The City of Brampton developed an interactive mapping application using Visual Fusion and Bing Maps to make it easier for citizens to access information on its Citizen Services Portal. Previously, the mapping application was complex and difficult for citizens and internal users to navigate. The new application allows citizens to easily view locations and details of city services and facilities. It also allows internal users to easily publish updated information without IT assistance. This has improved service delivery and engagement with citizens, while reducing costs and allowing staff to focus on higher priority work. The improved accessibility and timeliness of information helps Brampton compete to attract new residents and businesses.
IDV’s Visual Fusion® software unites
data visually, exposing hidden trends
and driving rapid insights that enable
better decisions.
Visual Fusion’s unique capabilities
and easy-to-use interface are helping
organizations gain understanding,
improve their bottom line, and keep
their people safe.
Ad Hoc Feeds and Searches in Visual FusionIDV Solutions
Empowering the end user is a hallmark of Visual Fusion, and one key capability the software affords is adding ad hoc content to the content already present in the application. Search using Bing Maps, Wikipedia, and Flickr. Add GeoRSS, KML, or WMS feeds.
About Visual Fusion: Visual Fusion is enterprise mashup software from IDV Solutions that integrates with Bing Maps, SharePoint, and other Microsoft products to form a platform for rapidly building out business focused applications. Uniting disparate data in a common context, a highly visual world class user experience, user empowerment, and rapid application development are unique key capabilities that make Visual Fusion stand out as an Enterprise 2.0 product. For more information, contact IDV Solutions at www.idvsolutions.com
20/20 Companies cuts costs by half with a solution built on Visual Fusion that provides analytics, streamlines the sales process, and manages and tracks sales leads.
IDV’s Visual Fusion® software unites
data visually, exposing hidden trends
and driving rapid insights that enable
better decisions.
Visual Fusion’s unique capabilities
and easy-to-use interface are helping
organizations gain understanding,
improve their bottom line, and keep
their people safe.
Ad Hoc Feeds and Searches in Visual FusionIDV Solutions
Empowering the end user is a hallmark of Visual Fusion, and one key capability the software affords is adding ad hoc content to the content already present in the application. Search using Bing Maps, Wikipedia, and Flickr. Add GeoRSS, KML, or WMS feeds.
About Visual Fusion: Visual Fusion is enterprise mashup software from IDV Solutions that integrates with Bing Maps, SharePoint, and other Microsoft products to form a platform for rapidly building out business focused applications. Uniting disparate data in a common context, a highly visual world class user experience, user empowerment, and rapid application development are unique key capabilities that make Visual Fusion stand out as an Enterprise 2.0 product. For more information, contact IDV Solutions at www.idvsolutions.com
20/20 Companies cuts costs by half with a solution built on Visual Fusion that provides analytics, streamlines the sales process, and manages and tracks sales leads.
Integrating Excel Files in Visual FusionIDV Solutions
Visual Fusion makes it easy for users to upload Excel files into SharePoint and then geocode the items within each Excel file so that they can be combined with other enterprise and cloud-based data in a highly visual composite application. Often it is advantageous to apply advanced filtering and styling to Excel file content for enhanced communication to the end user, and in these cases Visual Fusion Server (VFS) connects to Excel files stored in SharePoint in order to run the items in that file through the VFS styling engine. In this way both Excel files are greatly enhanced as communication tools to users.
The Maritime Administration created MarView, a data visualization system based on Microsoft® Single View Platform technologies such as Windows Server®, Microsoft Internet information Services 6.0, the .NET Framework, and Bing™ Maps for Enterprise, which together provide a single, geographic view of complex information and data sets across multiple roles, locations, and user interfaces.
Atlantic hurricane paths represented as copy written fictional weapons of varying data-driven height.
Auto-Draw
A set of ad-hoc draw tools for defining your areas of interest can make it easy to forget about all the awesome shapes that are already sitting on the map...just waiting to be used as spatial query inputs. So, if you've selected an area feature, you now have the ability to turn it into a spatial query
IDV’s Visual Fusion® software unites
data visually, exposing hidden trends
and driving rapid insights that enable
better decisions.
