This paper documents the use of ArcIMS software to implement enterprise-wide access to GIS applications, at the city-hall of a residential community with a population of 38,000 residents. "Enterprise-GIS," by definition, contemplates EVERY department that could potentially be enhanced by use of GIS technology using a customized application, such as ArcIMS, as the vehicle for fully-functional access to such technology. This paper focuses on describing how ArcIMS can be instrumental in enabling multiple departments to maximize their interaction with GIS applications: in effect, moving GIS from single user "project based" applications to a multiple user "enterprise" application, facilitated by ArcIMS.
The following paper tracks the implementation of ArcIMS software to bring about enterprise-wide access to GIS applications, from & at the cityhall of a residential community now with a population of approximately 45,000 residents. "Enterprise-GIS" envisions all residents of the city eventually being afforded the opportunity to view geographic information (displaying their city's boundaries, infrastructure, zoning-districts, voting precincts, floodzones, parks, & other layers representing different classifications of activities and functions) affecting their lives & lifestyles.
This paper is targeted towards experienced GIS practitioners employed by local governments, who are contemplating engaging ArcIMS software applications in order to distribute geographic information, not only to interested parties at their respective government centers, but to city residents as well.
The benefits of perfecting the methodology described herein are numerous, and include the following: a.) giving not only traditionally GIS-oriented employees (like planners & engineers) access to GIS, but making it feasible for managers, inspectors, and utility & public-works leadmen to have access to the city's geographic resources, in order to more efficiently address their day-to-day tasks, b.) to facilitate communication between all of cityhall's departments, so that GIS projects will no longer have an intimidating aura of "secrecy," elitism, or exclusiveness about them, c.) democratizing municipal geographic information systems, by not only giving city residents the opportunity to view maps showing various layers of city resources & infrastructure, but also affording those same residents the opportunities to realistically interact with whatever interface is provided, via the functions to be described herein.
The city of Coconut Creek is a residential non-beachfront community located in the northernmost tier of Broward County, of which Fort Lauderdale is the county-seat, on South Florida's eastcoast. The city is 11.3 square-miles in area, and contains in excess of 45,000 residents.
In our city, momentum for the establishment of a Geographical Information System at cityhall had its inception in the late 1980's, although it was not until early 1999, that the city could be said to have a G.I.S. program atually in place. The evolution of GIS in Coconut Creek, FL, can be traced through a series of letters --- found in the former (unofficial) GIS-library --- exchanged between the then directors of the Engineering and Planning (Development Services) departments, who had been employing CAD systems for their graphic requirements, but who felt they needed an application with the ability to store & retrieve data associated with AsBuilts (or "of-record" plans, drawings and blueprints) diagramming water & sewer infrastructure systems, existing in villages (developments) within the city.
Because water & sewer AsBuilts had become the subject of early GIS applications in the city, the GIS section was originally nested within the Utilities & Engineering Dept (rather then in the planning-&-zoning division of the Development Services Dept., as was the case with many other cities in South Florida). This organizational structure did not actually preclude access to GIS by the city's planners, or by other city officials (including, increasingly, the Police Department, which also had requirements necessitating the viewing & analysis of the city's spatial data, resources and infrastructure), but there was no formally recognized or established method by which non-engineers at cityhall had open and direct access to GIS services.
By early 2001, the GIS "team" consisted of a GIS Coordinator (formerly GIS Specialist) principally using ArcInfo 8.1, & a GIS Analyst who primarily engaged ArcView 3.1 (with access to ArcView 8.1). Subsequent to the hiring of a GIS Technician in mid-2001, the GIS section was promoted to "division" status, and was simultaneously transferred from Engineering to the Information Systems Department (or "I.S.") which maintains cityhall's general communications' network.
This organizational-restructuring for GIS was seen by City Hall management as a step towards opening up Coconut Creek's Geographic Information Systems --- not only functionally, but perhaps also psychologically --- to the city's entire government center, by positioning GIS in a departmentally "neutral" structure, as a FIRST-step in Enterprise GIS: thus making GIS more widely available to cityhall employees.
