Creating a new empty hosted feature service

ArcGIS.com allows you to create a new hosted feature service that is empty and available for editing. You can configure this service to take on the layers and fields of an existing feature service. For example, you might have a service displaying the perimeter of an existing wildfire. When a new wildfire occurs, you can create a new empty feature service from your existing service. You can then populate the new service with the boundary and attributes of your new wildfire.

Your account must have the Administrator or Publisher role in order to create a new feature service in this way.

Follow these steps to create a new empty feature service.

Steps:

1. Log in to your ArcGIS.com organizational account and click My Content.
2. Click the Create Service button.
3. Choose an existing feature service whose layers you would like to apply to the new feature service. There are several approaches you can take:
   • Choose Create service from: an existing feature service and select one of your services from the dropdown list. By default the list only contains items from My Content. Check Include items in my organization to display all feature services from your organization.
   • Choose Create service from: an existing feature service and type the URL of a feature service.
   • Choose Create service from: a template and select one of the template feature services provided by Esri on ArcGIS Online.

   No matter which approach you take, you'll need to choose which layers should be included in the service. Check the box next to each layer you want to include.

   This step doesn't actually add or copy any features to your new service. Here you're just defining the layers (and associated attribute fields) that will be available for added features.

   When you're done choosing the layers, click Next.

4. Pan the test map to the default extent you want for your new feature service and click Next.

   This step helps you narrow the scope of your service when it is first edited.

5. Type a title, tags, summary, and location for your service, then click Done. You're taken to the item details page of your new feature service.
Caution:

By default, editing is enabled on your new service. If you don't want users to edit this service immediately, you should disable editing.