You can publish your maps and data as hosted web layers on your portal. Web, desktop, and mobile apps can access your hosted layers through the Internet if you choose to allow it. You can publish hosted web layers directly from your desktop without installing your own server.
Hosted web layers allow you to easily share maps and features with other members of your portal.
Prerequisites to publish hosted web layers
You must have the following to publish layers to your portal:
- Privileges to create content and publish hosted web layers
- An ArcGIS client (if you want to publish hosted web layers from ArcMap or ArcGIS Pro)
Note:
Definition queries you apply to layers in ArcMap or ArcGIS Pro are also applied to the published layers. However, all data is published to the portal's hosting server. If you want only a subset of the data to be published and stored, you must export the subset of the data to another feature class and publish that.
- A hosting server
If the option to publish to your portal is not available, check with your portal administrator to determine whether your portal has a hosting server and confirm that you have privileges to publish hosted web layers.
Types of hosted web layers
You can publish the following types of hosted web layers:
Feature layers
Hosted feature layers support vector feature querying, visualization, and editing. Hosted feature layers are most appropriate for visualizing data on top of your basemaps. In web apps, hosted feature layers are drawn by the browser and support interactive highlighting, queries, and pop-ups.
See Publish hosted feature layers for more information.
Functionality available to you through a hosted feature layer varies depending on what type of data store is registered with your portal's hosting server. The following table summarizes some of the functionality differences:
| Functionality | Available if you use a managed database? | Available if you use ArcGIS Data Store? |
|---|---|---|
Enable the ability to track feature creation and updates through a feature layer's item details in the portal. | No; you must connect to the managed database in ArcGIS for Desktop to enable editor tracking on the layer. | Yes |
Enable ownership-based access control through a feature layer's item details in the portal. | No; you must connect to the managed database in ArcGIS for Desktop to enable editor tracking on the layer, then enable ownership-based access control on the feature service using ArcGIS Server Manager. | Yes |
Enable or disable attachments through a feature layer's item details in the portal. | No; you must enable attachments on the layer in ArcGIS for Desktop before publishing to your portal. | Yes |
Enable or disable sync through a feature layer's item details in the portal. | Yes, but you must connect to the managed database in ArcGIS for Desktop to add global IDs to the layer before you can enable sync. | Yes |
Export hosted feature layer data to a file geodatabase. | Yes, but only if you are the owner of the hosted feature layer or the portal administrator. | Yes |
Export hosted feature layer data to a GeoJSON file. | Yes, but only if you are the owner of the hosted feature layer or the portal administrator. | Yes |
Export hosted feature layer data to a feature collection. | Yes, but only if you are the owner of the hosted feature layer or the portal administrator. | Yes |
Publish an empty hosted feature layer. | No | Yes |
Review and match addresses in the portal map viewer for a hosted feature layer published from a comma-separated values (CSV) file. | No | Yes |
Create feature templates in the portal map viewer. | No | Yes |
Calculate values for a field in the portal map viewer. | No | Yes |
Use spatial analysis tools in the map viewer | No | Yes |
See Manage hosted web layers and Use hosted web layers for more information.
Tile layers
Hosted tile layers support fast map visualization using a collection of predrawn map images, or tiles. These tiles are created and stored on the server after you upload your data. Hosted tile layers are appropriate for basemaps that give your maps geographic context.
You can publish map tiles or vector tiles as a tile layer.
See Publish hosted tile layers for more information.
Vector tile layers
A vector tile layer references a set of web-accessible vector tiles and the corresponding style for how those tiles should be drawn. Vector tiles are similar to image tiles, but they store a vector representation of the data. Client-side drawing of vector tiles allows for vector tile layers to be customized for the purpose of the map, which drives dynamic, interactive cartography. The combination of tile access performance and vector drawing allows the tiles to adapt to any resolution of the display, which may vary across devices.
See the Build and publish a vector tile package section of Publish hosted tile layers to learn how to create a hosted vector tile layer.
Scene layers
Hosted scene layers support fast map visualization of three-dimensional data using a collection of cached tiles as well as an associated hosted feature layer. The tiles and feature layers are created when you publish 3D data from ArcGIS Pro. Cached tiles and the hosted feature layer data are stored on the ArcGIS Data Store machine you have registered with your portal's hosting server.
See Publish hosted scene layers for more information.
Clients that can use hosted web layers
Hosted web layers communicate through the well-known GeoServices REST Specification and can consequently be used by Esri and third-party apps. An easy way to view your services is through the map viewer, but you can also make your own app using the ArcGIS viewers for Flex or Silverlight, or the ArcGIS APIs for JavaScript, Flex, Silverlight, iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. Other supported client apps include ArcGIS Explorer (online and desktop versions), ArcMap, and ArcGIS Pro.
Access to hosted web layers
By default, hosted web layers are private when you publish them and are only accessible to the person who published them. Hosted web layers do not appear in search results and aren't part of any group by default. You can choose to make your hosted web layers available to specific groups in your portal, or you can even make them available to anyone who can connect to your portal. See Manage hosted web layers to learn more.