Some functionality of the ArcGIS Desktop applications—such as using basemaps or publishing to a portal—requires a connection to an ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise portal. For this reason, ArcGIS Desktop periodically checks for a connection to ArcGIS Online or an ArcGIS Enterprise portal.
Sign in to ArcGIS Online or an ArcGIS Enterprise portal
Sign in to ArcGIS Online or an ArcGIS Enterprise portal to access your content or your organization's data, and add them to your map. If you have publishing privileges in the organization, signing in also allows you to publish hosted layers to the organization.
When you sign in to ArcGIS Online, you have access to public content from Esri, communities, and users.
Signing in from an ArcGIS Desktop application is performed similarly regardless of whether you are accessing the ArcGIS Online website or a local portal. You can sign in with an ArcGIS account, either an ArcGIS public account or one that is part of ArcGIS Online for organizations. Your administrator can use your organization's enterprise security infrastructure to set up other forms of authentication, such as allowing you to sign in to ArcGIS Online with your Windows login. In that case, you use the same ArcGIS Online sign in dialog box, but you enter the login information provided by your administrator. Your administrator can also allow you to insert a security card to sign in to ArcGIS Online. By default, ArcGIS Desktop connects to the ArcGIS Online website. To sign in to a portal or use these security methods, your administrator must enter the portal URL in the Manage ArcGIS Portal Connections dialog box.
- In an ArcGIS Desktop application, click File > Sign In on the main menu.
- Type the user name and password you use to sign in to your organization. If you don't have an account, you can create a free ArcGIS Online public account. In addition, some organizational accounts may be configured to allow signing in with more than one type of account, so you may need to choose the login method to use.
- Check whether you want ArcGIS to remember any of your credentials or sign you in automatically in the future.
- Click Sign In.
Specify how often ArcGIS checks for a connection
If you don't have an ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise connection, basemaps, My Hosted Services, and Ready-To-Use Services functionality on the user interface is unavailable.
By default, ArcGIS Desktop checks for a connection when you start an application, such as ArcMap. If you have an intermittent connection, such as when you're in the field with periodic connectivity, change this setting to have ArcMap test for a connection at a designated interval. This way, you can be alerted when you lose your connection and are unable to access the functionality you need. If you always work offline, you can change this setting so ArcGIS never checks for a connection. You can also change the frequency of the check through the properties of the ArcGIS Connection Utility in the Windows system tray.
If no connection is found or you want to check again sooner than the timed frequency, right-click the ArcGIS Connection Utility button in the system tray and test the connection. If it succeeds, the applications is refreshed and you can access functionality dependent on ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise. If you have no connection, these commands remain unavailable.
- Start an ArcGIS Desktop application.
- To change the frequency of the check, right-click the ArcGIS Connection Utility in the Windows system tray and click Properties. Specify whether to check on startup (the default), never check, or set an interval.
- To run a connection test that can refresh the user interface, right-click the utility and click Test Connection Now.