Activate ArcGIS Hub Premium

To activate an ArcGIS Hub Premium, you must set up a community organization. A community organization is a configured ArcGIS Online subscription, in addition to your current ArcGIS Online organization (employee organization). These are two separate, but linked organizations.

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.

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.

Activate a community organization

The steps below provide the same instructions as the ArcGIS Online documentation for activating a new subscription but also include specific instructions for 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 because it contains important information about your subscription and the 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 only one e-mail (for activating the ArcGIS Online Community organization).

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

  Note:

  The community organization and employee organization require separate account credentials. You must remember 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 URL is the short name (abc in https://abc-yourname.maps.arcgis.com).

  Caution:

  The short name is automatically saved to every item (site, dataset, and so on) that you create with ArcGIS Hub. 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 also to provide a consistent experience for people using ArcGIS Hub and viewing your content.
• 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

You will 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.

1. Open the email from Esri Customer Service with the subject line: Activate your ArcGIS Online subscription.
2. Select the activation link in the email.

   The Activate your organizational subscription page appears.

3. Choose By creating a new account and select Next.

   The new account is assigned a default administrator role and gives you authority to manage the community organization. For more information, see Community administrator.

4. Provide a new user name in the Username text box.

   Note:

   Do not use the same user name and password you use for the employee organization. The user name you provide in this step must be unique to the community organization.

5. Provide a password in the Password text box and type the same password in the Confirm password text box.
6. Provide your first name and last name in the appropriate text box.
7. Provide an email address in the Email text box and type the same email address in the Confirm email text box.
8. Choose a security question from the Security question drop-down menu and provide the answer in the Answer text box.
9. Read the terms of use and select I accept to agree to the terms.
10. Select Create my account to proceed to the Set up your organization page.

    Note:

    You can use your community administrator account to set up additional community administrator accounts for your colleagues. For more information, see Add a community administrator.

Set up the ArcGIS Online organization home page

Once you've created a community administrator account, you can set up the ArcGIS Online home page for the community organization.

Note:

The ArcGIS Online home page provides a primary access point for community administrators and can be accessed by community administrators in Hub settings.

1. Provide a name for your organization.
2. Provide a short name for your organization.

   The text is used to created your organization's site URL and is required. The short name can contain up to 16 characters, including the following:

   • Letters (a–z)—Use Latin characters that don't have diacritical marks such as an umlaut.
   • Numbers (0–9)
   • Hyphen (-)—Hyphens cannot be used at the beginning or end of the short name.

   Caution:

   The short name is automatically saved to every item (site, page, and so on) created or uploaded by members of the employee organization. You cannot readily change the name or the short name of your organization, and doing so may result in broken links and an inconsistent experience for those with private or public access to your ArcGIS Hub content.

3. Choose the language for your organization.

   The language determines how the user interface (the ArcGIS Online home page and sign-in prompt) and the time, date, and numerical values appear. Members can change the language on their profile page.

4. Choose the region for your organization.

   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. Alternatively, you can specify your organization's basemaps and map extent through the map configuration. You can optionally change the region for the organization later.

5. Select the Contact us check box and provide a website URL or mailto link for the custom contact link at the footer of the ArcGIS Online home page.

   If your organization allows anonymous access, anyone who finds your URL can see your contact information. Uncheck the box to hide the contact link. The Contact Esri link always appears in the footer; you cannot hide it.

6. Optionally, for Esri User Experience Improvement Program, check the check box to allow Esri to collect usage information from members of your organization to improve the user experience.

   Esri works continuously to improve its products, and customer feedback is an important part of that. The Esri User Experience Improvement program (EUEI) allows you to contribute to the design and development of ArcGIS Online. The program collects information about the usage of ArcGIS Online, including hardware and browser characteristics, without interrupting your work. The program is optional and anonymous; none of the information collected is used to identify or contact members of your organization.

7. Select Save and continue.

   You can begin adding new community members. All community members are automatically added to the Hub 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 Creator user type and the Publisher role, which are the recommended account configurations for participation in ArcGIS Hub.

Since the community organization is a subscription to ArcGIS Online, additional information can be found in the ArcGIS Online documentation.

Compare organization permissions

While the employee organization and community organization are administered independently of each other, they allow collaboration between staff and community members through initiative groups. The following table 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 an initiative site or page, follows an initiative, or signs up to attend an event, they have no way of accessing the employee organization because their ArcGIS account provides access to only the community organization. Community members can only view or edit official initiative content that has been shared with them through an initiative view or edit group.

Item	Employee organization	Community organization
Accounts	ArcGIS accounts are provided to staff and their paid contractors by a Hub administrator who has added or invited them to the organization.	ArcGIS accounts (community accounts) are provided to people who are not employees or paid contractors by a community administrator who has added or invited them to the organization. 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 an initiative site or page. This setting can be configured by a community administrator and optionally removed.
Administrators	Administrators are staff who have a default ArcGIS Online Administrator role assigned to their ArcGIS account. Often called Hub administrators, this account allows the administrator to add or invite new staff members and moderate all content and groups created in the employee organization.	Administrators are employee organization members who have a community administrator account in addition to their staff account. Community member accounts can also be elevated to this role. A community administrator account is an ArcGIS account that has a default ArcGIS Online Administrator role for managing the community organization only.
Content	Content represents all official ArcGIS items that are created, uploaded, or maintained by staff, including ArcGIS Hub initiative items.	Content represents all items created by community members, including stories, maps, and pages owned by community members that are shared to an initiative groups.
Edit and view access	Members can do the following: Edit their own items. Edit an item owned by a community member or another staff member if the item has been shared with them through an edit group belonging to the employee organization. View items shared with all members of the employee organization. View private items shared with them through a view group, including items shared by community members who are also members of the same group. When adding items to an initiative's content library, members can view items created by community members that have been shared with the public and the community organization.	Community members can do the following: Edit their own items. Edit an item owned by a community member or another staff member if the item has been shared with them through an edit group belonging to the employee organization. View private items shared with them through a view group, including items shared by community and staff members who are also members of the same group.
Groups	When organization staff create an initiative with correct privileges, three default groups are created to help manage the initiative content, collaborators, and followers. Customers can become members of these groups, including an event's attendee groups and supporting team groups with the correct privileges.	All new community members are automatically added to a view group called Hub Community Members. For more information, see Community organization defaults. Note: Community members are generally not required to create or join groups that belong to the community organization.
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 should use a sign-in option provided on a public site or page or on a private site or page that has been shared with them through an initiative group.
User type, role, and privileges	A Creator user type and the recommended custom role for using ArcGIS Hub as a Hub administrator, initiative manager, or team member are used.	A Creator user type and default Publisher role are used.

Next steps

To get started, sign in to ArcGIS Hub and start a new site or initiative. With ArcGIS Hub Premium, you can also browse the template gallery to get started with an initiative template.

Note:

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