The ArcGIS Apps technical sessions in the Exhibit Hall were among the most popular attractions at the Esri User Conference 2016 this year.  This technical session was about managing and deploying your data on devices, namely, the iPad with ArcPad, presented by Esri’s Denise King.

I often get phone calls which start like this: “We need an application built which does X”. Do you know my next question?

Why?

On the surface that would seem like an odd response. But think about it, the caller has a problem and yet the conversation starts with the technology. This is not the fault of the caller. But without understanding the problem the caller is trying to solve, how can we build out a solution. In this blog post I will share our approach to solving problems with GIS. We have developed a step by step process we use with those both new to GIS and experienced GIS users and organizations. Less an advertisement for what we do, more for you to think about how you might better solve organizational problems with GIS.

Getting the most out of GIS requires careful planning and thought. Below we discuss our systematic approach to solving problems using GIS.

One of the perks of coming to GISCafe’s booth in the Exhibit Hall at major industry events is the possibility of becoming a winner.

Forrest Lamb, GS (801) 12 CFM, CFMJ

Those English are a funny lot. Its been an odd few weeks on their little island. In the Euros football (soccer) championship, Iceland (population 300, 000) beat England (population 53 million) 2-1. Andy Murray won the Wimbledon tennis tournament (let’s not here get into the England v British discussion). And then there was Brexit. The English have voted to separate from the EU.

Oh dear!

Stuck in GIS Brexit?

With Brexit the Brits have opted for separation. So what do I mean by GIS Brexit? This post is about the many advantages of integration. Advantages, over time, the English will realise far outweigh the costs.

Think about your GIS. As I’ve mentioned many times before, GIS is coming out of the shadows. Once perceived narrowly as purely mapping software, today it is being used more widely to solve business problems. In isolation GIS is powerful software, but when integrated with other business systems it really shines. Let me share with you two examples:

Utilities- ArcGIS-Maximo Integration

Maximo is an IBM enterprise asset management (EAM) system. It is a very powerful solution used for creating and storing inspection information. Maximo Anywhere provides a set of resources for building and deploying mobile apps that integrate with IBM Maximo. Though Maximo Anywhere has a mapping component, it is very limited. We were approached by a large organization to integrate ArcGIS with Maximo. GIS functionality and offline capabilities were key requirements.

What was the most exciting attraction in the Exhibit Hall at the Esri User Conference 2016? Hard to say, as the 14,000+ attendees flocked to see the plethora of exciting exhibits from third party companies, and of course the numerous demonstrations of Esri products and services. Drones, imagery, field solutions, utilities, navigation, spatially enabled business apps, data management, all vied for an audience at the conference. Esri’s Drone2Map was a huge hit, and Collector for ArcGIS was a product that garnered an enormous amount of attention at its demonstrations and technical workshops, offering the promise of providing mapping to professionals in the field workforce that would in turn, improve the accuracy and currency of spatial data.

Esri’s Drone2Map