Use ArcGIS Online to Manage Your Own Custom Map Gallery

Here is a link to a super post by ESRI's Keith Mann in the Fall 2011 edition of ArcUser magazine that provides a tutorial on how to customize your Map Gallery on ArcGIS Online.  This should help organizations bring their own look and feel to what is an otherwise bland map gallery provided by ESRI at ArcGIS Online.  The ability to customize should help us who use ArcGIS Online eavery day to bring our own flavor to our ESRI hosted maps.  Kudos to ESRI for providing the capability to customize our ArcGIS Online galleries.

Update to the Route 66 Community Map

Made an update to the Route 66 Community Map located here:  Link.  This new map includes links to photos for the Illinois Route 66 Places.  I will be working on the Missouri Route 66 Places next.  Please send me your favorite places if you want to see them included on the Route 66 Community Map.

Esri's Community Maps Program

Esri has started a Community Maps Program where individuals or organizations can contribute  geographic content to become part of a community map that Esri publishes and hosts online. Your data is integrated with data from other providers and then published through ArcGIS Online as a map service.

This program is available to any Esri user organization and other geographic data providers interested in making their data content broadly available.

Benefits

• Users inside and outside of your organization, including the local business community and the general public will be able to use the online maps with ArcGIS for Desktop, ArcGIS Explorer, ArcGIS for Server Web mapping applications, or a standard Internet Web browser.
• Eliminates the costs associated with making the data widely available, such as setting up and maintaining the infrastructure.
• Map data is hosted and maintained by Esri at one or more data centers in the U.S. to ensure high availability and performance.
• Your organization retains all ownership of its data.
• Access to your map data through an online map.
• Esri can provide the data in ArcGIS for Server map cache format that your organization can publish for internal use with ArcGIS for Server.

Watch a video to learn more about the benefits of participating in the Community Maps Program.

Introduction Of Usage Limits To The Google Maps API

Strange turn of events in my last two blog posts.  In this post Google announces the introduction of usage limits on their Google Maps API.  This post comes just after the ESRI Insider post highlighting ESRI's effort to offer free web-based GIS For Everyone by Anyone.  Google has made their pile of money through advertizing while offering free services to their many users, and ESRI has made their pile of money through very high priced, but incredibly good, mapping software.  These two posts are opposite of what I would expect.  Kudos to ESRI on making crowd sourcing and community mapping a new part of their corporate direction.  They have talked about it for years and now they have done something about it.  Congrats to Bern Szukalski and the ArcGIS Online Team.

Google has made some changes to their Google Maps API Terms of Service.  Google has added usage limits to the free API and will begin charging for usage that exceeds the limits.  I hope they will reverse this policy now that ESRI'sArcGIS Online offers capabilities similar to those of Google Maps.  Competition is a good thing, something that Google excels at.  Who would have thought with the history of both companies that Google would be charging for a service similar to one that ESRI offers for free.

Here is the entire GeoDeveloper Blog post as written by Thor Mitchell:

When the Maps API Terms of Service were updated in April of this year we announced that usage limits would be introduced to the Maps API starting on October 1st. With October upon us, I’d like to provide an update on how these limits are being introduced, and the impact it will have on your Maps API sites.

The usage limits that now apply to Maps API sites are documented in the Maps API FAQ. However no site exceeding these limits will stop working immediately. We understand that developers need time to evaluate their usage, determine if they are affected, and respond if necessary. There are three options available for sites that are exceeding the limits:

• Reduce your usage to below the limits
• Opt-in to paying for your excess usage at the rates given in the FAQ
• Purchase a Maps API Premier license

To assist in evaluating whether your site is exceeding the usage limits we will shortly be adding the Maps API to the Google APIs Console. Once available you will be able to track your usage in the APIs Console by providing an APIs Console key when you load the Maps API. If you find that your site does exceed the usage limits each day you can opt to pay for your excess usage by enabling billing on your APIs Console project. We will then start billing excess usage to your credit card when we begin enforcing the usage limits in early 2012.

For very popular sites Maps API Premier is likely to be a more cost effective option. It also offers a number of additional benefits, including terms that permit for-fee and internal use, enterprise technical support, a Service Level Agreement, fixed and invoiced annual pricing, and increased quotas for the Maps API Web Services. For more information on how Maps API Premier could benefit your application please contact the Sales team using this form.

We will announce the availability of the Maps APIs in the APIs Console on this blog later this quarter, and provide more details on how to set up an APIs Console account and update your Maps API application with an APIs Console key. We will also provide at least 30 days notice on this blog before enforcement of the usage limits and billing for excess usage begins.

We understand that the introduction of these limits may be concerning. However with the continued growth in adoption of the Maps API we need to secure its long term future by ensuring that even when used by the highest volume for-profit sites, the service remains viable. By introducing these limits we are ensuring that Google can continue to offer the Maps API for free to the vast majority of developers for many years to come.

