Getting Technical - September 2020

September 16, 2020

George Kouroupis

What’s new in ArcGIS StoryMaps? Why should you start using ArcGIS Experience Builder? How can you submit your entry for the 2021 Map Calendar contest? Find out these and more in September’s Getting Technical blog post.

Features

What's new in ArcGIS StoryMaps (September 2020)
ArcGIS StoryMaps helps you tell remarkable stories with custom maps that inform and inspire. A story can effect change, influence opinion, and create awareness—and maps are an integral part of storytelling. ArcGIS StoryMaps can give your narrative a stronger sense of place, illustrate spatial relationships, and add visual appeal and credibility to your ideas.

Community Map of Canada Spotlight – Truro, Nova Scotia
See how the town of Truro, Nova Scotia is finding big GIS wins with the Community Map of Canada. Meet Amanda Bent, their GIS Analyst and a Community Map of Canada contributor since early 2020.

Explore 19 Years of Global Air Quality in Living Atlas
Investigate how global air quality patterns have changed over time, and how poor air quality impacts the human population with a new layer added to ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World. The feature layer contains aggregated particulate matter 2.5 (PM 2.5) concentrations offered by NASA’s Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) at multiple geography levels.

Configure a new ArcGIS Enterprise Deployment with a DNS URL in use
Sometimes it is necessary to setup a new deployment of ArcGIS Enterprise on a new system. During this process however, you don’t want your current system to go down. You also certainly don’t want your end users to have to use a new URL after you switch to the new system. You want to make sure the experience is seamless for them. This article will discuss such a scenario and the necessary steps you must take.

2021 Map Calendar contest deadline is Sept. 30
Submit your map for a chance to win one of the 12 spots in Esri Canada’s 2021 Map Calendar. To help you get started, we’ve compiled eight of our favourite cartography tips that will help you impress the judges and the GIS community with your amazing creations.

Do you have an outstanding app too? Submit your app to be featured as our App of the Month.

Esri Canada Address Management App
Across Canada, municipalities create and maintain civic address data. Accurate addressing is essential for emergency services, land development, postal delivery and other government services. The Address Management app (AMA) is a web-based application that optimizes the creation, maintenance and use of authoritative address information. It was designed to support a better workflow in civic addressing that provides better data management and minimizes addressing errors. Check out the story map explaining the top five reasons to use the Address Management Application.

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.

If you’re wondering how to prepare for ArcGIS Online enforcing HTTPS Only, watch the video.

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

Important Update for Enforcement of HTTPS in World Geocoding Service
Esri will be enforcing “HTTPS Only” in the World Geocoding Service on September 8, 2020. This important security update is likely to affect some ArcGIS software and custom solutions. Esri customers will need to act now to be ready for this change. “HTTPS” has always been an available URL for the World Geocoding Service, since the service debuted in 2012. With the upcoming update, the “HTTPS” URL will be enforced as the only available endpoint. Customers will no longer have the option of submitting requests to the “HTTP” URL. This update is in addition to the “HTTPS Only” enforcement that is planned for ArcGIS Online on December 8, 2020.

FAQ: Why should you start using ArcGIS Experience Builder?
ArcGIS Experience Builder is a platform for building web experiences using your GIS content. You can create web apps and web pages using out-of-the-box templates, drag and drop widgets and configure layouts that adapt to different screen sizes – without writing a single line of code.

Hot tip: Using the new ArcGIS StoryMaps theme builder
This is a breakthrough week for ArcGIS StoryMaps. Previously you’ve had a choice of a half-dozen “pre-cooked” design styles for your stories, with a limited selection of font pairings for headings and text. Now, for the first time, you have literally millions of colours from which to choose for the various components of your stories. We’ve also chosen somewhat fewer than a million fonts — okay, 17 — that you can mix and match, as well as providing options for other elements, including quote blocks, dividers, and buttons. Our theme builder enables you to give your stories a distinctive look and feel, and to better align with your organization’s branding.

Video: Getting Started with ArcGIS Pro: Making Data Connections

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

COVID-19 Resources

Visit the ArcGIS Solutions site to learn more about Esri’s suite of coronavirus recovery solutions.

COVID-19 Canada Resource Hub
Esri Canada released in mid-March the COVID-19 Canada Resource Hub, which includes bilingual maps, apps and other resources for the public, customers and media. The hub is constantly updated and features dashboards on economic recovery, family structure, household dynamics and mental health, COVID-19 open datasets, additional GIS training videos and other resources. Check out our COVID-19 Recovery Solutions.

App of the Month - Project Pandemic: Canada Reports on COVID-19
Project Pandemic is a Canada-wide data project facilitated by the Institute for Investigative Journalism at Concordia University Montréal. Its goal is to support community preparedness by gathering and sharing data among journalism schools and local, regional and national news organizations. Learn how students and journalists collaborate on COVID-19 fact-checking, analysis and reporting through Project Pandemic: Canada Reports on COVID-19, an ArcGIS Hub site.

Complimentary Software and Training Program for Professionals Extended Through December 31
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact the economy, millions of individuals remain furloughed, working on a reduced schedule or seeking other opportunities. Many are using this time to develop their professional toolkit, whether brushing up on existing expertise or learning a completely new skillset.

This program, originally available through August 31, 2020, has now been extended through December 31, 2020. Those who have already enrolled will be automatically granted continued access. Impacted or furloughed professionals who have not yet signed up are invited to do so through the end of November at https://learn.arcgis.com/en/become-a-member/.