Coconut Creek's SECOND step towards Enterprise-GIS was a technological one, although it did not directly utilize a geographic-system, itself. The GIS division's new host department, "I.S.," initiated a GIS-HelpDesk system, using a custom-modification of Microsoft(R)Outlook(R).
The Information Systems Dept had long been using computerized "HelpDesk Requests" over its inhouse communications system, Microsoft(R)Outlook(R), so that government center employees could directly contact I.S. staff, in order to report operational problems involving Personal Computers at their office workstations. Now through the use of specialized "GIS-HelpDesk" requests, all Departments at cityhall itself --- as well as throughout the multi-building government center --- could use Outlook(R) through this "formal" or institutionalized procedure, through which to order GIS products from Coconut Creek's GIS division.
The existence of a GIS-HelpDesk system --- as an Enterprise-GIS tool --- lead to Departments, divisions, & sections such as Risk-Management, Public Works, Occupational Licensing, Landscape, and Community Improvement (who had previously seldom, if ever, asked for GIS-services) sending formal requests for GIS products.
A THIRD extension of Enterprise-GIS involved the handling of requests for GIS-services, originating outside of the Coconut Creek Government Center. Previously, city residents or contractors would telephone the GIS division, & directly order GIS-services. This necessitated that the GIS staff maintain its own tracking system, primarily on Telephone Call carbon-copy slips. It also required GIS practitioners to make "political" & policy decisions when dealing with outside consultants, and with builders who may or may not have existing contracts with the city, as well as with presidents of local --- & sometimes (politically) rival --- condominium and neighborhood associations.
Soon after GIS moved from the Utilities And Engineering Dept to the Information Services Dept, such outside requests for GIS-services became routed through the city clerk. This facilitated & enabled the city clerk's office to initiate such GIS-HelpDesk requests itself, leading to greater control over how --- & to whom --- GIS data was disseminated. Geographic Information Systems can now be applied citywide in a way that gives cityhall managers an overview of the allocation & pattern of such GIS services, so as to more appropriately and efficiently distribute those municipal-resources.
The City of Coconut Creek (FL) had a website, http://www.creekgov.net, in operation since the late 1990's, which among many other non-cartographic pages, did offer 4 pages displaying geographic information related to the city: the most recent Home Page (MAY 2002) displays links to 12 municipal-departments or functions (including the offices of elected & appointed city-officials, plus a "municipal calendar").
The previous Coconut Creek (internet) Municipal-Park map gave the appearance of being technologically "interactive" due to its numerous hyperlinks: it featured 17 buttons that opened to pages providing the address of 17 different city parks, and in 15 of those selections, a small photograph of a portion of that particular park was displayed. The new (MAY 2002) Park Locator is a single page.
The GIS division will ultimately assume responsibility for publishing future versions of the Park Locator Map, via ArcIMS. It is suggested that the functions accessible in a feature MapService will provide the end-users with more interactive information (such as change scale, pan, set layer visibility, etc.) than is possible from a "static" map image, accessed via hyperlinks. For instance, it is feasible that the "map-tips" element of ArcIMS can be employed to provide the residents with a more dynamic form of information as they move the cursor over the sundry parks, & that a monthly updating system can be maintained to filter out "stale" information: at present, neither the geographic-information itself --- nor the text --- bear a date.
Beginning in MAY 2002, this link opens to a Zoning-Map page, that contains two map-keys: the upper portion consists of a list of 18 zoning-categories (from A-1/Agriculture to CF/Community-Facilities-District), and the lower portion divides the city into fourteen defined areas, that are linked to 14 different map images.
These fourteen zoning-map images show most of the city's major developments. None of these maps are in color or show a date. However, a link to the pre-2002 Map-Key page is retained, & that bears a date in the year 2001 ("5-30-01").
The GIS division is currently working toward providing a Zoning Page using ArcIMS. It is suggested therein that the zoning-classifications be coded in color, and that there be links to the zoning-definitions in the city's code. The map-tips function in ArcIMS could be used to provide either an excerpt from the zoning-definition, or a reference to either the number of the specific ordinance & section, or to the page-number in the code on which the ordinance is located (with date).
