Tips & Tricks: ArcGIS Pro and Public Accounts

[TeresaDolan]

The My Esri team gets a lot of feedback from users who are trying to use their Personal Use copy of ArcGIS Pro, but they can't sign in because they get this error message:

The link provided on Learn more has the answer. It points to this helpful document on the ArcGIS Pro pages: Sign-in troubleshooting—ArcGIS Pro | ArcGIS Desktop 

That document explains that this Esri Account is not part of an ArcGIS organization. An ArcGIS public account has limited access to ArcGIS Online and does not allow this user to use ArcGIS Pro.

Anyone can confirm that their Esri Account is a public account by signing in to ArcGIS Online from a web browser. If the URL is www.arcgis.com/home/index.html, the account is public. An ArcGIS organization account has the form www.<orgname>.maps.arcgis.com/home/index.html.

[Anonymous User]

You're not in the correct forum. These desperate attempts at ArcPro authorization are for Personal Use licenses.  You need to contact an academic rep to see how you can get an academic package.

If you need ArcPro for an educational institution, go to https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/education/overview

If you're a student, go to https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-for-student-use/overview

If you want a personal license, read this entire thread and then decide.

[jtmedley21]

I just purchased a $100 personal use license and am having the same issues as all the others in this thread. I would like to open a ticket or get help from an ESRI official if at all possible. Thanks for any help and consideration.

[JonathanLeavitt]

@jtmedley21 

Please call our USA support line at (888) 377-4575 and one of our support analysts will be happy to assist you with this licensing issue.

Although yours is a personal use license, you will need to create an organization when you login.  More info here: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/get-started/sign-in-troubleshooting.htm

[BARBARAMORETOFIM]

I don't know why the only options to use ArcGIS Pro are as a student (21 days trial) or as an employee of an Organization. What about self-employed professionals (aka free-lancers)? I could bet that a huge portion of ArcGIS users are self-employed, me included. I don't have an Organization to whom to ask for permissions. I paid my license and I would like to get the full services offered to any other professional, whether they would be employed at a big corporation, a small business or self-employed. One of the members said he managed to create an organizational account with a different username and password, and in the end has two places where to manage content and work, making the whole thing very confusing. If you are an Organization of 1 person, then you shouldn't have to create another account just to be able to use the full extension of the services you're paying for.

[LorrieMcCulley]

ESRI's whole licensing and accounts are some of the worst I've ever seen. Took me a few days to just use the program after trying to navigate the installation and activation. They definitely need to do something different. It gets way to confusing with public and organization accounts, then the esri vs arcgis accounts....I think I have 3 separate accounts.

[Anonymous User]

Remember when ESRI worked hard to bring geographic awareness to all?

Now, if they could only take the same tact with their licensing model...

[mtimana]

This is way I cancelled my subscription to ESRI’s product and switched to
QGIS. Less problems to worry about.

[BARBARAMORETOFIM]

@LuísaCollischonn, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I could not thank you enough!! Of all the things I read, of all the links I followed, your simple message was the one thing that actually solved my problem. I was on the brink of giving up and losing the work I had done so far.
The thing is, it should be clearer. When I purchased the ArcGIS software at the ESRI website, I thought I was getting the whole package, as simple as that. No converting accounts, no "public" vs "organization". Just a software I would download and start using. My thought was quite far from the truth. And there should be an easier way for someone who already has an ESRI account with a valid license to do the same as we, new users, did. I hope that @JonathanLeavitt , as an ESRI facilitator, takes note of this and gives other users clearer and doable instructions.

[JohnFrid]

I am beyond frustrated. It looks like ESRI doesn't care that its software is VERY user UNfriendly. I have hours into this and still get the following message at login:

Your account cannot be used to authorize Arcgis because it is a public account

Why in God's name did they make this so hard and why can't they resolve the issue for me?

[JohnFrid]

OK, but what is THE SOLUTION to this issue, and why can't ESRI either post the way to fix this online or assist me in fixing this? Buying your software does me no good at all if I can't use it!

[mtimana]

This is way, after 1 year of paid subscription, and barely being able to use
the software, I decided not to renew it and switched to QGIS. Shame on you
ESRI.

[JohnFrid]

Thanks, I appreciate it! I'll investigate QGIS right now!

[Brian_Wilson]

I actually phoned customer support on this issue about 3 or 4 years ago. I know it's a big pain to phone but they really did help.

The fact that they have not fixed it in all that time speaks loudly; don't hold your breath. They think it's obvious what you need to do but clearly it is not.  They keep posting the answer here but it's clearly not helping.

The answer is, when you bought Pro on the personal program you had to set up an account, and that account has its own so called "Organization" just for you. It's separate from any other Esri account you have. That was very confusing to me. For example mine was map46.maps.arcgis.com where "map46" was the name I used when I signed up.

May the rest of your day be marvelous and by the way, QGIS is actually a great program now if you only need to get work done and are not coerced into using Esri products. In fact they are complementary -- for example QGIS is great for opening random files in a zillion formats for quick visualizations.

Hope this helps, Brian

[MichaelBanak]

My thanks to correspondents, who posted their solutions. I must carve out time to try the ones that look most promising.

