Tags
arcgis, cloud, data, database, esri, GIS, network-rules, stewardship, utility-network
In the past, “doing GIS” was a back office function of a “GIS person.” The issue with this scenario is the GIS function is forced into gate keeping more resembling a prison warden for GIS data. A warden is a person responsible for the supervision of a particular place or thing or for ensuring that regulations associated with it are obeyed (Google define). This is understandable as it takes careful planning to bring together valuable data with database limitations, topology limitations, and dissemination limitations without introducing errors or inaccuracies. It is easier to lock down the data so it doesn’t get screwed up than try and fix it after the fact. This scenario has traditionally limited the potential value of the data by make the data more rigid and less flexible for meeting the everchanging needs of an organization.
A steward, on the other hand, is a person who looks after the passengers on a ship, aircraft, or train and brings them meals (Google define). I try to think of the GIS function as a stewardship where the data is brought to the users while also being protected from errors. This is also a tricky feat. Two tricks have made this feat more accessible: database versioning and the ArcGIS Utility Network.
Database versioning allows the GIS data steward to unlock data editing to the end users while capturing those edits into versions separate from the default version for quality control. This helps in a large way by distributing the editing efforts and making the data more fluid, but still places the onerous tasks of data quality on the GIS data steward. The ArcGIS Utility Network takes data stewardship one step further by introducing network rules (in addition to topology rules) to distribute data quality as well as editing.
Distributed data quality? This shifts the responsibility of data quality to the end users as well. Now the GIS data steward can decide beforehand the level of data quality required of the end users by setting up network rules that must be maintained by editors. The network rules help define not only where assets connect to a network, but how assets connect to a network. Data edits must pass validation by the network rules to be added to the network.
This new scenario creates additional issues. First, end users who edit the data may require additional training to keep the GIS data unlocked. Second, the tools for real-time validation feedback are still in their infancy, which can make editing data more frustrating in the short-term.
When I decided to leave my dream job at the City of Henderson and begin making my new dream job at Provo City, I knew I would need to do more with less. I also doubled down on the longer-term benefits distributed data editing would bring to the organization. We are 3 years into this vision, have migrated the wet utility data into the UN model, and have been successfully editing the UNs in Desktop. We have made the leap to full web service editing, in the cloud nonetheless. The performance so far has improved, however, we still have a long way to go to transition editing tasks away from Desktop and automating validation and version management. These are on the road map and anxiously awaiting their turn!