Skip to main content

2020 – The Year of Dashboards

The year 2020 was certainly distinguished by interactive dashboards. Awareness of the fundamental need for up-to-date data for better decision making has been raised. How has Esri technology helped to meet these unique needs in this year of pandemic upheaval?

In the Living Atlas, you can access 85 apps, 42 of which are ArcGIS Dashboards on COVID-19. In this blog post, we will begin by looking at three examples of cases where location information is at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic response. We will explore the most popular dashboard, followed by the one representing Québec data, as well as an app developed by Esri Canada in which there are several dashboards powered by Canadian data. Finally, we will look at two examples of dashboard usage to rethink our workplaces and bring staff back to a safe working environment that mitigates the potential spread of the virus.

1. Johns Hopkins University Dashboard for locating COVID-19 cases by country

The first major victory, with its billions of views, is the dashboard developed by Johns Hopkins University that shows COVID-19 cases by country. According to the blog post written by Matthew Lewin, this dashboard quickly became the global source of information on COVID-19 cases by country, mainly due to its intuitive mapping interface and the geographic relevance of its data. This explains how the pandemic made geospatial intelligence a business necessity. Flexible technology combined with accessible geospatial data has enabled experts to bring information to the general public, advance understanding about the virus, and present the current status to decision makers to improve their ability to respond to the situation. This allows, among other things, to improve the care of the population by providing centralized information in real (or near real) time to emergency teams for informed decision-making, and therefore, by the same token, to save lives.

2. Laval University Dashboard on the repercussions of COVID-19 in Québec

The second fascinating example is Laval University’s use of a dashboard to present the repercussions that COVID-19 has had in Québec. According to an article published in leSoleil (in French), there were 745,000 views on December 2. Furthermore, in a short video (in French), Benoît Lalonde from the Department of Geography at Laval University tells us about his initiative which consisted in developing a dashboard to observe the geographic and temporal distribution of COVID-19 in Québec. The Laval University COVID-19 site is visited more than 7,000 times per day, according to this blog post describing the initiative in more detail. Note that this is the only source of information in Québec that brings together a variety of data in one place.

3. Esri Canada’s Dashboard related to COVID-19

Let’s not forget to mention COVID-19 Canada, the GIS portal provided by Esri Canada which contains several resources on COVID-19 in Canada, in particular the Esri Canada COVID-19 Health Dashboard, including four more pandemic-themed dashboards you can draw inspiration from.

4. Return to Work App

Created in a Survey123  smart form and an interactive dashboard, this app can be deployed in ArcGIS Enterprise or ArcGIS Online and lets you know and manage the number of employees who can return to their workplace according to social distancing requirements. Based on your organization’s floor plans, you can map your workspaces to maintain social distancing. The form that is integrated into the dashboard allows employees to reserve their office space. Also, to make it more user friendly, the app can be easily integrated with Microsoft Office 365.

Note that a return to work app can also be easily configured with ArcGIS Experience Builder.

5. Business Continuity Solution

The business continuity solution consists of dashboards that are fed by surveys to monitor and maintain facilities and personnel. It is thus easier to understand and follow the health of staff members, know where they are working, and therefore spot signs of potential infection. In fact, historical data is very useful in limiting the spread of the virus. This solution therefore aims to help you set up an interactive record keeping system and live management dashboards that will allow you to view, monitor and track who is in the office or workplace, and at what moment. Communication with decision-makers and employees is easier. To learn more about planning an optimal and safe return to work, watch this recorded webinar.

2020 Recap

Finally, the dashboards were fundamental in this pandemic year. Esri technology will have made it possible to track spatiotemporal COVID-19 cases, represent the pandemic’s repercussions, inform the public by providing the necessary resources and ultimately provide essential tools for a safe and optimal return to work.

This post was originally written in French by Audrey Beaudoin-Arcand and can be viewed here.