A User's Guide to ArcGIS Accounts

[AdenaSchutzberg1]

Table of Contents

• 1) ArcGIS Public Account vs. ArcGIS Organizational Account
• 2) All About ArcGIS Public Accounts
• 3) All About ArcGIS Organizational Accounts
• 4)Keeping Track of your Accounts
• 5) Best practice: One ArcGIS Public Account and One or More ArcGIS Organizational Accounts

1) ArcGIS Public Account vs. ArcGIS Organizational Account

ArcGIS Public Account – opens the door to the Esri community for training, discussions, and more! ArcGIS Organizational Account – unlocks the power of ArcGIS software platform

You can create this account yourself, for free	The ArcGIS organization's administrator must create this for you and provide information on how to access it
Available to just about anyone over 18	The ArcGIS organization's administrator determines who needs an organizational account
Lasts a lifetime since it can't expire	The ArcGIS organization's administrator can create, change the privileges for, and delete an organizational account
Most people need just one; having more than one is just confusing	You may have more than one at a time for different tasks (work project vs. free course); be sure to select the correct one to access the needed privileges and licenses
Holds your training history (courses completed, certificates, etc.) forever	Holds current ArcGIS Online privileges and named user ArcGIS licenses (such as for ArcGIS Pro); the ArcGIS organization's administrator can add or remove these as needed and delete the account entirely
Provides access to Esri.com websites (like Esri.com/training)	The ArcGIS organization's administrator decides if the account provides access to Esri.com websites (like esri.com/training); many temporary accounts will NOT have Esri Access enabled
Provides limited access to ArcGIS Online (www.arcgis.com)	Provides enhanced access to ArcGIS Online (www.arcgis.com); the administrator determines what privileges and licenses are available
Was at one time called an Esri Global account or an Esri account	Was at one time called an ArcGIS Online organizational account
Can be "turned into" an ArcGIS organizational account, with an invitation to join an organization	The ArcGIS organization's administrator decides if the account includes access to Esri websites and licenses for Esri software like ArcGIS Pro

2) All About ArcGIS Public Accounts 

A) You can create an ArcGIS public account at accounts.esri.com. (Before you do, check to see if you already have one, since one is enough for most people.)

B) An ArcGIS public account allows access to websites with "esri.com" in the URL, including Training (www.esri.com/training), Esri Community (www.esri.com/community), My Esri (my.esri.com). You can see the websites you can visit in the drop-down menu, when you are signed in.

C) An ArcGIS public account stores your training history; you can find it at My Learning Activity.

D) An ArcGIS public account provides limited access to ArcGIS Online. There is no access to analysis, no credits to spend, and no access to named user licenses for ArcGIS software like ArcGIS Pro or Collector.

E) Two ArcGIS Public accounts can be merged. Please contact accounts@esri.com to merge two or more accounts.

F) An ArcGIS public account can and should stay with you from school, to job, to another job... Using one ArcGIS Public account from your first connection with Esri through your latest course or webinar, ensures all of your Esri related information is accessible in one place, forever.

3) All About ArcGIS Organizational Accounts

A) ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise administrators create ArcGIS organizational accounts. The administrator, your manager or your instructor will provide information on how to access the account. 

B) An ArcGIS organizational account does not provide access to websites with esri.com in the URL (Training at www.esri.com/training, Esri Community at www.esri com/community, etc.) UNLESS it is "Esri enabled." This is a switch the ArcGIS administrator can turn on or off for each organization member.

If this switch is on, then the ArcGIS Organizational account can access the same sites an ArcGIS public account does (esri.com websites); it also has other organizational privileges.

If this switch is off, then the account does not provide access to esri.com websites.

Further, if the switch is “off” for your ArcGIS  Organizational account, and you try to visit an esri.com website by signing in with that account's user name and password, you will see the message below. It reminds you the account you signed in with is not Esri enabled. That is, this ArcGIS Organizational account has the switch "turned off."

What should you do if you see this message and can't get to the webpage you seek?

1. Click the “Sign out of this account” blue button
2. Navigate to the esri.com website URL you want to reach (Perhaps it was www.esri.com/training/my-schedule? Or www.esri.com/community?)
3. Sign in (via a dialog box like the one below) with either an ArcGIS Public account or an ArcGIS Online organizational account that is Esri-enabled.

You may think the best solution is to contact your administrator to request that the switched be "turned on." There are good reasons for administrators to leave the switch off, so read up on them before you make that request.

C) ArcGIS organizational accounts provide access to ArcGIS Online, and if granted privileges by the administrator, access to analysis tools, premium content, credits and named user licenses for ArcGIS software like ArcGIS Pro, Collector, etc.

4) Keeping Track of your Accounts

To find the user names for all of your accounts associated with an e-mail address, visit www.arcgis.com and click on “Forgot username?” If you have more than one e-mail address, you may need to repeat this a few times to find them all. 

You will receive an e-mail reply with a listing of all the ArcGIS accounts, public and organizational, associated with each e-mail address. The response below is the for an individual who has: 

- An ArcGIS public account with user name “username"
- An ArcGIS organizational account with the user name “username_mycompany.”

