There seems to be consistent confusion surrounding the ArcGIS Online Entitlement program recently announced by Esri. While it is publicly-available information, we know it can sometimes be a little bit puzzling, given the different ways that licenses are available these days. So, we wanted to offer a quick briefing on how this works.

From Esri’s website:

Customers with ArcGIS for Desktop licenses who are on maintenance are entitled to be part of an ArcGIS Online Organization Plan. Every Desktop license on maintenance counts as one Named User for the plan.

Alternatively, if you want to implement Portal for ArcGIS, ArcGIS for Desktop licenses on maintenance are entitled to be part of the Portal for ArcGIS Named User license. You’ll be asked to choose whether you want your ArcGIS for Desktop License Entitlements applied to an ArcGIS Online Organization Plan account or Portal for ArcGIS instance.

The ArcGIS for Desktop license entitlement for ArcGIS Online applies to customers with:

•     ArcGIS for Desktop – Perpetual Use Licenses (License must be current on maintenance)

And further detail, from another Esri webpage:

To ensure that ArcGIS for Desktop users have access to ArcGIS Online capabilities, Esri entitles every customer organization that has ArcGIS for Desktop (Basic, Standard, or Advanced) to receive an ArcGIS Online subscription. The number of named users will be equal to the total number of ArcGIS for Desktop licenses current on maintenance.

This will enable users to easily get started with ArcGIS Online. It will also give access to all Esri apps—such as Esri Maps for Office, Collector for ArcGIS, and Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS—as well as numerous app templates hosted in ArcGIS Online.

And to clarify one other point we have discovered: the named users for desktop entitlement MUST be the users who are actually using the ArcGIS licenses in the back office. You can’t use them for users outside of that group, as originally thought by many.

Lastly, remember for your services-related needs, SSP is an “ArcGIS Online Specialty” partner of Esri’s.