Visual Fusion’s unique capabilities
and easy-to-use interface are helping
organizations gain understanding,
improve their bottom line, and keep
their people safe.
The folks at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have compiled a -really nice- WMS feed of satellite data. Here are some examples pulled into VFX...
Energy giant BP saved its employees when Hurricane Katrina struck, but the process of locating its people and material assets, and making decisions about their care, was time-consuming when every second counted. The company sought a better solution.
That’s what BP has now with its Hurricane Management System, which combines the 3-D satellite imagery of Microsoft® Virtual Earth™ mapping software and real-time weather data with a visual representation of BP people and facilities. The solution uses existing BP infrastructure, including the Microsoft application environment. It saves BP crisis managers hours each day by
automatically consolidating data from 20 sources. Most important, BP personnel worldwide can understand and respond to threats hours faster—with the potential both to better care for the safety of
their workers and to save millions of dollars.
Km4City: how to make smart and resilient your city, beginner documentPaolo Nesi
Open Source and inter-operable tools to
• keep city under control via personalized dashboards
• monitoring services’ status of city operators
• monitoring and understanding the city users behaviour
• collecting moods, contributions and data from the city users
• monitoring social media for city services and events, event predictions
• improve city resilience, reducing risks and decision support by:
• assessing city resilience level
• improving city resilience, providing objective hints
• improving city users awareness with personal city assistants and participatory tools
• transform data in value for the city:
• enabling commercial and business applications
• aggregating multi-domain data and services for SMEs and city operators
• enabling integrated city services into third party web portal for all
• providing suggestion on demand services for SMEs and city operators
• accelerating and simplifying the implementation of business and service oriented Apps
Follow the Km4City City Smartener Process
This is the end of project presentation for the project performed at Royal Commission Yanbu. The scope of the project was to develop and maintain 22 applications along with strategic planning, importing tablets and Kiosks and developing applications for them.
Significance of statistics analytics in urban making planslucyaddison1
Real Estate Business Review : It has furnished city planners with accessibility to a tremendous amount of records, which they might make use of to collect essential insights approximately the usage of municipal corporations, public transportation, and concrete dwelling patterns, assisting them assemble better infrastructure.
With the help of sensors on roadways and applications on the phones of drivers, cities all around the world are actively collecting real-time data about traffic patterns. The data is more than just useful for drivers and interesting for city developers, it has the potential to revolutionise the way cities manage their roadways, reduce congestion and develop neighbourhoods. But in order to utilise the data effectively, cities must often first address a gaping disconnection between the value of the data they collect and the resources available to put them to work—starting with strong leadership.
Future of Citizen Engagement & Asset Management with CitySourced and Cityworksandrewkkirk
Learn how the City of Longview, Texas integrated citizen engagement with asset management, including the City’s approach to citizen engagement and both current and upcoming best practices.
Also included is an explanation of a powerful new way to harness Cityworks’ GIS capabilities with CitySourced’s extensible, free API.
IoT can be complex and confusing with many definitions often perceived by enterprises. But it's not a futuristic trend because it's already happening and we can start small with existing 'things'.
The Internet of Things powers a new era of innovation that opens new opportunities to re-imagine the future of our city, so city leaders can more proactively address city priorities such as reducing energy consumption, improving public safety, and nurturing innovation and growth.
Integrating Excel Files in Visual FusionIDV Solutions
Visual Fusion makes it easy for users to upload Excel files into SharePoint and then geocode the items within each Excel file so that they can be combined with other enterprise and cloud-based data in a highly visual composite application. Often it is advantageous to apply advanced filtering and styling to Excel file content for enhanced communication to the end user, and in these cases Visual Fusion Server (VFS) connects to Excel files stored in SharePoint in order to run the items in that file through the VFS styling engine. In this way both Excel files are greatly enhanced as communication tools to users.
The Maritime Administration created MarView, a data visualization system based on Microsoft® Single View Platform technologies such as Windows Server®, Microsoft Internet information Services 6.0, the .NET Framework, and Bing™ Maps for Enterprise, which together provide a single, geographic view of complex information and data sets across multiple roles, locations, and user interfaces.
Atlantic hurricane paths represented as copy written fictional weapons of varying data-driven height.