The link for this map opens to a page showing five (lettered) "districts," each one represented by one of the city's commissioners. Each district, in turn, has a link that leads to a one of 12 Precinct Maps.
The Precinct Maps can be considered "user-interactive" in that each precinct is linked to an additional page that shows a small photo of the polling place for that precinct. At present, only 8 colors are used for the city's twelve precincts (including white, cream, gray, and light-gray), and none of the text or geographical information bears a date.
A future ArcIMS version of the Voting-Precincts map will feature the following elements: 1) provide a greater number of color variations, in order to make the map more interesting or informative, 2) up-date the map to ensure that it reflects current precinct boundaries, and that it includes quite recent annexations to both the north and south ends of the city, 3) increase the number of (designated or named) east-west roads on the map, especially along or near the northern boundaries of each precinct, in order to provide the residents with more precise guidelines in determining their precinct locations, 4) place a date on any new maps in order to facilitate regular & timely updating, 5) eventually, a voter or resident should be able to click on their particular street-segment, and thus be afforded the address, & name, of their polling place, via the ArcIMS Identify tool.
The link entitled FloodZoneMap opens to a black & white FLOOD INSURANCE RATE MAP (FEMA: Federal Emergency Management Agency), that was apparently (originally) exported using a JPEG image. The map itself does not bear a date: however it references (FEMA) F.I.R.M. maps --- by map-numbers --- the hard-copies of which, provide a date of 10-2-97 ("revised"). The flood-zone map contains 3 shaded classifications, or zones - the degrees-of-shading indicating (inversely) the flooding-depth --- in feet --- of water, to which the particular area is at risk.
The "methodology" employed to bring about a citywide Enterprise-GIS program, initially came to be defined by the software, as well as the software applications, available to four targeted groups within the city of Coconut Creek (FL). Those groups were identified as 1) GIS practitioners at cityhall as the FIRST-TIER of users, 2) "In-House" end-users located at cityhall (& the Utilities Building) using ArcView 3.x, as a SECOND-TIER, 3) "Network" users throughout the more than several buildings that comprise Coconut Creek Government Center, using SunguardPentamation © supported by ArcView, as THIRD-TIER, 4) and Coconut Creek residents accessing the city's internet, as the FOURTH-TIER.
This group of end-users consists of the "GIS" division within Information Systems (the so-called "I.S." Department at Coconut Creek cityhall), which uses ArcInfo 8.2, ArcView 8.2, ArcView 3.1, and ArcIMS applications continually between 8 AM & 5 PM each workday, in order to generate, digitally archive, analyze, & distribute map-products on behalf of the city.
Although the GIS team had been officially removed from the Utilities & Engineering Department and transferred to "I.S.," its offices remained in the same wing of cityhall that still housed the engineering division. This encouraged continuing interaction between the GIS practitioners and the engineers/ engineering inspectors.
For that reason, the plurality of GIS-Helpdesk request forms submitted electronically --- via a somewhat customized version of Microsoft(R)Outlook(R) --- continued to arise out of the Utilities & Engineering Dept. More than several of these requests for GIS services involved the creation and maintenance of an Engineering-Project-Status file and accompanying tables.
The Engineering-Project-Status map had been created in ArcView 3.1, and displayed the location of every ongoing project in the city. The map was color-coded by range of "completion," as measured by the project's percentage of certificates-of-occupancy ("C.O.'s").
The "City parcels" Data Layer of the foregoing map, contains polygons representing plat boundaries within the city of Coconut Creek. This dataset was then brought into ArcView 3.1 & joined to the data of an (ODBC-connected) Microsoft(R)Excel-2000 file.
In the above join, the Field "ParcelName" was used as the common Field (or RELATE) item. ArcView 3.1 was then used to export this joined-data as a shapefile, which now contained parcel names, and all pertinent parameters related to Engineering Project Construction Status (% completion, % C.O.'s, certification, Inspector's name, Engineer's name, etc.) The methodology inherent in this inter-departmental phase of Entrprise-GIS, underscores the importance of linking to data that is regularly updated and maintained by employees in departments other than the GIS division.
