Presented during the 2019 North Dakota Geospatial Summit in Bismarck, ND, October 22-23.

1. ENTERPRISE GIS SUCCESS AT
McKENZIE COUNTY, ND
Bonnie Foster
McKenzie County
Brandon Tourtelotte
Pro-West & Associates
McKENZIE COUNTY

2. • Location:
• County seat is Watford City in western North Dakota; part of the Bakken Oil field
• Population:
• 6,359 in 2010 Census
• 13,632 in 2018 Census estimate
• Local estimates are up to 24,000 people
• GIS and IT staff
• 1 GIS staff hopefully adding a GIS Specialist before end of 2019
• 0 IT staff – contracted out to a company in Bismarck (3 hours away)
• Other facts:
• Largest county in North Dakota at ~2900 square miles
• Highest oil producing county in the United States
ABOUT McKENZIE COUNTY

3. • Before the project:
• What was the state of GIS prior to the project?
• Due to the huge amount of growth from the oil boom and constantly changing staff
• Lots of shapefiles and file geodatabases
• GIS files stored on multiple network drives in many folder locations
• Very few ArcMap users, a few third party web app users, and about 25
ArcReader users some of whom use laptops in the field
• Trimble field collection
• Challenges……
• File storage practices led to duplicate data and worse….
• Edits made in different locations so shapefiles out of sync
• Shapefiles have limited spatial and tabular checks & balances
• Very hard to update ArcReader maps with current data
ABOUT McKENZIE COUNTY

4. • Hiring a GIS Staff Person
• There was no one here and very hard to find experienced people to move
here
• Why get support with Enterprise?
• 20+ years in data editing / data management, but limited experience setting
up SQL server, ArcGIS Server, and other web-related resources
• Gaining support for consulting help
• Had to get past the impression that GIS = Paper Maps
• Had to get past the directive of “just call IT”
• Why work with a consultant?
• McKenzie County needed someone who could talk GIS and IT
GAINING SUPPORT
McKENZIE COUNTY

5. • Centralized data
• Centralized solutions
• Web/Mobile solutions
• Modernized GIS
• Multi-user editing
WHY MOVE TO
ENTERPRISE?
McKENZIE COUNTY

6. Pro-West support with design,
implementation and training
• System architecture design
• System architecture Implementation
• Training
• Documentation
Working with the County’s IT Consultant
PARTNERING
McKENZIE COUNTY

7. SOLUTIONS
McKENZIE COUNTY
• Internal Solutions:
• Engineers and Water Resources have some practice with Collector and Workforce for
ArcGIS
• Road Permitting testing out Collector for approach permits
• Does the location meet the required setbacks?
• This also helps in assigning a 911 address!
• Road Permitting wants an app to access road restriction layers
• Tested out a workflow where the road engineers can update attribute data without the
editing the roads spatially or its 911 attributes.
• Discussion with Watford City for one public application showing both county zoning and
city zoning.
• Public Solutions:
• Used locally maintained road data for a Spring Weight Restriction app
• EagleView / Pictometry imagery into Esri apps (incl internal)

8. • Other departments and staff
realizing that there is more
to GIS than just printing a
map.
• County Commissioners
understanding that more GIS
staff is needed to support
needs of all departments.
• Data in 2 SQL databases
making use of attribute
domains and spatial
topology.
• Easier to manage data and
update other applications.
BENEFITS
McKENZIE COUNTY

9. • What did you wish you knew at
the beginning of the project?
• Why this had already been
started and failed.
• What was your biggest
challenge?
• The GIS dependence on IT
• What was the biggest success?
• Confidence that the
components of ArcGIS
Enterprise are installed and
configured correctly.
• How do you feel about the
future?
• Encouraged!
Lessons
Learned
McKENZIE COUNTY

10. • New hire
• Solutions
• Training
• On-going
communication
(County Depts,
Commissioners,
Watford City, other
cities)
THE ROAD
AHEAD
McKENZIE COUNTY