Activate ArcGIS Hub Premium

To activate ArcGIS Hub Premium, you must set up a community organization. A community organization is a configured ArcGIS Online subscription, in addition to your ArcGIS Online organization (employee organization). During this process, you will create a community administrator.

The community organization is specifically designed to manage community accounts for people you want to share content with, but do not want to provide full access to your employee organization. These are two separate, but linked, organizations.

Note:

If you do not have an ArcGIS Online subscription to serve as your employee organization, you must configure one before you can set up a community organization. See Activate subscription for more information.

Activate a community organization

Activating a community organization is similar to activating a new subscription in ArcGIS Online. However, the instructions below provide specific details on setting up a subscription to serve as a hub's community organization. The subscription must be activated by the person who will administer it. If necessary, forward the email to the appropriate person.

Caution:

If your ArcGIS Hub Premium license includes an employee organization and a community organization, activate the employee organization first by following the steps in Activate subscription.

Prerequisites

Review the following best practices before activating an ArcGIS Online subscription to serve as a community organization or an employee organization.

Record account details

Make note of the following items and details:

• The subject line for the ArcGIS Online activation email for the community organization is Time to Activate Your ArcGIS Hub Community Account. Consider saving this email for future reference as it contains important information about your subscription and contact information for Esri Technical Support.

  Note:

  If your ArcGIS Hub Premium license includes an employee organization and a community organization, you will receive two activation emails, one for each ArcGIS Online subscription. If you already have an ArcGIS Online employee organization, you will receive one email (for activating the ArcGIS Online community organization).

• Save the web address of the organization's ArcGIS Online home page.
• Remember the email address, username, and password you use to set up an organization's administrator account. The email address you provide will be used for account recovery.

  Note:

  The community organization and the employee organization require separate account credentials. You must retain both sets of account credentials.

Choose a name and short name

You must provide a short name and a name for each new organization. These names are used to generate the URL for the organization's ArcGIS Online home page (for example, https://abc-yourname.maps.arcgis.com).

• Short name—The first part of an organization's home page (site) URL is the short name (abc in https://abc-yourname.maps.arcgis.com). Learn more about Organization defaults for the short name.
• Name—The second part of an organization's home page URL is the name (yourname in https://abc-yourname.maps.arcgis.com). For example, the community organization can be named Your City's Name Community or Your University's Name GIS. This name also appears on the sign-in prompt on the organization's ArcGIS Online home page, privately shared Hub sites and pages, and when a sign-in option is selected on a public site or page.

Create a community administrator account

Start the activation by creating an ArcGIS account with administrative privileges to the community organization. This community administrator account allows you to perform all administrative tasks, including adding and inviting new community members, assigning roles and privileges, and monitoring member content and activity. You can also enable or disable community account creation.

To create the community administrator account, complete the following steps:

1. Open the email from Esri Customer Service (subject line: Activate your ArcGIS Online subscription) and select the activation link.

   The Activating your organizational subscription page appears.

2. Provide a name for the organization in the Community organization title text box and a short name in the Short name text box.

   Caution:

   The short name is automatically saved to every item (site, page, dataset, and so on) created or uploaded by members of the organization. You cannot readily change the short name once you create it, and doing so may result in broken links to your existing content. Choose a short name and a name that your organization is comfortable using for an extended period of time. This helps to prevent broken links and to provide a consistent experience for people using ArcGIS Hub and with private or public access to your content.

3. Select Next.
4. Provide your first name in the First name text box and your last name in the Last name text box.
5. Provide an email address in the Email text box.
6. Provide a new username in the Username text box, a new password in the Password text box, and provide the same password for Confirm password.

   Note:

   Provide a different username and password than what you use for the employee organization. The credentials you provide in these steps must be unique to the community organization.

7. Choose a question from the Security question drop-down menu and provide the answer in the Answer text box.
8. Read the terms of use and select I accept to agree to the terms and select Next.
9. Complete the process for Create my account and set up the ArcGIS Online community organization home page, as described in the section below.

   Note:

   The new account is assigned a default administrator role and gives you authority to manage the community organization. For more information, see Community administrator. You can use your community administrator account to set up additional community administrator accounts. For more information, see Add a community administrator.

