Community Engagement With ArcGIS Hub

Posted by Michelle Brake,

Looking for new community engagement methods? Want to make data available for your community? ArcGIS Hub is a cloud based platform that makes working directly with your community more effective and streamlined; it is a way to get GIS tools into the hands of community members. From open data sites to community initiatives, ArcGIS Hub allows for governments and community members to work closely on what matters to them.

ArcGIS Hub Overview by Esri

ArcGIS Hub – Basic

Have a backlog of data requests? Frequently processing requests for the same content by users outside your organization? ArcGIS Hub can help by giving you a public place for community users to access data and mapping products. The basic edition of ArcGIS Hub is available with your ArcGIS Online subscription at no extra cost. Get started now by creating your site!

ArcGIS Hub gives you access to an open data site with data galleries, basic data viewing, filtering, data downloads, and access APIs. You can create various sites and pages to allow for easier data discovery or targeted community engagement. View the gallery below to see what some of those features look like in the Harrison County Open Data Portal.

ArcGIS Hub integrates directly with your ArcGIS Online organization so you can share your apps, maps, and data without needing to recreate anything. Managing your hub and its content is easy with the inclusion of teams, which allows for collaborative management by creating a team from your ArcGIS Online organization’s users. Public access to your hub is anonymous, meaning the public can access you hub without the need to sign in or assign ArcGIS Online user accounts.

Here are some examples of what you can do with the basic edition of ArcGIS Hub:

ArcGIS Hub – Premium

The premium edition of hub builds on the functionality of the basic version by adding more tools for community engagement, initiative campaigns, project templates, and community user accounts. This edition of ArcGIS Hub is an additional cost on top of your base ArcGIS Online costs.

A major difference between basic and premium is the addition of community identities, which allows for users outside your ArcGIS Online to sign in to the hub organization. These users will have access to the hub community organization that is automatically created for you, but not the authoritative content in your ArcGIS Online organization. To start, you have access to 100 of these identity users, but can purchase more if need be. As well, you have access to five community analyst licenses, which are for internal use and to aid with constituent advisement.

Community mobile food market initiative.

One of my favorite features of ArcGIS Hub are the initiatives that allow you to organize users and content around a particular project while promoting community engagement. Esri has made initiative templates for common policy issues like increasing community pride or project feedback. If the existing templates do not meet your needs, you can create your own template for reuse or to better share common initiative content. These initiatives allow you to have dedicated pages with solutions for the topics that matter most in your community. Users can even sign up to follow initiative progress updates for the topics that matter to them.

Looking for something more time specific than an initiative campaign? ArcGIS Hub Premium has an events management system that allows you to create events, maintain a community calendar, and manage registration in one spot. These events can be connected to initiatives and allow you to run a campaign of events all in one place.

Here are some examples of what you can do with the premium edition of ArcGIS Hub:

Ready to get started with your own ArcGIS Hub site?Check out these training resources for tips, best practices, and step-by-step guides:

Want help setting up ArcGIS Hub for your organization? Contact us at connect@geo-jobe.com or call 1-844-GEO-JOBE to discuss how we can help!

Solution Engineer

Michelle is a passionate and self-starting GIS professional looking to change the world with mapping. She works with our Enterprise team, supporting the daily operations of our GEOPowered Cloud.