ESRI ArcGIS User Workshop - Jan 2020 in San Francisco

Wow! It’s been awhile since I posted. That’s because Fall semester was a full one. I’ll update you all on that soon - it basically will be a summary of using Pro for class, which was terrific.

OK on to the workshop.

We started with the inspirational video showcased at 2019 ESRI User Conference, and a video welcome from JD. The theme of the workshop is “Amplify your GIS”, and he introduced the new concept “geospatial infrastructure” also developed in hot-off-the-presses paper with Michael Goodchild. All the ESRI GIS world is referred to as the Esri Geospatial Cloud, and a new key component are the geo-enabled workflows.

What’s New in ArcGIS. There is lots of new stuff in Pro: coding, visualizations, editing workflows; new stuff in AGOL, primarily the new Map Viewer (Beta); and new stuff in the Solutions Workflows. Highlights for me include:

What’s new in ArcGIS Pro – Professional GIS

• Pro Extensions

  • New extension is LocateXT – unstructured data

• New in Editor

  • Find and replace in the attribute table

  • Contingent values within Domains

  • Using Arcade for things like automatic calculation of attributes. They suggest we check it out

• New in Visualization tools

  • Feature binning via the enable Feature Binning tool

  • Opens a new tab on the ribbon, creates dynamic polygons summarizing features found within. e.g. for large point datasets symbolized in hexagons

  • Match Layer Symbology to a Style: Quick way to have different styles  

  • The “Calendar Heat Chart” for data with temporal data

  • You can pie charts to polygon features, changing input and making pie charts variable; and make into 3D

• New in Coding/Tools"

  • In 2.5, you can schedule your geoprocessing tools. WHAT?

  • You can turn geoprocessing history directly into a script, or Export model to a python file, or Export geoprocessing history directly to python

  • In 2.5, jupyter notebook can be run directly in Pro (from “Notebooks”) in the Catalog

• Sharing

  • New Layouts: Import Layout Gallery: 12 default templates within a Gallery. You can add your own.

  • Printing: Printing is now done in the background; you can print in black and white; you can tile your larger maps.

  • Password protect your pdfs

  • New format: AIX files for Adobe Illustrator

  • Text boxes: you can now change the shape of your text boxes – reshape along a complex boundary, e.g.

What’s new in ArcGIS Online

• Map Viewer Beta is the new thing

  • New Layout, with symbolization by field, by expression, (using Arcade) and filter data; New dot density symbolization choice;

  • More control over look and field of pop-ups (yay!), including adding text and images. Dynamic changes, yay!

  • Plus some slick links to Story Maps

What’s new in ArcGIS Solution Workflows

• Showed us some great stuff from the Conservation Easement Solutions Workflow – migration from a paper-based solution to a digital workflow. There are many other examples

• Use the ArcGIS Solution Deployment Tool

What’s new in ArcGIS for Developers

• ESRI continues its work to extend the platform through:

  • Javascript API

  • App Builders – Web AppBuilder (new is Experience Builder, which is in beta testing now)

  • Some other stuff that I wasn’t fast enough to capture. But looks good.

Example GIS workflows

The presenters walked us through a few key sectors using GIS. Some great stuff came out for me to explore, including:

GIS for law enforcement

• There is a “Crime Analysis” toolbar, BTW. Free and added to the ribbon. It contains lots of crime-relevant tools and some ways to efficiently update data from tables

• The “Import Records Tool” seems very useful for anyone using large tabular data that updates regularly.

• Apparently ESRI has quite a few staff/engineers with law enforcement backgrounds who have built most of these tools.

Public Works

• Showed QuickCapture as an easy workflow to capture information about the condition of streets.

• Once you have your problem areas, you can route them in AGOL via the “Plan Routes” Tool (uses credits!) in AGOL.

• Those routes are used with the “Navigator” tool, and integrated with the “Tracker” app

AutoCad integration: you can now edit an ArcGIS hosted feature service in AutoCad. This is a big deal.

Parcel Editing and Parcel Fabric

• Showcased the Parcel Fabric Administration, and Parcel Tasks

  • Parcel Fabric keeps track of all actions.

  • Update COGO; updates all the directions, areas, etc.

Planning

• This is where ESRI has been building the Urban Solution Workflow

• We’ve seen this example before at the 2019 ESRI UC; it’s from Boston, discussing planning for a new high rise building and its potential shading of Boston Common.

Lots of stuff to follow up on for IGIS and for projects. Happy 2020.

Read more