Configure ArcGIS Hub: '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 get the most out of your 'OneMap' Hub. See also the complimentary  Configure ArcGIS Online: 'OneMap' Good Practices  and  'OneMap' Hub Template How-To Guide .


1. Your Hub concept

Be the chef of your 'OneMap' Hub!

If you've been dreaming of having your own Hub site, you've probably thought a lot about your concept. Choosing the concept of your Hub is the fun part of the planning process, when you get to let your imagination run wild.

Your concept should include the  type of Hub  you want, the content you'll serve, and the services you'll offer. Like opening a restaurant, your Hub should welcome visitors and align with your concept. The possibilities are limitless! Here are a few examples of Hub concepts to spark your creativity:

  • A thematic Hub, such as an Election Outreach Hub, can convey focused information to educate the public, inform decision-makers, and engage stakeholders.
  • An organizational Hub, like an Open Data Hub, can be used to share agency data to raise awareness, build trust, and enable participation in your community.

The 'OneMap' Hub concept is multi-organizational. It can be used in various  patterns in practice , including whole-of-government and multi-level collaboration. Use it to foster data-sharing among partners; manage foundational data; and promote collaboration across borders, jurisdictions, and sectors to achieve common goals.

2. Your brand

Think of your brand as how you communicate your mission and identity to the public. Therefore, your Hub name, logo, site design, and content should all present a cohesive image of your brand.

Similar to other content, Hub sites are Items in ArcGIS Online. Distinguish your brand with the following good practices for Hub site settings and your Hub site's ArcGIS Item information.

3. Hub site settings

Visit the following in your ArcGIS Hub Site Home > Settings administration panel:

Name (Item title)

A descriptive Name is essential for authoritative Hubs.

Your Hub's name appears in ArcGIS Online as the Item title and your site's title in web search results. Therefore, a distinct name maximizes discoverability and improves web Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Example of web search results

In addition, clearly named Hubs are findable in ArcGIS Online and Hub global content libraries.

GOOD PRACTICE: Your site Name (Item title) should be succinct yet descriptive, including your jurisdiction placename, community GIS branding, or full organization name.

Examples:

  • California State Geoportal
  • Florida Geospatial Open Data Portal
  • Ireland GeoHive

Summary

The Summary will appear in ArcGIS Online as the Item summary and as the site meta description snippet in web search results.

GOOD PRACTICE: The Summary should be concise yet descriptive (limit to about 155 characters), including keywords that help drive search results.

EXAMPLE: OneMap unlocks the power of [your jurisdiction's] location-based geospatial data. Access authoritative GIS open data, maps, and apps to better understand our region.

Domain Settings

Modify the prefix of your domain URL to reflect your organization's name or initiative. Short, compact URLs are easier to communicate and remember than long ones.

GOOD PRACTICE: Configure your Settings > Domain Settings as appropriate, being as succinct as possible.

EXAMPLE: An ArcGIS Hub URL:  https://onemap-sdi.hub.arcgis.com/ 

Content Side Panel Interactions

The Content Side Panel displays information about the content. The interaction is configurable. For example, you can automatically expand or collapse the sidebar when viewing different Item types.

GOOD PRACTICE: Customize Settings > Interactions > Content Side Panel

Configure your site's default side panel behavior of views based on the Item content family. For example, have the side panel expanded when viewing dataset information and collapsed when viewing applications, maps, documents, and surveys.

Private Item Views

Control access to your site content through the 'Share' setting. If you have private items, you can limit access to authenticated users.

As desired, fine-tune sharing of Hubs sites, pages, Items, and even the visibility of rows within pages.

GOOD PRACTICE: Turn on Settings > Beta > Private Item Views

Site Translation

Promote access to your Hub by as broad an audience as possible, including non-native speakers. Enable multi-lingual support with the Google Translate side tab (automated localization).

GOOD PRACTICE: Turn on Settings > Beta > Site Translation


4. Theme: colors and fonts

ArcGIS Hub supports the colors and fonts of your organization. Attention to details like these will help your OneMap site integrate with your existing brand to help create a seamless experience for your audience.

Color Scheme

Use your organization's colors to standardize your Hub and unify your brand.