Coronavirus Health Screening Solution Released
The Coronavirus Health Screening solution can be used by businesses, utilities, and government agencies to conduct coronavirus (COVID-19) health screenings before employees and visitors are permitted to enter a building, facility, or location. The solution can be used to self-report coronavirus symptoms or contact, record the result of a temperature check, and track who was permitted to enter a facility, or location, on a given date.

Coronavirus Site Safety Solution Released
The Coronavirus Site Safety solution can be used by businesses, educational institutions, and government agencies to create coronavirus (COVID-19) health safety plans for their facilities, sites, and campuses; and monitor the health safety plans as locations reopen. The solution includes a collection of ArcGIS applications used to create a COVID-19 health safety plan (for example, temperature screening locations, handwashing or sanitizer stations, personal protective equipment (PPE) stations, isolation areas, etc.), estimate crowd capacities and monitor social distancing, track cleaning and disinfecting, monitor restocking of PPE stations, and report coronavirus-related problems and issues.

Using ArcGIS Solutions to help your organization return to the workplace
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has significantly impacted the workforce of many organizations. As business and government leaders think about employees returning to work and locations reopening to the public, location-based data helps them understand the extent of the epidemic near their business locations, improve internal business operations that ensure the health and safety of all individuals in their facilities, take steps to control health risks quickly, and engage key stakeholders.

Announcements

Esri's hosted raster basemap services moving to Mature Support

ArcGIS Runtime Local Server SDK 100.9 now available!

Topographic (with Contours) Multisource vector tile layers

SaaS GIS: Transforming Local Government One Solution at a Time

What's new in ArcGIS Survey123 (August 2020)

Announcing ArcGIS Runtime 100.9

Target Marketing Enhancements in ArcGIS Business Analyst Pro

Esri Maintenance Program Summer 2020 Report – Software Updates & Security

Extending Utility Network Services with the ArcGIS Enterprise SDK 10.8.1

Classifying civic data into binary categories

So Long Internet Explorer 11, and Thanks for All the Views

Update to ArcGIS Enterprise Product Lifecycle

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

Service Packs, Patches & User Resources

Mapping and Charting Solutions 10.8.1 Patch 1 (Desktop | Server)
This is a general cumulative maintenance patch for the Mapping and Charting Solutions including; ArcGIS Aviation Airports (Desktop), ArcGIS Aviation Charting (Desktop), ArcGIS Bathymetry (Desktop), ArcGIS Defense Mapping (Desktop, Server), ArcGIS Maritime (Desktop, Server), and ArcGIS Production Mapping (Desktop, Server). Please download and install this patch at your earliest convenience.

Mapping and Charting Solutions 10.7.1 Patch 7 (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 10.8.1 Announcement
This page contains the list of issues addressed in the upcoming release of ArcGIS 10.8.1.

ArcGIS (Desktop, Engine, Server) 10.6.1 Spatial Analyst COM and Extraction Tools Patch
If you are using the ArcGIS Spatial Analyst COM components and creating custom applications, this patch resolves a runtime error when certain components are used in a pre-10 coding style. This patch also fixes a problem in the Sample tool when a raster is used as the input location data.

Esri Maps for Dynamics CRM Documentation
Esri Maps for Dynamics CRM works directly with your organization's ArcGIS subscription to allow you to access geographic content to enhance your business data.

2020 Infogroup Business Listings and Codes
These PDF documents describe the fields and information included with the Business Locations data in ArcGIS Business Analyst. Also included for download, are franchise and industry codes.

View more security patches

Web Watch –White Papers, Blogs and Useful Resources

Integrating the ArcGIS API for Python and Survey123 with Azure Functions
Wouldn’t it be great to setup a script you created with the ArcGIS API for Python to run on a scheduled basis, or create webhooks that could monitor activity in your Enterprise organization, all without the additional resources and overhead that is needed in managing a server? That is where server-less computing enters the picture. Many cloud vendors provide the ability to run code without having to provision, administer, or maintain any infrastructure, whether it’s through Google Cloud Functions, AWS Lambda, or Azure Functions. Essentially, organizations can allow their developers to focus on building scripts and let the cloud vendors deploy, host, and scale the code for a fraction of the cost compared to standing up traditional servers. This blog post will walk you through two solutions using Azure Functions with Visual Studio Code and provide some other tips and tricks along the way.

How to create a sparkline map with the ArcGIS API for JavaScript
CovidPulse presents a massive amount of data as a simple collection of wiggly local coronavirus trends. The sparkline symbol has many uses beyond this one, for sure, so we’ll share the steps taken to render the Johns Hopkins US County cases data as this interesting and data-dense visual mechanism. We hope that this will be a helpful resource for creating applications of your own with data of your own.

Map in a minute: Map smoke and air quality using ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Living Atlas
ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World includes authoritative live feeds and other content that helps you learn more about current and predicted smoke conditions and current air quality. Follow these steps to make your own smoke, fire, and air quality map in a minute.

Training

Introduction to Webhooks
Learn how to integrate workflows across systems. Webhooks are a widely supported method used to allow multiple applications to interact with each other, using HTTP POST requests to pass call-backs between them. Webhooks in ArcGIS Enterprise give administrators the ability to be automatically notified when events occur around items, groups and users. You’ll see examples of how you can use this functionality to monitor events that happen within your ArcGIS Enterprise deployments. Webhooks in Survey123 for ArcGIS allow you to send e-mails, copy data to external systems and more when a form is submitted via a webhook.

View training solutions