Gas and Pipeline Blog

Contractor management is a growing need in the natural gas industry. Natural gas utilities need a way to manage contractors and the work that they complete. With ArcGIS, contractors can complete work in the field, attach photos, and have all information available to be accessed within their organization immediately. But how can the gas utility access that information? Check out this blog to learn more about collaborations - Esri's solution to the contractor challenge.

AI has long been a part of the ArcGIS System, making it AI-enabled even before the surge in interest. As conversations around AI continue to grow, this blog will spotlight the innovative ways AI is being integrated within ArcGIS, specifically in Survey123. This is going to be the first part of a three-part blog series that takes these capabilities and talks to them in the context of gas utilities.

Over the past decade, Esri has been progressively integrating AI capabilities into its system, responding to the growing curiosity and demand for AI-driven solutions and capabilities. How can we incorporate AI into workflows? How can AI make my life a little easier? How can AI make me more productive? These are questions we have heard, asked, and continue to answer for our customers.

Interactive, dynamic maps are essential for making complex data accessible and impactful. Infrastructure data is not only complex, but also critical to maintaining the systems we all rely on. One key feature of impactful maps is the use of feature pop-ups. In this blog, I will explore a few examples of how you can configure pop-ups in your web maps to fully leverage the wealth of network data maintained by infrastructure organizations. 

Why Aren’t More Organizations Fully Connecting Esri & Autodesk?

It’s not new, but it’s still rare: the seamless integration of Esri and Autodesk creates a unified digital ecosystem that transforms how teams work together.

The Result:
Faster projects, fewer mistakes, lower costs, and teams empowered to focus on what matters most—not repetitive data wrangling.

If you haven’t fully connected your Esri and Autodesk workflows, you’re missing out on efficiency and clarity that’s already available.

High-level workflow about loading ILI data into ArcGIS.

Starting a GIS or IT project with a gas industry specific data model, lays a foundation for the project to have adherence to the numerous regulations and standards of the natural gas industry. Not any gas industry specific data model will do the job. A desired gas industry data model is one that is maintained. One that has the financial backing and community input to stay current with these never-ending changes. Such a data model is the Utility and Pipeline Data Model (UPDM) provided by Esri.

On every asset inspection is a set of questions about what asset is being inspected. These questions ask the utility mobile worker to enter information such as AssetID, size, and material. These are nuggets of data that the organization already knows. This type of redundant data entry can be eliminated.

Modern utilities face a wide range of goals and challenges that require strategic allocation of resources. Prioritizing how and where to use these resources requires careful analysis of all available information. By integrating both network information and community-focused insights, utilities can ensure their plans are equitable and resilient.

Identifying potential locations of cross-bores, tracking where inspections have occurred and are occurring is a location problem. A location problem that ArcGIS, its analytical and inspections capabilities are well suited to handle.

Field data collection on paper forms has always struggled with defining a location. Too often, the top portion of a paper field data collection form asks the mobile worker a series of questions to describe where they are located. These questions ask for imprecise location descriptions such as state name, county name, city name, service area, construction project area, street name, and property number. Leveraging the device’s understanding of location is a great first step in eliminating vague location questions.