TIP: If you're unsure which colors your organization uses, use a color picker or browser add-in, such as  Colorzilla  in Chrome.

TIP: If you don't already have a brand color scheme, use a color palette website like  Coolers  to help pick out complimentary colors.

Fonts

From casual to formal, fonts help define the tone of your site. Hub's default font, Avenir Next, is a sans serif font with clean, simple letterforms and relaxed spacing that is excellent for the web.

If your organization uses a standardized font, you can upload it to Hub.

TIP: Import up to two fonts to use as part of your theme. Google Fonts is a catalog of fonts that you can use for free. Head over there to  browse their collection . You will need a URL and a name to import your font.


5. Header: brand your site

Brand your site with header and theme options. The header appears across the top of your site (below the global navigation bar). It contains your site's name, logo, and menu navigation links.

Visit the  Hub documentation  for more detail.

Header Name & Short Name

Enter the name to appear in your site's header in the menu bar. 

TIP: The name you provide here is only visible in the header navigation menu. Header names are not reflected in your site's URL, Hub Item information, or your list of sites.

TIP: We'll use your header short name in the menu on mobile devices in case your name is a bit too long.

Header Logo

Your organization or initiative logo is integral to your visual identity that conveys your brand.

TIP: If you're uploading an image from a file, an image saved as a PNG file with transparent background works best. You can crop and zoom the image in the card's Image settings section on the Customize panel.

Header Menu (navigation)

Menu links are links added to a  header . These links tell visitors where they're going when they follow the link. Make it easy for site visitors to navigate to content, such as pages or external web links.

GOOD PRACTICE: Keep site navigation compact in the Hub Header >Menu dialog. Include no more than seven (7) menu links as a general rule of thumb.

Alternatively, configure your header with Custom CSS/HTML to provide nested menu items.

NOTE: Global navigation is a site capability that enables global navigation throughout your entire site via a compact bar above the header. We strongly recommend keeping this turned on.

TIP: To disable or enable the global navigation capability, see  Interactions .

Use Relative Links

It's common for websites to contain links embedded in the content.

Relative links are a shorthand way of linking to internal site content without using the full URL. Using relative links ensures that if your site base-URL changes, your links won't break.

GOOD PRACTICE: When hardcoding HTML links to content within your site, such as a page, use relative links rather than absolute links.

EXAMPLE: When adding a hyperlink to your own site content:

  • Instead of this (absolute link): https://onemap-jurisdiction.hub.arcgis.com/pages/featured-applications
  • Do this (relative link): /pages/featured-applications

Cross-Link Your Hubs

Your 'OneMap' Hub and GIS Council may have separate Hub sites. Create a navigation experience that cross-links sites to each other. Cross-linking has the added benefit of improving SEO.

GOOD PRACTICE: If applicable, your OneMap Hub should include a menu navigation link to your GIS Council; and your GIS Council should include a menu navigation link to your 'OneMap' Hub site.

Private pages

Pages, rows, and other content shared with 'Everyone' are publicly visible, whereas private pages are visible only to authenticated users.

TIP: Optionally, you can include private pages in your Hub site menu – only authorized users will be able to view private content.

For more information,  visit the documentation .


6. Footer: content

While header menus at the top of your site include the links for your main site navigation, footers share content at the very bottom of your site.

For example, Footers typically contain a copyright notice, link to a privacy policy, sitemap, and contact information. 

TIP: Consider placing other essential links in the footer, such as the ArcGIS Online organization link for employees and a link to your jurisdiction's official website.

Consent Notice

Having views and session data is useful to understand how your Hub site performs over time. ArcGIS Hub collects this data for you using  Hub Activity Tracking , optional tracking that powers your  site's dashboard  and helps us to improve ArcGIS Hub features and functionality. In addition to this out-of-the-box tracking, you can also add a tracking ID to your site's settings to analyze performance in Google Analytics. 

New privacy measures, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), establish guidelines for how site owners inform visitors of the tracking services they use. Optionally, enable a consent notice in your site’s settings.

TIP: A consent notice allows visitors to accept or reject tracking applied to your site.

For more information,  visit the documentation .


