New Local Government Demo Site

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We are pleased to announce the release of a new demo site for our Local Government Customers which can be found here.

As you are hopefully already aware Esri UK have launched a new UK Local Government solution and have annouced the retirement of LocalView on 1st July 2016.

We encourage you to start migrating to the new solution which will enable you to create maps applications using ArcGIS Online or Portal for ArcGIS.

The purpose of the demo site is to show how you can embed these maps and applications into your websites.

The demo site covers three areas:

  • Report It - to show how you can add online surveys to your websites e.g. report an abandonned vehicle (something you may have been using the LVF survey template for)
  • Your Map - to show how you can embed maps into your website (something you may have been using the LVF embeddable map template for)
  • MyNearest - to how you can use add information on nearest services and facilities to you website (something you may have been using LVF WebPublisher or MyLocation templates for)

For each of these areas we cover:

  • Why - what user stories does it support
  • Options - what are the different ways you can achieve this
  • Which - how to chose the best option for you
  • How - how we have put the demos together
  • Demos - links to live demos showing the end results

We hope you find this new resource useful and would welcome your feedback.

 

 

 

Release of Embeddable Survey and Embeddable Map Templates

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We are pleased to announce new releases of both the Embeddable Survey and the Embeddable Map templates.

The online environment has been updated this evening and the releases will be available for download by our on premise customers later this week.

Embeddable Survey - Version 4.3.045.0

This version requires 4.3.66.0 platform build to be installed.

The Embeddable Survey has been updated so that it will now show the results of a GP task in the completion window.

The gazetteer results have been amended so that they no longer show the match score at the start as this had the potential to cause confusion.

Additional bugs fixed are detailed in the release notes which can be found to the right-hand side of this blog.

Embeddable Map - 4.3.121.0

This version requires 4.3.66.0 platform build to be installed.

This release has added the ability for the user to set the identify tolerance in the application. It will default to a 3 pixel tolerance for map services and a 5 pixel tolerance for feature services. These can be overridden in the provisioning page for the application.

 

LocalView Fusion - 4.3.66.0 Release

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We are pleased to announce the release of LocalView Fusion 4.3.66.0

This is a minor release that includes bug fixes to the Radar Platform and to the following templates:

  • WebPublisher (build 4.3.075.0)
  • Embeddable Survey (build 4.3.016.0)

Please see the release notes at the right-hand side of this blog for details of the issues fixed and the Product Lifecycle, also at the right-hand side of this blog, for details of supported platforms.

We recommend that you upgrade to this release only if you are directly affected by the bugs fixed.  The WebPublisher bug fix is a template only fix, which can be installed with the 4.3.57.0 platform release (without a full platform upgrade).  The Embeddable Survey bug fixes are dependent on the platform release and therefore require you to upgrade your platform to 4.3.66.0.

On premise LocalView customers who are on current maintenance can download the release from our FTP site:

FTP Location: https://download.esriuk.com
Username: Lvfusion

The password is unchanged and and is available on request from support@esriuk.com if you have mislaid it.  There are separate zip files for WebPublisher only and for the full platform release.

The online environment will be upgraded during scheduled maintenance this evening.

What’s New in the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex Template

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We are making improvements to the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex template and I wanted to take some time to detail some of the improvements that we are making and what can be done with them. The new ArcGIS Viewer for Flex template will be released alongside 4.2. It is worth noting that this release of the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex will no longer support ArcGIS 9.3.1. If you are still using 9.3.1 then you will need to continue using the old template.

Built on the latest ArcGIS Viewer for Flex

Recently the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex was updated to 3.1. The ArcGIS Viewer for Flex template is based upon this so you will get all the bug fixes and updates contained within this release. You can find details of the bugs fixed at 3.1 here.

Specify Gazetteer Zoom Scale

When provisioning a gazetteer in the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex template you can optionally specify a scale to zoom to when a match is found. This allows you to alter the scale for different data types so a postcode result could show at a larger scale than an address locator.

Geoprocessing

You can now consume geoprocessing tasks provisioned within LocalView Fusion in your ArcGIS Viewer for Flex template. The task user interface is automatically generated based on the task metadata. This is a significant feature that we think will greatly increase the number of uses for the template.

Identify Improvements

The identify window will now always use field aliases if they exist. Previously the field names were shown.

Improved Editing

Allow specific locking down of editing to just adding, modifying, deleting or editing attributes only. An advanced editing mode is also now supported.

Attribute Viewer

You can now provision an attribute viewer. The attribute viewer is a widget that allows you to view features attributes, edit them (if applicable) and export them to a csv file.

More information on the attribute viewer widget can be found here.

New Legend Control

Layers with more than one symbol now correctly show all symbols for the layer. Previously only the first one was shown. If a layer has metadata on the service end-point then this can also be viewed along with sliders to change the transparency.

