"So... do I need ArcGIS Indoors to have an 'Indoor GIS'?"

[BrianBaldwin]

UPDATE 1/4/2022: The Esri development team has been working to standardize the way that 'floor awareness' is implemented across products. As of the latest build of Field Maps (Dec. 2021), 'floor awareness' is now recognized when it is part of the web map definition. To enable a web map for floor awareness, users need to license ArcGIS Indoors and set the properties for the Floor Field in the map settings. The use of ArcGIS Dashboard for 'floor aware' filters as described in this blog is still applicable. If you have been detrimentally impacted by this change, please reach out to me directly via e-mail: bbaldwin@esri.com.

"Do I need ArcGIS Indoors to have an indoor GIS?" I have heard this question fairly frequently from users and the short answer is 'no'. You do not 'need' ArcGIS Indoors to create an 'indoor GIS' for your campus or university. The long answer is... it all depends on what you are trying to do. ArcGIS Indoors offers a wealth of capabilities (native mobile app, space planner app, robust data model, data importation tools, etc.), but for users that just need a very basic 'indoor GIS', it might be too much.

The goal of this technical blog is to walk users through how they can start using an 'indoor basic' data model that can allow them to:

• Create an asset viewer/finder with ArcGIS Dashboards that is building and floor aware
• Use ArcGIS Field Maps with floor awareness for buildings and assets as a mobile viewer
• Capture floor aware asset information using ArcGIS Field Maps
• Automate the updating of your 'non-floor aware' features with ArcGIS Notebooks

A video demonstration to accompany this blog can be found here: Basic Campus Indoor GIS

Getting Started: The Schema

To get started,  I highly recommend reading through this documentation. This lays out the required fields and schema for creating a basic indoor data model that will work with Field Maps : https://doc.arcgis.com/en/field-maps/android/help/indoors.htm

If you are feeling really lazy, you could download this Pro Project, which has the schema described in the documentation above already built out: https://arcg.is/1ey8Ca

Or - if you want something a little more robust, you can grab this ArcGIS Indoors basic data model: https://arcg.is/05PWn5

The one thing I would recommend - is adding some domains to your data. If you want to collect assets, or any additional data, ensuring that your floors and buildings are defined with domains will help a lot.

Also - along with the 'LEVEL_ID' field that is required for your additional assets/features to have floor awareness. I would recommend adding individual Building and Floor fields. This will allow you to have better filtering options in ArcGIS Dashboard. This is also how we will be automating the creation of the LEVEL_ID attributes with the ArcGIS Notebook.

Floor Aware Dashboard

Using ArcGIS Dashboard, you can take the standard schema and layers and create a powerful and flexible, interior space viewer.

The only ‘trick’ to employ, is some of the nested filtering that is possible with ArcGIS Dashboards.

The dashboard below uses the selectors found as part of the Header widget, to allow filtering across buildings, floors, and assets.

After adding a Header, you then have the ability to add 'Category Selectors', which can be configured to provide cascading filters for your features.

So - after selecting 'Baldwin' as the building, the floors selector shows only the floors that are found in that building. Then, after selecting '2nd Floor', I am filtering for only those AED's that are on the 2nd Floor of Baldwin Science.

This dashboard is obviously quite basic. Yet, the same filtering logic could be applied to multiple assets, CAD floor plans, rooms, etc., to create a robust indoor asset viewer/finder.

Field Maps - Floor Aware Viewing and Data Collection

Out of the box - ArcGIS Field Maps has floor awareness (as long as your schema is right).

If you want to enable searching by facility name, or contact name, those options can be configured in the 'map options'. Also, if you wanted to have the ability to capture 'floor aware' asset information, this is where creating domains for both the building and floor attributes is crucial.

Automate Floor Aware Feature Creation

There is currently no attribute rule functionality with ArcGIS Online (as of 6/30/2021) to build out a rule that could then calculate values on the fly. Also, the 'LEVEL_ID' data is a little cumbersome to build out as a domain because it has values for both building and floor. So, the workaround is to use ArcGIS Notebooks to concatenate your building and floor values, to create the standard 'LEVEL_ID' values that are required for Field Maps.