Posted by Thor Mitchell, Product Manager, Google Maps API

Esri Insider : GIS for Everyone, by Anyone

Great post on the ESRI insider Blog by Bern Szukalski on the benefits and simplicity of using ArcGIS Online to create web-based map templates.

Here is the post in its entirity:


Earlier this week I was meeting with one of the directors of a large state agency. Among other topics we discussed, he told me that his organization was adopting a policy to move away from custom application development. Whenever possible they would serve internal and public needs with off-the-shelf applications, or better yet, with those that can be easily custom-configured without the need for programming.

When asked why, he explained the last custom application they'd deployed had to be abandoned - the programmer had left for another job, had taken knowledge of its internal workings with him, and they were unable to hire (because of budget constraints) the programming expertise needed to make the necessary updates to the application.

What color is your parachute?

This same sentiment was echoed while I was visiting with a user in Florida earlier this year. They'd also been stung when several programmers left, leaving behind a key public application that they could no longer maintain.

But before I incur the wrath of developers everywhere, it's often the case that a totally custom application is the only way to provide a finely tuned user experience, or bring into play additional capabilities and components that are essential to the target user. You can only go so far with a configurable application. Nevertheless, configurable applications are easy to maintain and deploy, can be created more quickly and easily than ever before, and perhaps most importantly can be built by just about anyone.

For example, using ArcGIS Online I can assemble a map and configure how the user interacts with it, including choosing from a variety of basemaps, adding my operational layers, adjusting layer transparency, setting display scales, and also configuring what the user sees and experiences in the pop-up window when they click a map feature.

This easily authored webmap is now a building block that can be used in configurable templates that can be published directly from ArcGIS Online (see this blog post for more details), providing the ability to build a custom-configured application and deploy it literally in a matter of minutes.

In the past, doing all of the above and lifting something by coding from the ground-up would have taken a long time and a lot of skill.

A custom-configured application being authored with an ArcGIS Online map. Simply fill in the blanks and check the boxes to include the tools you want.

For more customized and extensible solutions, ArcGIS Viewer for Flex has been popular among Esri users since its introduction, and there is also a configurable ArcGIS Viewer for Silverlight, currently in beta, that leverages the same webmaps and offers the same ease of configuration; both allow you to build custom applications with little or no programming skills.

The ArcGIS Viewer for Silverlight application builder even lets you plug-in geoprocessing tools to extend the applicaton's capabilities.

While visiting a local government user a few months ago, I spoke with one of the GIS staff members who had been building a custom application using ArcGIS Viewer for Flex. He said he had chosen it not because he was particularly interested in Flex, but because he found it very easy to create a custom application even though he was not a programmer himself.

"Esri has always built great developer tools for programmers and software for the GIS professional," he told me. "My problem is I want to reach non-GIS users in my organization and post some public-facing apps. Now for the first time I feel empowered. Even I can build custom applications."

It's clear that it's easier than ever for anyone to build simple custom applications, and all you need is a browser or a text editor. "This isn't just GIS for everyone," he went on to say. "It's GISby anyone."

I couldn't agree more.

By: Bern Szukalski

New Route 66 Community Map Added to ArcGIS Online

We finished digitizing the primary Route 66 highway from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California on ArcGIS Online.  You can see the map on ArcGIS Online at:  http://bit.ly/ouLaKV or view it from the applet below.

The entire route is digitized along with selected roadside attractions along the route in Illinois.  We would like to solicit your favorite content (places, pictures, postcards, etc) from places along the route.  If you have content you would like to see added to the map please let us know at rick.marshall@verticalgeo.com

You can follow the progress on the Route 66 Community Map on our Digital Route 66 Blog located at: digitalroute66.blogspot.com/


View Larger Map

ESRI TV: What's New in ArcGIS Online

ESRI just released the latest in their ESRI TV video services.  The latest shows us "What's New in ArcGIS Online."  I really like the capability ArcGIS Online brings to those who don't have a server to publish their work online.  I think as this capability matures it will help ESRI catch up to the head start they have given Google Earth and Google Maps.  It is very interesting to see the race to capture the "economy and power of free." 

What's New in ArcGIS Online (September 2011)

ESRI's Bern Szukalski posted the "What's New in ArcGIS Online" last month in the ArcGIS Online Blog, Lots of great capability coming in ArcGIS Online. I have worked with ESRI products long enough to know that I am banking on ArcGIS Online becoming the best way to display and share geospatial data online for those of us trying to work without a web server.   They have made some great strides in the short amount of time ArcGIS Online has been up and running, and it seems as though they are listening to their customers.  ESRI seems interested in trying to build "mapping communities" rather than just map users. I believe ArcGIS Online goes a long way to building this capability. 

