Getting Technical - April 2020

April 21, 2020

George Kouroupis

How can you strengthen business continuity using location intelligence? Do you know how to make your dashboards mobile friendly? How can your GIS department respond to COVID-19? What’s new in ArcGIS API for JavaScript? Find out these and more in April’s Getting Technical blog post.

Features

New: Business Continuity Solutions from Esri
To help businesses gain a holistic view of their operating status and risk, Esri has released business continuity solutions to support businesses, utilities and government agencies with their COVID-19
response. Learn more about the Coronavirus Business Continuity ArcGIS Solution and the Coronavirus Business Continuity Hub.

COVID-19 Canada Resource Hub
This GIS Hub is provided by Esri Canada to share information about the coronavirus pandemic. Get maps, apps, data and other resources that aid with monitoring and analyzing the outbreak across Canada and around the world and increase overall preparedness to respond to COVID-19. Use the Case Data Explorer to explore case information by province and (where reported) by provincial health regions. Also, check out the blog posts and videos in the Esri Canada COVID-19 Resource Library.

ArcGIS Dashboards Beta Now Available
The ArcGIS Dashboards Beta, announced last month, is live and available for you to try. The ArcGIS Dashboards Beta continues to have much of the same functionality as ArcGIS Dashboards but includes some exciting new features, an enhanced user experience and overall improved performance. Existing dashboards can easily be upgraded to dashboards usable within the beta version. We expect most existing functionality to work, with the exception of some known limitations.

Changes Coming to StreetMap Premium Mobile Map Packages
StreetMap Mobile Map packages will start shipping in a new format that will offer substantial improvements in quality and performance for an enhanced user experience and include vector tile packages and new geocoding locators. StreetMap Premium Mobile Map Packages (MMPKs) are a go-to format for Runtime apps, including Navigator, for offline or disconnected mapping, geocoding, and routing; and for use in ArcGIS Pro. The new format for MMPK will be available for North America in June 2020. The other regions will follow: Asia Pacific in August, Latin America in September, Europe in November, and Middle East/Africa in February 2021. See the ArcGIS Blog for more details.

How to access Esri technology while working from home
Shifting to a home office can present some challenges. We understand that maintaining access to the ArcGIS suite of products is crucial. To assist with this transition, we’ve compiled some frequently asked questions that users have when setting up access to ArcGIS Desktop or ArcGIS Pro from home. Our aim is to make this process as smooth as possible.

Facility Mapping in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
From temporarily housing employees with high risk of exposure, to providing quarantine and medical treatment to those who may have been exposed, we are seeing facilities used in new ways to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Universities, sports arenas and convention centres are quickly converting their facilities to support frontline emergency response.

ArcGIS Online will enforce HTTPS Only for all organizations in December 2020
The ArcGIS platform uses HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol for secure communication), as a key component of its security for web and service API connections. This includes connections between our software, such as ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Enterprise, with ArcGIS Online. Esri will be enforcing HTTPS Only, without exception, in December 2020, to increase the security of the ArcGIS platform. You can also refer to the technical support page for more information.

COVID-19 Trends
For the first time, we are experiencing a global pandemic and analyzing it as it happens. Using five research-based pandemic trends, Esri describes how each country is doing. To explain the trends, Esri created the COVID-19: The First Global Pandemic of the Information Age Story Map. The story also has maps showing the key aspects of each country’s situation. The maps are updated daily with the previous day’s data from Johns Hopkins University.

High-resolution data updates to Living Atlas World Elevation Layers (April 2020)
ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World provides foundation elevation layers and tools to support analysis and visualization across the ArcGIS platform. These layers get updated quarterly with high-resolution elevation data from open sources and the community maps program. In this release, world elevation layers are updated with a few high-resolution elevation datasets as mentioned in the blog post.

FAQ: How can your GIS department respond to COVID-19?
A staggering wealth of geospatial information has emerged regarding the COVID-19 outbreak. Dashboards, near real-time services and GitHub repositories have built the foundation for an extraordinarily transparent response effort. Using ArcGIS Business Analyst, this infographic specific to COVID-19 response can quickly be generated for any community.

Hot tip: Make your dashboards mobile friendly

Many of you may currently be working on dashboards to be shared with the public. A large portion of website traffic is generated by mobile devices making it important that your dashboards display properly on all screen sizes. The following video shows how you can make your dashboards mobile friendly.

Follow @EsriCanada on Twitter and check out more technical videos using the hashtag #HowtoArcGIS

Announcements

Update to ArcGIS Enterprise Product Lifecycle

What’s New in ArcGIS API for JavaScript (April 2020)

Making it Count with the ArcGIS Dashboards Beta

Support for percentile statistic in the ArcGIS Dashboards Beta

Sharing Territories to Portal with ArcGIS Business Analyst Pro

Esri Partners Respond to COVID-19 with Mapping and Location Intelligence Offerings

Whats new in Survey123 for ArcGIS (March 2020)

What's new in Esri Vector Basemaps (March 2020)

Critical Security patch for ArcGIS Server Released

What's New in Web AppBuilder (March 2020)

What's New in Esri Demographics (March 2020)

What's New in ArcGIS Business Analyst Web App (March 2020)

What's New in Configurable Apps (March 2020): Introducing Minimalist Beta

What's new in ArcGIS Online (March 2020)