Here is a sample ArcGIS Notebook that I created to update my AED feature layer. Basically, it looks for any features where the FLOOR_ID attribute is blank… and populates it.

This script is kind of lame (not very pythonic) in the fact that it updates a record at a time… but it works, and it shows you the basics of scheduling an update.

• ArcGIS Notebook - AED Update - https://arcg.is/zGiK4

Most of the notebook above was pulled from this excellent documentation which I highly recommend reading through:

• Editing Features with ArcGIS Notebooks - https://developers.arcgis.com/python/guide/editing-features/

Conclusion

I am really excited to see what others put together with this basic indoor data model. There is so much that can be done with indoor GIS and the configurable tools and applications that are currently available to users. When the time comes for an enterprise solution, ArcGIS Indoors is there, but a basic indoor configuration can meet a wide range of needs.

A video demonstration to accompany this blog can be found here: Basic Campus Indoor GIS

[ChelseaRozek]

Thanks for this excellent blog post. I'm trying to get it to work to show my colleagues the benefits of an indoor GIS. When I publish your sample data to AGO, add it to a map, and open in Field Maps, I don't see a floor picker. The documentation says making a floor aware map from Pro requires Indoors and making it from AGO requires setting properties I can't see without Indoors. I have the latest (Android) Field Maps, am I missing something?

[AndrewBowne]

As I understand it, as of the the December 2021 release of Field Maps (21.4) you DO in fact need the  Indoors Extension.  If you are fortunate enough to have an earlier release of Field Maps, it should work.  This has been quite a let down for us as we built several workflows for inspections without having the Indoors Extension.  Now, they abruptly do not work. 

[BrianBaldwin]

@JeffShaner- Could you help confirm whether the 'floor aware' capability has been removed from Field Maps as a standard functionality?

[LeviCecil]

The floor picker has disappeared from Field Maps. We have 95 head custodians using Field Maps every day to gather cleaning data for our K-12 schools to meet CDC COVID protocols. They cannot submit this data if they can't locate themselves in the floor plan maps. 

[BrentPierce]

xpost from a similar thread on the early adopter site as some might not have seen this reply

Hi Levi,

Really what's changed is how indoors/floor aware information is stored in a webmap. We wanted to make this less fragile from an implementation perspective and also wanted to offer a level of flexibility to work with other data models. In short, you will need to configure/alter the older webmaps through Pro to declare specific aspects to the data model. This is a good short read which explains the tools and workflow: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/data/indoors/configure-floor-aware-maps.htm. More specifically, you can open your existing webmaps in Pro and update the map properties to declare which feature classes contain "Facility", "Site" and "Floor" information and for each floor aware feature layer in the map, you just have to adjust the layer properties to declare which field is acting as the floor identifier, explained here: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/help/data/indoors/configure-floor-aware-layers.htm

This makes Field Maps and ArcGIS much more flexible because now we can work with any feature class or feature service as long as the appropriate fields are present. Same holds for the floor ID fields.

You will need an Indoors Pro extension in order to be able to use these tools. The bonus is this extension also opens up the floor picker in Pro as well as a number of other tools which will help you maintain your indoors/facility data moving forward. We can certainly work with you and your account manager to get a trial extension setup to make sure this meets your needs.

Hope this helps,
-Brent

[LeviCecil]

Hi Brent. Frankly, this does anything but help. We've been speaking with our rep about an Indoors trial for the last year. The reality is that we will never be able to afford an Indoors license, even with the current K-12 discount. It would cost nearly ten times our entire ArcGIS education site license. This change to Field Maps has disrupted the workflow of nearly 100 staff members. It would be nice if ESRI let customers know when changes like this are going to happen. We're probably going to have to find a non-ESRI solution going forward. To say that we are upset and disappointed by this would be a gross understatement. We worked like dogs to implement this solution during the pandemic to be able to gather data about the cleaning of our schools, and now the rug has been pulled out from under that effort.

