Set up location sharing

Available with the ArcGIS Indoors Maps extension.

The Location Sharing service is an ArcGIS organization-wide capability that records where members are and where they have been. The sections below describe how to set up location sharing in your ArcGIS organization.

Enable location sharing

As an administrator of your ArcGIS organization in ArcGIS Online, you can enable location sharing by doing the following:As an administrator of your ArcGIS organization in ArcGIS Enterprise, you can enable location sharing by doing the following:

  1. Sign in as an administrator.
  2. At the top of the site, click the Organization tab and click Settings.
  3. Click Organization extensions on the side of the page.
  4. Click Enable Location Sharing.

Your Enterprise portal must have the spatiotemporal big data store configured (one of the data stores types available through ArcGIS Data Store).

Learn more about configuring location sharing in your ArcGIS Online organizationLearn more about configuring location sharing in your Enterprise portal

Manage location sharing

Once location sharing is enabled in your Enterprise portal, it is important to configure the duration for which the tracks should be retained. The default is 30 days, but you can choose a different duration based on your organization’s needs. Once location sharing is enabled in your ArcGIS Online organization, it is set for 30 days and can't be changed.

The location sharing service can also be paused or disabled after it's enabled.

Learn more about managing location sharing in your ArcGIS organization in Enterprise

Learn more about managing location sharing in your ArcGIS organization in ArcGIS Online

Create a viewer custom role

Only administrators can view data in the location sharing service by default. To allow members to find the current location of others who are sharing their device location, assign them a custom role with the privilege to view location data.

To create a custom role, complete the following steps:

  1. Sign in as an administrator.
  2. At the top of the site, click the Organization tab and click Settings.
  3. Click Member Roles on the side of the page.
  4. Click Create Role.
  5. Provide a name and description for the role.
  6. Set the appropriate privilege compatibility.
  7. Turn on the View location tracks privilege in the Content group in the General Privileges section.
  8. Click Save role.

Create views and add members

You can create views using the Track Viewer app. Administrators can add members to allow them to post track locations and control who can view them.

To create a view, complete the following steps:

  1. Sign in as an administrator.
  2. At the top of the site, click the Organization tab and click Settings.
  3. Click Organization extensions on the side of the page.
  4. Click Open Track Viewer to launch the Track Viewer for ArcGIS web app.
  5. In the app, click Create view and provide a name.
  6. Click Create view.
  7. To allow members to share locations, add them to the Mobile Users tab.
  8. To allow members to view shared locations, add them to the Track Viewers tab.
    Note:

    Only members who were assigned the custom role created in the previous section can be added to this group.

You may need to restart the Indoors mobile app to see changes made to views.

View device location and tracks

Location sharing data can be viewed in the following ways:

  • Current location or last known location
  • Device tracks or historic locations

Current location or last known location

The current location (if a member is actively sharing their location) or last known location (if a member has stopped sharing their location or is offline or outside the tracking zone) can be viewed in the Indoors mobile app by other members if they have the required permissions and are part of the appropriate views and groups.

Learn more about app settings and usage

Device tracks or historic locations

To view historic tracks, create a web map with the location tracking layer. The settings configured by the administrator determine who can view the map and which tracks are available to view.