The “Enhance Your Business Decisions with ArcGIS for Microsoft” webinar provided actionable insights into integrating geospatial intelligence across Microsoft 365, Microsoft Fabric, and Power Platform. Attendees learned how to embed ArcGIS capabilities directly into their workflows, enabling data-driven decision-making through location analytics. Below, we’ve compiled key questions and answers from the session, addressing general licensing, security, and specific product related questions.
For those who missed the live event or want to revisit the content, the full webinar recording is embedded here, offering demonstrations of ArcGIS and Microsoft integrations in action.
General
How user friendly is ArcGIS for Microsoft 365? Can this be done by someone who is beginner level knowledgeable?
ArcGIS for Microsoft 365 is designed to be accessible for users of all skill levels with as native experience as possible. The ArcGIS for Microsoft 365 components offering intuitive tools for spatial analysis and visualization in the applications people are familiar with and comfortable using.
Will it work with any version of Microsoft Office apps or just Microsoft 365?
ArcGIS for Microsoft 365 is tailored to seamlessly integrate with Microsoft 365 applications such as Excel, SharePoint, and Teams. Please note that it is optimized for Microsoft 365 and may not be compatible with standalone versions of Microsoft Office or older versions outside the Microsoft 365 environment. You can find details on supported versions of these applications here.
How are credits being consumed in ArcGIS with Microsoft?
ArcGIS credits are consumed in ArcGIS for Microsoft apps for specific processes and analysis tools similar to other ArcGIS apps that utilize location or geoenrichment services. To learn more about how credits are consumed in ArcGIS for Microsoft apps, you can visit the credits page for detailed information on credit usage and management.
Is there any ready to deploy solution which has all the apps setup already?
No, there isn’t a single deployment that installs and configures all ArcGIS for Microsoft 365 applications at once.
Each Microsoft 365 application (such as Teams, Excel, and SharePoint) has its own unique deployment mechanism managed within the Microsoft Tenant Admin tools. Consequently, deploying ArcGIS for Microsoft 365 involves installing each specific ArcGIS integration (like the ArcGIS for Teams app or the ArcGIS for Excel add-in) individually, adhering to the standard application deployment processes for that particular Microsoft 365 environment. For detailed information on managing add-in deployments within Microsoft 365, please refer to the official Microsoft documentation.
Is ArcGIS for Microsoft applications is also helpful for individuals who are not in organizations?
ArcGIS for Microsoft applications can also be beneficial for individuals who are not part of organizations as well. Here are some ways in which it can be helpful:
- Personal Projects: Individuals can use ArcGIS for Microsoft applications for personal projects such as creating maps, analyzing spatial data, and visualizing information.
- Learning and Skill Development: It can be a valuable tool for individuals looking to learn about Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and enhance their skills in spatial analysis.
- Exploring Data: Individuals can explore and analyze various datasets to gain insights and make informed decisions, even outside of organizational settings.
- Community Engagement: It can be used to create maps and visualizations for community projects, environmental initiatives, or personal interests.
Any future plan for ArcGIS embedding in Dynamics 365?
We do not have an integration with Dynamic 365, but we continue to explore and expand integrations across the Microsoft ecosystem based on user feedback.
What is the average implementation time?
Implementation varies but typically ranges from a few hours to days depending on organizational size and complexity. Please visit the documentation to learn about the installation and management of ArcGIS components.
What user type is required for ArcGIS for Microsoft?
ArcGIS for Microsoft is compatible with all ArcGIS User Types. For more information on user types and their privileges, please refer to the ArcGIS User Types documentation.
ArcGIS GeoAnalytics for Microsoft Fabric is not included with user types and is currently available for free in Fabric Runtime 1.3 during its public preview.
Are ArcGIS for Microsoft features compatible with ArcGIS Enterprise? What versions of ArcGIS Enterprise are these tools compatible with?
Yes, ArcGIS for Microsoft 365, ArcGIS for Power BI, and the ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate features are compatible with ArcGIS Enterprise, provided that your ArcGIS Enterprise deployment meets the required version and configuration criteria. ArcGIS Enterprise must be version 10.9.1, 11.0, 11.1, or later to integrate with ArcGIS for Microsoft apps.
Is the data being utilized by this system housed within your AGO / Enterprise environment? Are there safeguards to prevent accidental data manipulation?
The data utilized within the ArcGIS for Microsoft 365 system can reside in either an ArcGIS Online environment or an ArcGIS Enterprise environment, depending on how your organization has configured and is leveraging the integration.
Regarding safeguards to prevent accidental data manipulation, ArcGIS provides several mechanisms:
- Permissions and Roles: Access and editing capabilities are controlled through user roles and permissions set within ArcGIS Online or Enterprise. This ensures that only authorized users with the appropriate privileges can modify data.
- Editing Tracking: ArcGIS has the capability to track edits made to feature layers, including who made the changes and when. This audit trail can be crucial for understanding data modifications and potentially reverting accidental changes in some scenarios.
