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Configure Living Atlas content

ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World content is a collection of authoritative, ready-to-use, global geographic content available from ArcGIS Online. The content available through ArcGIS Enterprise includes valuable maps, data layers, tools, services, and apps for geographic analysis provided by Esri.

When you make Living Atlas content available to your portal members who have access to organizational content, you provide them with ready-made content that they can use alone or in combination with their own content to create maps, scenes, and apps and perform analysis in Map Viewer or ArcGIS Insights.

Note:

Your portal must have access to the internet to use Living Atlas content from ArcGIS Online. If your portal cannot access the internet, disable access to this content.

Each version of ArcGIS Enterprise includes a fixed set of Living Atlas items. See Living Atlas content life cycles and updates for information on how this affects what information you see for Living Atlas items in your portal.

You can download a subset of Living Atlas content (boundary and demographic content) from My Esri and publish it to your portal as hosted feature layers if your portal cannot access content over the internet. See Configure boundary layers for more information.

Types of content available

The Living Atlas content you access from an ArcGIS Enterprise portal is a subset of the full set of Living Atlas content available in ArcGIS Online. All of the Living Atlas content available from an ArcGIS Enterprise portal is created or managed by Esri to help ensure this content remains accessible. If your portal can connect to the internet, the following three levels of Esri Living Atlas content are available to you from ArcGIS Online:

  • Content that does not require you to sign in to an ArcGIS Online account

    This content is available by default in ArcGIS Enterprise portals.

  • Subscriber content

    Subscriber content is the collection of ready-to-use map layers, analytic tools, and services published by Esri that requires an ArcGIS Online organizational subscription account to access. This includes layers from Esri such as Landsat 8 imagery, NAIP imagery, landscape analysis layers, and historical maps. Subscriber content is provided as part of your organizational subscription and does not consume any credits.

  • Premium content

    Premium content is a type of subscriber content that requires an ArcGIS Online organizational subscription account to access and consumes credits. Access and credit information is listed in the description details for each item.

    Premium content provides portal members with access to ready-to-use content such as demographic and lifestyle maps as well as tools for geocoding, geoenrichment, network analysis, elevation analysis, and spatial analysis.

Caution:

Do not delete any Living Atlas items or groups from the portal or change sharing or membership configurations on these groups. Also, do not change ownership of content from the esri_livingatlas user.

Allow access to Living Atlas content

By default, members of your portal organization can access content from ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World that is available without having to sign in with an ArcGIS Online organizational account; however, the portal must have access to the internet to use this content. These items are shared to a group named Living Atlas, which is automatically accessible to the portal organization and is owned by a user named esri_livingatlas. This content appears on the Living Atlas tab of the Content page and is available to portal members in Map Viewer and Scene Viewer.

Caution:

Do not delete any Living Atlas items or groups from the portal or change sharing or membership configurations on these groups. Also, do not change ownership of content from the esri_livingatlas user.

Follow these steps to allow the portal to access Living Atlas content that does not require an ArcGIS Online organizational account:

  1. Sign in to the portal as a member of the default administrator role or a custom administrator role with privileges to manage the portal's website settings.
  2. Open Organization > Settings > ArcGIS Online.
  3. If it is not already checked, check the box next to Access Living Atlas Content in your Portal.

    Access to this content requires an internet connection.

  4. If you checked Access Living Atlas Content in your Portal, read the notice and click Yes to proceed.

    Do not close the ArcGIS Online page until the portal finishes configuring access to Living Atlas content.

  5. A message will display when configuration is complete. Click OK to dismiss this message.
  6. Click Save to return to Organization.

Note:

Once you enable this Living Atlas content, you will see subscriber and premium Living Atlas items when you are signed in to the portal as a member of an administrator role even if you have not configured the portal to use subscriber and premium content. This allows you to view the item details to determine if you want to make them available in your portal.

Enable access to subscriber or premium Living Atlas content

If Access Living Atlas Content in your Portal is checked, you can additionally provide your users access to subscriber and premium Living Atlas content.

When members use premium content, the account you specify when configuring premium Living Atlas content will be charged credits. See Understand credits in the ArcGIS Online help for information on credit charges.

You can enable access to subscriber and premium content individually or enable access to both at the same time and provide the same ArcGIS Online account for both.

  1. Sign in to the portal as a member of the default administrator role or a custom administrator role with privileges to manage the portal's website settings.
  2. Open Organization > Settings > ArcGIS Online.
  3. To enable access to both subscriber and premium content using the same ArcGIS Online account, follow these steps:
    1. Check Subscriber and Premium.
    2. Sign in to ArcGIS Online with an organizational account.
    3. Click Configure.
    4. Read the notice. If you want to proceed with configuring this content, click Yes.

      Configuration should take approximately one minute to complete. Do not close the ArcGIS Online page until the portal finishes configuring subscriber and premium content.

    5. A message will display when configuration is complete. Click OK to dismiss this message.

      The subscriber and premium content is now shared to Living Atlas group. Subscriber content is additionally shared to the Living Atlas Analysis Layers group. Portal members can access the subscriber and premium content from Map Viewer, Scene Viewer, and the Content page.

      Caution:

      Do not delete the Living Atlas or Living Atlas Analysis Layers group from the portal or change sharing or membership configurations on these groups. Also, do not delete or change ownership of subscriber or premium content from the esri_livingatlas user.

