Tag Archives: Manager
Leveraging Geoprocessing in ArcGIS Workflow Manager – Part 2
In part 1 of this blog series I wrote about interactive geoprocessing (GP) steps in ArcGIS Workflow Manager. Now, in part 2, we’ll move onto automated GP steps and wrap up the discussion from there.
At the end of part 1, you’ll recall we had pre-populated all of the required parameters for a GP tool.
And I was wondering why, with all of a tool’s arguments pre-populated, do we still need to show a dialog box to the user?
Right. And the answer is that we don’t. If all of the parameters have been correctly pre-populated, there are a number of alternate ways that you can run a GP step without prompting a user for anything. These include:
Leveraging Geoprocessing in ArcGIS Workflow Manager – Part 1
In my previous blog I introduced you to the different types of custom steps available in ArcGIS Workflow Manager including those that make use of Geoprocessing (GP) tools. Today, we’ll explore using GP steps in a Workflow Manager workflow.
Okay. How do I get started?
Geoprocessing steps use the same tools, models, and scripts that you can access through an ArcGIS toolbox. The easiest way to set up a GP step is with the out-of-the-box JTXDesktopSteps.LaunchGPTool custom step. Refer to the online help for more information about how to create step types.
Introducing Custom Steps in ArcGIS Workflow Manager
The notion of “custom steps” in ArcGIS Workflow Manager can be confusing. Many people hear “custom” and think immediately of software development. With Workflow Manager, the reality is that a workflow designer will create and configure many different step types by using the Workflow Manager Administrator application. Even steps available out-of-the box – including special purpose steps called “Custom Step Objects” – will likely be customized in Workflow Manager Administrator to your organizations specific environment.
This blog post will discuss step customization (somewhat), Custom Step Objects (mostly), and how they can help in your workflows. If you remember nothing else, just remember that using custom steps in Workflow Manager doesn’t necessarily equate to writing custom code!
A Spatially Enabled Document Management System
We all know managing spatial data, map products, and documents are critical to the success of any GIS work being performed. When producing many versions of your map documents and outputs, current databases and file systems are not well equipped to simultaneously manage these. And it can be a daunting task to manage changes to these files, including knowing which version is the latest and being able to access historical versions if necessary. Also, conflicts may arise when files are not centrally managed which can compromise a schedule or budget, introduce unnecessary risks, and jeopardize the success of your work. Typically, you would use the geodatabase for spatial data storage and management, SharePoint for document management, and maybe a file server for your map product management. If you’re looking for one tool that could do all of these and more, you are reading the right blog post!
Integrating ArcGIS Data Reviewer and ArcGIS Workflow Manager to Automate Data Validation
As you know, ArcGIS Data Reviewer and ArcGIS Workflow Manager are available as standard extensions, but they’re also part of Esri Production Mapping. If you are looking to automate your data validation workflows, we just posted a couple of blogs topics describing how to do this. The first blog – Automating Data Validation Workflows – talks about using the custom steps available in Data Reviewer within a Workflow Manager workflow. The second blog – Advanced Data Validation Workflows – takes it a step further and discusses other ways of utilizing the custom steps. It also outlines the additional capabilities that you can leverage while integrating Data Reviewer and Workflow Manager. Be sure to read these posts, they might help you get creative about how you perform data validation.
Advanced Data Validation Workflows
In a previous blog we discussed how to automate your data validation workflows by integrating ArcGIS Data Reviewer with ArcGIS Workflow Manager. We also discussed some of the basic functions you can perform with the Reviewer
Custom Steps. For this blog I’d like to take it a step further and describe other ways in which you can use the custom steps. I’ll also introduce additional functionality in Workflow Manager that you might find useful when integrating
with Data Reviewer.
Working with Reviewer sessions
Reviewer sessions are a way of filtering records in the Reviewer workspace to show only those records you are interested in. Last time, we outlined how to use tokens with the Create a Reviewer Session custom step to create unique sessions for each job based on the Job ID. There are other ways you can create sessions depending on your workflows. For example, if you have unique sessions that already exist for each user, you can use tokens like the [JOB:ASSIGNED_TO] in the Run Reviewer Batch Job custom step to write the errors to the existing sessions.
What makes up Production Mapping?
In a previous blog topic we provided an introduction to Esri Production Mapping and its benefits. Now that you know what sorts of organizational challenges are solved by using Production Mapping, let’s talk about some of the key capabilities that allow you to produce high quality geospatial data and maps faster and with fewer resources.
We all know that a generic production workflow consists of four main stages – collecting, editing/updating, reviewing data, and producing the final output (which may be data in another format or cartographic products). While ArcGIS provides a number of tools to produce geospatial data and maps, there are not many tools to automate or standardize the production processes and to ensure consistency and repeatability while also keeping track of work in progress. Esri Production Mapping extends ArcGIS Desktop to support the production stages by providing tools to manage workflows, perform advanced editing and intelligent attribution, ensure data quality, and produce high-end cartographic products. These tools are flexible, allowing you to configure them to suit your industry- or your organization-specific requirements. We hope that providing an overview of the major functionality will help you understand what makes up Esri Production Mapping. Today’s topic will also serve as the starting point for future topics where we will discuss these functionalities in more detail.
Automating data validation workflows
Several times I’ve been asked, “what’s the best way to automate data validation workflows?” With the release of ArcGIS 10, this can be achieved by integrating the ArcGIS Workflow Manager and ArcGIS Data Reviewer extensions. Data Reviewer has added custom steps that can be used within a Workflow Manager workflow. In this blog topic, I’ll describe how you can configure these custom steps.
If you don’t already know, using Workflow Manager you can define workflows that model your business processes and track the progress of assigned tasks. The steps in the workflow can be configured to execute functions like sending notifications, opening applications like ArcMap, and running geoprocessing tools.
Data Reviewer allows you to manage and track quality control of your data. You can automate data validation using rules stored in a batch job. A Reviewer session is used to store information about any errors that are found and to track issues through their life-cycle to ensure they are fixed and verified.
UC activities for Esri Production Mapping
As we get closer to the Esri International User Conference we wanted to put together a list of activities related to Esri Production Mapping that you may find useful. You can find a similar list specifically for ArcGIS Data Reviewer here.
Esri Showcase
Esri Production Mapping editing experts will be available at the Geodatabase Management island in the Esri showcase area to talk specifically about the editing tools within this solution. Production Mapping cartography experts
will be at the Mapping & Visualization island where they will demonstrate and answer your questions related to the cartography tools within this solution. Both showcases are open on:
- Tue, July 12th from 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
- Wed, July 13th from 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
- Thur, July 14th from 9:00 AM – 1:30 PM
Administrative privileges no longer required to log in to Manager at 9.3
Here’s a 9.3 improvement that’s not immediately visible, but may simplify the way you work with Manager in your GIS department. In ArcGIS Server for the Microsoft .NET Framework 9.2, you were required to have Administrator privileges on the Web server in order to log in to Manager. At 9.3 you no longer have to be an Administrator; you just need to be a member of the agsadmin group on the SOM machine.
Non-Administrators can view, create, stop, start, and delete services. As a non-Administrator, you can also work with the GIS server by modifying SOC machines, log file properties, server directories, and so on.
If you’ll be creating or editing Web applications within Manager, you’ll still need to log in as an Administrator at 9.3.
This change does not affect ArcGIS Server Manager for the Java Platform. Due to the difference in the way applications are deployed to the Web server, administrative privileges have never been required to log in to Java Manager.
