Indoor GIS 101: Essential Esri Academy Courses for Smarter Campus Operations
From the blogs written in this space, it is obvious that GIS plays a key role in facilities management and optimizing campus operations. GIS is vast though, and there are so many different components and parts to it that can enhance and improve your work and overall experience whether it is students, staff, and faculty.
When you think of maps, you think of the outdoors, letting students and faculty know where the buildings are. Think about the complexities within those buildings, hundreds of classrooms, offices, restrooms, etc. Indoor GIS is key to smarter facility management, improved space management, enhanced safety, and easier navigation to name a few.
Examples and success stories are great, but how do you get started with indoor mapping let alone ArcGIS Indoors? Esri Academy is the answer!
In this blog post, I highlight specific training plans offered by Esri Academy to start learning about indoor GIS and ArcGIS Indoors as well as how to implement it within your college campus.
ArcGIS Indoors Fundamentals
This 7-course learning plan will guide you through creating, customizing, and sharing smart building maps and location data in ArcGIS Indoors.
You will complete courses from learning about the basics to loading floor plan data and deploying Indoor viewer and mobile apps.
You will gain real-world experience with tools and workflows used to integrate CAD, BIM, and GIS data, and manage indoor data over time.
This learning plan is composed of courses that require a maintenance subscription or payment. If you have a product that includes a current Esri maintenance subscription, such as ArcGIS for Personal Use or ArcGIS for Student Use, you have unlimited access to all e-Learning. If you do not have a product with maintenance but you work for or attend school at an organization that does, your organization’s My Esri or ArcGIS Online administrator can enable access for you.
Get started with ArcGIS Indoor Fundamentals
PRO TIP: Learning plans do not have to be completed in one sitting, and you do not have to take all the courses – they are considered a logical order to help you learn the topic and understand key skills.
Building Floor-aware Maps with ArcGIS Indoors
In just under 50 minutes, this training seminar will help you get introduced to ArcGIS Indoors.
The presenter will discuss supported capabilities, components and architecture, system prerequisites, and key terminology.
You will view demonstrations on how to design floor aware maps, leveraging Indoors product data, and deploying Indoors apps.
PRO TIP: This seminar includes demonstrations, where you get the chance to view an expert perform workflows. You can try to apply these workflows in your own projects or view them as many times as you want!
Getting Started with ArcGIS Indoors for AutoCAD
This training seminar introduces ArcGIS Indoors for AutoCAD, an extension to help ArcGIS for AutoCAD users prepare CAD floor plans for use with ArcGIS Indoors.
Demonstrations include accessing and configuring ArcGIS Indoors for AutoCAD and generating and reviewing results.
PRO TIP: Training seminars are videos, you can view them as needed! Space it out over a few days with breaks or view it in one sitting—you can even rewatch the seminars! The full content is there regardless of how and when you view it.
Introduction to Indoor Mapping Using ArcGIS Indoors
This is an instructor-led course taught by an expert Esri instructor over the course of two days where you will be introduced to key workflows to deploy ArcGIS Indoors. This is our flagship offering to learn about ArcGIS Indoors and requires payment to attend – this allows you to have facetime with an instructor who can answer questions and help you through workflows that are taught in rea- time.
By the end of the course, you should be able to:
Import georeferenced CAD and BIM floor plan data or LAS data into an ArcGIS Indoors geodatabase.
- Build a routable indoor network that supports wayfinding using ArcGIS Indoors apps.
- Create floor-aware maps and 3D scenes.
Register for this instructor-led course
PRO TIP: The instructors encourage participation, and they genuinely want you to ask questions—it makes the experience better for everyone. Be ready to actively listen and share!
University Case Studies
Here are some lighthouse examples of colleges and universities deploying ArcGIS Indoors to improve campus operations as well as student experience:
- Rutgers University | ArcGIS Demystifies a Baffling Building
- Austin Community College | Students Find Their Way with Indoor GIS
- The Henry Ford Museum | ArcGIS Indoors Pilot Project and Workflow Analysis
- BYU Idaho | Optimizing Campus Space Planning and Asset Tracking with ArcGIS Indoors
Comment below if there are other courses you have found helpful in implementing indoor mapping at your college campus.
Feel free to browse Esri Academy on our main website and search through our catalog of courses, learning plans, seminars, and more.