Getting an ArcGIS Online account, creating a web map with the ArcGIS.com Map Viewer, loading and a shapefile, and then sharing options, step-by-step. OK, so to start, point your browser to http://www.arcgis.com, and log in. I have had good luck with Internet Explorer, and Chrome. Firefox works really well, as well as Safari. Log in to AGOL by clicking on the Sign In button at the top right of the screen.
This will take you to the login screen. If you have an account, log in. If not, you can either link your existing Esri Global ID to AGOL, or create a new account. You will have to wait for the registration process if linking or creating, but it pretty quick. OK, now you have your account, and are signed in. After signing in, you will be taken to the My Content section of AGOL. To start up the Mapping tool, click the Map button, or the Create Map button. By default, you will get the World Topographic Map as your basemap.
If you want, you can change the basemap by selecting the Basemap button, and selecting one.
For this exercise, I will stick with the World Topo map. Next, you will want to add some data. In this case, let s add a shapefile. If your data is in a Geodatabase or a coverage, you will want to create a shapefile from it using ArcGIS. AGOL can import shapefiles, Comma Separated Variable files (CSV), GPX formatted GPS device files, or text files that are tab delimited. Take all of the files that comprise the shapefile (SHP, DBF, SHX, PRJ, SBN, SBX, XML, etc.) and zip them up to one.zip file. This is the file that will be uploaded to AGOL and placed in a map. Note there is a limit of 1,000 features that can be loaded. For more information on loading data and limitations, check the AGOL help at http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisonline/help/index.html#//010q00000060000000 to learn more. To start adding the data, select the Add button, then select Add Layer from File. Browse to your zipfile, and select it. Note the bullet to decide if you want to generalize the features. If you have polygons or lines with a lot of vertices, you will want to do this, for points, you can ignore it. Select Import Layer to load the shapefile into your map. The data I am loading are the locations of playgrounds in Cambridge, MA. When the data is loaded, AGOL will zoom to its extent.
Next, you may want to rename the layer. To do that, select the layer, and click the right-arrow flyout, and select Rename. Give it a name that you like, and will make sense on the map.
Next, if you want, change the symbol. Similar to how you changed the name, select the layer, then use the flyout to select Change Symbols. This will bring up the symbols panel, where you have several options. You can use a Single Symbol; Unique Symbols based on an attribute, or symbolize the color/size of a symbol based on some standard ArcMap-type classification schemes. For this exercise we will stick to single symbol. Click the Change Symbol button to select a symbol. There are several symbol sets that AGOL uses. If you want, you can add a reference to image from a URL, but in this case, we will use a symbol from the Outdoor Recreation symbol set. Note you can set the size here as well. Click Done when finished.
When finished with the symbols. Close the panel with the X in the upper left hand corner. The last thing to set up would be the information pop-up. Using the flyout on the layer name again, select Configure Pop-Up.
This will bring up the pop-up configuration panel. Give the pop-up a title, which can be a field, or some text. You can use the arrows to change the order of the fields. To rename fields, or turn them on or off, select the Configure Attributes button. In this dialog, you can turn fields on or off with the check boxes, apply an alias to a field, determine editing status, and format text fields. Click OK when finished. Pop-up media like URL s, images, charts, etc. can be set up at the bottom of the dialog. We can address that later, if needed. Click the Save Pop-up button to save its configuration, and close the panel.
Test the pop-up by selecting a feature on the map. The pop-up will display on the map. Save your map by selecting the Save button.
Give the map a title, some search tags that will help you find it, a summary, and choose a folder to store it in. Click Save Map to save it to your account. You can confirm the map has been saved by clicking the My Content button. This will take you to your content page, and you can see the listing for the map. The next thing to do is share the map. Select the map you want to share with the check box, and then click the Share button.
Decide how you want to share map. Sharing with Everyone makes the map public, and sharing it with a group allows you to organize your maps, and/or make them only visible to group members. Speaking of groups, we should review how to create a group in the first place. Select the Groups button from the My Content page. This will give you a list of the groups that you are a member of, or are the owner of. To create a group, click the Create a Group button.
In this dialog, you will need to document the group with a name, summary, description, and some tags. Optionally, you can set an image for the group. The tags are mandatory. Also, you can decide if the group will be public or private, and if users can request membership. Save your group. This will take you to the group s home page. There are buttons here to invite users to your group, and manage requests for membership.
Click Invite users. Here you can search by the user name, their real name, or email. Use the Send Invitation button to invite users. Once invited, users will accept, and can create content in the group. This could be a good way to manage the no user accounts scenario. If you want to give people access to a group, without them having to create an account, you could do the following. Create a new group, using the outline above. Make it private, so others cannot see it, if you want, or make it public. Now, we will need to create a new user, and invite that user to the group. To do this, log out of your account from the AGOL home page. Click the Sign In button, as when you started, and use the Create an Account button.
Fill out the account information. This will be an account to be used to distribute AGOL maps to users with no account. The account could be temporary, or could just have a new password assigned after it is been used for its purpose. You could use your name, or a made-up name, but will want to attach it to a real email address. You could give it a First/Last Name of, for example, NYSOEM/Distribution User, and your email address, for example. Here is one I made. BTW, my first car was a 1963 Plymouth Fury, with a push-button transmission. After filling out the form, click the Review and Accept the Terms of Use button. You will have to accept the terms to continue. Click Create My Account. This will take you to the Profile page. If you want to edit the profile, use the Edit my Profile button.
If you wanted to you could change the user s icon image for each project, or leave it blank, whatever you think is appropriate. Also, you could hide the user s profile, by making it Private. In this case, leave it Public, because we will need to find the account later. When you get the user created, we will need to invite it to the group you created. As an example, using the outline above, I logged out of the EsriBostonUser account, logged into my account, and created a group called Esri Boston Map Distribution Group, and made it private.
This group is owned by me. Now, I am going to invite the EsriBostonUser by typing the user name into the search box, and clicking Search. Then, I select the user to move it to the invitation list, and send the invitation. Log out of your account, and log in as the new user. You will see that the user has a notification. Select the Notification button.
Select the Groups button, as instructed by the message. When you do, a dialog will appear, telling you that you have an invitation to join the group. You can delete the message if you want, or leave it. Close the dialog.
Accept the invitation. Now the user is part of the group. You will see that there is an invitation for you. Click the Invitations button.
The strategy here would be to create a map with the new user, and share it with the new group. Then, send an email to people you want to give the map to, giving them the user login name and password, like you would with FTP. Because you own the group, you can take the user in and out of it, and since you created the user, you can change the password as well, effectively creating a new user. Another thing you could do would be to change the user s profile to be private, so no one could find it. There are lots of options here, so try as many as you like!