What are Groups for if maps can only be public or private?

[ArnoldBijlsma1]

Can somebody explain why there are still Groups on ArcGIS Explorer Online. As far as I understand you used to be able to share your maps with a selected group(s), but that ESRI took away that functionality in the free version. So now either your map is public (everybody can see it) or private (nobody can see it).
So, I can't really see the point of having groups in ArcGIS Explorer Online if you cannot assign them any privileges (technically, you can assign privileges but they don't work).

Signs that the group functionality is no longer useful:
- When creating a group, the 'Private' access radio button is greyed out
- When sharing a map, you can only provide access to a group if you've ticked the 'Everyone (public)' tick box (what's the logic in that?)

[TimWitt]

Arnold,

Groups are still useful if you have a paid subscription. Once ESRI shifted to promote their organizational account, they changed how groups work for free accounts. Within your organization you can create "private" groups and can make them visible for certain members of your organization, just like before.

Hope this somewhat answers your question!

[ArnoldBijlsma1]

Tim

I understand the use of Groups in paid-for versions, but my question is why ESRI didn't remove the Groups functionality in the free version altogether when they made the decision to disable it? Is it because I'm missing something?
In other words: what's the use of Groups in the free ArcGIS Explorer Online?

Cheers

[TimWitt]

With groups you can still invite your colleagues and you can share maps you made. With this you can quickly find maps of each other, with the caveat, everyone can see your maps.

If they would have gotten rid of groups, you wouldn't see if one of your colleagues has a new map available, or you would have to look for links of older maps that one of your colleagues shared.

So groups still serve a function, but if you want privacy, you need to pay.

[ArnoldBijlsma1]

Thanks Tim for clarifying that, and for confirming that I won't be able to share my maps with a selected group of people/my clients unless exposing their data (i.e. their IP) to the whole wide world. Unfortunately this means that ArcGIS Online Explorer is not suitable for my needs 😞 (and I doubt I'll be able to convince our IT department to pay for an ArcGIS Online subscription)

[TimWitt]

Don't forget you can always sign up for a 30 day trial and see if you can convince your IT department.

Or you can create a permanent developer account, which gives you the same functions as the 30 day trial.

Wish I could be more helpful!