Auto-Draw
A set of ad-hoc draw tools for defining your areas of interest can make it easy to forget about all the awesome shapes that are already sitting on the map...just waiting to be used as spatial query inputs. So, if you've selected an area feature, you now have the ability to turn it into a spatial query
IDV’s Visual Fusion® software unites
data visually, exposing hidden trends
and driving rapid insights that enable
better decisions.
Visual Fusion’s unique capabilities
and easy-to-use interface are helping
organizations gain understanding,
improve their bottom line, and keep
their people safe.
The folks at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have compiled a -really nice- WMS feed of satellite data. Here are some examples pulled into VFX...
Energy giant BP saved its employees when Hurricane Katrina struck, but the process of locating its people and material assets, and making decisions about their care, was time-consuming when every second counted. The company sought a better solution.
That’s what BP has now with its Hurricane Management System, which combines the 3-D satellite imagery of Microsoft® Virtual Earth™ mapping software and real-time weather data with a visual representation of BP people and facilities. The solution uses existing BP infrastructure, including the Microsoft application environment. It saves BP crisis managers hours each day by
automatically consolidating data from 20 sources. Most important, BP personnel worldwide can understand and respond to threats hours faster—with the potential both to better care for the safety of
their workers and to save millions of dollars.
Km4City: how to make smart and resilient your city, beginner documentPaolo Nesi
Open Source and inter-operable tools to
• keep city under control via personalized dashboards
• monitoring services’ status of city operators
• monitoring and understanding the city users behaviour
• collecting moods, contributions and data from the city users
• monitoring social media for city services and events, event predictions
• improve city resilience, reducing risks and decision support by:
• assessing city resilience level
• improving city resilience, providing objective hints
• improving city users awareness with personal city assistants and participatory tools
• transform data in value for the city:
• enabling commercial and business applications
• aggregating multi-domain data and services for SMEs and city operators
• enabling integrated city services into third party web portal for all
• providing suggestion on demand services for SMEs and city operators
• accelerating and simplifying the implementation of business and service oriented Apps
Follow the Km4City City Smartener Process
This is the end of project presentation for the project performed at Royal Commission Yanbu. The scope of the project was to develop and maintain 22 applications along with strategic planning, importing tablets and Kiosks and developing applications for them.
Significance of statistics analytics in urban making planslucyaddison1
Real Estate Business Review : It has furnished city planners with accessibility to a tremendous amount of records, which they might make use of to collect essential insights approximately the usage of municipal corporations, public transportation, and concrete dwelling patterns, assisting them assemble better infrastructure.
With the help of sensors on roadways and applications on the phones of drivers, cities all around the world are actively collecting real-time data about traffic patterns. The data is more than just useful for drivers and interesting for city developers, it has the potential to revolutionise the way cities manage their roadways, reduce congestion and develop neighbourhoods. But in order to utilise the data effectively, cities must often first address a gaping disconnection between the value of the data they collect and the resources available to put them to work—starting with strong leadership.
Future of Citizen Engagement & Asset Management with CitySourced and Cityworksandrewkkirk
Learn how the City of Longview, Texas integrated citizen engagement with asset management, including the City’s approach to citizen engagement and both current and upcoming best practices.
Also included is an explanation of a powerful new way to harness Cityworks’ GIS capabilities with CitySourced’s extensible, free API.
IoT can be complex and confusing with many definitions often perceived by enterprises. But it's not a futuristic trend because it's already happening and we can start small with existing 'things'.
The Internet of Things powers a new era of innovation that opens new opportunities to re-imagine the future of our city, so city leaders can more proactively address city priorities such as reducing energy consumption, improving public safety, and nurturing innovation and growth.
Better Community Connections Through Big Data and AnalyticsSAP Analytics
http://spr.ly/AA_PublicSector - With in-memory computing and analytics tools, the City of Boston is providing better service to citizens and engaging more with the community.
-Bloomberg Businessweek Research
BlackBerry Helps Connect The City of WaterlooBlackBerry
The City of Waterloo has developed a long-term relationship with BlackBerry, and recently migrated to BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (BES10) and BlackBerry 10 smartphones for its workforce. 183 employees were issued BlackBerry 10 devices, and BES10 has been deployed throughout the organization. City employees at every level, from “planners to bylaw personnel to firefighters” all use BES10 to communicate quickly and securely.
