Urbana_GIS_Assessment_-_March_2023.pdf

March 2023

Prepared By

P.O. Box 1017 Roanoke, IL 61561 877-377-8124

CITY OF URBANA GIS ASSESSMENT

USING GEOSPATIAL KNOWLEDGE TO CREATE A BETTER CITY

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Geospatial Analysis and Progress Score

Strategic and Operational Planning

Staffing and Resources

User Engagement and Mobility

Interoperability and Automation

Collaboration and Sharing

Standards and Processes

Data Quality and Integrity

Data Coverage

Conclusion

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In January of 2023, The City of Urbana contracted Cloudpoint Geospatial to conduct an assessment of the City’s current Geographic Information System (GIS) and make recommendations on ways to improve the system and related workflows. These recommendations are based on the requirements and priorities communicated by City staff as well as answers provided through the Geospatial Analysis and Planning Score (GAPS) analysis.

These requirements and priorities were communicated during virtual meetings as well as documentation provided by the City. The scope of this review was to

● Complete and review the initial GAPS analysis

● Review and organize discovered needs

● Consider additional needs uncovered during the GAPS analysis

● Estimate time and costs to address these needs

The Goals of this Assessment are to prepare recommendations that will provide for

• the efficient provisioning of geospatial data and services that will result in cost-savings for the delivery of city services and management of city assets and property

• continued improvement of workflows and business processes resulting from the integration of GIS applications with city business systems and shared data

Prior to this assessment the City has put significant thought and effort into determining the needs that they could see, planning for some improvements, and is starting to execute some of these improvements. That work was the foundation of this assessment and was not only invaluable to developing these recommendations, but also shows the level of commitment the City has in improving the use of GIS throughout the City. The initial GAP Score was 52%. This is considered average and shows that the City places an emphasis on GIS, but lacks the resources (time or money) to develop and execute a strategic plan. The recommendations provided herein will give the City a starting point for such a plan.

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GEOSPATIAL ANALYSIS AND PROGRESS SCORE

The City responded to the GAPS analysis questionnaire that was provided by Cloudpoint. The GAP score is a way for an organization to begin benchmarking its geospatial capabilities and creates a means to monitor and revisit the progress along the way. The GAPs scoring tool provides a score from 0 to 100 to evaluate how well your organization is doing with GIS in the following areas:

• Strategic and Operational Planning

• Staffing & Resources

• User Engagement & Mobility

• Interoperability & Automation

• Collaboration & Sharing

• Standards & Process

• Data Quality & Integrity

• Data Coverage

Interpreting the GAPS analysis is easy:

20 to 34% Any small improvement could change your life.

35 to 49% You are below average. But help is available.

50 to 64% You are average, but wouldn't you like to be better?

65 to 79% You are above average. Keep up the pursuit of geospatial excellence.

80 to 89% You are well above average. Well on your way to geospatial excellence.

90 to 100% Congratulations, you have a world-class geospatial program!

This analysis was developed from Cloudpoint’s many years of providing GIS services to a variety of organizations. It is intended to help organizations pinpoint their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) as it pertains to their GIS eco-system. The questions that analysis is seeking to answer are as follows:

Strategic and Operational Planning: What is the level of support from champion decision makers and the level of planning efforts across your organization?

Staffing and Resources: What is the level of staffing and resources you have available to accomplish your geospatial objectives?

User Engagement and Mobility: How well are your users engaged with GIS?

Interoperability and Automation: What is the level of automation in relation to the GIS and how well is the GIS connected to other systems?

Collaboration and Sharing: What is the level of sharing and distribution of the GIS with the public, other agencies, contractors, consultants, et cetera?

Standards and Processes: To what extent do you have standards in place to maintain the integrity of your data and processes?

Data Quality and Integrity: To what extent is the GIS data accurate, complete, trusted, and protected?

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Data Coverage: Considering all potential GIS data your organization could have, what is the level of coverage of each of these layers in your GIS?

PROGRESS SCORE

Below is a summary of the results of the analysis taken on February 27, 2023. The remainder of this report will address each section individually with regards to the score, the needs recognized by the City, and the needs uncovered in the development of this assessment.

