Community accounts are for anyone who needs to view, edit, or contribute content connected to the sites in your ArcGIS Online primary (staff) organization. Community accounts are ArcGIS Online accounts for users who are not members of the ArcGIS Online staff organization that you and your colleagues use to access ArcGIS Hub and manage your authoritative GIS. This can include known members from other organizations within your local education system, volunteer networks, and business networks.
License:
Community accounts require an ArcGIS Hub Premium license. The number of community accounts included with your subscription depends on your organization's needs.
Your organization can also extend community accounts to the public by adding a Sign up card account when visiting one of your sites or pages. Once they’ve signed in with an account, users can sign up for an event and follow their favorite sites for emails with updates, feedback opportunities, and new content.
How community accounts work
A community account is an ArcGIS account that grants access to a community organization, a designated ArcGIS Online subscription that separates community accounts from your organization’s staff accounts. As with all ArcGIS accounts, community accounts must have a user type and role. A user type determines which ArcGIS Online applications and tools are available to a member and which role can be assigned to their account.
Community accounts should be assigned a Hub Community Member user type and a Publisher role, the default configuration for community accounts created by the public and the recommended configuration for accounts set up manually or sent through invitation.
This configuration includes the privileges community members need to engage with your sites, such as the ability to do the following:
- Join a site’s group by accepting an invitation through email or by being added automatically by a group manager.
- View private content—such as data, maps, and pages—shared with them through a view group.
- Edit private content, such as a site, shared with them through an edit group.
- Create content, like stories and maps, with the apps and tools that are part of the Hub Community Member user type.
- Share their own content with the groups to which they belong, other community members, and the public.
- Sign up to attend or be invited to join a site’s events.
- Follow sites that are open to public or be invited to follow private or public sites.
- Manage a user profile for accessing content, events, and favorite sites.
Community administrators can manage members in ArcGIS Online, but modifying the organization's new member default settings is not recommended. For more information, see Community organization defaults.
Caution:
Configuring a custom role or assigning a default role lower than Publisher is not advised and impacts how the member can participate. For example, changing the new member default to Viewer removes the Join external groups privilege, which is necessary to follow sites, register for events, and join a group.User types, role, and privileges
A user type determines which ArcGIS Online applications and tools are available to a member and which role can be assigned to their account. For new community accounts created by the public, the default user type is Hub Community Member and the default role is Publisher.
Community administrators can manage members in ArcGIS Online, but modifying the organization's new member default settings is not recommended. For more information, see Community organization defaults.
Caution:
Configuring a custom role or assigning a default role lower than Publisher is not advised and impacts how the member can participate. For example, changing the new member default to Viewer removes the Join external groups privilege, which is necessary to follow sites, register for events, and join a group.Hub Community Member user type
Community members should have a Hub Community Member user type so that they can access ArcGIS Hub, Map Viewer Classic, ArcGIS StoryMaps, and other applications. Community administrators with the Hub Community Member user type have full administrative access to the community organization.
Note:
Items created by community members belong to the community organization as the member's user type provides access to only the community organization's application licenses.
Creator user type
Three Creator user types are provided in addition to the community accounts allotted to the Hub Premium organization. Community administrators can optionally assign themselves the Creator user type to set them apart from community members. However, community administrators have full administrative access with the default Hub Community Member user type.
Publisher role
A role determines which privileges a member has when using the applications and tools assigned by their user type. The following table outlines the primary privileges included with the Publisher role:
| Hub activity | Privilege |
|---|---|
Respond to surveys, update submitted survey responses, and create events. | Edit features |
Use ArcGIS Online, Map Viewer Classic, and applications included with the Creator user type. | Create content |
Create events for sites, initiatives, or projects. | Make groups visible to the public |
Share your own content with groups to which you belong, all community organization members, and the public. | Share with groups, organization, and public |
Join groups stored in an employee organization, enabling them to add content, manage discussions, and more. | Join external groups (employee organization groups) |
Edit a site or page layout or customize initiatives, projects, or events alongside members of the employee organization. | Join shared update groups |
View member profiles for staff and community members belonging to a shared update group. | View members |
View groups shared with the rest of the community organization, including groups to which you have been invited or have joined. | View groups shared with organization |
View items shared with the community by other community members. | View content shared with organization |