      By default, analysis tools in Map Viewer use content from the Living Atlas Analysis Layers group.

  4. Follow these steps to enable access to only subscriber Living Atlas content:
    1. Check Subscriber.
    2. Sign in to ArcGIS Online with an organizational account.
    3. Click Configure.
    4. Read the notice. If you want to proceed with configuring subscriber content, click Yes.

      Configuration should take approximately one minute to complete. Do not close the ArcGIS Online page until the portal finishes configuring subscriber content.

    5. A message will display when configuration is complete. Click OK to dismiss this message.

      The subscriber content is now shared to the Living Atlas and Living Atlas Analysis Layers groups. Portal members can access the subscriber content from Map Viewer, Scene Viewer, and the Content page.

      Caution:

      Do not delete the Living Atlas Analysis Layers or Living Atlas group from the portal or change sharing or membership configurations on these groups. Also, do not delete or change ownership of subscriber content from the esri_livingatlas user.

      By default, analysis tools in Map Viewer use content from the Living Atlas Analysis Layers group.

  5. Follow these steps to enable access to only premium Living Atlas content:
    1. Check Premium.
    2. Sign in to ArcGIS Online with an organizational account that has credits available.
    3. Click Configure.
    4. Read the notice. If you want to proceed with configuring premium content, click Yes.

      Configuration should take approximately one minute to complete. Do not close the ArcGIS Online page until the portal finishes configuring premium content.

    5. A message will display when configuration is complete. Click OK to dismiss this message.

      The premium content is shared to the Living Atlas group and content is available to portal members from Map Viewer, Scene Viewer, and the Content page.

      Caution:

      Do not delete any Living Atlas items or groups from the portal or change sharing or membership configurations on these groups. Also, do not change ownership of content from the esri_livingatlas user.

  6. Click Save to return to Organization.

Update credentials for subscriber and premium content

You can update or change the ArcGIS Online account used to access Living Atlas subscriber and premium content. For example, if you changed the password for the account in ArcGIS Online, you need to update the password in the portal to maintain access to the Living Atlas subscriber and premium content. You might also change the account used to access premium content if your ArcGIS Online administrator budgets credits to accounts, and the account you are using to access the premium content is nearly out of credits.

Follow these steps to update the account:

  1. Sign in to the portal as a member of the default administrator role or a custom administrator role with privileges to manage the portal's website settings.
  2. Open Organization > Settings > ArcGIS Online.
  3. To update credentials for subscriber content, click Update next to Subscriber, provide new credentials, and click Configure.

    Configuration may take several minutes to complete. Do not close the ArcGIS Online page until the portal finishes updating the configuration.

  4. To update credentials for premium content, click Update next to Premium, provide new credentials, and click Configure.

    Configuration should take approximately one minute to complete. Do not close the ArcGIS Online page until the portal finishes updating the configuration.

  5. Click Save to return to Organization.

Upgrade Living Atlas content

New and updated Living Atlas content is available when you upgrade the portal. Living Atlas content updates automatically as part of the portal post-upgrade process.

If the ArcGIS Online credentials you used to access subscriber and premium content are not valid when you upgrade the portal, you will see an error message when you run the post-upgrade process. You must update these credentials and complete the Living Atlas upgrade.

  1. Complete steps 1 through 4 from the previous section.
  2. Once you provide valid credentials, the Upgrade Content button is active. Click it to finish upgrading the Living Atlas content.

Disable access to Living Atlas content

If your portal does not have access to the internet, or if there is another reason you don't want your users to access Living Atlas content, you can disable it.

If you enabled access to subscriber and premium content, you must first disable access to this content before you can disable access to the Living Atlas that is available without having to sign in with an ArcGIS Online organizational account.

Disabling access to Living Atlas content removes access to the Living Atlas group from the organization, which makes the following changes in the portal:

  • The Living Atlas tab is removed from the Content page.
  • The option to add layers from Living Atlas is not available in Scene Viewer.
  • The Browse Living Atlas Layers option is no longer present in Map Viewer.
After you disable access to Living Atlas content, you must update the portal's search index, as described below.

Follow these steps to disable access to Living Atlas content in your portal:

  1. Sign in to the portal as a member of the default administrator role or a custom administrator role with privileges to manage the portal's website settings.
  2. Open Organization > Settings > ArcGIS Online.
  3. Uncheck Subscriber if it is checked.
  4. Uncheck Premium if it is checked.
  5. Click Configure.

    Wait until this configuration change completes before proceeding to the next step.

  6. Uncheck Access Living Atlas Content in your Portal.
  7. Click Configure.

    Configuration should take approximately one minute to complete. Do not close the ArcGIS Online page until the portal finishes updating the configuration.

  8. Click Save to return to Organization.
  9. Log in to the Portal for ArcGIS Administrator Directory from the initial administrator account. The URL is formatted https://portal.domain.com:7443/arcgis/portaladmin.
  10. Navigate to System > Indexer > Reindex.
  11. Click the Mode drop-down list, and select Search.
  12. Click Reindex.

    Depending on the number of users and the volume of content in your portal, it will take some time for the reindex to complete. Do not interrupt the reindex process. You can monitor the operation's status on the System > Indexer > Index Status resource in a new browser window or tab. When the store and index counts are equal, the reindex is complete.

Portal members will no longer have access to this content. If any of this content was used in maps, scenes, or apps, they will no longer function.