Regenerate a utility service item in an ArcGIS Enterprise portal

Summary

Utility services are used in ArcGIS Enterprise to allow conducting various tasks such as printing, geocoding, and offline packaging. These utility services are initially added to ArcGIS Enterprise when ArcGIS Server is federated as a hosting server.

Before identifying the workflow described below, the PrintingTools item could not be shared to the ArcGIS Enterprise Portal using ArcGIS Server Manager.

The following error was returned when attempting to share the item:

The service is owned by another user. The sharing properties can only be modified by the owner.

Sharing the service was only allowed after removing the itemID and type values in the PrintingTools JSON in Server Administrator as described below.

Cause

In some situations, a utility service may be unintentionally removed from the ArcGIS Enterprise portal. In this scenario, the utility service item can no longer be managed by the ArcGIS Enterprise portal and can result in the service no longer functioning. This article provides a workflow to re-create the utility service in the ArcGIS Enterprise portal if the utility service still exists in ArcGIS Server Administrator.

The following workflow can be applied to any utility service, however in this  example, the PrintingTools service is described.

Procedure

1. Stop the PrintingTools service in ArcGIS Server Manager. Refer to ArcGIS Server: Start and stop services for instructions.
2. Log in to the ArcGIS Server Administrator Directory with an administrator account, and click services, as shown in the next image:

3. In the ArcGIS Server Administrative Directory window, under Folders, click Utilities.

4. On the Folder - Utilities page, under Services, click PrintingTools (GPServer).
5. On the Service - PrintingTools (GPServer) page, under Supported Operations, click edit.

6. On the Edit GPServer page, in the Service (in JSON format) text box, search for the itemID and type parameters.
   •  In the following example, the values for the itemID and type parameters have been removed:

"${AGSSERVER}/framework/runtime/ArcGIS/Resources/ArcToolBox/Services/PrintingTools.atbx",
   "jobsVirtualDirectory": "rest/directories.arcgisjobs"
 },
 "portalProperties": {
   "isHosted": false,
   "portalItems": [{
    "itemID": "",
    "type": ""
  }]
},

7. Remove the values specified for both parameters. 

Note: 
Before editing these values, as a precaution, it is recommended to create a backup copy of this JSON file and place in a secure location.

8. Click Save Edits once the changes have been made.
   • Once the values have been removed, the itemID and type parameters are automatically removed, as shown in the next image. 

9. Navigate to ArcGIS Server Manager: Services > Utilities > PrintingTools.

10. On the silhouette icon at the top right, click the Sharing Properties option for the PrintingTools.

11. In the PrintingTools Sharing Properties dialog box, click Update Sharing.

12. Navigate to the ArcGIS Enterprise portal, and go to Content > My Organization.
13. Observe that the PrintingTools item is present after the Update Sharing option was selected in ArcGIS Server Manager in Step 11, above.

You may now manage the PrintingTools item through the ArcGIS Enterprise portal, as shown in the image above.

Note:
This workflow is similar to that in Delete and republish the ArcGIS Server PrintingTools service, however that workflow requires that a user manually re-create the Printing Tools in Server Administrator and does not re-create the Printing Tools in the ArcGIS Enterprise portal. This can still result in printing failures as the Portal item has no connection to the underlying ArcGIS Server Utility service.