Many of the officials most interested in monitoring the progress of engineering projects in the city --- such as the Senior Engineer, the Utilities & Engineering Director, the Development Services Director, the Assistant City Manager, & the City Manager --- had a history of only indirect or occasional contact with accessing cartographic data in ArcView, but did exercise regular entry into Coconut Creek's intranet and internet. Therefore, ArcIMS became a logical vehicle by which to transport & share politically important geographic information at cityhall.
These are end-users throughout the government center (including engineers, city planners, as well as some supervisory-personnel - especially in the Utilities & Engineering Department) who use GIS software (particularly ArcView 3.1) with some degree of frequency. These users frequently consult with the city's GIS Coordinator in order to discuss technical issues in the use of GIS.
Much of this inter-departmental dialog involved the application of the City's Graphical user Interface (G.U.I.) developed in Avenue by Coconut Creek's GIS Coordinator (then GIS Specialist). Its primary objective was to provide a method for linking parcel-names or street addresses with Plat and "AsBuilt" information.
However, it also served as an important overture to a citywide Enterprise GIS. This was true in that it alerted supervisory personnel, in several Departments & divisions, as to the power and usefullness of GIS functions, in analyzing city infrastructure issues. (Please see 2001 Esri International User Conference Proceedings: State and Local Government - Session: GIS Tools in Governemnt - "Utility Infrastructure Mapping and Application Migration from Avenue to VBA").
These are computer-literate employees throughout the several buildings that comprise the Coconut Creek Government Center, who will be employing a software package marketed by SUNGUARD Pentamation(c). The system features 4 modules, two of which sound in finance, and another in utility-billing. Only its land-management module, "ENCOMPASS Community Development System," involves the dissemination of geographic-information. Along with its primary function of providing interdepartmental access to permitting-data, this latter module will incidentally provide basic (local) geographic data --- using a database populated by information from the (Broward County) Property Appraiser's rolls, and displayed through ArcView 3.1 --- for those departments within the city, not yet formally trained in ArcView GIS.
City administrators --- in consultation with the GIS Coordinator --- had made a decision that one of the initial uses of ArcIMS in Coconut Creek would be as a vehicle giving residents access, via Coconut Creek's website, to information about city utilities and engineering "projects" which those residents had observed in their neighborhood.
Esri'S virtual Campus course Learning ArcIMS contains specific advice as to the early stages of establishing an ArcIMS Web Site. It states that as soon as a "MapService" is created, the author should envision the website that will present the desired geographic data. The module further suggests that the author should be careful to define the functions that are intended to be made available to the end-users. The foregoing language was adapted from Module 3, "Designing ArcIMS Websites."
It has been suggested that in this city, the functions intended to be thus available to resident/end-users would include the following: - Increase the interactive-function of the pre-existing Coconut Creek website's datasets as to Park locations, Zoning districts, Voting precincts, & Flood zones; - Identify new city projects, being undertaken by private contractors who have been awarded permits by the city of Coconut Creek; - Provide information as to the status (% of completions, plus permit-information) as to the foregoing city projects; - Query Coconut Creek's GIS database to retrieve information as to specific municipal-infrastructure issues.
The above query-functions made available to residents on the internet, need not resemble in any way the convoluted SQL-expressions employed by GIS practitioners: ArcIMS' toolbar features a FIND button ("binoculars" symbol) that can be used to query a spatial-database for records.
ArcIMS' Find button performs a case sensitive search in the attribute table. The existing City Of Coconut Creek website does feature an Edit>Find function that opens a "Find/What" dialog box. However the dialog box is not linked with any of the four maps already displayed on the website.
If a GIS practitioner/author wishes city residents, who are end-users of a website displaying municipal maps, to have access to ArcIMS' Search button (for "stored" queries) it will have been necessary for such stored-query to have been created in the map-configuration file during the "authoring-process." The default situation will be a grayed-out or inactive button for the search function. For more discussion, see Esri's Learning ArcIMS Virtual Campus course, in its "Designing ArcIMS Websites" lesson.