Fetch! is the fastest, most convenient way to get key business data from throughout the enterprise and across the Web, whenever you need it, wherever you are.
Fetch! puts SharePoint® content, PerformancePoint® scorecards, SQL Server® Reporting Services
reports and more at your fingertips. Instantly fetch a record, fetch a report, or fetch a custom BI
mash-up from a dozen different sources. Fetch! gives you an immediate, single point of access to all
your enterprise data, right from your mobile device.
Anyways, the fun-filled extrusion icon (a spatial bar chart) available in VFX is a favorite of several clients, and in 5.0 (mid-October, 2010) it gets a face lift from a galaxy far far away...or something.
Feature-wise, this is hardly worth mentioning. But nerd-wise, it's too fun not to preview! The trusty old extruded cylinder now looks like an elegant weapon for a more civilized age...
SharePoint has a great alerting feature that can email a set of defined people when something of interest happens. Now with Visual Fusion 5.0, you'll be able to include where it happens in your alerting criteria via a rich set of draw tools in an interactive map that let you define complex locations in conjunction with your business rules.
The ability to add geo-fences, as criteria to alerting rules, is another way that Visual Fusion is breathing where into your SharePoint environment.
In the last post, I described how you can now draw geographic data along with attribute data from within a SharePoint list or library. What other entity that is called a GIS is this accessible to non-specialists?
User empowerment is a big push in Visual Fusion 5.0 (available this fall), and that goes hand in hand with context. So in addition to the geographic draw tools available in the SharePoint new item interface, you can create or modify data directly in the Visual Fusion interface right there in the application; within the context of the rest of your data.
The New Visual Fusion 5.0 Feature - Generalization. It isoptional; automatically removes unnecessary sub-pixel geographic data to ensure maximum speed and performance.
The new VF 5.0 Feature -Timeline. It is intuitive and easy to use; allows the user to locate data points on a timeline by hovering over a data point on the map or in the chart.
The New Visual Fusion 5.0 Feature - Generalization It is optional; automatically removes unnecessary sub-pixel geographic data to ensure maximum speed and performance.
The New Visual Fusion Feature - Feedback. It is user friendly; allows the user to see which feeds are out of range and then notifies the user at which altitudes the feed can then be seen.
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City of Brampton City Engages Citizens, Delivers Better Information, with Interactive Mapping <br />The City of Brampton, Ontario, works to provide essential services to its citizens, cooperate with neighboring municipalities, and compete to attract new businesses and residents. The City wanted to make it easier for citizens to find information and engage with public services. It developed an Internet-based Citizen Services Portal (CSP), where Brampton residents and businesses can engage directly with City agencies and services; however, feedback indicated that the old mapping application was too complex. After evaluating mapping technologies, the City integrated IDV Solutions’ Visual Fusion and the Bing Maps Platform into the new CSP. Now, CSP users can find what they need, and internal users in every city department can efficiently provide up-to-date geographically based information. As a result, the City is reducing costs, providing better services, and competing more effectively.<br />SituationWith a population of more than 500,000 and an annual growth rate above 6 percent, Brampton, Ontario, is one of the fastest growing cities in Canada. The third-largest city in the Toronto metropolitan area, Brampton has a demographically young and culturally diverse population, and the city has developed an economic base that includes advanced manufacturing, information technology, and life sciences. <br />To continue to grow and promote prosperity for its citizens, the City of Brampton must compete to attract new businesses and industries in addition to new residents. As Brampton grows, the City has to help maintain and enhance the conditions that make Brampton an attractive place to live and work. “Citizens—especially an emerging demographic group of young, mobile information workers—expect the same level of customer service that they get in the private commercial sector,” says Robert Meikle, Chief Information Officer at the City of Brampton. <br />The City of Brampton provides its half-million residents with essential services such as fire; planning and zoning; public works and transportation; economic development; parks and recreation; and visitor support. The City also coordinates services and cooperates with neighboring municipalities. <br />Figure 1. IDV mapping tool on the City’s CSP Portal. By expanding the menus in the right-hand pane of the map interface, site visitors can click on options to expose the locations of City facilities, services, and activities, such as road construction and closures. By resting the pointer on an icon, users expose a pane with more details, such as schedules and location information.