{"id":2827282,"date":"2025-06-12T13:24:33","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T20:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/?post_type=blog&p=2827282"},"modified":"2026-02-25T08:43:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T16:43:28","slug":"talk-me-through-portal-projects","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-pro\/sharing-collaboration\/talk-me-through-portal-projects","title":{"rendered":"Talk me through portal projects"},"author":5091,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":""},"categories":[37511],"tags":[42301,42181,778562,779722,770262],"industry":[],"product":[36571,36561],"class_list":["post-2827282","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sharing-collaboration","tag-arcgis-enterprise","tag-arcgis-pro","tag-collaborate","tag-portal-projects","tag-projects","product-arcgis-enterprise","product-arcgis-pro"],"acf":{"related_articles":"","short_description":"Have you ever wanted to work together with your colleagues on an ArcGIS Pro project? Simultaneously and in real time? Now you can.","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Have you ever wanted to work together with your colleagues on an ArcGIS Pro project? Simultaneously\u2014without the project being read-only for others while you have it open? Or without having to assemble a final project from pieces of different projects worked on by many people?<\/p>\n

If so, then you\u2019ve been waiting for portal projects. You and your colleagues can work on the same project at the same time (and different times, of course) and have your changes uploaded and downloaded as you work. Your team can be in adjacent offices or in different cities as long as you all belong to the same ArcGIS Enterprise organization.<\/p>\n

If that sounds appealing, you may have questions like these:<\/p>\n

Do I need a special license for portal projects?<\/h3>\n

No\u2014but you do need ArcGIS Pro 3.5 and membership in an ArcGIS Enterprise organization on a portal of version 11.4 or later. To create or modify a portal project, your role in the organization has to allow you to create content.<\/p>\n

Note that you can\u2019t create or use portal projects in an ArcGIS Online organization. That may be possible at a later date.<\/p>\n

Is working on a portal project like sharing a Word document on OneDrive?<\/h3>\n

No, that’s not really a helpful analogy. The first time you open a portal project, the project is downloaded from the portal to your computer. You do your work in that locally downloaded copy, uploading and downloading changes whenever you save.<\/p>\n

Consider an example where Chris, Aleta, Vishwesh, and Naicong are collaborating on a portal project. Each of them works independently in their own downloaded local copy.<\/p>\n

When Aleta finishes some work on a map and saves the project before lunch, her changes are saved to her local copy and uploaded (pushed) to the portal. Once her upload is completed, any changes that have been pushed to the portal by others are downloaded (pulled) to her local copy.<\/p>\n

And the same goes for everyone else?<\/h3>\n

Right. When Naicong saves the project an hour after Aleta, her changes are saved to her own local copy and then pushed to the portal. At that point, Aleta\u2019s previous changes (along with changes that Chris or Vishwesh uploaded) are pulled down to Naicong\u2019s local copy.<\/p>\n

In this way, everybody\u2019s local copy of the project is synced with the portal each time they save. Changes are pushed and pulled only when you save. So, for instance, if Aleta doesn\u2019t work on the project for a week, she\u2019ll pull a week\u2019s worth of changes from the portal the next time she opens and saves the project.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":{"ID":2958136,"id":2958136,"title":"diagram-whitebackground-crop","filename":"diagram-whitebackground-crop.png","filesize":26230,"url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/02\/diagram-whitebackground-crop.png","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-pro\/sharing-collaboration\/talk-me-through-portal-projects\/diagram-whitebackground-crop","alt":"Diagram of portal project collaborators","author":"5091","description":"","caption":"Each collaborator works independently in a local copy of the portal project, pushing and pulling changes when they save their work.","name":"diagram-whitebackground-crop","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":2827282,"date":"2026-02-25 16:33:28","modified":"2026-02-25 16:37:35","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":465,"height":402,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/02\/diagram-whitebackground-crop-213x200.png","thumbnail-width":213,"thumbnail-height":200,"medium":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/02\/diagram-whitebackground-crop.png","medium-width":302,"medium-height":261,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/02\/diagram-whitebackground-crop.png","medium_large-width":465,"medium_large-height":402,"large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/02\/diagram-whitebackground-crop.png","large-width":465,"large-height":402,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/02\/diagram-whitebackground-crop.png","1536x1536-width":465,"1536x1536-height":402,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/02\/diagram-whitebackground-crop.png","2048x2048-width":465,"2048x2048-height":402,"card_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/02\/diagram-whitebackground-crop.png","card_image-width":465,"card_image-height":402,"wide_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2026\/02\/diagram-whitebackground-crop.png","wide_image-width":465,"wide_image-height":402}},"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

