Getting started
Through a subscription to ArcGIS Online, organizations can manage all of their geographic content in Esri's secure, cloud-based environment. Organizations can publish their hosted services to ArcGIS Online, manage maps, apps, and data, and customize their ArcGIS Online home page. Administrators invite members to join the organization and members log in with organizational accounts to access the organization's resources and save and share their work. Organizations can purchase an annual subscription or try it out for 30 days. For more information about what you can do with ArcGIS Online, see What is ArcGIS Online?
Public accounts are also available for individuals. A public account lets you create, store, and manage maps, apps, and data and share them with others. You also get access to content shared by Esri and GIS users around the world. For more information about getting started with a public account, see the Quick Start Guide to ArcGIS Online for Public Accounts and watch a short video.
Getting started as an administrator
The person who requested a subscription should have received an email with an activation link. The subscription must be activated by the person who will administer it. If necessary, have the email forwarded to the appropriate person. For more information, see Activating a subscription.
Once you've activated the subscription, you have the following main tasks as an administrator:
Configure the website
As an administrator of an ArcGIS Online organization, your first task (after you've activated the subscription) is to configure the website to fit your organization’s brand and needs. This can include uploading a logo, adding a description, choosing a background image and banner for the home page, and making security settings. For more information, see About configuring the website. You can also watch a short video.
Manage content with groups
Groups are the basic structure for organizing, managing, and sharing the content of your organization. This content consists mainly of web maps and web applications, but may also include data you have uploaded to the website. For more information, see About working with groups. You can also watch a short video.
Add content to groups
Once you've created groups for configuring the site, you will want to populate those groups with maps and apps. For more information, see Sharing items. You can also watch a short video.
Invite users
As an administrator, you invite members to your organization by filling out and sending an email invitation. You decide if you want to create the user names or let the members create their own user names. You also assign the roles the members will have in the organization: user, publisher, or administrator. For more information, see About inviting users. You can also watch a short video.
You can also configure your online organization with Enterprise Logins (beta). Please be aware that in this initial beta release any user with an enterprise login will be able to sign in to your organization once you set up the federation. A future update will add the ability for you to restrict membership to those enterprise users who you explicitly invite. For more information, see Configuring security settings. You can also watch a short video.
Manage resources
Your work as an administrator isn’t finished with the initial setup of the organization. You need to manage the organization to maintain its efficiency and vitality. Examples of managing resources includes updating a member's profile, removing content from a group, changing the owner of a group, removing a member from the organization, and viewing statistics about your organization’s usage. For more information, see About administering the organization. You can also watch a short video.
Getting started as a member of an organization
Members are invited to join an organization by that organization's administrator. All members see a customized view of the site, for example, a gallery of the organization's featured content, and have access to the content and groups shared with the organization. In addition, some members may have privileges to publish hosted services, and others may have administrative controls. For more information, see Joining an organization. You can also watch a short video.
Opening the website
Once you have an organizational account, open a web browser to arcgis.com and log in. You can also log in directly to your organization if you know its URL.
For the best performance, especially with web maps, it is recommended that you use the latest version of Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, or Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer 6 is not supported; IE 7 and 8 are supported but have performance limitations when working with web maps. For more information, see Supported browsers.
Working with your ArcGIS Online organization
Once you have the website open, you are ready to view your organization's maps and apps, join groups, and author your own web maps and web mapping applications. You can also add items, share web maps, create groups, publish hosted services to ArcGIS Online, and more.
Use the links below to learn more about what you can do with your ArcGIS Online organization: