With each software release, we strive to improve our documentation to deliver an experience that’s easier to access and navigate and in turn, provides meaningful context and clarity to your workflows.
With each release of ArcGIS Enterprise, we deliver two types of documentation:
- Our web help – which is primarily available at https://enterprise.arcgis.com, contains our latest documentation as well as several prior versions.
- Our installed help – which is version specific and accessed directly from tools, apps, APIs, and software components.
While some of you rely exclusively on our installed help, others prefer to use our web help to learn about our latest updates and frequently changing aspects such as support for newer operating systems and overall system requirements.
In fact, some of you have asked for the ability to opt out of our installed help to instead access our web help directly from the software. Other ArcGIS products such as ArcGIS Pro offer this option as well. If this is something you’ve been looking for, here’s a feature for you!
At 10.8.1, we’ve introduced a help source option in the ArcGIS Enterprise portal. This option enables an administrator to switch the documentation source from installed to web.
Here’s how:
- When logged in as an administrator in an ArcGIS Enterprise organization, select Settings.
- Select the General tab and scroll to the Help source section.
- Enable the option to use https://enterprise.arcgis.com as the help source.
For ArcGIS Enterprise deployments equipped with an internet connection, this option is a great alternative to installed help as our web help is readily available, our most up-to-date resource, and eliminates the need to install one or many language packs on top of our software installations at each release.
For deployments without an internet connection, the installed help source is still available as the default experience.
Finally, to be clear, there are a few limitations to this new feature – here’s the fine print:
- The help source option is limited to help links exposed through the ArcGIS Enterprise portal, Map Viewer tools, and most installed apps. Help links exposed through other base deployment components remain unchanged at this release.
- Our REST API documentation links remain unchanged – installed help is exposed directly from the APIs. Web help is also available on our developer’s site and continues to be our most-up-to-date resource to represent several released versions of the software.
We hope this feature is useful to you. As always, we welcome your feedback, whether it’s on the navigation experience or the content itself. If you find something that doesn’t look quite right, feel free to contact us by submitting feedback directly through the website.
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