Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/43993
and/or map services. These applications are ideal for viewing and analyzing field data stored in the cloud when a custom application might not be needed or when a custom, targeted application is slated for a future phase. Common Challenges Public, private, for profit and not-for-profit organiza- tions worldwide have a need to record and report on activities they're planning and completing. Recording and reporting organizational and employee accom- plishments is valuable for strategic goal reporting, grant funding, public transparency, fiscal accounting, employee progress reviews and more. And it's increasingly valuable to know where the activity or accomplishment was scheduled or completed. It's also important to quantify who accomplished the activity, who paid for it, what type of work was per- formed, and then be able to report and mine the data over time to provide to internal stakeholders, funding sources and the public. The requirement to capture these data out in the field and view them spatially on a map in context with the rest of the organization's data was borne from this desire. For example, the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI) is a private, nonprofit, scientific and educa- tional organization dedicated to the conservation, enhancement and professional management of North America's wildlife and other natural resources. WMI has contractors and partners throughout the country tasked with managing species and habitat. It was difficult for WMI to collect and report on data captured by personnel across the country, creating assessments and treatments for private and public landowners to help support habitat. WMI's challenge and goal was to build a system to consolidate and spa- tially track partners and contractor's accomplishments as well as enable reporting on the assessments, rec- ommendations, treatments, outreach and monitoring activities completed. The resulting solution required no software, support or server infrastructure to maintain. An easy-to-use Web application provided workflow-driven data-entry forms that allow contractors and partners the ability to map assessments for public and private landowners as well as recommend and record activities and treatments. The key to the solution was an aggregated and cen- tral repository for data, which allows the data collected from the field to be shared and reported. Extending the application to smartphones and tablets allows field personnel to use existing devices to capture and record data. Collecting field data and synching them with a cloud-based data store allows workers the con- venience of recording data while they're in the field, forgoing a trip to the office. lGeospatial layers can be used to intersect data entered in the system. For example, users can quickly summarize all recommendations in a specific congressional district. Spatial Reporting Reporting typically is an afterthought when design- ing applications, but it always ends up being one of the most valuable components. Being able to dynamically build reports and search and mine data by all the data elements captured in the field is extremely valuable. WMI's solution implemented a spatial search that uses the power of GIS and allows users to generate reports of all activities that intersect or fall within a GIS layer or layers. For example, users can generate a report to output all activities or accomplishments that fall within Northumberland County, a particular congressional district or within the New England/Mid- Atlantic Bird Conservation Region. Spatial reporting allows for greater transparency by producing accomplishment reports with meaningful boundaries such as legislative, political and geographi- cal boundaries as well as senate and congressional districts. Generating spatial and tabular reports com- pletes the cycle from the field to the cloud. The end result equals organizational transparency, increased efficiency and ROI without the IT headache. Chris Gerecke is director, Enterprise Solutions, Timmons Group; e-mail: chris.gerecke@timmons.com. SEPTEMBER 2O11 / WWW . GEOPLA CE .C O M 25