Building an Online Mapping Community

I really like what ESRI has been doing over the last year or so with ArcGIS Online.  I believe they underestimated the value and power of an online collaborative mapping community and were surprised by the popularity of the Google Earth Community.  The last couple of years at their International User Conferences ESRI has been pushing very hard to catch up and create an online collaborative mapping community platform of their own.  I think ArcGIS Online can fill this niche well.  It is nice to see ESRI put resources and effort into this capability.  I have heard ESRI talk for the last couple of years about how important it is to harness the power of crowd sourcing so that everyone can contribute content and create maps, but the price of their software was prohibiting that from happening.  They produce state-of-the-art mapping software, but it is professionally targeted and beyond the ability of the mapping hobbiest to pay for.  What ESRI has done with ArcGIS Online is provide significant mapping capability within the reach of all people.

I have been using ArcGIS Online extensively over the last couple of months and I believe ESRI has created a great collaborative mapping platform.  We are using ArcGIS Online as the platform to host our first online mapping community, the Route 66 Mappers.  I have posted the map of Illinois segment of Route 66 on ArcGIS Online and plan to develop the route from Chicago to Santa Monica via a community format through ArcGIS Online.

Community mapping is a powerful medium to share data in an online environment.  But beyond that, Google Earth has shown us the incredible capability and significant amount of information crowd sourcing can provide.  What ESRI does through ArcGIS Online does that Google through Google Earth can't do is bring professional mappers (GIS Professionals) and collaborative sourcing together into one mapping community. I think ESRI has hit a homerun with ArcGIS Online.

VerticalGeo plans to develop several online mapping communities and leverage ArcGIS Online as the platform for all of them.  No one is more passionate about what they do for a living that GIS Professionals, that is why ESRI's User Conferences continue to grow so quickly.  I am eager to see what projects can be done with this platform.

Route 66 Collaborative Map Effort

VerticalGeo has started a Route 66 Collaborative Map on ArcGIS Online. Please help us by contributing your content to the Route 66 map. So far we have only completed the Illinois portion of Route 66, but we will be adding more segments as we complete them. You can see the contents of the map below or on the Route 66 Project Page in the VerticalGeo website. If you would like to contribute you can use ArcGIS Online to add content. The editable version of this map can be found on ArcGIS Online at: http://bit.ly/r7yW2e


View Larger Map

The Future of Cloud-based GIS Analysis with ArcGIS Online

Last August the ESRI Insider posted Bern Szukalski's ideas on the future of cloud-based GIS analysis.  We heard some of this during this summer's ESRI User Conference, but it is good to see it put in writing.  Here is the post:

The cloud is growing in importance for GIS professionals, with cost efficiency, scalability, and flexibility as major drivers. We can see the beginnings of cloud options for many organizations with the ability to run ArcGIS Server in the cloud and also via Esri's managed services in the cloud.

On a similar, but yet somewhat different and exciting frontier, ArcGIS Online is a key part of the Esri vision for ArcGIS in the cloud. However, up until recently the focus for ArcGIS Online has been on the data part of GIS - making and sharing maps, apps, and other resources, and organizing online communities.

At the 2011 Esri International User Conference we introduced new ArcGIS Online capabilities - hosted services from Esri that enable anyone, not just GIS professionals, to be able to publish Web services using CSV files, shapefiles, and other sources. These capabilities also enable GIS users to publish maps via hosted services directly in the cloud from their ArcGIS Desktop, leveraging data in their enterprise and making ArcGIS Desktop the premier dashboard for Web publishing.

Currently in closed beta, these emerging ArcGIS Online capabilities will enable anyone to publish geographic information in an efficient, scalable, and cost-effective manner. And perhaps most importantly, they will make publishing GIS services that can be accessed by anyone easier than ever before.

During the Esri User Conference plenary Jack Dangermond spoke about the evolution of ArcGIS Online, and Jeremy Bartley and I demonstrated new capabilities that included publishing web services directly via ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Desktop:

As significant as these capabilities are, they are focused on publishing maps and layers. But what about the ability to use ready-to-run geoprocessing tools and perform analysis via the cloud? 

To answer that question, here's an Esri Insider peek at some very exciting work in progress from the ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Explorer Online development teams. Below is a screen capture showing the current development version of ArcGIS Explorer Online using cloud-based buffer and clip services to find the locations of wells within 200 meters of any stream:

The capabilities will include a long list of what could be described as "classic" ArcGIS capabilities, before only available to GIS professionals but soon offered via cloud-based services to non-GIS professionals alike. These promise to change how ArcGIS can be used, leveraging GIS throughout existing organizations and empowering many new users with GIS capabilities.

These capabilities will also be available in a variety of applications including the built-in ArcGIS.com map viewer, configurable Flex and Silverlight applications, and Web APIs. Stay tuned for more announcements over the next few months.

By Bern Szukalski