Right-Sizing Seats After a County Merger
After a merger, Summit County has 240 ArcGIS Online seats: 120 Viewer, 70 Editor, 45 Creator, and 5 GIS Professional. The combined workflows are: 130 staff only view dashboards and maps; 55 field staff update inspection features in Field Maps; 30 program staff create web maps, dashboards, and Experience Builder apps; 15 analysts publish hosted layers and run spatial analysis; 10 GIS staff need ArcGIS Pro. The county's budget covers the 240 seats but no additional high-tier seats this fiscal year. The CIO will not allow staff to hold a higher user type than their workflow requires, but also will not accept a workflow stoppage. Field Maps users must be able to edit only assigned layers, not create content. The administrator must propose a defensible seat assignment and explain any gaps.
1. Map the five workflows to user types and identify the seat gaps in the current inventory.
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Assign by least privilege and by workflow, not by current seat count. The 130 viewers need Viewer. The 55 field staff need Editor because they update features but do not create content; confirm Field Maps editing works with Editor and that their groups grant update on assigned layers only. The 30 program staff need Creator to build maps, dashboards, and Experience Builder apps. The 15 analysts who publish hosted layers and run spatial analysis also need Creator unless the analysis requires an ArcGIS Pro-only tool. The 10 GIS staff who need ArcGIS Pro need GIS Professional or Creator plus an ArcGIS Pro add-on. The current inventory gives 120 Viewer, 70 Editor, 45 Creator, and 5 GIS Professional, so the obvious gaps are 10 Viewer seats and 5 Pro-capable seats; the 15 extra Editor seats are not useful to viewers unless the contract allows conversion.
2. Propose a defensible resolution for the gaps without violating the CIO's restriction on over-assignment.
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Resolve the Viewer gap first because it is low cost and low risk: purchase 10 Viewer seats or, if procurement is slow, temporarily reassign 10 low-use Editor seats to Viewer only if the contract permits changing user types; do not leave 130 viewers on Editor without approval. For the Pro gap, assign the 5 GIS Professional seats to the heaviest daily Pro users. For the other 5, either purchase ArcGIS Pro add-ons for Creator seats or rotate Pro access by project; do not assign GIS Professional to analysts who only need browser analysis. If neither add-on nor purchase is funded, document the five unserved Pro users as a risk and prioritize by deadline. Keep the 45 Creator seats assigned to the 30 creators plus 15 analysts; if analysis demand falls, move freed Creator seats to the Pro gap only after confirming the add-on option.
3. What controls and review cadence should follow the reassignment?
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After assignment, create custom roles or groups so Editors cannot publish or run analysis, and Viewers cannot edit. Audit group membership for the 55 field staff; each should update only assigned layers. Review monthly usage reports to find unused Creator or GIS Professional seats and reassign them. Because the CIO wants no over-assignment, keep a written mapping of workflow to user type and review it at each contract renewal. The budget decision should be explicit: 10 additional Viewer seats are required, and five Pro-capable seats are either purchased as GIS Professional or add-ons or accepted as a documented service gap. This makes the tradeoff visible instead of quietly assigning higher user types to avoid a conversation.