You can publish your maps and data as hosted layers to your portal. Web, desktop, and mobile apps can access your hosted layers through the Internet if you choose to allow it.
Hosted layers allow you to easily share maps and features with other members of your portal.
Prerequisites to publish hosted layers
You must have the following to publish hosted layers to your portal:
- Privileges to create content and publish hosted layers
- An ArcGIS client (if you want to publish hosted layers from ArcMap or ArcGIS Pro)
Note:
Definition queries you apply to layers in ArcMap or ArcGIS Pro are also applied to the published hosted layers. However, all data is copied to your portal's hosting server. If you want only a subset of the data to be published, 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 layers.
Types of hosted layers
You can publish the following types of hosted 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 a relational data store created through 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 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 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 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 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 |
Publish a hosted tile layer from an existing 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 or Insights for ArcGIS. | No | Yes |
See Manage hosted layers and Use hosted layers for more information.
WFS layers
Hosted WFS layers are read-only, OGC-compliant views of hosted feature layers. A hosted WFS layer and the hosted feature layer from which you publish it share the same data and initial metadata.
See Publish hosted WFS 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, vector tiles, or hosted feature layers 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 tiles containing 2D and 3D content and the corresponding style for how those tiles should be drawn. 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.
WMTS layers
Hosted WMTS are OGC-compliant views of hosted tile layers. All hosted tile layers on your portal that are shared with the public can be accessed using the OGC WMTS protocol. The publisher of the hosted tile layer does not have to perform any special operations to enable WMTS. To access a hosted tile layer using the WMTS protocol, open the layer's details page and open the URL for the tile layer. The page that opens contains a WMTS URL link to the WMTS capabilities document that can be used to access layer tiles in apps that support WMTS.
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 in the tile cache and relational data stores (ArcGIS Data Store) you have registered with your portal's hosting server.
See Publish hosted scene layers for more information.
Imagery layers
Hosted imagery layers are dynamic image services that run on ArcGIS Image Server sites your portal administrator has federated with the portal.
See Publish hosted imagery layers for more information.
Hosted layer dependencies
Hosted layers have dependencies on the items from which you create them. For example, if you publish a hosted feature layer from a shapefile you uploaded, you cannot delete the shapefile until you delete the hosted feature layer. If you publish a hosted feature layer from ArcGIS Desktop, a service definition file is created and added to My Content. You cannot delete the service definition file until you delete the hosted feature layer.
There are also dependencies between some hosted layers. You can publish a hosted tile layer or hosted WFS layer from a hosted feature layer. These hosted tile and WFS layers are dependent on the data in the hosted feature layer, so you cannot delete the hosted feature layer without first deleting its dependent tile and WFS layers. Similarly, settings you apply to the hosted feature layer can affect its dependent layers. For example, the visible range you set on the hosted feature layer affects the scale range you can build for the hosted tile layers you publish from the feature layer.
The Created from value under Details on the hosted layer's item page tells you which layer or file was used to publish the hosted layer. The Published as value indicates what other hosted layers have been published from a hosted feature layer.
Clients that can use hosted layers
Hosted 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 Runtime SDKs, configurable apps, or Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS. Other supported client apps include ArcGIS Explorer (online and desktop versions), ArcMap, and ArcGIS Pro. See Common clients of Portal for ArcGIS for additional clients.
Access to hosted layers
By default, hosted layers are private when you publish them and are only accessible to the person who published them. Hosted layers do not appear in search results and aren't part of any group by default. You can choose to make your hosted layers available to specific groups in your portal, all members of your portal, or you can even make them available to anyone who can connect to your portal. See Share items for more information.