In ArcIMS, both the Find and the Search inquiries, are considered part of the Query-process. A further reference for the foregoing would be the "Working with ArcIMS Administrator/types of virtual servers" lesson within the Learning ArcIMS course, supra. It has been suggested that it is good practice for an ArcIMS author to use ArcIMS' "Administrator" to monitor or track the response-times that his/her clients encounter when they submit requests via Find or Search.
The above response-times can be defined or measured as the time interval between when the resident submits the request until a new map is "displayed." The foregoing information can be found in Virtual-server logfiles, & read with a "text-editor" like Notepad. Supra.
The subject matter of the previously cited queries could well involve elements of the city's water, sanitary-sewer, and stormwater drainage systems. Such infrastructure would include --- among other items --- the following features: watermains, valves, hydrants, manholes, forcemains, lift-stations, culverts, canal systems, stormwater drainpipes, as well as the relationship of such infrastructure to parcel boundaries and road right-of-ways.
The capture and delineation of many of the foregoing features in Coconut Creek, had been originally generated in CAD. The same were subsequently re-created in Arcinfo due to the large error in horizontal position. Moreover, due to the inconsistent methodolgy inherent in the city's CAD-layer creation (digitized paper-maps, digitzed georeferenced Aereal Photography, or clipped surveyor files - subjected to proration of errors and distortions, etc.), most of these features have been further mapped and stored in a personal Geodatabase.
Due to the complexity of the aforementioned vector data, a "Feature-MapService" (through a Java Standard or Java Custom template) would be an appropriate selection for display of those objects. Currently, the Coconut Creek GIS division exports such data from a personal geodatabase to shapefiles, using ArcTOOLBOX. However, it's anticipated that future releases of ArcIMS will support the export of such data.
Several sources, including the Esri internet modules entitled Learning ArcIMS, have suggested that one of the important considerations in designing a website using a Feature MapService is a sophisticated & informed prediction as to what approximate percentage of end-users, or residents, may already be equipped with --- or be willing to acquire --- a Java-based system in order to have access to geographic data delivered via a FEATURE MapService.
The Esri module further reminds authors of websites, that for Feature MapServices, the end-users must not only have access to a "Java2 plug-in," but must also be able to support Java-applets on their Web browser. The reference for the foregoing is Esri's Learning ArcIMS virtual campus course, Module 3 "Designing ArcIMS Websites/creating an ArcIMS website."
Learning ArcIMS, Esri's virtual campus course, implies that a question such as HOW MANY HYDRANTS ARE WITHIN ONE-HALF MILE OF MY STORE, is easily answered through use of ArcIMS' Buffer-button, once a selection-set has been created or defined. Furthermore, with Java viewers, the Attributes button gives the end-users access to minute examination of the values of the returned set.
The easiest & most basic attribute-inquiry for Coconut Creek end-users would be through the use of the Map Tips button, where the user is afforded almost immediate access to data, by simply moving the curser over a feature. This function is available only in a Feature MapService supported by a Java viewer, which is a further argument for the city selecting that kind of map service(s), as opposed to an Image MapService.
Regarding the emphasis on the utilization of the Map Tips function which this author suggests, it is arguable that on a city's first major foray into providing residential end-users with an interactive geographic-information interface, it will be appropriate to equip those users with the most basic & quickest means possible to access data - at least initially. Additional discussion of this general subject is available in Esri's Learning ArcIMS in the lesson entitled "Working with ArcIMS Administrator/manage map services and site configurations."
Apart from specific inquiries through the several tiers of ArcIMS' query functions, it's entirely possible that some concerned Coconut Creek residents may wish to offer suggestions to managers at cityhall or to the GIS division (as to ways to improve or increase geographic-information services), by taking advantage of the Edit Notes button on the main toolbar. Such submissions can only be viewed with ArcIMS Administrator.
The above suggestions can be site/specific, and the end-user can select a particular feature as the subject of the Edit Note suggestion. This function is likewise available only for Java viewers using a Feature MapService, which adds to the list of advantages of such a map service for use by the City Of Coconut Creek in providing GIS --- facilitated by ArcIMS --- on its website (as opposed to choosing or employing Image MapServices).
