Tag Archives: Workflow 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!
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.
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.
Esri Mid-Atlantic Water/Wastewater Special Interest Group Meeting on May 18
On May 18th we will be hosting a meeting of the Esri Mid-Atlantic Water/Wastewater Special Interest Group in our Chesterbrook, PA office. The meeting will run from 9 am to 3 pm. Lunch is provided and is graciously sponsored by Esri Business Partner GBA Master Series.
The Mid-Atlantic Water/Wastewater Special Interest Group is for the water, wastewater and stormwater ArcGIS user community in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Washington D.C., West Virginia, New York City, Long Island and surrounding areas.
This meeting includes presentations from the user community on managing water distribution system data, leveraging GPS data and how to build a cooperative GIS. Lunch is provided by Gold Esri Partner GBA Master Series who will give a lunchtime briefing on their utility and public works infrastructure maintenance management solutions. Esri will be presentating about the soon to be released ArcGIS for Water Utilities as well as ArcGIS Data Reviewer and Worfkflow Manager. We will end the meeting with an around the room discussion where you can ask your peers, Esri and our business partners in attendance any questions you’d like, so be prepared to have an informative dialogue with the user community.
Job Tracking for ArcGIS has been Renamed to ArcGIS Workflow Manager
Job Tracking for ArcGIS (JTX) will be renamed ArcGIS Workflow Manager. The official name change will take place at the ArcGIS 10 release later this year. However, the new name was used on the ArcGIS 9.4 beta 2 software media and download that you may have recently requested. Existing customers current on maintenance will receive ArcGIS Workflow Manager when ArcGIS 10 is released. ELA (Enterprise License Agreement) customers will have the same access to ArcGIS Workflow Manager as they have had to Job Tracking for ArcGIS (JTX).
