Quick tour of creating maps and adding content
Tip:Watch short videos about Importing data, Working with ArcGIS Server data, and Symbolizing features.
Creating a new map
You can start working with ArcGIS Explorer Online right away by using the provided basemaps as a starting point for your work; basemaps are preconfigured maps designed for overlaying other information, and they generally have global coverage.
You can create a new map with the default basemap by clicking New Map in the home screen.
Once a map is open, you can change the basemap by
clicking the Basemaps button 
on the Mapping toolbar.
Alternatively, you can create a new map by choosing from the basemaps available in Explorer Online, or by choosing a map or image service to use as the basemap. Click the New Map drop-down arrow and choose Advanced, then choose one of the options shown under Sources on the left to make your basemap selection. Click the Create Map button on the right of the screen to open your new map.
Learn more about:
Adding content to a map
You can locate and add
other mapping services on top of the basemap. Click the Add Content button 
on the toolbar, type
the name of the item you want to find in the Search or URL box in the Add Content drop-down panel, then press ENTER to search ArcGIS Online. If you are signed in, click the Show drop-down arrow to filter the results, choosing to show only results from your own content, from a specific group of which you are a member, or from any groups of which you are a
member. Click The Web at the bottom of the Add Content panel to show services found on publically available servers that match your search criteria.
Alternatively, you can enter a specific URL of an ArcGIS Server rest endpoint, if you know where the data you want is located.
As you hover the pointer over each result in the list, you'll see some information about the map or service. Click Add to add the item to the current map.
Alternatively you can browse a list of your own folders and content that you have saved to ArcGIS Online by clicking My Content at the top of the panel.
Note:The options for searching and filtering content may vary if your account is associated with an organization, depending on how your administrator has configured your organization.
If you have local data (data on your machine) that you want to add to a map, so you can combine it with other datasets and share it with other users. You can use the Import tab in the Add Content panel to import Comma Separated Value (CSV) files, GPS exchange format (GPX) files, and Esri shapefiles to ArcGIS Online and add the data to a map.
Changing the appearance of data
All the data you add to the map has a default appearance when drawn on the map. You can use the Layers panel to hide and show each layer, and also use the Layer Details panel to change the opacity of each layer, to make it more or less transparent.
You can also change the symbols that are used to draw the features in a layer for some types of data.
For features stored in a configurable layer-layers that reference a map or feature service, or that were created by importing data-you can configure how the entire layer of features is displayed in the Layer Details panel by clicking the Configure button under Display. For example, you can choose a single symbol to draw all features, or draw features differently based on the values of an attribute.
For features in layers created and stored in the map, such as the default Map Notes layer, you can change how each feature is displayed on the map by using the Symbol panel to alter attributes of the symbols appearance, such as the color, size, and opacity.
Learn more about:
Hiding and showing layers, and changing the opacity of a layer