Megan Ouderkirk
Senior GIS Analyst
Esri’s Capital Project Planning Solution will kick start your city’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) by deploying maps, apps, and layers in just minutes. In this blog, we will provide an overview of the solution and demonstrate how it can be used to plan efficient infrastructure improvements. Additionally, we will show how it enables collaboration between city departments and the public.
What is Capital Project Planning?
A Capital Improvement Plan is a tool used by governments to plan and manage long-term projects. It outlines the scope, timing, and financing of major capital investments, such as roads, water and sewer systems, parks, public buildings, and other critical infrastructure. Using ArcGIS Online or Enterprise, you can map all the projects in your municipality and display your capital improvement planning in a way that is easy to digest.
To get an idea of one of the applications that is deployed with the Capital Project Planning Solution, here is an example from Esri made by the City of Glendale, AZ. This is an interactive dashboard that allows the user to filter, zoom, and select projects to learn more.
Let’s Deploy the Solution!
When the Capital Project Planning Solution is deployed, it creates an overwhelming number of items, 42 to be exact. In this section, I will break down what is in the solution and the roles all the items play in a final product.
In addition to the 41 items in the flow chart, there is one additional item called Capital Project Planning that provides a table of contents for the solution.
Building Blocks - Feature Layer (hosted)
The core of this solution is the three feature layers (hosted). These are the authoritative datasets that you will need to populate to get your capital project planning off the ground. These three feature layers will be used in every other item deployed in the solution.
Infrastructure Projects: Projects that your municipality oversees such as sewer maintenance or upgrades to a public park.
Pavement Moratoriums: Recently paved roads that may not be cut or opened for a certain amount of time (3-5 years is common). If the road is cut, permit fees may be increased during that period.
External Agency Projects: Projects that an external agency oversees such as gas pipelines or fiber network upgrades.
Each of these feature layers (hosted) will be populated with the project location and given attributes such as project name, type, date, cost, status, and contact person. After this data has been added, it will appear automatically in the maps and applications.
A screenshot from the infrastructure projects feature layer (hosted) showing the data attributes of the project for a New Middle School.
Feature Layer (hosted, view)
Feature Layers (hosted, view) allow you to support editing privileges for different groups of people. Many organizations need to share data with the public and simultaneously allow staff members to edit the same data. Feature Layers (hosted, view) also allow you to filter datasets so that only a portion can be edited by a group of people.
Note: Any data edited in a Feature Layer (hosted, view) will be reflected back in the authoritative Feature Layer (hosted).
In this solution, the InfrastructureProjects_stormwaterprojectplans Feature Layer (hosted, view) shows only projects that are classified as stormwater. This allows for sharing only stormwater project plans with your stormwater team, only park project plans with your parks team, and so on. This way, teams can view and edit only the data that pertains to them.
The PavementMoratoriums and ExternalAgencyProjects Feature Layers (hosted, view) are shared publicly by default. This allows people outside of your organization to view and edit the data. This also means that anyone with a link can edit this data, so sharing should be limited to only those who need access and training should be provided.
Maps
Each Feature Layer (hosted, view) has a web map. Maps allow the user to edit the symbologies and popups of the features that will be used in the apps and dashboards.
Apps and Dashboards
There are many web apps, dashboards, web experiences, etc. that appear when the Capital Project Planning Solution is deployed. Here’s a quick look at two dashboards that give an overview of all the capital projects.
The Capital Project Review Dashboard is where city staff can review and edit all projects in one place. The map can be filtered by project type, year, funding, and status. Individual projects can be selected by clicking on the map or on the “Review Now” button on the right side.
The Capital Improvement Plan Dashboard is where the public can view all projects in one place. There is no editing allowed in the application, and data can be curated so that you are not sharing any information that should stay private, such as the phone numbers of project managers.
Conclusion
The Capital Project Planning Solution provides the structure to create a system of feature classes, maps, and applications to display your municipality’s data. For more information, Esri has produced a detailed Story Map for this solution, complete with screenshots and links to live maps where you can try your hand at editing data in the solution before jumping in and deploying.
If you need any assistance with this solution or any other solutions from Esri, Cloudpoint is here to help! Contact us today.