This is especially ironic, because I was asked to present this custodial project at the ESRI Developer Summit in March. Now the project is essentially back to the drawing board. 

Happy new year!!

[BrianBaldwin]

@LeviCecil- I just reached out to you via 'personal message', please send me an e-mail: bbaldwin@esri.com

We never want to leave anyone 'out to dry', and it's definitely disappointing for me to hear your awesome story only because we dropped the ball.

We'll work to make this right.

[LeviCecil]

Thank you Brian, I really appreciate that. 

[AndrewBowne]

I too agree with @LeviCecil in feeling “left out to dry”.  We built several workflows using Indoor Field Maps specifically for building and safety inspections.   These have been actively being done on a daily basis.  We had begun building workflows for indoor fire safety inspections when we discovered this change.  Had we known this would be changing, we would not have invested so heavily.   

[CherylTrine]

I will add my voice to the cry of frustration and disappointment.  Last fall my student and I spent a lot of time getting floor plans  into shape to be able to use the floor picker.  While he learned how to create a dashboard that used the floor picker, I worked on a map that was to be used in Field Maps for fire extinguisher inspections.  Once I had the floor picker working in Field Maps, I turned the project over to him to finish.  Only problem; there was no floor picker on his phone! (He installed Field Maps in December; I had installed it several months earlier.)  Since it was almost time for Christmas Break, we decided we would look into the issue when he got back in January.  Now I know it wasn't a faulty install; the floor picker has been made unavailable without an additional fee!  It seems it is always the money!

I had some other building and safety inspection Field Maps in the planning stages, but alas, it appears it is not to be.  As a 1-1/4 person GIS shop, working on a shoestring budget, even with educational discounts, ArcGIS Indoors is not feasible.  It seems its like having to buy a $2000 toolkit in order to get a torque wrench!  Sure, I know ArcGIS Indoors can do all kinds of amazing things, but my school does not have the manpower (nor the money) to do those amazing things at this time.

I hope Esri will reconsider the ramifications.  I had thought that maybe creating maps with floor pickers on Field Maps might ultimately sell the powers that be on ArcGIS Indoors, so they could have floor pickers on portal maps/apps, and I could explore the other amazing things it does.  But, alas!

[LeviCecil]

I couldn't agree more with @CherylTrine. I've been looking at Indoors since it was in beta, but it's just never been a real possibility for us from a cost perspective. We are a large school district with 50000 students and over 100 buildings to manage, and we would be all over Indoors if we could afford it. 

[BrianBaldwin]

@CherylTrine- So sorry to hear about this, I definitely understand the frustration. Unfortunately, I don't think people on siloed teams at Esri understood how this change would impact users or current workflows. You should hear from the product team and your Account Manager soon and if you don't, please reach out to me.

[CherylTrine]

Anyone who has been impacted by this, I recommend contacting their account manager.  The solution my account manager offered is a workable one for me.  I appreciate the Education team's effort to not leave us out in the cold!

[CSDFRADMIN]

I've come across this post yesterday by pure accident after having already thrown Indoors out the window half a year ago when I started developing a internal solution. The goal was to capture occurences of building contaminants. So the majority of Indoors capabilities were not necessary, we were really only looking for the floor filter on Field Maps.

Now to the good news: There is a pretty easy workaround for this issue. It was @BrentPierce's comment that made me think when he wrote, "Really what's changed is how indoors/floor aware information is stored in a webmap." A WebMap after all is just a JSON object. That JSON object's definition is pretty easy to change with ArcGIS' API for Python using the Item object (check out the get_data() and update() methods). Having a short look at the WebMap's specifications you soon find the map's floor info and the layer's floor info. With that in mind, the puzzle for some basic floor awareness on webmaps is soon solved.