will only be able to view, access, or search organization resources that are shared publicly.


9. Open data

Open data is a key capability for collaboration

Make your public content more discoverable in Hub.

With Open Data enabled, you can designate groups for sharing in the Hub Groups Manager. Note that Open Data groups can include both open and secure content.

GOOD PRACTICE: Enable Open Data.

TIP: Open Data Group sharing is a key capability for collaborative Hub sites. We explore patterns of sharing and collaboration later in this series.


10. Primary sharing account

When you share items on behalf of your organization, you may want the organization to be the recognized owner instead of an individual.

You can accomplish this in two ways. 1) Consider creating a primary sharing User Account as your organization's authoritative content owner. This account should be a Publisher role. Then, as desired, the Administrator can transfer ownership of authoritative items to that account. 2) Alternatively, verified organizations with authoritative Items display the organization as the Item owner.

This looks like an account I can trust!

Here's an example from the Utah Geospatial Resource Center (UGRC).

GOOD PRACTICE: Configure your primary sharing account details. Set 'Profile visibility' to Everyone (public).

Note the official logo and Bio? Your image should be 200 x 200 pixels and look good in a round (not square) format. Some organizations also include links to their organization’s Hub site, website, or contact page.

TIP: Insert carriage returns to break up long paragraphs for easier reading. Using  HTML decimal codes , you can add special characters (like the mail and phone symbols).

Set 'Profile visibility' to Everyone (public) in the 'Set member properties' panel.

For more information see  Create an account  or  Manage profile .


Next steps

In this guide, you learned some key considerations for multi-organization 'OneMap' Administrators configuring your ArcGIS Online organization.

Next, we'll review Configure ArcGIS Hub: 'OneMap' Good Practices. Later, we'll learn more with this guide: Good Practices for Authoritative Data Providers.

Throughout these guides, we use the term "OneMap" as a placeholder for your community GIS branding.