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Configure utility services

In this topic

  1. Types of utility services
  2. Configure utility services with your portal

Default administrators and those with the correct privileges can configure the portal to use services to perform various tasks, including printing, geocoding, geometric calculations, spatial analysis, routing, and more. These are referred to as utility services. To learn more about these services, see About utility services.

The way you configure utility services for your portal depends on the service and where it originates.

Types of utility services

Use the following links to see a description of the utility services you can use in your organization. Once you decide which utility services you want to use, proceed to the instructions to configure utility services.

  • Printing
  • Geometry
  • Directions and Routing
  • GeoEnrichment
  • Elevation
  • Hydrology
  • Geocoding

Printing

A print service is configured with the organization by default. Administrators can stop and start the service or adjust service settings using ArcGIS Enterprise Manager.

Geometry

A geometry service is configured with the organization by default. Administrators can stop and start the service or adjust service settings using ArcGIS Enterprise Manager.

GeoEnrichment

You can add the ArcGIS GeoEnrichment Service from ArcGIS Online. To use this service, you must provide credentials for an ArcGIS Online organizational account that has credits associated with it.

The ArcGIS Business Analyst web app leverages GeoEnrichment as a utility service in the portal to create sites, reports, infographics, and more. GeoEnrichment capabilities are provided with Business Analyst Server and can be configured by following the steps below:

  1. Verify that you are signed in as a default administrator or with a custom role with administrative privileges to manage utility services.
  2. At the top of the site, click Organization and click the Settings tab.
  3. Click Utility Services on the left side of the page.
  4. Enter the URL for your GeoEnrichment service, for example, https://webadaptor.domain.com/arcgis/rest/services/DefaultMap/geoenrichmentserver.
  5. Click Save.
Note:

The offline data included with Business Analyst Server will support GeoEnrichment with data associated with analysis locations in the United States only. An Esri Services engagement is needed for support with international data.

Hydrology

You can add the ArcGIS Online Hydrology service. To use this service, you must provide credentials for an ArcGIS Online organizational account.

Elevation

The organization uses two elevation services: an elevation utility service for analysis and an elevation service used in Scene Viewer.

For analysis, you can add the ArcGIS Online World Elevation services. To use these services, you must provide credentials for an ArcGIS Online organizational account. Alternatively, you can configure a custom elevation utility service.

For Scene Viewer, if your portal is not connected to the internet or you have higher-resolution data you want to use for the Scene Viewer elevation service, you can set a custom elevation service in the organization settings.

Directions and routing

You can add the following types of directions and routing services:

  • ArcGIS Online network utility services. To use these services, you must provide credentials for an ArcGIS Online organizational account that has credits associated with it. The following services are included:
    • Routing
    • Closest Facility
    • Asynchronous Closest Facility
    • Service Area
    • Asynchronous Service Area
    • Vehicle Routing Problem
    • Asynchronous Vehicle Routing Problem
    • Location Allocation
    • Routing Utilities
    • Asynchronous Routing Utilities
    • Traffic
    • Traffic Data
  • You can also use your own routing services. For instructions, see the steps in Publish routing services.

Geocoding

The ArcGIS World Geocoding Service is configured as a geocoding utility service by default but is not configured for batch geocoding. If needed, you can configure additional geocode services with your organization. The following types are supported:

  • A geocode service from a federated or hosting server.
  • A geocode service that requires credentials and is from an ArcGIS GIS Server site that is not federated with your portal.
  • A geocode service that does not require credentials and is from an ArcGIS GIS Server site that is not federated with your portal.
  • The ArcGIS World Geocoding Service. You must provide credentials for an ArcGIS Online account that has credits associated with it to use this service.

If you want to geocode tables of addresses, configure one of the following as an additional geocode utility service:

  • An ArcGIS Server geocode service for which the Batch Geocoding operation is enabled.

    The URL for a geocode service from an ArcGIS Server is in the format https://webadaptorhost.domain.com/webadaptorname/rest/services/folder/servicename/GeocodeServer.

  • The ArcGIS World Geocoding Service from ArcGIS Online.

    To configure the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service as a geocode utility service, go to the ArcGIS Online tab and check the Geocode check box under Configure Utility Services. Be aware that the ArcGIS Online credentials you provide must have privileges in ArcGIS Online to geocode, and that using this service consumes ArcGIS Online credits.

A locator is used to search for and locate addresses and places on a map. You can specify locators that members of your portal can access. You can add a locator by referencing the URL of your own locator or by pointing to an existing locator item in your portal.

Note:

If you specify one or more locator views along with ArcGIS World Geocoding Service, users may see multiple matching suggestions when searching for locations. To ensure an optimal publishing and geosearch experience, configure batch geocoding and geosearch as appropriate when configuring locators for your portal.

To add a locator, complete the following steps:

  1. Verify that you are signed in as a default administrator or with a custom role with administrative privileges to manage utility services.
  2. At the top of the site, click Organization and click the Settings tab.
  3. Click Utility Services on the left side of the page.
  4. In the Geocoding section, click Add locator and do one of the following:
    • Select From URL and enter the URL to the locator—for example, https://webadaptorhost.domain.com/webadaptorname/rest/services/World/GeocodeServer.
    • Select From Existing Locator and select the locator item you want. Only locators shared with your organization or with the public are available for selection.
  5. For Locator Name, enter the name you want to appear in the drop-down menu of locators on the site (for example, in Map Viewer).
    Tip:

    Choose a descriptive name for the locator—for example, Restaurant Locator.

  6. For Placeholder Text, enter a hint that will appear in the input box on the site.
    Tip:

    Make the hint as clear as possible—for example, Enter a restaurant name.

