What is Portal for ArcGIS?
In this topic
Portal for ArcGIS allows you to share maps, applications, and other geographic information with other people in your organization. The content that you share is delivered through a website. You can customize the website to fit your organization's look and feel.
What can I do with Portal for ArcGIS?
Portal for ArcGIS brings together all the geographic information in your ArcGIS platform and shares it throughout your organization. For example, with Portal for ArcGIS you can:
- Create, save, and share web maps
- Create and host web mapping apps
- Search for GIS content within your organization
- Create groups for sharing GIS information with coworkers
- Share links to GIS applications
- Share map and layer packages to use in ArcGIS for Desktop
Portal for ArcGIS puts GIS in the hands of people who might not otherwise have any experience with it. For example, Portal for ArcGIS includes geographic viewers designed for those who are just beginning with GIS. Experienced GIS users can connect to Portal for ArcGIS from ArcGIS for Desktop, developer APIs, and other applications.
To view an example of how Portal for ArcGIS is leveraged in a typical organization, see An example of using Portal for ArcGIS in your organization.
What do I get with Portal for ArcGIS?
Portal for ArcGIS includes the following:
Portal for ArcGIS website—A website where people in your organization search, use, and share content.
Map viewer—The website includes a map viewer application for designing and saving web maps. Think of the map viewer as a canvas in which you combine GIS information and services to make your own map. You can save your maps, share them with others, embed them in apps, and plug your web maps into JavaScript-based application templates that you can host directly from the portal.
Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS—The website includes an embedded interactive app for designing and building web applications from your web maps. Applications you create with Web AppBuilder require no programming knowledge and are HTML-based, meaning they work on desktop browsers, tablets, and smartphones without needing a plugin. Web AppBuilder comes with a variety of themes you can customize and widgets that allow you to deliver advanced functionality such as high-quality printing, geoprocessing, editing, and search. To learn more, see About Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS.
Activity Dashboard for ArcGIS—The website includes an embedded app that reports various usage statistics for items, users, and groups. Administrators can use this information to monitor reports, information, and metrics detailing activities in the organization. To learn more, see About usage reports.
Scene viewer—The website includes an application for viewing 3D geospatial content. The scene viewer works with desktop web browsers that support WebGL, a web technology standard for rendering 3D graphics. Review the Scene viewer requirements topic to verify if your browser supports viewing 3D content.
ArcGIS applications—Portal for ArcGIS supports user-friendly applications that allow people to interact with web maps from your portal. This includes Esri Maps for Office, Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS, Collector for ArcGIS, and more. For a full list of portal-ready applications, see Common clients of Portal for ArcGIS.
Administrator tools—The Portal for ArcGIS website includes administrator tools that allow management of users, groups, and content in the portal website. Only members of the portal who have administrator privileges can see these options when they sign in to the website.
ArcGIS Portal Directory—The ArcGIS Portal Directory is an interactive view of the ArcGIS REST API's resources for working with the portal. For example, some administrative tasks such as unregistering the Web Adaptor, updating the location of the portal's content directory, and setting the identity store are all available in the ArcGIS Portal Directory. To learn more, see About the ArcGIS Portal Directory.
To learn more about how Portal for ArcGIS works within the ArcGIS system, see The portal's role in ArcGIS.
Getting started
If you are just getting started with Portal for ArcGIS, review the following topics:
The help system you are reading contains further information about how to use and administer Portal for ArcGIS once it has been installed.