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Add GIS data

The Add Data user interface opened from the ArcGIS ribbon is where you manage your portals and user identity, discover supported content from portals, and add supported content to your active AutoCAD drawing. The Add Data window also provides access to customizable feature layer template files used to generate useful document feature layer definitions, including schema and symbology.

Portal management

In the Add Data window, you can add, remove, and sign in to your portals. Signing in to your portal gives you access to your content and content shared by your organization, as well as favorite items and, depending on the configuration of the portal, ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World.

Portal management is handled in the drop-down menu at the upper right of the Add Data window using the user avatar icon. The portal you select determines the data that appears in the active Add Data window.

Supported content

The Add Data window automatically filters out items that are not supported by ArcGIS for AutoCAD. Items are identified by their title and item type (for example, map, image, or feature layers). Some items in ArcGIS Living Atlas are subscriber or premium items. These items are identified by an icon. Hover over an item to reveal a pop-up with information about that item, such as copyright information and tags.

In the Add Data window, you can search, filter, and sort to find content. Provide a search term in the search text box and use the filter pop-up to further define the search. When a search is run, the Add Data window is populated with the search results.

You can click View All under an individual collection, or click the collection header to view additional information. This view isolates a collection and you can continue to search.

You can also make an item a favorite when you are signed in to a portal. This marks the item as a favorite and it is added to your Favorites collection. Once you mark an item as a favorite, all clients see it as one of your favorites, for example, in the ArcGIS Online web viewer.

Click a thumbnail tile in the gallery to add the content to the drawing. The layer is added to the drawing and you can manage it in the Esri Contents pane.

Import schema from feature layer template files

The Create tab of the Add Data window provides a user interface to import document feature layer definitions and predefined symbology to the existing drawing from a gallery of feature layer template files stored in folders accessible to your workstation. Document feature layers along with their definition query, any block symbology, and AutoCAD layer definitions will be added to the existing drawing from the chosen template file. The default template search folder location is <installed drive>:\Program Files\Autodesk\ApplicationPlugins\ArcGISForAutoCAD.Bundle\Contents\Resources\Templates.

You can add your own schema templates and new template folders to be searched using the -Esri_TemplatePath command.