Licensing & Costs
Could you please provide a comprehensive overview of the licensing for all ArcGIS for Microsoft products, including ArcGIS for Microsoft 365, ArcGIS for Power Platform, ArcGIS for Microsoft Fabric?
Here’s a breakdown of licensing information for the different ArcGIS for Microsoft products:
- ArcGIS for Microsoft 365: This includes ArcGIS for Excel, ArcGIS for Teams, and ArcGIS for SharePoint. Access to data from ArcGIS and enhanced functionality within these Microsoft 365 applications is provided through an ArcGIS user type. User types offer role-based access to capabilities, apps, and content for ArcGIS. Additionally, some tools and functions within ArcGIS for Microsoft 365 may consume credits. Each of these apps (ArcGIS for Excel, ArcGIS for Teams, and ArcGIS for SharePoint) must be installed separately.
- ArcGIS for Power Platform: This includes tools for developing geospatial apps and automated workflows, such as ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate. ArcGIS for Power Platform is included with ArcGIS user types. Specifically, the ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate (ArcGIS Location Platform, ArcGIS Enterprise, and ArcGIS Online) are included with Creator, Professional, and Professional Plus user types. A user type is required to use these connectors. Similar to ArcGIS for Microsoft 365, some actions within ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate may consume credits.
- ArcGIS for Microsoft Fabric: This integration includes ArcGIS for Power BI and ArcGIS GeoAnalytics for Microsoft Fabric.
- ArcGIS for Power BI offers a standard experience that does not require ArcGIS user types to get started. However, this standard experience has limited functionality and limited access to ArcGIS data. Pairing ArcGIS for Power BI with user types unlocks additional functionality such as data enrichment, buffer analysis, and drive-time analysis, as well as access to your organization’s authoritative geospatial data. ArcGIS for Power BI visualization is a core feature in Power BI and does not need to be installed or added separately from AppSource.
- ArcGIS GeoAnalytics for Microsoft Fabric is a Spark-native library for large-scale spatial analysis within Microsoft Fabric. It is not included with user types and is currently available for free during its public preview in Fabric Runtime 1.3 within Microsoft Fabric’s Data Science and Engineering workloads. To use it, a tenant administrator needs to enable it at the tenant level, and then the library can be imported into notebooks without additional installation.
Are there extra expenses involved in implementing this system for an organization that already possesses Microsoft 365 and Enterprise GIS licenses? If so, what are these additional costs?
There are no additional licensing costs to access and use the ArcGIS for Microsoft 365 applications. Here are the resources for you to start learning about these apps.
Security
How is ArcGIS information securely shared, and how does it respect the user’s identity and the broader ArcGIS sharing model to control access to geospatial data?
Within ArcGIS, information is securely shared through a comprehensive model that respects the user’s identity and permissions.
Access to geospatial data is controlled based on how the data owner or administrator shares it within the ArcGIS system. This sharing can occur at several levels:
- Within an organization: Data can be shared with specific members or groups within your ArcGIS Online organization or ArcGIS Enterprise portal. This ensures that only authorized individuals within your organization can access the information.
- Publicly: Data can be shared publicly, making it accessible to anyone without requiring a login. However, even publicly shared data can have restrictions on editing or other functionalities.
- Through Specific Sharing Settings: Data owners can define precise permissions, such as who can view, edit, download, or analyze the data. These settings are tied to the user’s identity within the ArcGIS system.
Do end users need to have an ArcGIS Online account to pull layers into ArcGIS for Microsoft 365 applications?
Yes, users need an ArcGIS Online account to pull layers into Excel when using ArcGIS for Excel. This functionality is tied to ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise, and users must sign in with their account to access their data or hosted feature layers. Additionally, editing capabilities depend on the privileges assigned to the user’s role and user type in ArcGIS Online or Enterprise.
ArcGIS for Microsoft Fabric
Is the Geoanalytics engine in Microsoft Fabric available on a Pay-as-you-cgo format?
ArcGIS GeoAnalytics for Microsoft Fabric is in a public preview with no cost to begin testing the capabilities. Please refer to the Microsoft documentation on licensing, activation, and usage examples.
How does spatial data cleaning work in Fabric? if there are bad postal codes entered will it make suggestions on what it should be by looking at other data fields in the row?
There are a lot of ways that data engineering can be performed for data cleansing and aggregation. The ArcGIS GeoAnalytics for Microsoft Fabric community would be the best place to learn about the best practices and lessons learned.
How does ArcGIS Maps for Fabric differ from ArcGIS GeoAnalytics (which presumably can also draw maps)?
ArcGIS for GeoAnalytics for Microsoft Fabric is a Spark library that provides geospatial analytics tools for analyzing data to discover where things are, how they relate, what they mean, and which actions to pursue through a notebook experience. Map visualization will be done using a library/module in the notebook.
ArcGIS Maps for Microsoft Fabric will offer an interactive visualization, data exploration, and secure, easy sharing of your geographic insights across your organization. With ArcGIS Maps for Fabric, you can browse and add datasets directly to your maps from your Fabric environment, enhancing spatial decision-making while minimizing data silos.