7. ArcGIS Online: Hub Item settings

Similar to other content, Hub sites are Items in ArcGIS Online. Now that you've configured your Hub site settings, find the Hub Item in your ArcGIS Online portal and configure the following settings:

Mark as ‘Authoritative’

Go to the Item > Settings tab. Under the Content Status setting, click the button to designate your Hub as Authoritative.

GOOD PRACTICE: Use the Authoritative tag to show you are your jurisdiction's authoritative 'OneMap' organization.

Delete Protect

Prevent your Hub site Item from being accidentally deleted.

GOOD PRACTICE: Check the "Prevent this item from being accidentally deleted" setting.

TIP: You can delete protect your pages as well.

Set Extent

Having a geographic extent for your Hub site makes it findable by location. Therefore, your Hub's Item extent should match the geographic location of your jurisdiction.

GOOD PRACTICE: Set the geographic extent of your Hub site.

NOTE: Items in your Hub catalog will maintain their own extents.

8. Don't compete with yourself for SEO

A fundamental goal of any Hub is that it and its content are easily findable. ArcGIS Hub automatically Search Engine Optimizes (SEO) your Hub and catalog content. The good practices in this guide will help improve your SEO.

Yet, a common problem is unintentionally publishing competing sites.

For example, organizations often create a prototype or beta version Hub site during early evaluation and development. Keep in mind that Hub sites that are publicly available (shared with everyone) are discoverable in ArcGIS Online and web search engine results.

Similar sites compete

When end-users browse or search for your Hub site, can they easily find and tell which is the "official" site? Clear naming, thumbnail images, and description can help.

Without such clarity, these sites can have similar view counts, confuse visitors, and compete for SEO.

GOOD PRACTICE: Don't compete with yourself for SEO: 1. remove beta sites 2. use Meta Tag 'No Follow' 3. mark as deprecated 4. un-share

These sites are easy to tell apart!

TIPS:

  1. On pre-release versions, include the word "beta," "prototype," or "demo" in the Hub Item title and home page hero banner
  2. In Hub Settings (in Customize side panel), add the Meta Tag “No Follow”
    1. Choose 'Meta Tags' and enter the following:
    2. Save and publish
  3. In ArcGIS Online, tag the Hub Item Settings > Mark demo versions as Deprecated to minimize discoverability and discourage use.
  4. After your official site launch, un-share (un-publish) beta, demo, and prototype sites created during your exploration and evaluation phase.

9. Captivate with images

Just a few high-quality images can grab the viewer's eye and attention. Photographs and graphics help connect with your visitor’s emotions, convey tone, and help communicate concepts.

TIP: Locally relevant images can connect with your audience and often can make the most impact.

GOOD PRACTICE: Choose high-quality photos of your local jurisdiction or graphics representing your theme.

There are several places to find images that use Creative Commons licensing (open for public use), for example,  Unsplash  and  Pexels . Always check the license before using images that are not your own.

Use Image Compression

Have you ever visited an image-rich site that seemed very slow to load? Optimizing your images for the web will improve your site performance.

GOOD PRACTICE: Keep images as small as possible for best performance.

General guidelines:

  • Hero banner: full site width - 1600px, 1800px, 2400px (**??)

TIP: Google's  Squoosh  app is an easy-to-use online image compression tool.

Use SVG Graphics

Clear, crisp Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) graphics are great for icons. Look for SVG as a format for the best responsive quality (these might cost $).


10. Share & collaborate with partners

ArcGIS has a few different patterns for sharing and collaboration.

Our guide, Good Practice Guide to Share & Collaborate, describes these patterns and practices, such as:

  • group naming conventions
  • tips to avoid confusion
  • good practices for group sharing, and
  • how to manage groups in Hub

11. Guide your partners

Simple data governance is essential to multi-organization collaboration but need not be complex or burdensome.

Our concluding good practice for multi-organization Administrators?

GOOD PRACTICE: Provide guidance to your data provider partners.

The next guide in this collection offers practical guidance you can share with your partners or use as an example to create your own.


Additional resources


Next steps

In this guide, you learned some key considerations to configure your multi-organization 'OneMap' Hub.

Next, review our practical guide you can share with your partners, or to use as an example and create your own: Good Practices for Authoritative Data Providers.

Be the chef of your 'OneMap' Hub!

Example of web search results