Building a cache for a hosted tiled map service

When you publish a hosted tiled map service, you choose whether to build the cache automatically when publishing or build the cache manually after publishing.

If you chose to build the cache automatically when publishing, your tiles are created for you by ArcGIS Online. You don't have to take any further action other than optionally monitoring the cache progress.

If you chose to build the cache manually after publishing, do the following to create tiles:

Steps:

1. Start ArcMap 10.1.

   Optionally open the map document from which you originally published the service. Opening the map document is necessary only if you will want to interactively define an area of interest for tile creation.

2. Click File > Sign In.
3. Type your name and password to log in to ArcGIS Online and click Sign In.
4. Open the Catalog window and expand My Hosted Services.
5. Right-click your service and click Manage Cache > Manage Tiles.

   The Manage Map Server Cache Tiles tool dialog box appears. This tool creates map tiles for services.

6. Set the tool parameters as desired. Click the Show Help button on the tool dialog box for help understanding each parameter.

   Note the Area Of Interest parameter which allows you to interactively digitize a polygon to define where tiles are created.

   If you need help understanding any of the other tool parameters, click Show Help in the tool dialog box.

   Every subscription to ArcGIS Online has a specific limit to how much data can be stored on the server. This limit includes space used by tiles. To learn about using this space wisely, see Best practices for hosted tiled map services.

7. Click OK to begin creating tiles.

The tiles are created and stored on the ArcGIS Online servers.

If you ever want to delete tiles, you can run this same tool with the Update Mode parameter set to Delete Tiles.

Tip:

To view a scale-by-scale progress report of cache tile creation, right-click your tiled map service in the Catalog tree and click View Cache Status. See Viewing cache completion status to learn more.

You can view your cache completion status on the ArcGIS.com website. Click the My Content link and click your tiled map service. Click Manage tiles to get a detailed report and launch new caching jobs. When editing the item details for your tiled map service, you can expand the minimum and maximum range of visible scales.