It sounds like the project file gets copied back and forth a lot.<\/h3>\n

Not so. In fact, there\u2019s no .aprx<\/em> file as such on the portal\u2014just a collection of .json<\/em> and .xml<\/em> files that together make up the definition of the project. You can think of these files as instructions for building and updating the project.<\/p>\n

The first time you open a portal project, this collection of files is downloaded and used to create an .aprx<\/em> file on your computer. That\u2019s your local copy of the project.<\/p>\n

When you make changes to the local copy and save the project, what gets pushed to the portal is not the .aprx<\/em> file itself\u2014just the extracted .json<\/em> and .xml<\/em> files that represent your changes. Likewise, what gets pulled from the portal are only the files that represent changes made by other users.<\/p>\n

Once the local copy is created on your computer, you always work from it. The complete portal project isn\u2019t downloaded to your computer again, unless for some reason you decide (or need) to replace your local copy. This operation is called getting updates<\/a> from the portal, and there are times when it\u2019s useful. (The name is a little misleading because you actually get everything<\/em> from the portal when you get updates.)<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":{"ID":2828912,"id":2828912,"title":"our-town-project","filename":"our-town-project.png","filesize":496570,"url":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/06\/our-town-project.png","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-pro\/sharing-collaboration\/talk-me-through-portal-projects\/our-town-project","alt":"Local copy of an ArcGIS Pro portal project","author":"5091","description":"","caption":"Your local copy of a portal project looks like any other ArcGIS Pro project. The cloud icon by the project name identifies it as a portal project.","name":"our-town-project","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":2827282,"date":"2025-06-11 15:56:41","modified":"2025-06-11 21:19:54","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/png","type":"image","subtype":"png","icon":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":864,"height":508,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/06\/our-town-project-213x200.png","thumbnail-width":213,"thumbnail-height":200,"medium":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/06\/our-town-project.png","medium-width":444,"medium-height":261,"medium_large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/06\/our-town-project.png","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":452,"large":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/06\/our-town-project.png","large-width":864,"large-height":508,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/06\/our-town-project.png","1536x1536-width":864,"1536x1536-height":508,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/06\/our-town-project.png","2048x2048-width":864,"2048x2048-height":508,"card_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/06\/our-town-project-791x465.png","card_image-width":791,"card_image-height":465,"wide_image":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2025\/06\/our-town-project.png","wide_image-width":864,"wide_image-height":508}},"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

What if my colleague\u2019s changes collide with mine?<\/h3>\n

Hopefully that doesn\u2019t happen too often. (If it does, you should have a chat with your colleagues.) When it does happen, there\u2019s a procedure for resolving conflicts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Suppose Chris is working in a portal project called Our Town. He adds a Parks layer to the Zoning map. He also tweaks the legend in the Orange Grove layout. When he saves his local copy of the project, his changes are pushed to the portal. No conflicts at this point. The Zoning map on the portal (technically, the .json file that defines the Zoning map) now contains the Parks layer. Likewise, the Orange Grove layout has his modified legend.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Vishwesh is working in his local copy of the project. His Zoning map doesn\u2019t have the Parks layer. Suppose he changes the basemap of the Zoning map from Topographic to Imagery. That\u2019s all he does. Now, when he saves the project, he has a conflict. Why? Because Chris just changed this map on the portal and now Vishwesh is changing it again. It\u2019s kind of like two generals giving a soldier different orders. Vishwesh has a choice:<\/p>\n