Note that the ArcGIS organizational account has Esri access "disabled," meaning "the switch is off" and that this account cannot be used to access Esri.com websites. Note too, that the message refers to an Esri Public Account; that's the "old name" for a ArcGIS public account.

5) Best practice: One ArcGIS Public Account and One or More ArcGIS Organizational Accounts

The main reason to have one ArcGIS Public account and one or more ArcGIS Organizational accounts is that one ArcGIS Public account will stay with you during your career and ArcGIS Organizational accounts will "come and go." Remember: An administrator may delete an ArcGIS Organizational account once a project, course, or job ends.

Because ArcGIS Organizational accounts are "temporary" your ArcGIS administrator may be hesitant to turn on (“enable”) Esri access. When deleting an ArcGIS Organizational account that is Esri enabled, an ArcGIS administrator has the choice of deleting the training history associated with the account or to letting the account remain with the training history as an ArcGIS Public account. (I refer to this as a ZOMBIE ArcGIS public account!)

We strongly urge students and professionals to maintain a single ArcGIS public account through their careers. Should your organization provide Esri-enabled ArcGIS organizational accounts, consider contacting accounts@esri.com to move your training history to an ArcGIS public account before such an account is deleted.

[Will]

As an org Esri/ArcGIS admin for 10+ years I appreciate finding this article, although I've learned some of this stuff through osmosis and trial-and-error over the years. However, this article could use updating as some of the dialogs/workflow have changed (such as with a recent AGOL update, an admin is now better prompted when deleting a member's account if the account should be retained with Esri access, i.e. revert to a public account), and I have these general comments/questions:

1.) Isn't it easier overall, and a better best practice, to advise users to try and use one account overall through their careers if possible, i.e. start with a public account or org account with a username of their liking, then bring that account into and out of each primary org, and update its associated email address, as they move through their career (i.e. college, work, etc.) and just request each org's admin to retain Esri access when deleting/removing the account from each org as it should then revert to a public account and retain the training history, right?  Otherwise, it can get confusing for org admins as some users may use a different account for AGOL than My Esri, and when someone leaves an org, the admin has to find and disconnect accounts from AGOL and My Esri under different usernames.

2.) The AGOL default org account usernames of "firstname.lastname_<org name/domain>" for admins is nice in some way as it may create automatically unique usernames across the entire account universe, but inconvenient and potentially a bad practice in that when users leave an org, if an admin chooses to leave Esri access enabled then a public account with a username potentially containing that user's real name and associated to the org name will remain active, even though that person has left the org and no longer represents it.  Instead, should AGOL default org usernames just be like firstname.lastname and a unique number, but nothing related to an org included in the username?

3.) E-Learning access is confusing in that public accounts get free access to it by connecting to their org through My Esri (assuming org has active maintenance subscription), but org accounts have access to E-Learning by default even though they don't show up in the org's My Esri list of connected users (unless they request their org account to be connected separately, such as if they request "Downloads" permission i.e. to download desktop ArcGIS software).

4.) Org accounts have the ability to download ArcGIS Pro updates from within the ArcGIS Pro app (About - Software Update) after signing into it, but public accounts, even linked to their org via My Esri with Downloads permissions, do not - this seems counterintuitive, but if it was possible it would be helpful for orgs with Single Use or Concurrent Use licensing instead of Named User (and I'm aware Concurrent Use is supposed to be going away, but that seems at least a few years off until ArcMap end of mature support, and won't Single Use licenses still be around anyway after that?).  As it is now, public account users even linked to their orgs via My Esri have to separately download ArcGIS Pro updates and patches and install them instead of being able to update within the app.

5.) I think I still occasionally find some Esri websites that refer to "Esri account" instead of "ArcGIS account".  It would be nice to consistent in the terminology, and just say "ArcGIS account".

6.) For admins, it would be nice if AGOL and My Esri could be connected better for account clean up, i.e. not having to add/delete accounts from both sites, or at least if you delete an account from AGOL that it automatically also deletes from the org's My Esri list of users at the same time, as it is now, they have to be managed separately.

Thanks for the time and consideration!

[AdenaSchutzberg1]

Will,

Thanks for your detailed feedback; your points are valid. Further, It sounds like we are on the same page regarding the flexibility and challenges of ArcGIS accounts!

This 2020 piece is indeed out of date; I'll see if we can tackle an update in the coming months. 

Adena

[PascalCyr1]

What is the best practice is for the format of these two (or three?) account types?
o The “ArcGIS Public Account” username for an individual’s personal training history.
o The “ArcGIS Organizational Account” for an employee’s or work team’s work related data, maps & apps on ArcGIS Enterprise and/or ArcGIS Online Organization.

[AdenaSchutzberg1]

Hello!

I'm not aware of any documented best practice from Esri, but I'd suggest something like this:

For the public account: firstInitiallastname_personal, for example: jdoe_personal

For the organizational account: firstinitiallastname_nameoforganization, for example jdoe_mycompany

You may also want to ask this question in the question board here: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-online-questions/bd-p/arcgis-online-questions