About a decade ago, I had a version of ESRI's products, for students. Setup was reasonable and I was productive in that Geodetic Science class. // Shortly thereafter, I bought an ESRI product for a budding Land Surveying company and setup was hard. It got little use. // A few years later, I had a version of ESRI's products, which came as a tie-in with a Land Surveying CAD program. Installation and setup was still hard. It got little use.

After being away for about a decade, I want to return to GIS, and learn it at my own pace, before re-entering the commercial realm. The personal use license seemed ideal. This time, the installation and setup is beyond difficult. Beyond reach. I wish I could understand how a great company could make life so miserable for those of us poised at the entry level. I guess I don't want to admit that something negligent is at-play.

[BernhardZimmermann]

von LuísaCollischonn

‎11-18-2021 04:44 AM

I finally managed to resolve it alone!
When I purchased the license, I received an email from ESRI titled 'Esri - Order Fulfillment Confirmation'. In this email will be the link that gives the possibility to convert the ArcGIS public account into an organization.
How can something simple get so complicated? This shouldn't be the only way... And if anyone is in doubt, it should be easily helped.
Hope this helps other people too.

-------
 

Thanks a lot LuísaCollischonn , your hint helped me to solve the public account problem when loggin in to ArcGIS Pro!

To be able to use your personal license in ArcGIS Pro you need to transform your public account to an organisation's account. The text above gives you the hint where to find this. In that 'Esri - Order Fulfillment Confirmation' email sent by ESRI after buying the license there is a link like  "https://my.esri.com/#/fulfillment/long-number".  Follow the instructions there, especially the first point 1 "activate the GIS professional subscription". You are guided to convert your public account to an organisation's account where you can just put in your own name as organisation name and a useful shortcut that will be shown on your ArcGIS Online page.

Anyways it took me the whole day to find out how to get ArcGIS Pro startet. This is a poor support and the help page from ESRI posted above does not tell you all this. There is just a hint "on the email sent by your organisation" which is more confusing than helpful.

[new_user_az]

Same headache. Same waste of time searching, BUT... I finally found something useful!

https://support.esri.com/en/technical-article/000022997

1. Log into My Esri using the account that purchased the Personal Use subscription

2. Go to the My Organizations tab.

3. Select Transactions.

4. Click the transaction ID, and select Product Information.

5. Expand the Activate ArcGIS Online Organization row.

6. Click Activate Subscription.

End result is having two separate logins, much like rmagdanz explains above. Really dumb system, but at least the software works now.

[ArlinBrewster]

Hello, I had this same issue. I have been using ArcGIS Desktop for personal use for years, and logged into ArcGIS Online a few years back just to see what the interface was like. I'm coming up on the end of my current license and decided it's time to transition to ArcGIS Pro. As did many folks, I encountered the error message during the ArcGIS Pro setup that said, "Your account could not be used to authorize ArcGIS Pro because it is an ArcGIS Public Account".

I tried everything, searched everywhere. When I logged in to ArcGIS Online, the splash page said, "Welcome to your ArcGIS Online Public Account". Eventually, I ended up logging in to myESRI.com and from the menu ribbon on top, navigated to Support > Request Case. In the case, I explained the situation and included the specific verbiage from the error message above, and asked them to send me a link to convert my public account to an organizational account.

I got a response from an agent approximately 2 hours later (by phone), and while I was away from my computer at the time, she explained the process to me briefly, but ultimately was able to email me a link and instructions for making the conversion. She initially did not recommend sending this information to my email address, but I insisted and she agreed.

I did not receive the email in the next half hour, so I went back to myESRI and found my open case in the Support menu, and sent her a message (there's a blue pencil beside the case that allows you to add a new note). I asked her to resend the email, and she sent it within minutes.

As promised, the email contained a link and instructions to follow. It does indeed allow you to upgrade your public account to an organizational account, which was no additional charge. After all this was complete, I was able to start up ArcGIS Pro from my PC's start menu, no problems. Now I just have to figure out how to import my ArcMap .mxd files, but that is a battle for another day.

I sincerely hope this helps someone. This was the most counter-intuitive, frustrating experience I've ever had with ESRI.

[TrackSmart]

EVERYBODY:  Many of us did not receive an email link for converting our public accounts to an organization account. 

SOLUTION:  Start a chat with ESRI customer service and ask them to send you a link to convert your account from "public" to an organization account.  You can use whatever username you have been using to log into myesri or arcgis online.

You may think your account is converted because you can see an organization name under MyEsri, you can also see members of the organization, a management console, can invite members into the organization, etc, but somehow that will never fix the problem.

THERE IS NO OTHER SOLUTION BEYOND GETTING THE PUBLIC TO ORGANIZATION CONVERSION LINK FROM CUSTOMER SERVICE.  Again, I thought I had an organization account because under MyEsri I could see the name of my organization!  I even created a new username and invited that username to my organization and connected it.  Didn't help!  Just request a conversion link from customer support.  You'll be asked to create a new organization name, as if the other one never existed. 

The process for activating ArcGIS Pro is different from ArcMap.  I never had an issue activating ArcMap under the personal use license.  Activating Pro requires this separate process.

I hope that helps!