Does ArcGIS in Power BI always perform geolocation in ArcGIS Online? or when using say, State and City, does it not need to process a geolocation in ArcGIS Online?
Yes, even when using “State” and “City” in ArcGIS for Power BI, geolocation often involves processing in ArcGIS Online. When using standard administrative boundaries like State and City, ArcGIS for Power BI first checks the data category metadata of the column. If it finds a matching category, such as ‘State or Province,’ it uses a “standard geography query”. If no metadata is found, ArcGIS for Power BI looks for supported keywords in the field names, like “city” or “state.” If a keyword is found, it uses the ArcGIS GeoEnrichment Service to add polygon locations. If neither metadata nor keywords are recognized, the data is sent in text form to the ArcGIS World Geocoding Service to find point locations.
ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate
How can we address the recurring issue of the ArcGIS connection in Power Automate needing to be reset every two weeks, specifically related to the token expiration for a feature layer and the potential integration of Azure Key Vault credentials for obtaining new tokens without manual intervention to maintain the connection?
This refresh token expiring issue was resolved for the ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate in the September 2023 release. If you are using the Survey123 Connector for your automations, you will continue to get the 14-day timeouts. The solution will be to convert your flows from using the Survey123 connector to using the ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate which include all of the triggers and actions.
Are ArcGIS Connector for Power Automate premium connectors?
Yes, as a third-party connector, Microsoft classifies the ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate as a premium connector. This means it requires a Power Automate Premium license or a pay-as-you-go plan to access and use its features, such as geocoding, data enrichment, routing, and feature layer updates. For more details, you can refer to the ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate documentation.
ArcGIS for Excel
Is a Contributor user type required to update feature layer attributes in Excel?
Yes, a Contributor user type or higher is required to update feature layer attributes in Excel using ArcGIS for Microsoft 365. For more information on user types and their privileges, refer to the ArcGIS User Types documentation.
Is GIS-enabled Excel a different app than regular Microsoft Excel?
ArcGIS for Excel is an add-in to Microsoft 365 that you can use to add ArcGIS mapping capabilities to Microsoft Excel. With ArcGIS for Excel, you can create an interactive map that includes data from Excel and ArcGIS services without leaving the Excel environment.
Can you explain the ArcGIS for Excel functions a bit more or share a link on how to use them?
ArcGIS for Excel provides powerful geospatial functions directly within Microsoft Excel, enabling users to perform operations such as geocoding, geoenrichment, and routing without leaving the Excel environment. These functions are accessible via the Function Builder tool on the ArcGIS toolbar in Excel. Please visit ArcGIS for Excel function to learn more about these functions.
Does ArcGIS for Excel respect editing privileges on the ArcGIS user account or within the layer?
Yes, ArcGIS for Excel respects the editing privileges assigned to the user’s account and the layer settings in ArcGIS Online or Enterprise. If a user has read-only permissions, or if the layer is not configured for editing, they will not be able to make changes to the data from within Excel.
How can demographic data be incorporated into analyses using ArcGIS for Microsoft applications?
To incorporate demographic data in ArcGIS for Excel, you can use geoenrichment functions, for example, ARCGIS.LISTDATACOLLECTIONS() to access and append demographic attributes (e.g., population, income) to your spatial data.
ArcGIS for SharePoint and ArcGIS for Power BI use infographics cards to dynamically visualize demographics (e.g., age, income) for selected areas or map extents.
ArcGIS for SharePoint
When you geotag a document to a feature, where is that id stored? Is it in the document library metadata in SharePoint?
In SharePoint, geotagging attributes are managed as values within the term store. These values are subsequently used to tag documents that are stored in the SharePoint document library.
Addition Information and Resources
We hope this blog has provided clear answers to the questions raised during our webinar and offered valuable insights into integrating ArcGIS with Microsoft applications. By leveraging the powerful capabilities of ArcGIS for Microsoft 365, Microsoft Fabric, and Power Automate, you can enhance your workflows, improve collaboration, and unlock new opportunities for spatial analysis and automation. If you’re ready to take the next step, explore the resources below to deepen your understanding and start implementing these solutions today.
- ArcGIS for Microsoft: Learn how to integrate geospatial data into Microsoft
- ArcGIS for Microsoft 365: Learn how to integrate mapping and spatial analysis into Microsoft tools like Excel, SharePoint, and Team.
- ArcGIS for Power Platform: Discover no-code/low-code tools to develop automated geospatial workflows and apps.
- ArcGIS for Microsoft Fabric: Explore how ArcGIS integrates with Microsoft Fabric to enable large-scale spatial workflows and advanced analytics.
- Customer Success Story: Read about Helix Water District’s work in streamlining water system management with ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate.
- ArcGIS Blog: Stay updated with articles on the latest innovations in ArcGIS technology.
- ArcGIS for Microsoft Video: Watch an overview of how ArcGIS integrates across Microsoft platforms to enhance business operation
- Getting Started with ArcGIS for Microsoft: Learn more about how you can leverage these integrations in your workflow.
- Deploy add-ins in the Microsoft 365 admin center
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