First Steps in the County GIS Environment
Upon taking on the position of GIS Manager, I spent the first few days familiarizing myself with the hardware and software currently in place, and what licensing was available on the same. I also took some time to meet with all of the various Department Heads and Officials I would be working with to get a better grasp of the political structures, boundaries, and my role in all of it.
The first of those meetings was with Information Services (PCIS). As a department of the County, it was made clear that while PCIS sometimes provided assistance to the Office of the Assessor (an independent office), but were not there for support. I was a bit surprised by all of this, and their apparent desire to continue that way, but knew that was not going to work out well. There was no way anything was going to get off the ground without some collaboration with them, since they were really the only other “technical” people in the entire organization. Through various means (and likely my constant badgering), we eventually threw that time-honored and highly restrictive tradition out the window.
Another issue that came up during that first meeting outlined one of the first tasks at hand. Asking whether there was any sort of network and database models available, they first looked at me as if I had a 3rd eye, and then asked what I needed that for. After explaining that it was going to be bit difficult to maintain this structure without knowing a little bit about how things were connected around there, they proceeded to sketch it out for me verbally. Nothing was documented. The problem did not simply exist in the department that I now managed, but was endemic in the organization. I later learned that nobody bothered to document anything for one rather simple and selfish reason; job security. I resolved to change that attitude; if nowhere else, within the GIS Department, hoping others would follow the example.
Since there was so much to be documented, I was not quite sure where to start, so began with what seemed the most natural place to start, an overview of the hardware and software in use. The workstations were still on Windows XP, running ArcMap v9.1; the geo-database residing on a Windows 2003 server, running IBM DB2 v8.1 and ArcSDE v9.1. The web server was on the same version of another server, running Apache Tomcat (don’t recall the version), and ArcIMS v9.1. In contrast, ESRI has just released v9.3.1.
The web application was a custom situation ESRI had assembled for the Assessor a few years earlier. It used frames, a bit of Java and Javascript to provide real estate information for the County, through a data or map search interface. This site was dependent upon ArcSDE, as well as loads created by views to data stored in the Collector, Recorder, Planning & Zoning, and Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal (CAMA) system for the Assessor. It worked relatively well with minor intervention, but sorely needed a facelift; if nothing else, to get rid of those frames. Unfortunately, the documentation for that was also missing in action; but, later found.
Licensing was quite fortunate. We held 2 ArcEditor licenses, ArcGIS for Server Basic (for the ArcIMS v9.1), and ArcGIS for Server Enterprise. I was pleased to see the later two and immediately brought it to the attention of the Assessor, explaining the capability. She was happy to hear, and equally disappointed that none who had held the GIS Manager position previously, had attempted to implement the ArcGIS for Server she had been paying licensing fees for. We decided to make an effort to make that happen.
Finally, a Standard Operating Policy & Procedure document was needed immediately, to start documenting how things were supposed to work. One of the first line items in that document: ALL processes and procedures will be documented prior to, or at the time of implementation. While that was not an issue int he department I managed, it was a sore sticking point for the only other GIS staff in Planning & Zoning, who steadfastly refused to document anything. There was not much that could be done about that, since that position was officially in another office. All that I could do was continue to emphasize the value of doing so. It never stuck, throughout the life of the project, so I just did it.
