The City of Portland and their Bureau of Development Services (BDS) currently use Geocortex technology in many ways. We recently spoke to Jake Brown, GIS Coordinator for the Bureau of Development Services at the City of Portland, who shared some examples of Geocortex applications used throughout the city. With application end-goals ranging from analyzing aerial data to enhancing permit-entry processes, the positive impact that GIS and Geocortex technology has had within the city is widespread.
BDS Maps
The BDS Maps application is used primarily for data and workflow editing. A key feature of this application is a time slider tool that allows users to navigate decades of aerial imagery and analyze changes over time.
The City of Portland’s BDS Maps Application
AMANDA GIS module
This Geocortex application is embedded within the AMANDA application, which is an automated business licensing and permitting system. This integration allows users to interact with the map to access AMANDA permit details. The map includes over 100 curated layers to serve a broad variety of users. With over 1,000 current AMANDA users across multiple City Bureaus, this tool has an extensive user base. Some features included in this tool are search capabilities and street view options.
Building Edit App
The Building Edit App is a web-based application that the BDS GIS team uses to maintain the City’s enterprise building footprint dataset, which includes 250,000 shapes. The data life cycle is tied to permit data, and as new construction permits are issued and demolition permits are finalized, the Building Edit App holds an edit queue. Building footprint data is then published to a central database that feeds the PortlandMaps cache basemap. PortlandMaps is the City’s public mapping website where residents can access much of the City’s GIS data.
MapWorks
This is an in-house, Citywide map viewer where GIS administrators from various Bureaus can curate Portal web maps, allowing different user groups to navigate relevant portions of the City’s GIS data. This app was built as a Corporate GIS program (CGIS)-maintained ArcGIS runtime app. Because of this, CGIS can also leverage Geocortex Printing to allow users to create self-service PDF maps.
Short-Term Rental Map App
This internal application was built using Geocortex Web. The Short-Term Rental Map App helps the BDS Property Compliance team process Airbnb short-term rental registration applications with contextual reports (which are created using Geocortex Reporting) and KPIs referencing BDS permit data. A direct integration with Smartsheet allows staff a flexible and powerful editing environment comfortable for non-GIS users. View the City of Portland’s associated public short-term rental registry as either a gallery map or a queryable report.
The City of Portland’s Internal Short-Term Rental Map App
Inspection District Edit App
This Geocortex Web app facilitates the assignment of individual blocks to different inspector groups based on their qualified disciplines. This allows for geographic rebalancing to match staffing and inspection workloads. District data is pushed into the AMANDA application as property data, which is used daily in automated inspection assignments that feed the Residential Inspections Scheduling Edit App (below).
The City of Portland’s Inspection District Edit App
Residential Inspections Scheduling Edit App
Every morning at 7:15 AM, automatic processes refresh daily permit inspection data from AMANDA. Approximately 200 inspections are edited simultaneously by about 20 inspectors.
The app is compatible with iPad and is regularly accessed by inspectors in the field. The app utilizes the Google Maps API for optimized routing for stop ordering. Users can click through and assign time windows to each inspection for their expected arrival at each job site. This information is then published to PortlandMaps.com where it can be referenced by permit customers. The Geocortex Reporting Python library is also utilized to email each inspector a report of their daily route. View a sample report here.
Click here for a video explanation of how citizens of the City of Portland are using this application.
Address Edit App
This Geocortex Web app includes workflows that facilitate the editing of address points throughout the data life cycle. The workflows perform data integration between AMANDA, the Portland Address Database and County Assessor datasets.
Until July 2014, BDS and the City of Portland did not have an enterprise address dataset. Permit technicians in BDS would perform triple-entry of new address data into AMANDA, ballpoint pen hand markup of 1,978 hanging file 2’x3’ paper Sanborn Insurance maps and quarter section maps, and a monthly Excel spreadsheet emailed to address data stakeholders. The latest version of the app includes integration with County tax account data.
Click here to learn more about this project.
Example of BDS Quarter Section Maps
BDS Sanborn Insurance maps
Want to learn more about the use of Geocortex technology within the City of Portland? Click the button below to learn how Geocortex is advancing operations for the City of Portland and their Bureau of Development Services.
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