June 2019 ArcGIS Online Updates for Canada

Find out what the latest ArcGIS Online updates means for Canadian users.

ArcGIS Online was updated on June 25 and it includes some big changes. You can read all about the updates in Esri’s blog. But I want to highlight some specific changes made that have an impact on those of us mapping in Canada.

• The default basemaps are now set to vector. This means that for public accounts and anonymous users, the default basemaps will be vector, not raster. Similarly, new organizations will see vector basemaps by default.
• The old raster basemaps are still available for use in ArcMap, ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online but the default basemap selection has been set to vector. If you miss the raster basemaps, you can still access them by going to the ArcGIS Online Basemaps group and filtering the content for Raster Format maps.
• The Community Map of Canada auto-vector basemap is now available as part of the default vector basemap selection to new organizations. The Community Map of Canada is an auto-generated vector basemap that is updated daily. Read more about it here.
  
• If your organization has customized the selection of default basemaps that show up in the basemap picker, this change from raster to vector is not going to alter anything, even if you have raster basemaps in your selection. Your customized selection will still be there, unchanged.
• If you want to add the Community Map of Canada as one of your default options in your basemap picker, you will need to either
  • create a webmap with the Community Map of Canada set as a basemap and save that to your organization’s basemap group, OR
  • select “Use Esri vector basemaps in supported ArcGIS apps” (see the Esri blog post for details).