Set up the ArcGIS Online community organization home page

Once you've created a community administrator account, you can set up the ArcGIS Online home page for the community organization. The ArcGIS Online home page provides a primary access point for community administrators and can be accessed by community administrators in Hub settings.

Follow the steps in Configure general settings for your community organization. For instance, set the Organization defaults values such as language and region, set up a link for Contact link, or enable the Esri User Experience Improvement Program option.

Note:

The region determines the default basemap gallery, basemap, and extent for new maps, including the basemap of a dataset's content views in ArcGIS Hub.

You can begin adding new community members. All community members are automatically added to the Community Group, a group generated during activation that organizes all community members. Do not delete this group or modify its properties.

Community organization default settings

Community accounts are automatically available to the public on the sign-in prompt for the community organization as social accounts and email accounts are automatically enabled under Sign in options in Hub settings. To change these settings, see Enable or disable community account creation.

Additionally, the following settings are automatically configured in ArcGIS Online for all newly activated community organizations:

• Allow anonymous access to your organization—Anyone can view the community organization's ArcGIS Online home page, but generally this page is only for community administrators.
• Enable credit budgeting—Each community account is automatically assigned 500 credits unless your ArcGIS Hub Premium license includes a different amount. See View and manage credits to learn more.
• New member defaults—All community accounts created by new members are assigned the Hub Community Member user type and the Publisher role, which are the recommended account configurations for participation in ArcGIS Hub.

The community organization is a subscription to ArcGIS Online, and you can find additional information in the ArcGIS Online documentation.

Compare organization permissions

While the employee organization and community organization are administered independently of each other, they allow collaboration among staff and community members through groups. The table below summarizes how accounts, content, and groups function between the two organizations.

Note:

To ensure the security and privacy of staff accounts and official content, community members cannot sign in to the employee organization with their community account credentials. When a community member signs in to a site or page, follows a site, or registers for an event, they cannot access the employee organization, as their ArcGIS account provides access to only the community organization. Community members can only view or edit content that they create or content that has been shared with them through a view or edit group.

Item	Employee organization	Community organization
Accounts	The organization's Administrator provides ArcGIS accounts to staff and their paid contractors by adding or inviting them to the organization.	Community accounts are ArcGIS accounts that the community organization's administrator provides to people who are not employees or paid contractors. This can include collaborators, such as volunteers, partners, and students. Note: Community accounts can also be made available to the public through a Sign Up button on a site or page. This setting can be configured or removed by a community administrator.
Administrators	Administrators are staff who have a default ArcGIS Online Administrator role assigned to their ArcGIS account.	Administrators are typically select employee organization members who have a default ArcGIS Online role assigned to their ArcGIS account in the community organization. This community administrator manages the community organization only. Community member accounts can also be elevated to this role.
Content	Content represents all official ArcGIS items that are created, uploaded, or maintained by staff, including ArcGIS Hub site items.	Content represents all items created by community members, including stories, maps, and pages owned by community members.
Edit and view access	Members can do the following: Edit their own items. Edit an item owned by someone else if it's shared to them through an edit group. View items shared with them through view groups, shared to their organization, or shared publicly.	Community members can do the following: Edit their own items. Edit an item owned by someone else if it's shared to them through an edit group. View items shared with them through view groups, shared to the community organization, or shared publicly.
Sign-in	Members can sign in on the employee organization's ArcGIS Online home page, at hub.arcgis.com, or on a site or page to which they have access.	Members can sign in on the community organization's ArcGIS Online home page, at hub.arcgis.com, or on a site or page to which they have access.
User type, role, and privileges	Available user types, roles, and privileges are determined by the organization's license and assigned by the employee organization's Administrators. A Creator user type is typically used.	Available user types, roles, and privileges are determined by the organization's license and assigned by the community organization's Administrators. A Hub Community Member user type and default Publisher role are typically used. Learn more about User types, role, and privileges for the community organization.

Next steps

To get started, sign in to ArcGIS Hub and create a site. With ArcGIS Hub Premium, you can also browse the template gallery to get started with a custom template.

Note:

To try Hub Premium without a license, see Get started with ArcGIS Hub Premium.