Response of the GIS division: the practitioners verified that the first line of the AXL file read '' per the Esri Online Support Center ('single-quotes were ADDED [here], only to set-off and enclose the required line').
Often, the problem was due to corruption of file paths in the aimsdefaults properties file. When encountering error-messages involving the ArcIMS "default-properties" file (aimsdefaults.properties), the user is offered minimal guidance as to the actual source of the stoppage, as in "Web Browser Incorrectly Set In Aimsdefaults.properties." In many cases, the particular application has to be temporarily abandoned.
The AXL file was further checked for misspelled AXL keywords. However, ultimately, the above performance-lag was cured only by GIS' parent-Department ("Information Systems") re-starting its server.
Much of Coconut Creek's geographical-information is stored in the form, or format, of themes & projects: it is apparent that future releases of ArcIMS will continue to limit data sources for map configuration files to only shapefiles or images. Expansion of the data source types available to an ArcIMS map configuration file, will be possible only through additional software, specifically, an ArcMap Server.
Historically, one of the primary uses of geographic information systems in Coconut Creek (FL) has been the display of water, wastewater, stormwater-drainage, and --- occasionally --- "fuel-storage" infrastructure (most, or all, of which, was orignally archived in "AsBuilt" drawings & plans).
Articulately depicting the above, as point & line symbols (such as hydrants, valves, watermains, lift-stations, sewerlines, culverts, and underground storage-tanks), requires more than the 5 symbol classes allowed in ArcIMS 3.1's Layer-properties>Unique Values. Otherwise, the infrastructure groupings desinged to be diplayed or analyzed in a given Coconut Creek project, will have to be reclassified, redefined or reduced.
It is quite possible that even future releases of ArcIMS may not be able to provide access to complex symbology (as to points, lines, & polygons) to better accomodate multiple clases of infrastructure, outside of resort to an ArcMap Server framework involving additional licensing & costs.
A more positive and optimistic scenario involves the upgrading of the somewhat limited control previously available in ArcIMS, upon display of polygon data, especially with regard to assignment of graduated color: ArcIMS' most recent release, ArcIMS 4.0, does provide the user with more options in displaying ranges of class categories, and this is of great significance when trying to display the % completion categories of the status of engineering projects in Coconut Creek's EngProjStatus file.
When selecting shapefiles to be used in creating map configuration files, the error message "Data sources with duplicate field names are not allowed and will not appear in the Catalog" was frquently encountered during the planning stages of the project.
The GIS division's response: since the above message will not indicate which shapefile(s) contain the repeated or redundant FIELD name, all of the Columns of each recruited shapefile were examined, and the Column bearing the duplicate name was deleted, & then recreated if necesary.
This problem can arise when Field names are initially too long, and --- therefore when truncated --- the then abbreviated names become indistinguishable from similarly-spelled fields. It is suggested that shapefile Field names be limited to not much more than 6 characters, or else the GIS practitioner runs the risk that the entire Column may have to be deleted to cure the defect, due to the problems inherent in struggling to change a shapefile's Field name.
The intent of this paper, from its inception, has been to serve as a reference guide for the City Of Coconut Creek (FL) wishing to achieve a fully functional citywide ("Enterprise") geographic-information system, supported by ArcIMS software applications.
In order to actually constitute a city-wide program, the consumption of GIS products & services should be available not only to the city's engineers, planners, & other officers at Coconut Creek cityhall, but to all departments situate in those buildings comprising the Coconut Creek (FL) Government Center, as well as to all those city residents having an interest in viewing geographic-information, deliverable via ArcIMS.
And it is indeed apparent that the most important key in developing a successful Enterprise-GIS, is being able to "link" to data maintained by Departments and divisions, other than GIS.
Using ArcIMS, ArcIMS 3, Copyright © 2000, 2001 Esri, 380 New York Street, Redlands CA 92373-8100.
Using ArcIMS, ArcIMS 4, Copyright © 2000-2002 Esri, 380 New York street, Redlands CA 92373-8100.
Esri virtual campus course Learning ArcIMS, consisting of 6 learning modules: "http://campus.Esri.com/campus."