Geoprocessing and Reports using ArcGIS Onlne Subscription

EricDaniel · ‎02-10-2012

Will the ArcGIS Online Subscription version give us the ability to add Geoprocessing services via templates or some other route? Also wondering if there will be any opportunities to add reporting capabilities where we could add a legend to map or even utilize the map layout setup in Arcmap when publishing a map service? If not, would be basically need a ArcGIS Server license and add this using the JavaScript API? Or can we use the JavaScript API independently of having a ArcGIS Server license?

AmberT · ‎02-13-2012

Hi Eric,

I am currently Beta testing the ArcGIS subscription for organizations and from what my ESRI rep told me in our weekly meeting when I asked that was No, you cannot add geoprocessing services, you need an ArcGIS Server to do that. You will have commercial access to the JavaScript API's, as well as the Flex and Silverlight API's. You can also use the geoprocessing tasks from the sample servers however, there are maximums on the amount of hits using them. For example, if you wanted to use the network geoprocesses such as "find directions to closet facility" the maximum is 25 million (not sure if that is per month or all together) processes. As far as adding a legend, you can use the preconfigured templates in ArcGIS.com or use the API's to create your own. I have yet to beta test ArcMap 10.1 so I'm not sure all the functionality there. However, I do know that you need ArcMap 10.1 to directly upload you maps and make them web maps to your organizations ArcGIS.com subscription.

Hope this helps,
Amber

EricDaniel · ‎02-13-2012

Thanks Amber for the response and information. Hopefully someone from Esri can confirm this too on here that geoprocessing will only be available if you have access to a Server license. It seems that will be pretty major limitation of this "For Organization Subscription" option. That is good to hear it comes with a commercial license for the Web API's though. That should give more options to add custom features.

Sounds like it may be tough to truly test the subscription for organization beta without being on ArcMap 10.1.

MikeMinami · ‎02-13-2012

Eric,

1. Initially, a subscription does not support publishing a GP service. This is something we want to provide in the future, however.
2. I'm not clear what reporting capabilities you need and how they relate to the legend and ArcMap layout.
3. ArcGIS Server allows you to publish services. However, you can use the APIs to connect to and consume services. So they are separate products that work well together. Sorry, not being in sales and marketing, I'm not sure how these are sold. Probably best to contact your regional office.
4. Yes, an organizational subscription requires Desktop 10.1.

Perhaps I could better answer your questions if you instead described the application you want to build and the functionality you want it to provide.

Thanks,

Mike

EricDaniel · ‎02-13-2012

Mike,

That is great to hear you want to provide the GP service in the future for a subscription. That will be a very powerful addition. To hopefully give you a better idea on what reporting capabilities I'm thinking of I will try to describe the need. What would be needed on is reports on a couple of different levels. One would just be a simple 1 page print out of a map with possibly just one layers legend. Say for example you have layer of points that have water surface temperatures sampled in several locations throughout a large lake. The legend could classify all points into 5 classes and displayed in the 1 page report.

The second report would be a much more involved and closer to the data-driven pages in ArcMap that would be several pages and could include tables, charts, and maps of several layers of the same geography. Seems if the GP Service was available this may be possible with the use of Python scripts.

YukunXing · ‎03-08-2012

Sorry to re-open this thread.

Mike I have a question regarding the upcoming subscription. Why is ArcMap 10.1 needed for it? Can't I just upload a shapefile and have it hosted as a service? Thanks!

MikeMinami · ‎03-08-2012

An ArcGIS Online subscription will allow you to publish feature services and tiled map services (no dynamic ability). Yes, you can publish a shapefile and get a feature service. However, you don't have as much control over how the shapefile gets drawn. So, for example, if you want to publish data like our basemaps where cartography is a key component, you need the power of ArcMap to do this.

Hope this helps,

Mike

YukunXing · ‎03-08-2012

An ArcGIS Online subscription will allow you to publish feature services and tiled map services (no dynamic ability). Yes, you can publish a shapefile and get a feature service. However, you don't have as much control over how the shapefile gets drawn. So, for example, if you want to publish data like our basemaps where cartography is a key component, you need the power of ArcMap to do this.

Hope this helps,

Mike

Thank you for your quick response Mike. So what you are saying is that if I have a feature class in ArcMap 10.1, I could set up feature symbology, labels etc. and directly upload to ArcGIS Online and have it hosted as a feature service, and whoever access this service will see the features displayed the way I originally set it up to be? On the other hand if I upload a shapefile outside ArcMap, there is no way for me to log on into my account and set these up after the fact.

MikeMinami · ‎03-08-2012

No, you do have some ability to apply drawing symbols to shapefiles, it's just not as rich as ArcMap provides. Plus, there is a difference between feature and map services. Feature services return the actual geometry of features and they get drawn by the client application running on some device. Map services are drawn on the server and generate an image of the drawing that gets displayed by the client application.

Mike

YukunXing · ‎03-09-2012

No, you do have some ability to apply drawing symbols to shapefiles, it's just not as rich as ArcMap provides. Plus, there is a difference between feature and map services. Feature services return the actual geometry of features and they get drawn by the client application running on some device. Map services are drawn on the server and generate an image of the drawing that gets displayed by the client application.

Mike

I see. I'm more interested in feature services because I'm looking into building some simple field data collection web application, which obviously requires features to be remotely editable. Since we don't have ArcGIS10 for server, and at this point it is difficult to justify the cost for it, I'm looking around for alternatives. Wish I'd joined the subscription beta. Thank you again for your response Mike!