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Web-based Solutions for Enterprisewide Geospatial Requirements
Majdi Zaharan
Intergraph Corporation
Huntsville, Alabama 35894
mmzahran@ingr.com
Majdi Zaharan
Intergraph Corporation
Huntsville, Alabama 35894
mmzahran@ingr.com
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.
Implementation
The first step towards implementing a successful enterprisewide web based solution is creating enterprisewide requirements and user interface document, this will ensure the inclusion of each department’s requirement that will be part of the solution. The Web View solution being addressed in this paper is one that provides access to facilities management systems, maintenance, materials management, customer information, and customer care. It will provide the user drill down, work type selection, locates and query, external application launches and other functionality required to support the business processes. The functionalities required for such an implementation are:
Conclusion
Enterprisewide Web-based solution will provide data across the departmental boundaries, enhance interdepartmental efforts, improve provisioning timing and provide better tools for sale and marketing support. Web technologies based on active X controls simplifies interface development and standardization of graphic user interfaces. This will result in a decrease in training time and an intuitive graphical user interface, which will reduce cost and deployment time. Further more, distributing the corporate AM/FM/GIS data to the enterprise and providing bi-directional edits will further enhance the quality and completeness of data without compromising data security.
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.
Implementation
The first step towards implementing a successful enterprisewide web based solution is creating enterprisewide requirements and user interface document, this will ensure the inclusion of each department’s requirement that will be part of the solution. The Web View solution being addressed in this paper is one that provides access to facilities management systems, maintenance, materials management, customer information, and customer care. It will provide the user drill down, work type selection, locates and query, external application launches and other functionality required to support the business processes. The functionalities required for such an implementation are:
- Configuring the Web product with Internet Explorer and configuring the web server.
- Web product interface with work management and Document Management. Users will be
able to launch the work management product from the Web seat, View and query
pending and completed work orders, as they exist in the history tables updated by work
management. The users will be able to create work order numbers from the Web product
that are passed on to work management.
- Web product configuration to perform the following basic functionality as described in
the above diagram:
- Display a login form for users from different District Offices.
This page is activated by accessing the URL for the Web application from Internet
Explorer. The following controls are available on the Log-in Page:
User ID. This text box allows the user to enter a valid user ID.
Password. This text box allows the user to enter a valid password corresponding to the already-entered user ID.
Office. This drop-down list allows the user to select an area office location.
Company. This read-only text box automatically displays the company name based on the selected area office.
Login. This command button submits the entered user ID and password for validation.
Reset. This command button clears the text from both the User ID and Password controls.
- Display a form to capture the types of work or queries to be performed (Compression
facilities, Meter facilities, and Pipeline location).
This page is activated by entering a valid user ID, password, and area office on the Log-in Page. When the log-in information is submitted and verified, the user is automatically redirected to the Facility Selection Page. The following controls are available on this page:
Compressor Station Site. This radio button allows the user to limit the query selection to only the Find Compressor Station Site query. This radio button is the default selection.
Meter Site. This radio button allows the user to limit the query selection to only the Find Meter Site query.
Block Valve. This radio button allows the user to limit the query selection to only the Find Block Valve query.
Other Sites. This radio button allows the user to limit the query selection to only the Find Site query.
Other Features. This radio button allows the user to limit the query selection to the following:
— Find Stationing Series.
— Find Valve.
— Find Political Boundary.
— Find Hydrology.
— Find Encroachment.
— Find Well.
— Find Regulatory Structure.
— Find Alignment Sheet Boundary.
— Find Operational Boundary.
— Locate by XY
Continue. This command button submits the current facility selection and redirects the user to the main page where the appropriate queries are displayed.
- Based on the input/selection from the previous step, a menu to be displayed with
predefined locates and queries for the user to select from.
- Display a priority menu selection where the user can specify the priority of maintenance service to be performed (P1, P2, P3 and P4). The user will be presented with a menu with four priority lists to select from. Each selection will start the work management workflow and will follow the company’s Business Process Diagram.
- Configure the Web product and the AM/FM/GIS system for attribute edits of the facility data from the Web.
- Locates and queries on facility data.
- Configure the Web product and the web server for distributed access of redlines created on the Web.
- Display a login form for users from different District Offices.
This page is activated by accessing the URL for the Web application from Internet
Explorer. The following controls are available on the Log-in Page:
- Generate work order numbers through the Web product by capturing inputs from the Web users and generate work order numbers to be passed to the work management system.
- Implement the security requirements.
Conclusion
Enterprisewide Web-based solution will provide data across the departmental boundaries, enhance interdepartmental efforts, improve provisioning timing and provide better tools for sale and marketing support. Web technologies based on active X controls simplifies interface development and standardization of graphic user interfaces. This will result in a decrease in training time and an intuitive graphical user interface, which will reduce cost and deployment time. Further more, distributing the corporate AM/FM/GIS data to the enterprise and providing bi-directional edits will further enhance the quality and completeness of data without compromising data security.