Maintain your ArcGIS Online organization's content

Spatial data, maps, and other content are a core component of an ArcGIS Online organization. Whether your company uses their ArcGIS Online organization to maintain authoritative internal data or publishes content to external stakeholders, one of your most important roles as administrator is to manage and maintain content.

In this tutorial scenario, you are a newly hired information technology specialist and have been tasked with administering your environmental consulting firm's ArcGIS organization. You must understand and review the key responsibilities you have as an administrator of an ArcGIS Online organizational account.

Note:

This tutorial will cover strategies for organizing your organization's content. To learn more about managing content storage and credit costs, see the tutorial Get started with administering your ArcGIS Online organization or read more about administrative reporting.

This tutorial was last tested on April 9, 2024.

Requirements

• ArcGIS organizational account with an Administrator role (see options for software access)
• You will be completing the tutorial using your own ArcGIS Online organization. As you work through the tutorial, you will be making changes to the organization. You will create content categories, assign an item to multiple categories, create a group and add items and a member to the group and create a folder and move content to the folder.

Maintain your ArcGIS Online organization's content

Set up content categories

Content categories are a good way to organize content in ways that make sense to your organization. Categories can be built out to support a formal structure, like a library catalog system, or they can be used informally. Once assigned to content, categories can be used to filter items. Categories are primarily for internal use but can be exposed to the public through apps, such as the Category Gallery Instant Apps template. First, you'll create categories for two departments within your company and add a subcategory for a specific project. Then you'll create a category for content your organization wants to share with the public.

1. Sign in to your ArcGIS organization with your administrator account.
2. On the ribbon, click the Content tab.

   

   The My Content tab appears. This page shows all the items that you own. To see all content in your organization, you’ll use the My Organization tab.

3. On the blue ribbon, click My Organization.

   Note:

   When signed in as an administrator, you can make changes to items that other members own. Be careful when making changes to maps, layers, sharing permissions, and so on.

4. Under Filters, expand Categories. Click Set up organization categories.

   

   Note:

   If your organization already has categories set up, you’ll see them listed. Click Configure categories to add or edit categories.

   

   The Set up organization categories window appears. Several standard category templates have been provided that you can add and customize, or you can choose to build your own categories.

   Categories can have three levels of hierarchy. As you think through setting up categories or understanding existing categories, keep in mind who will be using them and how.

   If you’re drawing up a schema for your categories, consider the following questions. Is it most valuable for your organization to use categories to distinguish:

   • Content by theme or topic?
   • Content created by different departments?
   • Content meant for different purposes or audiences?

   For the purposes of tutorial, you’ll use a combination of these three category types. First, you’ll add categories for two departments in your environmental consulting company.

5. In the empty text box, type Sustainable Planning and click Add.

   

   The category is created.

6. Click Add category.

   

7. In the text box, type Ecosystem Restoration. Click Add.

   The two categories are created.

   

   Next, you’ll add a subcategory to the Sustainable Planning category specific to a project that the department is working on.

8. Expand Sustainable Planning.

   

9. Click Add subcategory. Name the subcategory Green Infrastructure and add it.

   There are now two categories and one subcategory.

   

   You can continue to add subcategories under the categories. Next, you’ll add a category to show content that will be shared publicly as part of the company’s portfolio of projects.

10. Add a third top-level category called Portfolio: Public.
11. Click Finish setup.

    Your new categories appear under Filter. You can apply categories when you’re sharing content, or later from the Content view. You'll apply categories to an existing item.

12. Check the box next to an item to select it and click Categorize.

    

    Note:

    Depending on the size of your display window, Categorize may be accessed through the More menu.

    

13. In the Categorize window, select Green Infrastructure and Portfolio: Public.

    

14. Click Save.

    You have created categories for your organization’s ArcGIS Online items and assigned categories to an item. Next, you will create and review how to manage a group in your ArcGIS organization.

Manage groups

Groups in ArcGIS Online provide a way to organize and share content with others both in and outside your organization. Groups can be set up to share content editing privileges and work collaboratively on maps and other types of content.

In this section, you’ll set up a group to share administrative reports with your supervisor. Administrative reports can only be created by administrators, and you want to make sure that only your supervisor is able to see these items.

1. On the ribbon, click the Groups tab.

   The My Groups page opens.

2. Click Create group.

   

   The Create a group window appears.

3. In the Group overview section, for Name, type Administrative Reports. For Summary, type or paste the following text:

   This group contains administrative reports for the organization for review by supervisor.

4. For Tags, type or paste Reports, Members, and Credits, pressing Enter after each tag.

   

5. In the Group membership section, for Who can view this group?, ensure that Only group members is selected, and for Who can be in this group? ensure that My organization’s members only is selected.
6. For How can people join this group?, ensure that By invitation is selected, and for Who can contribute content?, choose Group owner and managers.
7. Click Save.

   

   The group is created. Now you can add members and content to it.

8. On the Administrative Reports page, click Add items to group.

   

   The Add items to group window shows all the content you own. By changing the ownership filter, you can also add items owned by your organization or publicly shared across ArcGIS.

9. Select two administrative reports you generated if available, or any two items you own, and click Add items.

   

   The two items are added to the group.

10. Click Invite members.
11. In the Invite members window, search for and select your supervisor’s account if available, or another colleague's account. Click Add members to group.

    

    You’ve successfully configured a group to share content only with your supervisor or another individual.

In this section, you created a group and added members and content to it. Next, you will review how to manage folders.

Manage folders

So far, you’ve worked with categories and groups, which are both ways of organizing content for the organization. ArcGIS Online folders manage content in your own account, like using folders to organize files on your desktop. Unlike categories, folders have one level of depth and can be used however is most useful to you. For example, you can set up the folders to contain all the items relating to a project, a level of sharing, or a theme. Some apps, such as ArcGIS Business Analyst and ArcGIS Survey123, will automatically create folders to keep all the items they create together.

1. On the ribbon, click the Content tab.

   The My Content page opens.

   By default, you’ll have two folders: All my content and a folder with your username. No matter how many folders you have set up, the All my content folder will show everything you own sorted by Date Modified. The folder with your username shows items you own that haven’t yet been sorted into folders.

2. For Folders, click Create folder.

   

3. In the Create a folder window, for Folder name, type Administrative Reports and click Save.

   The new, empty folder is added to the list of folders. You’ll add the two items you added to the group.

4. For Folders, click the folder with your username.
5. Under Title, using the search box, find and select the two items you added to the group. Click Move.

   

6. In the Move item window, choose the Administrative Reports folder and click Save.

   The two items are moved from your general folder to the Administrative Reports folder.

In this tutorial, you learned some methods of content management. Using content organization tools such as categories, groups, and folders will help you keep track of your organization’s content and how it's shared. It’s important to share your content strategy with ArcGIS Online organization members to ensure that new items are categorized, shared and stored appropriately.

To learn more about content management, see documentation on managing content and best practices for maintenance.