<br />While the City continually works to enhance the services it delivers, Mayor Susan Fennell wanted to go further. She wanted to fundamentally change how Brampton citizens engage with the City and the services it provides. She wanted City service agencies to be transparent and responsive, and she wanted it to be more convenient for citizens to find and use the information and services they need. <br />Toward that vision, the City began a year-long project to remake its website into the Brampton Citizen Services Portal (CSP), which it built with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The City launched the CSP in 2009, and Brampton residents and businesses began using it to engage with City agencies and services. They can find information, apply for permits, register and pay for services, and contact City staff. <br />The city’s website included a geographic information system (GIS)–based mapping application that provided the public with a way to access spatial information visually, whether they were trying to locate a public jogging trail, find the nearest police station, or look up property information. However, the application was complex, and some users complained that it was difficult to find the information they wanted. <br />“To be honest, the GIS-based interface was not easy to use,” says Bill Latchford, Manager of IT System Operations at the City of Brampton. “We had to handle a lot of support calls, and we actually held public education sessions about how to find things with the maps.”<br />It was also difficult and time consuming to publish new information with the application, a task that could be completed only by GIS and IT staff. As a result, information was not always published in a timely manner, and GIS and IT staff were often being distracted from higher value tasks.<br />The City wanted to make it much simpler for the public to use maps on the CSP; at the same time, it wanted to make it easier for internal business users to publish and manage mapping information. To help streamline IT management, the City wanted its mapping solution to integrate directly with the Office SharePoint Server 2007 environment that supports the CSP.<br />SolutionThe City of Brampton utilized the expertise of Infusion Development to architect and implement the core CSP Portal Platform, and then the City used a mapping solution called Visual Fusion developed by Microsoft Gold Certified Partner IDV Solutions to create interactive mapping applications for the CSP that work with the tools in Office SharePoint Server 2007. “The implementation of the Visual Fusion product was completed within a relatively short timeline, with one dedicated City IT developer and in just three months,” says Alber Hanna, Manager of CSP Program at the City of Brampton. <br />By integrating information and services with Bing Maps, we’re taking a big step toward making Brampton more competitive.Bill LatchfordManager of IT System Operations, City of Brampton<br />The City’s IT department evaluated several mapping options, including Google Maps and Bing Maps Platform from Microsoft. The City chose Bing Maps for two primary reasons: Bing Maps would integrate easily with Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Visual Fusion, and its datasets are very accurate. <br />“Our internal mapping data is accurate to within a foot, and Bing Maps fit seamlessly with our data,” says Latchford. “Our decision makers put pressure on us to deliver, but they gave us the opportunity to make the common-sense decisions and move on. So choosing Bing Maps was easy.”<br />With Bing Maps and Visual Fusion, the City can maintain detailed, complex, and accurate geographic databases, while making it easy for business users to publish the data. GIS specialists manage the City’s core internal geographic data sets, such as the citywide property fabric, aerial photos, and street network, updating the data directly into the GIS database. Internal business users at Brampton can then combine built-in functionalities in Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Visual Fusion to display information with a spatial context. <br />Now, when a public user opens the mapping application on the CSP, he or she can navigate a visual map interface that shows the boundaries of the City of Brampton. The user can zoom out to see Brampton in a regional or even global context, or zoom in to street level, choosing between roadmap and aerial photo views. From a right-hand pane, users can expand menus and find options to expose different data layers over the map interface. <br />For example, from the Roadworks menu, Brampton residents or visitors can click options to locate road closures, construction projects, or street-sweeping schedules. By resting the pointer above an icon that locates a road closure, a site visitor exposes a pane with the location and schedule of the closure. Clicking the icon opens a larger pane with details on the closure, including the schedule and contact information (Figure 1). Other menus locate property boundaries, zoning bylaws, economic development areas, schools, hospitals, police and fire stations, parks, transit routes, City council districts, and other civic facilities, services, and features, all with opportunities to quickly explore more detailed information. <br />Internal users in almost every City department can publish new information to the