The Project Center is a new extension of the Esri online Support Center and one of the Esri Enterprise Solutions team customer support initiatives for enterprise GIS (support.esri.com/projectcenter). The Project Center was released at the 2004 Esri International User Conference and is now available to all users.

The Project Center mission is to provide an enterprise GIS framework and information portal (one-stop shop) to a wide range of GIS information, resources, and Esri services. This portal steps the user through the complete life cycle phases of a successful enterprise GIS project. The framework provides recommended key objectives, in sequential order of completion (start to finish), for each life cycle phase (business solutions, strategies and planning, design and implementation, and production and maintenance).

The Project Center also provides access to both current online resources and available Esri services that can help users at each level of these project phases. The contents include items users need to know when they start their project as well as how to

• Perform effective infrastructure planning.
• Build GIS skill sets and staffing.
• Become interoperable with other enterprise systems.
• Define functional requirements.
• Perform a user needs assessment.
• Determine which data models to use.
• Migrate data and applications.
• Implement using recommended best practices.
• Perform prototype testing and performance validation (using available tools).
• Perform effective production deployment.
• Maintain (by performance monitoring) a successful enterprise GIS implementation.

Please e-mail us with your suggestions; we welcome your comments. For more information, contact Tom Pattison, Esri (e-mail: tpattison@esri.com, tel.: 909-793-2853, ext. 1-1584).