Latest Contributions by BrianBaldwin

Gallery Applications for Curated Content Access ArcGIS Online offers users the ability to create maps and applications for an entire enterprise. As the number of named users increases across a utility or company, the amount of content can increase rapidly and there is a stronger need for content management to ensure that users can find and access the maps and applications they need. View a video of the demonstration.​ One of the tools that can help with content dissemination and end user experience is the Public Gallery Application.  Using your group settings, the application lets administrators control how their users interact with and discover content.  In the screenshot below, a utility has Gallery Applications for all of their departments.  As a user clicks on the Operations application, it launches a Gallery Application view of the Operations group with content filtered to hide feature services, maps, and other content.  Users are no longer overwhelmed with hundreds of maps and services, just a curated list of useful tools. Groups While Groups in ArcGIS Online offer a structure for sharing content and controlling access, they do not provide the best framework for providing users direct access to that content. Very quickly, groups can become unruly as you share services, maps, documents, apps, and more to those groups.  Asking novice users to navigate through these groups could cause confusion or frustration. The screenshot below is from an Operations group with over 60 items. Groups still provide the foundation for what content users have permission to access, but they do not provide the best user interface for navigating through that content.   Gallery Applications to the Rescue One way to control the types of content that users have access to is by creating a Public Gallery web application from the group.  Basically, using a Gallery Application allows users to create a curated view of a specific group based on item types or tags. While you are in the group you want to work with, click the Share button, select Create a Web App, and choose Public Gallery.  This will create a new application for you. There are a number of options to configure the look and feel of the Gallery Application, but the most important settings are in the Gallery Options tab.  Here, you can control the types of items that will appear in the application, the number of items, the way they will appear, or you can use a search string to limit what items are shown.  Using the search string option, you could place a ‘Featured’ tag on all items in a group that would act as a filter, as shown in the screenshot below.   In the Enable Features tab, one setting to note is the “Show a list allowing users to filter by items type”. With this setting enabled, users have the ability to filter what they are seeing to maps, apps, dashboards, or other item types.  This combined with the tag search string provides powerful functionality for providing a curated, filtered view of items to your users. After you Publish your application, it’s sharing can be controlled just like any other organizational item.  As depicted in the first screenshot, you could share your Gallery Application to the Featured Content group to create a list of all departments.  Or, you could start nesting Public Gallery applications in other groups, to create a Gallery Application of Gallery Applications.    Closing The Gallery Applications offer a range of possibilities for how administrators can begin to create custom views of content shared into groups.  Rather than forcing users to navigate through content heavy groups, they can be provided with a clean user interface that lets them quickly discover the content they need. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at: bbaldwin@esri.com ... View more

On the official Esri Blog's, there was an article pushed out almost 2 years ago that discussed the way users could begin using a barcode scanner with Collector to automatically populate a field.  Pretty awesome. The one limitation of the article were some of the details that were missing.  "Why do I need an external scanner?" "Can I just use the device camera?" "Will the keyboard still work?"  So, what are the answers, and why 2 years later? I am currently working with a few other individuals on putting together a solution for "Tracking and Traceabilty", a regulation that will be coming to gas distribution customers, most likely in the next year (read this StoryMap for more details).  In brief, the regulation requires users to capture the barcode information from any assets that are installed or updated (think gas pipes).  What better way to handle this regulation than with Collector?  Users can capture the coordinates of the feature, the barcode, installation date, and then sync all of this data directly with their production GIS, all with one device.  This was the impetus for revisiting the Collector barcode scanning capability and seeing what was possible today. With the new release of Collector for ArcGIS, there is the ability to use a high-accuracy GPS and capture metadata.  So, users now have the ability to get sub-meter accuracy from Collector and view the real-time metadata of the GPS accuracy during a collection.  This is a huge enhancement, but what about the barcode scanning?  While the high-accuracy GPS pairs with and works across all devices (hardware), there were some minor differences with the barcode scanning.  I only tested 2 different types of devices for this workflow (sorry Collector for Windows). Apple Devices Using an iPad Air, I paired a Bad Elf GNSS Surveyor (thanks for providing Bad Elf!) as the external GPS unit (a separate Esri blog discusses this in detail).  The Collector Beta version (full release in June 2016) displayed the accuracy and full metadata streaming in from the unit, pretty cool.  Next, I paired a Socket Mobile CHS 8Ci as the external barcode scanner.  Out in the field (walking around the campus), I was able to collect barcodes using the trigger on the barcode scanner (using a test piece of PVC) and click on the scanner to disable it momentarily to use the keyboard to fill in other values.  All told, it worked really well.  One limitation I had, was with the type of scanner I was using, which only reads 1D barcodes (horizontal type).  The same company produces a 1D and 2D scanner, which could be used for QR barcodes and traditional, but I was not able to test with it.  Lastly, the scanner needed to be in HID mode, which basically replaces the keyboard, hence the need to click it and momentarily disable if you need to enter data via the keyboard. This led me to a question, "Why not just use the camera to capture the barcode?"  While there are countless QR and barcode scanning apps, none of these integrate with the Apple keyboard, meaning, you could capture values in a separate app, copy the value, re-open Collector, and paste in the values, but that would be a pain.  Enter Android. Android Devices On a Samsung Galaxy tablet, I located an app available through a 3rd party that replaces the default keyboard on the device.  This keyboard has a 'scanner' button as part of the keyboard, allowing values to be entered directly into Collector without leaving the app and using the on-board camera.  Simply search the Google Play Store for "barcode scanner keyboard" and there are 2 apps by 'Tec-It' (make sure you install the 'keyboard/scanner' apps).  There may be other apps with the same functionality, but this is the only one I tested.  Also, I didn't test the paid version, but it looks like it can scan both 1D and 2D barcodes.  Using Collector, I was able to scan a barcode and then continue entering values using the keyboard right within Collector.  It worked really well and it was nice to only have the external GPS (Bad Elf) unit, rather than 2 extra devices I was carrying around.  Yet, to be fair, they probably weigh 6 ounces. Closing The one caveat to the Android scanner app, would be the quality of the scan.  Using the on-board camera will not give you the same consistency/quality as a laser based scanner built for one purpose only, to scan barcodes.  Keep this in mind when thinking of a solution.  Obviously, the ability to have one less piece of hardware is a benefit, but comes with a drawback in terms of consistency. Both the iPad and Galaxy had their pros and cons, but either could be a great solution.  It was great to see how Collector could be deployed with both a barcode scanner and high-accuracy GPS unit to extend the types of data that could be collected and how it could be used for the Tracking and Traceability regulation. ... View more

The 'appearence' attributes that are a part of XLSForms have a number of additional options that are not in the Survey123 forms (field is locked as well), are there any plans for allowing additional options?  One of the great ones would be the 'year' for the date field.  The other one that peaked my interest is the 'draw' field, that would allow a sketch.  This is probably a tougher one, but would be a huge win in the utility space. ... View more