Web-based Solutions for Enterprisewide Geospatial Requirements

In an AM/FM/GIS, as with most other systems, data represents one of the major investments which needs to be leveraged and made available at an enterprise-wide level to support decision making, sales, marketing, operations, emergency response, customer care and other critical needs. An enterprise-wide focus and distribution of data to the corporate mass will encompass a wide rang of users with varying levels of needs and geographic experience. This gives rise to the issue of standard and consistent graphical user interface (GUI). Web-based solutions become the vehicle to provide the required data access and standardize the interface to serve this wide range of users and their differing needs without intimidation to any group of users within this corporate mass and without compromising security or the user’s day-today requirements.

What is Enterprisewide?
Enterprise is a term that is widely used in the Information Technology world, it is meant to encompass the entire corporation. According to Webster’s New World Dictionary of Computer Terms, any “organization that performs some task or group of tasks in relation to the rest of the world” is an enterprise. This implies that the collection of individual departments/organizations within a corporation makes an enterprise. To bring departments and organizations together and create enterprisewide solutions, one needs to make a powerful and convincing business case by eliminate redundancy, create common and shared departmental goals, provide data across traditional hierarchical departmental boundaries and reduce training through a consistent front end. If implemented correctly this will further enhance the accuracy, quality and completeness of the corporate AM/FM/GIS data, because it then becomes an integral part of each department’s workflow and job requirement Bidirectional data edit access will be the vehicle used for data improvement. Improved data translates to cost savings for the corporation because it will eliminate the need for dedicated resources and budgets for the soul purposes of improving the data.

Web Technology
The Active X control technology provides the users who have basic knowledge of HTML, and VB the ability to use mainstream development tools like Microsoft's Front Page™ or Visual InterDev to create Web page displays, queries, or interface to other systems. Discrete Data Access Modules are Active X modules with connections to databases, a graphical user interface and abilities to communicate with GIS databases. Discrete Data Access Modules also provides access to documents stored in any of the Microsoft suite of products. Discrete Data Access Modules can also provide interface to customer care systems, work management, customer information systems, marketing, engineering, and inventory management.