Search by Buffer

You can now search for items within a buffered geometry. 

Support for Geoportal Server

You can now display information from geoportals. You can provision geoportal servers and then query them from within your application.

More information on geoportals and geoportal server can be found here. 

Theming

In previous releases you were limited to the blue UI theme. It is now possible to choose from a list of styles and set transparencies.

 

Improved Splash Screen provisioning and addition of About Text

Splash Screen Text can now be formatted. Previously it only accepted plain text. About Text can also be added if required and formatted in the same way.

 On top of this functionality there is also a host of fixes and efficiency improvements that will be announced in the release notes.

Embeddable Survey Template

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The embeddable survey template is a brand new template based on the old survey template, but completely rewritten with added features and functionality and a new user interface. 

Customers who have purchased the old survey template will be entitled to receive the new embeddable survey template at no additional cost.  For online customers this template will be automatically added to your online portal when 4.2 is released.  Any new customers purchasing the survey template will only receive the new embeddable survey. 

This template will replace the existing survey template which is now in mature support and will be retired later on this year. The new survey template works with all of your existing survey content so you can easily migrate to the new template.

The embeddable survey template will only work on version 4.2 or above so you will need to upgrade to the latest version to get the template.

Embedding

The survey can be embedded into an existing site using the same method as embeddable map. With just a few lines of code you can have a fully working survey in your website. There is also an embedded option that can be chosen when provisioning a new survey site. This removes the header image at the top of the survey making it easier to add to another website.

Map Location Enhancements

We have made a few enhancements to the location question type, so that it now uses the improved map component used in the embeddable map template.

You can now add additional layers to the map, and also identify these additional layers with the results showing to the right of the map.

For fault report surveys this will allow you to display existing faults to the user in order to reduce duplicate reporting.

You can also set a minimum scale at which the user can add their location; this can be used to get a more accurate position from the user.

LocalView Fusion is 10.1 Compatible

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LocalView Fusion version 4.1 is now officially certified against ArcGIS for Server 10.1.

New Templates

During our testing we identified a 10.1 specific issue in the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex template and to fix it we have released a new 10.1 compatible version (of the template only). While fixing the problem we also made a few other changes, in particular we upgraded it to use the latest version of the generic Esri Flex application, and this delivers some new functionality, in particular the long-overdue Identify Tool. The release notes contain full details of other additions.

During the testing we also identified a couple of bugs in Web Publisher and Navigator, which weren't 10.1 specific, so we opted to create fixes for these too.

To summarise:

  • Version 4.1 of LocalView Fusion is compatible with ArcGIS for Server 10.1. However, if you are using the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex template you must upgrade to the new version which is available for download now.
  • There are bug fix releases of Web Publisher and Navigator available to download now.
  • I'd strongly encourage all users who have the Flex, Web Publisher or Navigator templates to take the latest versions. All of the new template releases WILL work with versions 10.1, 10.0 and 9.3.1 of ArcGIS for Server.

The latest templates are available on the customer FTP site (you will receive an email shortly with the connection information, alternatively, contact the Esri UK support desk for the details).

LocatorHub 5.0

If you are upgrading to 10.1, another consideration is your LocatorHub software. LocatorHub is the software that LocalView Fusion uses to do all of its gazetteering and address searching. As well as address searching LocatorHub can do some clever things with maps such as:

  • Searching for specific map features based on their attributes
  • Automatic co-ordinate conversion, meaning you can use a BNG address dataset to zoom to the correct location of a WGS84 or other lat/long map service.

If you're using LocatorHub to do either of these things, you will need to upgrade to LocatorHub 5.0 at the same time as upgrading to 10.1. As ever, if you have concerns about this, contact your Customer Success Manager or our support desk (or indeed, write a comment on this blog post).

I'll be writing another post soon about some of the changes in LocatorHub 5.0 that may be of interest to LocalView Fusion users.

LocalView Fusion 4.1

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Our October release of LocalView Fusion is now running on the online platform and is also available to download.

Version 4.1 contains some new security component plus a few minor updates and bug fixes.

Strong(er) passwords

The big new thing at 4.1 is the ability to create much stronger password policies for external (i.e. non Active Directory) users. You can now, for example, force all external users to have a strong password (upper case, lower case, numbers, letters, etc) which will expire in a timeframe that you set.

The security tools add extra control for administrators who subscribe to the online version of LocalView Fusion where Active Directory is not yet an option. The tools should also be a valuable addition for on-premise customers who publish secure sites to external partners and contractors.

More Parameters

As an example of one of the minor enhancements, we've added a new URL parameter to Web Publisher that allows it to be launched already zoomed to a particular feature. This should open up some interesting new integration options with other software systems.

Version 4.1 is the first of many smaller more frequent updates to LocalView Fusion and the next one on the horizon is an update to the new MyLocation template due out in mid-November.