A Recap of the ArcGIS for Local Government Solution in 2012

As the New Year kicks in to high gear, we wanted to take a minute to thank everyone for their participation and feedback in 2012. We really appreciate the ongoing dialog with our local government users and look forward to working with each and every one of you in the near future.  It’s been really exciting to see the community embrace ArcGIS for Local Government and provide feedback that will ultimately make geographic information more valuable in local government.

In 2013, we’re excited to incorporate both your feedback from 2012 and the emerging functionality across the ArcGIS platform into the ArcGIS for Local Government solution. But, before we dive into 2013, let’s take a minute (or a few paragraphs) to recap what we’ve collectively accomplished as a community in 2012.  In the fall of 2012, we crossed the 100,000 download mark and more than 100 maps and apps are now being downloaded every day.  Strong user communities are emerging in each of the Local Government segments which provides us with a tremendous amount of feedback and really help us evolve the content in the solution.

In 2012, we continued to improve the existing maps and apps and we also worked to add new maps and apps to the ArcGIS for Local Government solution.  Here is a quick overview of just a few:

Executive Dashboard: An HTML 5 / JavaScript application used by local government leaders to view critical metrics, identify trends, raise questions, and proactively devise new management strategies.

My Government Services: An HTML 5 / JavaScript application that helps residents locate several different types of government facilities and obtain information about services provided by a government agency.

Pre-Fire Planning: An editing map and set of editing workflows and tools for collecting and managing pre-fire or pre-incident data.

Fire Run Book: A map document and set of tools that can be used to produce individual map pages, a street index, and a Fire Run Book.

Community Addressing:  A web application that allows the general public to contribute missing site address locations and provide citizen contact information for current addresses.

Tax Parcel Viewer: An HTML 5 / JavaScript application that provides the general public and other interested parties local government property tax and assessment information. Additionally, the application supplements tax and assessment information with lifestyle and internet broadband information for a given neighborhood.

Election Polling Place: An HTML 5 / JavaScript application that helps citizens locate their election polling place, provide feedback on conditions at the polling place, and obtain information about current elected officials.

Election Results: An HTML 5 / JavaScript application that provides election results information to the general public and other interested parties.

Flood Planning:  An editing map and set of editing workflows and tools for creating and managing flood response plans.

In addition to expanding the map and app offerings, we launched the 10.1 release of the ArcGIS for Local Government solution.  It included an update to each application and the local government information model that can be used with your ArcGIS 10.1 deployment.   The 10.1 release also marked the start of a consistent release schedule for the solution.

The ArcGIS for Local Government Online Help system was also released in 2012. The help system consolidated documentation previously provided in each download and provides a single destination for documentation you need to deploy the ArcGIS for Local Government solution.

In 2012, Esri Partner offerings played a much larger role in the ArcGIS for Local Government solution. Several Esri Partners have been working with Esri users across the country to implement ArcGIS for Local Government in their organization.  Furthermore, Partners have evolved their application offerings to take advantage of the ArcGIS for Local Government solution and their maps and apps are now a part of our growing ecosystem.

Finally, with a growing collection of applications, we wanted to make it easier for the developer community to access the code base for each application and participate in the development of Esri’s local government apps.  So, we launched a series of ArcGIS for Local Government GitHub repositories to share source code for our web, desktop, and mobile applications.  As a team, we’re using the GitHub platform to manage our development efforts and collaborate with developers inside Esri and across the local government community. We’ve started with eighteen applications and should have the rest of our applications available via GitHub in early 2013.  If you’re not a developer, don’t worry, we will continue to ship supported versions of the ArcGIS for Local Government maps and apps via ArcGIS.com along with this new channel for our developer community.

We are delighted that many of you took the time to download the ArcGIS for Local Government maps and apps, attend the sessions we had at the UC, and provide the team with feedback.   Please continue to use utilize Technical Support for help, use the Forums to provide feedback, and share your experiences with others.   Your contribution will ultimately make the solution more valuable for every local government user.

Well, now that 2012 is a wrap, we’d like to look ahead to 2013 and share our plans for the ArcGIS for Local Government solution in the coming year. Our primary goal for this year will be to continue to support the Community, embrace emerging technology, and to ensure that we continue to make it easier for you to deploy ArcGIS. We are very excited to roll ArcGIS Online into our solution and to show you how to incorporate the vast suite of capabilities that will improve and enhance the offerings you provide.  Keep an eye out for our next post that will focus on the work we are doing with ArcGIS Online.