With ArcGIS Pro, you can save service definitions for locators to be shared to a portal at a later time as a hosted service. A service definition file (.sd) contains information about the locator's type, properties, and capabilities. See Introduction to saving service definitions to learn more about how service definitions can be used in your organization's sharing workflows.
You can save a service definition for a locator with a specific connection or without a connection when offline or disconnected from the server.
Save a connected service definition for a locator
A connected service definition is configured for a specific server connection. The option to save a service definition is available in the Share Locator pane when you are connected to ArcGIS Enterprise.
Tip:
In the Share Locator pane, click the Publish drop-down arrow and click Save As SD to save a service definition file.
Save an offline service definition for a locator
An offline service definition is connection-neutral; it is not configured for a specific server connection. You can save an offline service definition if you are offline or not connected to the server. This workflow explains how to save an offline service definition for a hosted locator with default settings to be later shared to a portal. To change the default configuration, see Set properties on locators shared to a portal.
To save a service definition for a locator in a disconnected environment, complete the following steps:
- On the Share tab, in the Share As group, click the Locator drop-down arrow and click Save As Offline Service Definition
.Tip:
Alternatively, in the Catalog pane, expand Locators or folder connection
in the Folders category 
, right-click the locator, point to Save As Offline Service Definition, and click Locator on Portal .The Select the Locator to Share dialog box appears.
- Browse to and select the locator to share and click OK.
The Save As Offline Service Definition pane appears.
- Fill in the information on the General tab of the Save As Offline Service Definition pane.
- Keep or change the name of the locator in the Name text box, which is automatically populated.
- Provide information in the Item Description, Summary, and Tags text boxes.You can enter a maximum of 128 tags.
- Choose a Data option.
- To avoid having a copy of the data placed on the server, register your data to the server using ArcGIS Server Manager and choose the Reference all data option.
- To maintain a separate copy of the data for web use, choose the Copy all data option.
For more information on data registration, see Register your data with ArcGIS Server using ArcGIS Desktop or ArcGIS Pro.
- Under Location, for Portal Folder, optionally provide a name of an existing portal folder or a new folder.
By default, the locator is stored at the root level of the portal content.
- For Server Folder, optionally provide a name of an existing server folder or a new folder.
By default, the hosted service is stored in the root folder of the server.
- Under Finish Staging, click Analyze
to identify potential issues or limitations.The Messages tab displays errors and warnings raised by the analysis. Right-click a message to get more information, access the associated help topic, or access suggested fixes. Errors
must be resolved before you can save the service definition. Resolving warnings 
is recommended but not required. - After you resolve errors, and optionally resolve warnings, click Save.
The Save As Service Definition File dialog box appears.
- On the dialog box, specify the location and name of the service definition file and click Save.
- Once the service definition has been successfully staged, click the Manage the service definition link at the bottom of the pane to open the location of the service definition file.
If you are ready to publish your locator to an ArcGIS Enterprise portal, see Publish a service definition.