mapping application without support from GIS or IT staff, and without needing GIS software installed on their computer. They can use data from infinite sources, including web feeds, GISs, and other databases, and with Visual Fusion, they can spatially enable data in a SharePoint list and integrate it directly with the Bing Maps application programming interface. <br />BenefitsThe City of Brampton is using its Visual Fusion and Bing Maps solution to deliver timely, accurate information in a visual format. Now, whether a Brampton resident is planning a bus route to work or researching zoning codes, he or she can find the information quickly. City departments can publish timely information to the mapping application without IT help, reducing costs and saving time. The City is serving its citizens more effectively, and helping Brampton to attract the residents and businesses it needs to remain dynamic and prosperous. <br />”Making all this intelligence available on the City’s portal promotes the Brampton brand and attracts investors,” says Susan Fennell, Mayor of the City of Brampton. “We’re committed to providing Bramptonians with the services they need to enjoy an exceptional quality of life.”<br />More Efficient OperationBecause internal business users can publish information to the Bing Maps application on the CSP without relying on GIS and IT support, and without needing licensed GIS software or the training required to operate it, the City is saving time and money. For instance, the city saves approximately U.S.$6,000 per user for software and training. “Now, people can just spatially enable a SharePoint list and post the data on the map themselves. The only thing the IT staff needs to do is make sure they’re following standards,” says Latchford. “People can focus on doing their job and making the information available to whoever needs it.” <br />Citizens—especially an emerging demographic group of young, mobile information workers—expect the same level of customer service that they get in the private commercial sectorRobert MeikleChief Information Officer,City of Brampton<br />Since the City zoning department began publishing zoning information on the mapping application, Plan Examiners have reported that the amount of time they have to spend assisting permit applicants has dropped by 50 percent, time they can now use to process more permits. Because Bing Maps was easy to deploy and will be easy to manage, modify, and update, IT and GIS staff can focus their efforts on higher-value tasks, and the City of Brampton can enhance the value of its investment in the CSP and Office SharePoint Server 2007. <br />Better Services Delivered FasterBecause they now have easy access to accurate information, residents and businesses in Brampton can get projects planned, approved, and initiated quickly, increasing the return on their investments. <br />“In the past, if you wanted, say, zoning information about a property, you had to come in, fill out a form and come back in 5 to 10 days,” says Latchford. “Now, the most current information is available at your fingertips on the web, and even if you come into the office, you can walk out with what you need in minutes.” <br />Engaged CitizensWith the CSP and Bing Maps, the City of Brampton is beginning a true dialog with its citizens. By introducing a new, easy-to-use interface for its mapping application, Brampton has increased public traffic to the CSP. Additionally, because it is so easy to publish information to the Bing Maps application, internal users in every City department are updating the application more often, which means the public receives fresher and more detailed information. If a zoning bylaw is changed at a council meeting, for example, the information will be updated on the mapping application in three days or less. <br />“We are tracking an overall increase of approximately 300 percent in site visits in just six months after launch, without any marketing efforts,” says Hanna. “We profoundly believe that by architecting an intuitive and service-oriented public portal and by utilizing solutions such as Visual Fusion and Bing Maps, it will invite more citizens and casual surfers to experience our portal firsthand.”<br />Staff in the City’s Economic Development Office have installed a business directory in the mapping application. They intend to eventually allow Brampton businesses to manage some of their own information in the directory. <br />“The Mayor has given us a tremendous amount of positive feedback on the site,” says Latchford. “She wanted to change how citizens of Brampton engage with their City, and Visual Fusion and Bing Maps have been a huge part of fulfilling that strategy.” <br />Competitive CityBy making information more available, and delivering services more efficiently, Brampton can compete more effectively with neighboring cities to attract and serve new residents and new businesses. Businesses researching economic development initiatives in Brampton can find accurate, up-to-date information quickly and easily. Real estate agents can use the mapping application to print and distribute relevant zoning information to potential property buyers. <br />“We want to attract new business to Brampton.” says Latchford. “By integrating information and services with Bing Maps, we’re taking a big step toward making Brampton more competitive.”<br />