  7. Check the appropriate boxes if you want to allow geosearch and batch geocoding.
  8. Configure the number of threads for batch geocoding and click OK to save your changes. This number should be less than the number of instances available for the service. To adjust the number of instances for your published geocode service, go to ArcGIS Server Manager. The option to configure the number of threads for batch geocoding is not available for the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service or for locator views. For more information about batch geocoding threads, see Best practices for portal batch geocoding.
  9. Repeat the process to add additional locators.
  10. You can manage the locators in the following ways:
    • To edit an existing locator, click the edit button Edit next to the locator and make your updates. Click OK to save your changes.
    • To delete an existing locator, click the delete button Delete next to the locator.
    • To reorder how the locators appear in the geosearch drop-down menu on the site, click the up or down arrow next to the locator.
  11. Click Save.
Tip:

To reset locators to the default locator, delete the URL and click Save. When you refresh the page, you see the default URL. If your portal needs to delete a locator item in the future, you must remove it from the list before deleting the item.

Configure utility services with your portal

How you configure utility services depends on where the service originates. Follow the instructions specific to the origin of the service you want to configure as a utility service for your portal.

  • If the service is provided by ArcGIS Online and requires credentials from an ArcGIS Online account, use the ArcGIS Online tab on the Settings page of your portal to select the service to be configured and store the account credentials. See Configure ArcGIS Online utility services for steps on how to do this.
  • If the service is from a federated server, start the service, share the service, and configure it as a utility service.
  • If the service is not from a federated server and requires credentials, add the service as an item in your portal, specify credentials to the service, share the service, and configure it as a utility service. Services from secured ArcGIS Server sites are added in this way.
  • If the service is not from a federated server and does not require credentials, add the URL directly to the Utility Services dialog box.

Note:

If your portal accesses any of the utility services over HTTPS, but the ArcGIS Server site on which the utility service runs uses a certificate that is either self-signed or issued by an internal Certificate Authority, you must configure the portal to trust that certificate. For instructions on how to do this, see Configuring the portal to trust certificates from your certifying authority.

If the service is from a federated server

  1. On the ArcGIS Server site that you have federated with your portal, start the services that you want to configure as utility services. You can do this by signing in to ArcGIS Server Manager with a portal member account with administrator privileges. Manager is typically available through a URL such as https://gisserver.domain.com:6443/arcgis/manager. The ArcGIS Server preconfigured print and geometry services are stopped by default.
  2. Verify that you are signed in as a default administrator or with a custom role with administrative privileges to manage utility services.
  3. Click the My Content tab of the content page.
  4. Click the name of the service that you want to configure as a utility service to open the item's details page.
  5. On the Overview tab, click Share and specify who can access this service.

    How you share a service depends on who needs to use the functionality the service provides. For example, if you want anyone who connects to the portal to see thumbnails and print maps, share the print service with Everyone. If you want to allow your portal members to geocode locations, but you don't want anonymous users to do this, share the geocode service with the portal organization. If you want to restrict the use of analysis tools that require GeoEnrichment to the members of specific groups, share the GeoEnrichment service with those groups only.

  6. Click OK to apply the Share settings.
  7. Copy the URL at the bottom of the Overview tab.
  8. Open the Organization page of the portal website and click the Settings tab.
  9. Click Utility Services.
  10. Paste the service URL into the appropriate utility service field. Ensure that you append the task name to the service if it is a print service or route service. See the sections on specific utility services above for details.
  11. Click Save.

If the service is not from a federated server and requires credentials

  1. Verify that you are signed in as a default administrator or with a custom role with administrative privileges to manage utility services.
  2. Click the My Content tab of the content page.
  3. Click Add Item > From a URL .
  4. On the Add item from the web dialog box, select the ArcGIS Server web service option and specify the URL to the service.
  5. Since this is a secure service, you must provide credentials to access it. Type a valid user name and password to access the service, and select Store credentials with service item. Do not prompt for authentication. to save the credentials.
  6. Enter a title and tags for your service and click Add Item.

    The details page for the item appears.

  7. On the Overview tab, click Share to specify who can access the service.

    How you share a service depends on who needs to use the functionality the service provides. For example, if you want anyone who connects to the portal to see thumbnails and print maps, share the print service with Everyone. If you want to allow your portal members to geocode locations, but you don't want anonymous users to do this, share the geocode service with the portal organization. If you want to restrict the use of analysis tools that require GeoEnrichment to the members of specific groups, share the GeoEnrichment service with those groups only.

  8. Click OK to apply the Share settings.
  9. Copy the URL at the bottom of the Overview tab.
  10. Open the Organization page of the portal website and click the Settings tab.
  11. Click Utility Services.
  12. Paste the service URL into the appropriate utility service field. Ensure that you append the task name to the service if it is a print service or route service. See the sections on specific utility services above for details.
  13. Click Save.

If the service is not from a federated server and does not require credentials

  1. Verify that you are signed in as a default administrator or with a custom role with administrative privileges to manage utility services.
  2. At the top of the site, click Organization and click the Settings tab.
  3. Click Utility Services.
  4. Paste the service URL into the appropriate utility service field. Ensure that you append the task name to the service if it is a print service or route service. See the sections on specific utility services above for details.
  5. Click Save.
  6. Repeat these steps as necessary to configure other services as your utility services.
Tip:

To reset the utility services back to their default URLs, delete the URL for each utility service you have configured and click Save. When you return to the Utility Services page, the URLs will be reset to their defaults.

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In this topic
  1. Types of utility services
  2. Configure utility services with your portal