SO Strategic and Operational Planning 64% Average

SR Staffing and Resources 60% Average

UE User Engagement and Mobility 50% Average

IA Interoperability and Automation 40% Below Average

CS Collaboration and Sharing 33% Below Average

SP Standards and Processes 46% Below Average

DQ Data Quality and Integrity 53% Average

DC Data Coverage 53% Average

Total Score 52% Average

STRATEGIC AND OPERATIONAL PLANNING

DISCOVERED NEEDS

SO-1: Evaluate organizational use of GIS. The City recognized the need for a review of the existing GIS and contracted Cloudpoint to perform this assessment.

SO-2: Review users from other departments. Train and assist where needed.

ADDITIONAL NEEDS

None at this time.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Leverage existing staff to the greatest extent possible to train and assist other department staff. Hire additional staff or contract with GIS vendor to provide staffing augmentation.

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STAFFING AND RESOURCES

SR-1: Additional manpower to assist existing GIS staff.

ADDITIONAL NEEDS

SR-2: Create and document plan for updating and maintaining the City’s enterprise GIS systems and Software.

SR-3: Assess existing hardware and network systems and plan for future upgrades.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Outsourcing higher level GIS administrative items, such as planning for updates to enterprise GIS systems and assessing hardware, will allow current staff to continue to manage the day-to-day aspects of the GIS.

USER ENGAGEMENT AND MOBILITY

DISCOVERED NEEDS

UE-1: Lucity is accessed by about half of users via desktop while the other half accesses the software with 5 year old Asus tablets.

UE-2: Training City Staff – Web GIS training for Portal users and ArcGIS Pro training for desktop users

UE-3: Capital Improvement Plan workflows for staff and public use.

ADDITIONAL NEEDS

UE-4: Software training needs for Field Staff.

UE-5: Create method for end-users to report spatial data inaccuracies.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Plan for tablet replacement in the near future and staff training on new hardware. Engage with an Esri business partner with the Release Ready Specialty to provide training on ArcGIS Pro, Portal for ArcGIS, and mobile applications for appropriate staff.

Devote resources to creating maps and applications (such as for CIP) that will bring immediate benefit to both City staff and the public.

Improve trust in the GIS data and buy-in from staff by creating a method for end-users to report spatial data inaccuracies. This might be done by creating a GIS work order category in Lucity.

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INTEROPERABILITY AND AUTOMATION

Lucity: The City is currently working through a reimplementation project with Lucity. There are currently only a few users of Lucity, in Fleet and Facilities, but the goal is that around 50 staff members organization-wide will use and rely on the software after the reimplementation is complete, approximately at the end of 2023. Lucity currently integrates with GIS.

GraniteNet: At the time of the assessment, the City had recently upgraded the GraniteNet subscription to include support for GIS integration.

PAVER: Currently used for pavement maintenance. Lucity has module for this as well that could potentially allow for GIS integration.

Davey TreeKeeper: Used for urban forestry management. Tree layer not edited through TreeKeeper.

DISCOVERED NEEDS

IA-1: Complete reimplementation of Lucity, including integration with GIS. The majority of this cost has been included in the reimplantation project, however the Client should plan for changes necessary to the GIS to allow for full integration.

IA-2: Complete integration of GraniteNet with GIS. Cloudpoint has assisted another Client with this implementation and the City should plan for time to make necessary updates to the GIS to allow for full integration.

IA-3: Staff training on creating and utilizing forms in Lucity. Will be necessary in making decisions about when data is created/stored in Lucity vs. natively in the GIS.

ADDITIONAL NEEDS

IA-4: Create a comprehensive list of workflows that City staff undertake on a regular basis in order to determine if, how, and when the workflows can be automated or made more efficient using GIS and/or Lucity.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Complete implementation of Lucity, devoting some additional resources to fully integrating the system with GIS. Continue to review other systems for integration with both Lucity and GIS (GraniteNet, PAVER, TreeKeeper). Create comprehensive list of existing workflows, such as inspections, and evaluate for automation and/or integration with other systems. The Client may wish to consider real-time GIS integration of fleet vehicles in the future using either GeoEvent Server or ArcGIS Velocity.

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COLLABORATION AND SHARING

CS-1: Repair Lucity link in Citizen Problem reporter.

