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Getting Started

Connecting Your ArcGIS Online Account

Sign in via ArcGIS Identity, connect your hosted layers, and start using your organization's spatial data in Curated.

Last updated May 13, 2026

Curated runs on top of your existing Esri investment — not alongside it. Connecting your ArcGIS Online account is what makes your hosted layers, web maps, and portal items discoverable through natural-language questions.

Two ways to connect

Option 1 — ArcGIS Identity sign-in (Professional and above)

The cleanest path. You sign in to Curated using your ArcGIS Online identity directly.

  1. From the sign-in screen, click Continue with ArcGIS.
  2. Authenticate with your ArcGIS Online credentials.
  3. Curated picks up your organization's hosted feature services, web maps, and portal items automatically. Anything you can see in your AGO portal becomes discoverable in Curated.

Token refresh, scoped permissions, and an audit trail all run under the OAuth 2.0 flow we ship — no static API keys, no manual rotation.

Option 2 — Connect through Settings (any tier)

If your organization signs in through a different identity provider but you still want ArcGIS data in Curated:

  1. Go to Settings → Connections → ArcGIS.
  2. Click Connect.
  3. Authenticate with your ArcGIS Online account through the popup. Curated stores the OAuth token; no API key entry required.

You can disconnect, refresh, or re-scope the connection from the same Settings page.

What gets pulled in

Once connected, Curated can reason over:

  • Your hosted feature services — the geospatial datasets your team has published
  • Your web maps — saved maps with custom symbology and pre-applied filters
  • Your portal items — shared content scoped to your AGO organization
  • Esri Living Atlas layers attached to your maps — environmental, hazard, transportation, demographic layers your team has added

Curated does not copy or replicate your ArcGIS content. It references the layers in place. Your ArcGIS portal stays the system of record.

Permissions and governance

Curated respects your ArcGIS sharing model:

  • A user can only see Curated answers built from layers their ArcGIS account has access to.
  • If a layer is restricted to a group, only group members see it surface in Curated.
  • When you remove a user from ArcGIS, they lose access to layers in Curated the next time they sign in.

ArcGIS Enterprise (on-prem portal)

Curated currently connects to ArcGIS Online. ArcGIS Enterprise (on-prem portal) support is scoped per Enterprise contract — talk to sales if your team runs on Enterprise.

Troubleshooting

  • "This layer isn't showing up." Check ArcGIS sharing: the layer needs to be visible to your account in your AGO portal.
  • "Authentication failed." OAuth tokens occasionally expire. Disconnect and reconnect at Settings → Connections.
  • "I see Esri Living Atlas in AGO but not in Curated." Living Atlas layers need to be attached to a web map your account has access to.

Related

  • Importing Your First Data Layer
  • Reading Your First Answer (Sources and Citations)
  • BYOA: Bringing Your Own ArcGIS Keys (admin guide)
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