Moose Jaw Enhances Information
Management with Enterprise GIS
In Moose Jaw, a collection of recipe cards once contained some of
the most valuable information in the City. These cards weren’t secret
recipes passed down through generations though. “Recipe cards”
was actually just their nickname. They were, in fact, the City of Moose
Jaw’s asset records—paper cards organized inside rows and rows of
metal cabinets. It was the City’s way of managing information related to
thousands of assets—from watermains, to catch basins, to benches, to
street signs.
“The recipe cards were stored at City Hall, which made it
inconvenient for people to quickly call up information,” recalled Bret
Rowlinson, GIS Supervisor, City of Moose Jaw. “For example, if there
was a watermain break after hours, someone from the utility department
would have to get in touch with City Hall staff for access to the records. It
made it difficult to locate information quickly and make timely decisions.”
The recipe cards also posed challenges for the City’s finance
department to find detailed, up-to-date information.
“It was a huge amount of work for our finance department to get
the information they needed to accurately assess the value of the City’s
infrastructure,” said Mr. Rowlinson.
Efficiently carrying out its cast iron watermain replacement program
also became an issue for the City. Divining data on paper proved to be
a painstaking task. City staff spent a week sifting through 13,000 cards
containing residential properties to identify properties with lead water
service connections.
“These experiences led us to realize that we really had to improve our
information management at the City,” said Mr. Rowlinson. “Interestingly
enough, it was our finance department that identified an enterprise GIS as
the best solution to help get us there.”
For the City’s finance department, an enterprise GIS offered several
advantages.
“The GIS system would form the foundational system to connect all
of this information and allow for easy access, retrieval, manipulation and
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analysis of that data, which had been nearly impossible to do before,”
said Brian Acker, Director of Financial Services, City of Moose Jaw.
In 2010, Mr. Rowlinson led the City’s charge to develop newer, more
innovative ways to manage, update and share its asset information.
Although Moose Jaw has been an ArcGIS user since 2005, GIS was
not part of their core technology. Initially, Mr. Rowlinson explored the
possibility of expanding the City’s existing CADD system to integrate GIS
capabilities to achieve the City’s goals. But he quickly learned that this
approach wouldn’t satisfy their requirements. He began attending
Esri Canada User Conferences to learn about ArcGIS and also leveraged
the many product and training resources that were available online.
“Then I purchased an EDN (Enterprise Developer Network) license
and just started learning and playing around,” said Mr. Rowlinson.
“I worked with ArcGIS Online, created some prototypes and began
showing apps to different colleagues in various departments. Most
people didn’t know what GIS really was, or what it could do, and they
were blown away.”
Collecting asset information in the field based on location became
a top priority for Mr. Rowlinson. Part of this process involved building
a data collection workflow which initially seemed overwhelming. But
discovering the Canadian Municipal Data Model (CMDM)—a framework
created by Esri Canada that provides GIS datasets, web services,
basemaps and editing workflows—changed that.
“With the CMDM, I found that GIS experts had already established
common fields—far more than I would’ve thought of,” said Mr.
Rowlinson. “All I had to do was slightly modify the CMDM and add what
we needed. It was a big time saver for me.”
Next, Mr. Rowlinson put City staff to work collecting asset data in the
field. Initially, field staff used standard GPS devices with pre-formatted
forms to capture information related to above ground fixed assets (e.g.
garbage bins, benches, etc.). For assets that required precise location
accuracy, such as fire hydrants and watermain valves, he sourced a
high-accuracy Trimble handheld device
and a customized data collection workflow.
More recently, Mr. Rowlinson added
Collector for ArcGIS—a mobile app that
lets you use a smartphone or tablet to
collect and update information in the field
—to the City’s data collection toolkit.
“Our new approach is to collect data with
a high-accuracy device and maintain it using
Collector for ArcGIS,” said Mr. Rowlinson.
“So if someone’s in the field, they can open
up the app on their tablet and provide
feedback and quality control on assets, which
syncs up with our central system.”
To date, over 12,500 assets—ranging
from fire hydrants, to benches, to street
lights—have been collected and integrated
into ArcGIS. This also includes water service
Moose Jaw residents and city staff can access current and past watermain leaks, as well as the location of cast iron pipes
connection and infrastructure records that
that need replacement, via an online map.
used to be organized in the recipe cards, as
well as drafting plans formerly stored by the
“The GIS system provided a tremendous benefit to this process by
CADD department in Mylar format.
allowing the information to be readily retrieved, converted into standard
Now, all of this public information has been digitized, assigned
form letters and mailed with a minimum amount of effort,” said Mr. Acker.
locations and organized in a centralized database. Moose Jaw’s
Engineering, Public Works, Financial Services, Planning & Land Division, “The savings for the Clerks Department has been significant, resulting in
reduced time spent on the process and enhanced accuracy.”
City Clerks and Parks & Recreation departments can access the
information through web maps published using ArcGIS Online.
“ArcGIS has transformed the way the City operates,” said
Mr. Rowlinson. “The net result has been quicker, easier access to
information, enabling staff to make faster decisions and keeps
residents better informed and up-to-date.”
For example, staff and residents can reference a web-based
map that depicts the frequency and density of cast iron watermain
breaks in the city, stretching back several years. Created using
Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS, the web map provides a clear, picture
of priority areas for the City’s watermain replacement program.
“It’s a good example of GIS playing a key role in identifying and
communicating the magnitude and scope of the issue not only to city
staff, but also to the general public through publicly available maps
on the City’s website,” added Mr. Acker.
ArcGIS has also helped streamline the City’s discretionary use
application process, which involves staff from the Clerks Department
notifying residents of an impending property rezoning. Previously,
staff had to request paper maps and then manually cross-reference
property and tax information—a process that took up to four hours
per property. But Mr. Rowlinson now has an app for that, too: records
can be called up in just 10 minutes.
Field staff use Collector for ArcGIS on smartphones and tablets to record maintenance
activities and observations on city assets, which automatically flow into their central database.
“ArcGIS has transformed the way the City operates. The net result has been quicker, easier access to
information, which enables staff to make faster decisions and keeps residents better informed and up-to-date.”
Bret Rowlinson
City of Moose Jaw
ArcNorthNews
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