Best Practices for Working with ArcGIS Open Data

Courtney Claessens, Product Engineer Esri R&D Center, Washington DC

What this session is

•  Tips and tricks: - Configuring your services - Preparing your data - Organizing in ArcGIS Online - Simple site design

•  For: -  Those with ArcGIS Open Data running now -  Those interested in spinning up a site

What this session is not

•  In-depth overview of ArcGIS Open Data •  Step-by-step how-to •  Other great sessions for more details:

- Design and Style Your Sites: Tuesday 11:30 am (TW) - Engaging your Community with Open Data: Tuesday 2:30 pm - How to Federate ArcGIS Open Data Catalogs: Tuesday 4:30 pm - Bridging Communities and Data with ArcGIS Open Data: Thursday 3:15 pm (TW)

ArcGIS Open Data: Part of the ArcGIS Platform

Desktop Web Device

Server Online Content and Services

Portal

Web GIS

Open Data Site

Apps

Services

Access

Simple, integrated, open

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• Data-centric view • Open formats • Hosted and configurable

•  Included with ArcGIS subscriptions

not all data is created equal

tricky: introducing your data to new users that new use cases

Ultimate goals + session outline

•  Data that is performant and quick to view and download (service configuration) •  Data that is citizen-friendly and easy to understand (data preparation and

organization) •  Sites that are inviting and give user guidance (site design)

Dataset and service preparation How to best configure your services

Getting data ready from ArcMap

•  Humanize your attributes: use attribute aliases

Getting data ready from ArcMap

•  Humanize your attributes: use attribute aliases •  Hide unnecessary or empty fields

- Keep ObjectID

Let’s talk server and services

•  Latest is greatest (but definitely need 10+) •  Service parameters

- Max record count should be less than 5,000

Let’s talk server and services

•  Latest is greatest (but definitely need 10+) •  Service parameters

- Max record count should be less than 5,000

•  Service capabilities - Enable WMS, WFS, WCS (where applicable) -  Turn off feature access if not needed

Let’s talk server and services

•  Latest is greatest (but definitely need 10+) •  Service parameters

- Max record count should be less than 5,000

•  Service capabilities - Enable WMS, WFS, WCS (where applicable) -  Turn off feature access if not needed

•  Organize datasets into multiple services - No more than 20 to a service - A unique title for each dataset

•  Must be publicly accessible

ArcGIS Online preparation How to best configure your organization and data in Online

Let’s talk organization structures

•  ArcGIS Online user roles - Open Data administrator

Let’s talk organization structures

•  ArcGIS Online user roles - Open Data administrator

•  Staging groups – good for orgs with multiple contributors •  Thematic groups – comes in handy when adding data

Let’s talk organization structures

•  ArcGIS Online user roles - Open Data administrator

•  Staging groups – good for orgs with multiple contributors •  Thematic groups – comes in handy when adding and organizing data on your site •  Include good group names, icons, descriptions

Registering data and editing metadata

•  Register individual layers over full services •  Gives greater and easier control of metadata

•  Title, description, access and use constraints (license), tags •  License: Creative Commons is ideal! •  Add structured metadata on ArcGIS Online

- Accessible from dataset page and included in shapefile downloads

Site customization Some tips for site design and user guidance

Basic customization

•  Header CSS – a little goes a long way! - Overwrite the predefined classes that you want to change - Use developer tools in your browser to identify classes - Can still use wizard for the body of your site

Basic customization

•  Header CSS – a little goes a long way! - Overwrite the predefined classes that you want to change - Use developer tools in your browser to identify classes - Can still use wizard for the body of your site

•  Place categories on your homepage

Basic customization

•  Header CSS – a little goes a long way! - Overwrite the predefined classes that you want to change - Use developer tools in your browser to identify classes - Can still use wizard for the body of your site

•  Place categories on your homepage •  Open source icon libraries

-  Icons8 - Noun Project - Bootstrap Glyphicons

Basic customization

•  Header CSS – a little goes a long way! - Overwrite the predefined classes that you want to change - Use developer tools in your browser to identify classes - Can still use wizard for the body of your site

•  Place categories on your homepage •  Open source icon libraries

-  Icons8 - Noun Project - Bootstrap Glyphicons

•  Add contact information or feedback mechanisms to homepage

•  Data preparation - Attribute aliases - Hide unnecessary fields

•  Service configuration - Max record count - Enabling WMS, WFS, WCS - Maximum 20 datasets per service

•  ArcGIS Online organization - User roles - Staging groups

•  Registering data -  Individual layers - Effective metadata

•  Site design - Header CSS - Groups -  Feedback mechanisms

What did we learn?

Other Open Data Sessions bit.ly/OpenDataUC

• Design and Style Your Sites • Tuesday 11:30 am in Demo Theater 11 - Developer

• Engaging your Community with Open Data • Tuesday 2:30 pm in Demo Theater 8 – Online GIS

• How to Federate ArcGIS Open Data Catalogs • Tuesday 4:30 pm in Demo Theater 8 – Online GIS

• Bridging Communities and Data with ArcGIS Open Data • Thursday 3:15 pm (TW) in Room 31 C

• Open Data Special Interest Group • Tuesday 5:30 pm in Room 31 C

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Want to learn more?

• Documentation - ArcGIS Open Data docs - ArcGIS Online docs

• Related Esri Training and Tutorials - ArcGIS Open Data Live Training Seminar (Oct 2014)

•  bit.ly/OpenDataLTS

• Additional Resources - ArcGIS Open Data on the ArcGIS Blog - ArcGIS Open Data on GeoNet

Session survey

•  Please fill out the session survey in your mobile app •  Search Open Data in the mobile app •  Select Best Practices •  Click “Demo Theatre Survey” •  Answer a few short questions and enter any comments