Best Deployment for Operations Dashboard

[PatriciaBoras]

I attended your seminars at the last User Conference in San Diego and would like your opinion since you seemed to really understand law enforcements data security concerns.

I want to implement an operations dashboard for our command staff  and detective in-house and for our patrol units in the cars (via web-based mdcs).

 I was going to use the operations dashboard template found on ESRI's main page under additional products and Portal for ArcGIS.  I have received several different opinions from tech support about how to implement (mostly suggesting I use ArcGIS Online which I don't want to do because I want to keep the data behind our police department's firewall).  

Is the standard operations dashboard with Portal for ArcGIS still the best choice or is there a better option?

I have begun to read about ArcGIS Desktop 10.5 and recently seen other versions of the dashboard so I'm not sure what is the current recommendation. As tech support does not seem to understand the data security concerns, I would greatly appreciate your input.

[DerekLaw]

Hi Patricia,

I did not present a tech session on Operations Dashboard at the UC last year, but I thought I could assist.

Yes, you can use Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS with Portal for ArcGIS.
FYI, there are 2 different app deployment options for Operations Dashboard:

   i) the Windows Desktop app, and

   ii) a web browser-based app.

The second option is included and installs with Portal for ArcGIS by default. However, you can only create operation views with the first option, so you will need to get it from Esri Accounts and install it locally to work with your Portal.

Regarding the roadmap for Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS: the development team is working on a new release of Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS, which will be a web browser-based app AND enable you to create new operation views. When it is released, then you won't need to install the first option. This is currently in beta (with limited functionality) and you can try it out here:

Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS Open Beta! | ArcGIS Blog 

I have also attached some ppt slides that discuss how to configure and set-up Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS with Portal for ArcGIS.

Hope this helps,

[ChrisDelaney]

Hi Patricia,

Thanks for your question! To add to Derek's helpful comments, to your questions around securing your operations dashboard (presumably to ensure CJIS Compliance), there are several options:

1. You will need to implement a on-premise portal (now known as ArcGIS Enterprise). That portal is where you will store your layers and maps needed for your dashboard, and ArcGIS Enterprise also includes Operations Dashboard, so you will be able to build your dashboard. When it comes to sharing with your officers, you have two options: 1. You can share it with everyone inside your firewall, or 2. you can set up the people you want to have access with named user accounts in your portal- using these accounts, you can set up a sharing group in the portal for your dashboard, so only those individuals have access.

2. As your I.T. security staff indicated, ArcGIS Online alone is not optimal for CJIS compliance- this is primarily because data stored in ArcGIS Online is not encrypted at rest in the public cloud, which is a CJIS requirement. However, some customers choose to still use ArcGIS Online, but house and serve their data within their firewall on an ArcGIS Server. In this way, you still have the benefits (updates, no infrastructure administration) of ArcGIS Online, but all of your data still lives within your firewall, and is thus CJIS compliant. In this case, any person in your organization who you would want to see the dashboard would require a named user account to ArcGIS Online. 

Does that help? Feel free to contact me directly with any further questions!

Chris Delaney

Law Enforcement Technical Lead

Esri

[Cook_CountyGIS]

I realize this is old, but there is so little information on Esri & CJIS Compliance.  Are the current recommendations for law enforcement (with CJIS data) to use on-premises Enterprise with Portal or has ArcGIS Online made progress towards compliance?  Basically, what recommendation would you have for someone just starting out with a clean slate? 

[ChrisDelaney]

Thank you for the question!

Our current recommendation to achieve CJIS compliance remains to employ a model where CJI data remains stored on-premise at the Law Enforcement agency via either ArcGIS Enterprise or a hybrid model using ArcGIS Server for CJI data together with ArcGIS Online. ArcGIS Online continues to make progress towards compliance milestones (it now has a FedRAMP tailored low ATO, and now encrypts data at rest, for example). For more, check out: https://downloads.esri.com/resources/enterprisegis/UC_ArcGIS_Online_Security_Privacy.pdf , or if you have specific questions, contact our security team at softwaresecurity@esri.com.

That being said, we see many LE agencies making extensive use of ArcGIS Online to support a wide array of organizational needs, from multi-agency event coordination to the sharing of public information. Federating an ArcGIS Enterprise org together with an ArcGIS Online org provides a Law Enforcement agency with a full range of capabilities, enabling secure sharing of sensitive data while also supporting external constituent engagement needs.

Hope that helps!

Chris

[BrianFausel]

Thanks for the info Chris. We have been contemplating this issue at the City I work at as well and were wondering about the CJIS compliance status of AGOL. Right now we do the hybrid model with the sensitive data on-site.