Will federation change ability of Portal Viewer licenses to edit in Geocortex Essentials sites?

Hi Emily, are you referring to feature editing in a workflow? If so, then yes, a data editor role or greater is necessary to edit and update a feature service in your ArcGIS Server. This is dictated by Esri's ArcGIS Enterprise user types: User types, roles, and privileges—Portal for ArcGIS | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise

So, to answer your questions:

1. No, a viewer access isn't enough - it must be data editor or greater to edit a feature service from ArcGIS Enterprise.

2. Yes, this would change post federation of your ArcGIS Server: you're changing the identity provider for the ArcGIS Server and adopting Esri's ArcGIS Enterprise User Types. Esri's pattern here dictates how you interact with your now federated ArcGIS Server. 

Thanks for your reply Gareth! Yes, I was talking about feature editing.

This is good info to know, we're a ways yet from using Web Viewer but we know it's down the road.

So to clarify, we have Viewer level portal users who do feature editing inside a 5-series workflow in a Geocortex Essentials site and that is working fine for us now. But after federation, those user would need to have Creator level licenses with at least a Data Editor role, even if they're still editing in a 5-series workflow inside a Geocortex Essentials site.

Hey Emily Renkema, super welcome.

Yes, you're correct - a Workflow making edits to a Portal-secured (e.g.  from an ArcGIS server federated with Portal) feature service requires a user type that has feature editing access. 

There's nuance here: what I'm referring to is the ArcGIS Server requiring these user types per Esri's ArcGIS Enterprise licensing model. Anecdotally, we've seen several customers resistant to the idea of adopting the ArcGIS Enterprise user model because the cost of the required user types is significantly more expensive. You're not alone in being wary around this move from token ArcGIS Server to the federated ArcGIS Enterprise paradigm. 

For context, there's three 'things' in this scenario that could be federated with your ArcGIS Enterprise (Portal): your ArcGIS Server, your Geocortex Essentials server and your Geocortex 5-series Workflow server - which is now called VertiGIS Studio Workflow.

To break that down:

1. ArcGIS Server federation, per Esri's docs: Federate an ArcGIS Server site with your portal—Portal for ArcGIS | Documentation for ArcGIS Enterprise
   - The behaviour around feature editing requiring a specific Portal user type is a result of the federation of the ArcGIS Server with your ArcGIS Enterprise (Portal)
2. Geocortex Essentials sign in via ArcGIS Enterprise (Portal - sometimes referred to as “Portal federation) , how-to in our docs: Essentials Install - Choose a Method to Sign In to Manager (vertigisstudio.com)
   - This permits Geocortex Essentials to sign in via your portal identities and consume private portal content
3. VertiGIS Studio Workflow sign in to portal, per our docs: Workflow Help - Install VertiGIS Studio Workflow on Premises (vertigisstudio.com)
   - this permits Workflow to publish and consume workflows (app items) from your portal

So, just to reiterate that change in requirements around user types for feature editing is entirely dictated by Esri's ArcGIS Enterprise licensing model. This is a classic problem we've seen come up when historically customers have been just fine using an Essentials site with a token ArcGIS Server.

I'd encourage you to federate all three with your ArcGIS Enterprise setup. This is the accepted industry paradigm and is fundamental to the VertiGIS Studio suite as we build ontop of the ArcGIS Enterprise/ArcGIS Online platform.

Please do let me know if this makes sense. If you've got further questions or need a hand getting this all done, it may be worth engaging someone from our Support team as they have a great amount of experience around this.