CS-2: Create Design JULIE Web Mapping Application to share with Engineering Firms who request information from JULIE. If public facing map is not possible, create ArcGIS Pro project to simplify fulling these requests.

CS-3: Pavement Condition Web Mapping Application for both internal planning and sharing with the public.

CS-4: Review publicly available data for updating or consider removing.

ADDITIONAL NEEDS

CS-5: Data sharing process with emergency agencies and local law enforcement.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Begin to create and implement web maps and web mapping applications that can be used by the public and city staff to get GIS engagement from as many people as possible.

STANDARDS AND PROCESSES

At the time of the assessment, Public Works staff was approximately halfway through moving data to a new network drive that is theirs to manage and maintain. Some data is also shared with Community Development. City GIS data exists in multiple places both within City infrastructure and Consortium maintained infrastructure.

DISCOVERED NEEDS

SP-1: Improve and implement folder tree structure for M: drive.

SP-2: Improve organization of locally stored GIS data. The City provided documentation of planned folder structure that has been well thought out.

SP-3: Begin to document standards and processes. Cloudpoint has found through our own experiences that documenting workflows as they arise is the most efficient and effective way to begin the documentation process. Potential place for this documentation is IT’s internal wiki.

SP-4: Improve organization data in Portal for ArcGIS. Client provided well thought out list of categories and tags. Cloudpoint would recommend reviewing naming and metadata standards as well.

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ADDITIONAL NEEDS

SP-5: Consolidate existing GIS data and clearly mark Authoritative data. Create Versions/Hosted Feature Layer Views to manage access and editing abilities.

SP-6: Implementation and training on ArcGIS for AutoCAD. Engineers and other staff familiar and comfortable in AutoCAD may benefit from using the plug-in.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Prior to collaborating and sharing with others, it is imperative that the data that will be shared is as complete and accurate as possible. Begin work as soon as possible on determining the authoritative source of each dataset and documenting this in a location that is easily accessible to those who need it.

Consider what GIS standards or processes might be most beneficial to the organization and develop a timeline for implementing those.

DATA QUALITY AND INTEGRITY

DQ-1: Sanitary sewer data completeness

DQ-2: Storm sewer data completeness

ADDITIONAL NEEDS

DQ-3: As-built data is not being incorporated into GIS.

DQ-4: Audit remaining existing data for consistent attributes, appropriate geometry, and spatial accuracy.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Once the authoritative data source is determined and documented, work can begin on evaluating this data. This should occur as soon as possible after documentation as it will be the first step in ensuring the data is trusted by the users. Historical as-built data can be slowly incorporated if data collection is not feasible. Data collection for any utility can also be completed in phases if necessary due to budgetary concerns.

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DATA COVERAGE

DC-1: Data collection to supplement existing Storm and Sanitary Manhole data.

ADDITIONAL NEEDS

DC-2: Data collection to supplement roadway layers

DC-3: Data collection to supplement Parking/street asset layers

DC-4: Data collection to supplement Sidewalk layer

RECOMMENDATIONS

Improve on the data coverage as time and budget allow. Once end-users have bought in, they will Be able to determine what additional data is most important to them.

CONCLUSION

The first steps that should be undertaken are in the Standards and Processes and Data Quality and Integrity sections. By solidifying the location of the authoritative data and auditing that data for completeness and accuracy the City will understand the current state of each dataset and be able to use them in an appropriate manner and plan for necessary improvements.

Attached to this report is an estimate of cost for the items described herein. Many of the individual tasks would be included under a Managed Services contract and are denoted as such in the table. The summary of prices includes three values: the cost for Managed Services, the cost of the items that would be included in Managed Services if they were to be contracted separately, and finally a cost of the items that would not be included under a Managed Services contract. The estimates of these last items meant for budgetary purposes only.

The City has great people and solid GIS infrastructure. They are eager to improve and have begun to develop standards and processes that will greatly improve the use of, and trust in, the GIS existing data.

Implementing the recommendations in this plan will take resources but the City understands the great benefits that will come from a comprehensive GIS system.

CITY OF URBANA GIS ASSESSMENT

COST ESTIMATE

Zeman, John Text Box The hours and fee have been redacted for public consumption. 01/16/2024

Conclusion