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ArcGIS Living Atlas content life cycles and updates

ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World content is hosted on ArcGIS Online, but your portal administrator can configure the portal to access a subset of these ArcGIS Living Atlas items. Because you are accessing content outside the portal, the life cycle of that content and the details associated with it are not completely tied to the ArcGIS Enterprise release cycle.

Each version of ArcGIS Enterprise contains a fixed subset of ArcGIS Living Atlas items that reference content in ArcGIS Online. If the data in a specific item changes, you see those data changes when you access the portal item. However, you will not see changes to the item details, and that includes information about the item's life cycle.

Tip:

You can see what ArcGIS Living Atlas content was present in each ArcGIS Enterprise release by accessing the public ArcGIS Living Atlas in ArcGIS Enterprise group in ArcGIS Online. Use group categories to find the active and mature support content present in specific ArcGIS Enterprise releases. You can also access a list of retired content from this group's item page.

As part of the ArcGIS Living Atlas content life cycle, some items are placed in one of the following states, which can affect what you see in your portal:

  • Mature support (deprecated)

    For ArcGIS Living Atlas content, a mature support status means the content is static—no further updates will be made to it. The most common reason for an item to be placed in mature support is because a similar but significantly improved item has been added to the ArcGIS Living Atlas that you should use instead. Sometimes, though, an item is placed in mature support because the agreement that Esri has with the data provider is nearing expiration, and the item will soon be inaccessible. Placing such an item in mature support status provides you time to begin using a different item.

    Content in mature support should continue to function in your existing maps and apps up until the item is retired. You are encouraged to replace mature support items within your existing maps and apps before the content is retired so your maps and apps do not lose access to content. Do not use mature support items in new maps and apps.

  • Retired

    Once you upgrade ArcGIS Enterprise to the next release, retired items are no longer present in the portal. In addition, items that are retired from ArcGIS Online will no longer work in existing maps and apps even if you do not upgrade ArcGIS Enterprise. Therefore, it is important to replace mature support items before they retire.

Identify mature support content

Even though the status of ArcGIS Living Atlas content is largely independent of the ArcGIS Enterprise release cycle, there are ways you can identify what content is in mature support so you can update your existing maps and apps before you lose access to the content.

  • When you upgrade your portal, the details pages for ArcGIS Living Atlas content that is in mature support at the time that particular ArcGIS Enterprise version is released will be labeled accordingly.
  • Use the ArcGIS Living Atlas in ArcGIS Enterprise group to find mature support items for each ArcGIS Enterprise release.
  • Each item's details page in the portal contains a link to the item in ArcGIS Online. The pages in ArcGIS Online reflect the current status of an item.
  • Each item that has entered mature support at the time of the ArcGIS Enterprise release will be tagged to indicate it is in mature support. Use this tag to identify mature support items as described in the following steps:

  1. Sign in to the portal.
  2. Type the word deprecated into the search.

    This returns all deprecated items in the portal and any items that include the word deprecated in their item pages. You can identify deprecated ArcGIS Living Atlas items as they are owned by esri_livingatlas and include a Deprecated badge.

Replace mature or retired content

Once you determine that you are using mature or retired content, you can replace it in your existing maps and apps.

Follow these steps to find the ID of mature or retired content and update your map to access a different layer or your app to access a different map.

  1. Sign in to your portal and open the details page of the item.
  2. In the item's description, there will be a link to the item you should be using instead. Click the new version of this layer link.

    The replacement item's details page opens in ArcGIS Online.

  3. Copy the item's ID from the ArcGIS Online URL.

    For example, if the ArcGIS Online URL is http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=986e0b86c8e447549aaecbed728538f0, copy 986e0b86c8e447549aaecbed728538f0.

  4. Return to the browser tab or window where you are signed in to your portal and replace the item ID in the URL with the ID you copied from ArcGIS Online.

    For example, if the URL in your portal is https://myportalmachine.mydomain.com/gis/home/item.html?id=f720ceb965074b158df5963c5f2f59fb, replace f720ceb965074b158df5963c5f2f59fb with the ID you copied from ArcGIS Online.

    This opens the details page in your portal for the replacement item. Take note of the item's name so you can use it in the next step.

  5. Open each map or app that contained the mature support or retired item and replace it with the item you identified in the previous step. Save your map or app.

Items retired as of 11.0

To see a list of items retired at each ArcGIS Enterprise release, download the Retired ArcGIS Living Atlas items in ArcGIS Enterprise PDF from ArcGIS Online.