Brand yourself with the refreshed User Profile page

New Custom Data Features in ArcGIS Business Analyst Pro

Formatting text on your ArcGIS Hub and ArcGIS Enterprise Sites

What’s new in ArcGIS Companion 3.1 (March 2020)

Huff Model Calibration with ArcGIS Business Analyst Pro

View more announcements in the ArcGIS Blog | My Esri Blog on GeoNet

Service Packs, Patches & User Resources

Mapping and Charting Solutions 10.8 Patch 1 (Desktop | Server)
This is a general cumulative maintenance patch for the Mapping and Charting Solutions including; ArcGIS for Aviation (Desktop), ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry (Desktop), ArcGIS for Maritime: Charting (Desktop), ArcGIS for Maritime: Server, Esri Defense Mapping for (Desktop, Server), and Esri Production Mapping for (Desktop, Server). Please download and install this patch at your earliest convenience.

Mapping and Charting Solutions 10.7.1 Patch 5 (Desktop | Server)
This is a general cumulative maintenance patch for the Mapping and Charting Solutions including; ArcGIS for Aviation (Desktop), ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry (Desktop), ArcGIS for Maritime: Charting (Desktop), ArcGIS for Maritime: Server, Esri Defense Mapping for (Desktop, Server), and Esri Production Mapping for (Desktop, Server). Please download and install this patch at your earliest convenience.

ArcGIS Server 10.8 Utility Network Update Subnetwork Patch
If you are using utility network with ArcGIS Enterprise 10.8, this patch resolves a limitation that prevented the subnetwork summaries from updating correctly when a feature was associated to features traced using the subnetwork definition. This patch also addresses a limitation of propagated values working across associations.

ArcGIS GeoEvent Server 10.8 Patch 1
This is a general cumulative maintenance patch for ArcGIS GeoEvent Server 10.8 (Windows and Linux). It addresses several issues, including problems with adding deleted features using the Update a Feature Service output, GeoTagger and spatial Filtering operators, and GeoEvent Sampler Text View. This patch also updates the default setting for the new Shrink Data Source parameter that was added at 10.8 to match the behavior in earlier releases.

ArcGIS Online Issues Addressed List - March 2020 Release
This page contains a list of issues addressed in the March 2020 update to ArcGIS Online that were logged through Support Services.

ArcGIS Maps for Office 2020.1 Issues Addressed List
This page contains a list of issues addressed in the ArcGIS Maps for Office 2020.1 release that were logged through Support Services.

ArcGIS (Desktop, Engine, Server) 10.8 SQL Server Enterprise Geodatabase Upgrade
If you are upgrading enterprise geodatabases with ArcGIS 10.8, this patch resolves an error that can occur when upgrading SDE schema geodatabases.

ArcGIS 10.8 Issues Addressed List
This page contains the list of issues addressed in ArcGIS 10.8.

View more security patches

Web Watch –White Papers, Blogs and Useful Resources

Finding GIS-based Solutions During the COVID-19 Crisis
As the COVID-19 crisis continues to evolve, Canadians are growing increasingly concerned with the health-related impacts affecting their family, friends and colleagues. As part of the COVID-19 Canada Resource Hub, Esri Canada has released the COVID-19 Health Dashboard to give users an overview of the health circumstance in their communities. Built from authoritative data, this dashboard combines demographics, population stats and known health conditions in a geographic location.

Use Insights models to jumpstart your COVID-19 analysis
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has increased the need for location analytics globally, particularly for public health and other responding agencies. Esri is assisting organizations through the Disaster Response Program (DRP), which includes access to ArcGIS Insights, a self-service location analytics workbench, plus lessons, data, and models to help you jumpstart your analysis.

Enhanced Projection Support in ArcGIS Online
The ArcGIS Online projection engine library is always growing to accommodate new and glorious projections. Equal Earth, a great projection for making regional and global thematic maps is supported, and now the Spilhaus map is, as well. Making non-Web-Mercator maps is possible in the Map Viewer Beta, and so is adding existing feature services to those maps, which re-project on the fly to appear right at home in whatever projection you are mapping.

Outline Maps: Printable maps for colouring and other fun activities
Playing the parts of employee, parent and teacher all at once can feel a bit overwhelming during these uncertain times. It can be tricky trying to come up with small tasks and assignments that will keep our kids engaged. So, we decided to create a 24-page PDF with a variety of printable maps that can be used to colour and label, as well as promote further exploration of our world.

App of the Month: Dodge The Bullet
April’s App of the Month – Dodge The Bullet – is a web app that uses the latest ArcGIS API for JavaScript to present a map visualization of recent gun violence incidents that have occurred in Toronto in terms of their proximity to the user. The app brings to light how widespread, but also close to home, these events are.

3 Key Points for Building Your Own Dashboard
Government and businesses continue to navigate the COVID-19 crisis. Our communities are turning to technology to help shape their communications.

Training

Get Started with ArcGIS Hub for Your Organization
This course introduces the structure of ArcGIS Hub and how to put it to work using an organization’s data. Attendees will learn about the options available in the ArcGIS Hub licensing model and which ones will best suit their organizational needs. Learn to create a cross-departmental collaboration platform or use an existing open data strategy to leverage ArcGIS Hub and present information to internal or public users. Attendees will also learn how to gather data from outside their organization and how to incorporate it into an ArcGIS Hub site.

View training solutions