Getting Technical - March 2021

March 18, 2021

George Kouroupis

What will you learn at our ArcGIS Pro: Take Desktop GIS to the Next Frontier seminar on March 31? How is the MCSC rescu app helping to bring home missing children? What’s new in ArcGIS Maps SDK Beta 2? How do you manage your ArcGIS licenses using My Esri? Get the answers to those questions and more in March’s Getting Technical blog post.

Features

ArcGIS Pro: Take Desktop GIS to the Next Frontier
Powerful and feature-packed, ArcGIS Pro extends your GIS capabilities beyond the desktop. It connects the professional GIS desktop to all the benefits of Web GIS. Join us on March 31 for a virtual seminar to discover what’s new in ArcGIS Pro, explore capabilities for data management, analysis and cartography in Pro and learn more about the migration process from ArcMap. REGISTER NOW

ArcGIS Living Atlas News
ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World is the foremost collection of geographic information from around the globe. It includes curated maps, apps, and data layers from Esri and the global GIS user community that support your work. New updates include a new version of Live Stream Gauges, the addition of NOAA Global Temperature layers, the creation of the GIS for Climate Hub, and more!

ArcGIS Maps SDK Beta 2 is available!
The second beta release of the ArcGIS Maps SDKs for Unity and Unreal Engine is now available. It’s been four months since the first beta release and the ArcGIS Maps SDK for game engines beta program has been extremely popular. The program currently hosts over 2000 members, many of which are actively engaged in the forums with development efforts spanning a wide variety of industries including defense, government, utilities, natural resources, education and more.

8 Ways to More Quickly Resolve Your Technical Support Case
Providing the key details for a Technical Support case upfront helps to improve the time it takes to resolve the case. Learn what information you can provide when creating your Technical Support case to help the analyst get off to a running start.

”Arcade’s Fire: Inside Esri’s Scripting Language" Webinar Q & A – Part 1
Many questions were received during the “Arcade Fire’s: Inside Esri’s Scripting Language” webinar and were answered by the technical team as part of two part blog series. Questions covered in Part 1 include: can Arcade be used in ArcGIS Field Maps, what version of ArcGIS Server is needed to use Arcade, what version of Portal for ArcGIS is needed to use Arcade, and more.

“Arcade’s Fire: Inside Esri’s Scripting Language” Webinar Q&A – Part 2
In Part 2, the technical team covers questions including: does ArcGIS Pro support multiple labels via Arcade, does adding multiple expressions for a label cause the labels to render slower for large datasets, can you use Arcade to change the colour of part of a label, and more.

FAQ: How do I update attribute field aliases from a lookup table in ArcGIS Pro?
Data dictionaries. Lookup tables. Codebooks. While the name for a dataset’s documentation might vary across professions and data sources, the need for data documentation is universal! A common way to store this type of metadata is in a lookup table or data dictionary. Aliases are much more accommodating than field names, as they can contain up to 255 characters, including spaces and special characters, and even start with numbers. By applying aliases, you can give names to fields that are more descriptive than their actual field names. Read more about the benefits of applying field aliases and how to incorporate them.

Hot tip: Hack a watermark into your ArcGIS Pro map with Paint or PowerPoint
Watermarks are subtle enough to allow you to share your work without overt distraction, but visible enough to protect it from being misused. See how to use ArcGIS Pro to create watermarks without a graphic designer.

COVID-19 Resources

Visit the ArcGIS Solutions site to learn more about Esri’s suite of coronavirus recovery solutions.

COVID-19 Canada Resource Hub
Esri Canada’s resource hub includes bilingual maps, apps and other COVID-19 resources for the public, customers and media. The hub is constantly updated with case and vaccination data. It features dashboards on economic recovery, family structure, household dynamics and mental health, COVID-19 open datasets, additional GIS training videos and other resources. Check out our COVID-19 Recovery Solutions.

Coronavirus Vaccine Distribution Solutions
Achieving high COVID-19 vaccination rates requires a robust and transparent public education campaign that provides accurate vaccine information, progress on the distribution plan, and guidance needed to access a vaccination. A series of new ArcGIS Solutions designed to help communities communicate vaccine distribution plans and monitor the effectiveness of those plans are available for ArcGIS users. The new solutions align with recommendations provided by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), support plans developed by communities to execute the CDC recommendations, and leverage your location-based data to increase public confidence and monitor key vaccine distribution metrics.

Community Health Outreach Solution Released
Health and human service agencies are challenged with providing necessary information during emergency events like the COVID-19 pandemic. The Community Health Outreach solution delivers a set of capabilities to help agencies launch a healthy communities web destination, provide an authoritative inventory of healthcare services available to the community, and create engagement with community members to take part in key health initiatives that increase the quality of life for all. The new solution includes a collection of maps and apps designed for health agencies, and the general public and can be deployed as part of healthy community program.

Announcements

Data Catalog Analysis

The Racial Equity Anchor Institutions and Esri Partner to Launch National Law Enforcement Budget Survey

Pre-trained Deep Learning Models Update

What’s New in ArcGIS Solutions

Performance Improvements for Territory Design

View more announcements in the ArcGIS Blog | My Esri Blog on GeoNet

Service Packs, Patches & User Resources

Mapping and Charting Solutions 10.8.1 Patch 4
This is a general cumulative maintenance patch for the Mapping and Charting Solutions including; ArcGIS Aviation Airports (Desktop), ArcGIS Aviation Charting (Desktop), ArcGIS Bathymetry (Desktop), ArcGIS Defense Mapping (Desktop, Server), ArcGIS Maritime (Desktop, Server), and ArcGIS Production Mapping (Desktop, Server).

Portal for ArcGIS 10.8.1 Enterprise Sites Patch 3
This patch addresses functionality issues with the Gallery Card, Search Results, and attribute charting. The patch is recommended for all users of ArcGIS Enterprise 10.8.1. This patch deals specifically with the issues listed below under Issues Addressed with this patch and is inclusive of Portal for ArcGIS 10.8.1 Enterprise Sites Patch 1 and 2.

ArcGIS (Desktop, Engine, Server) 10.8.1 Spatial Analyst ArcObjects Patch
If you are using the ArcGIS Spatial Analyst COM components and creating custom applications, this patch resolves a protected memory error for RasterDistanceOp when certain IDistanceOp methods (such as EucDistance) are used in an ArcGIS 10 execution path (with AvoidDataConversion as true). It also resolves a protected memory error for RasterReclassOp when certain IReclassOp methods are used with AvoidDataConversion set to false in 64-bit custom applications.

ArcGIS (Desktop, Engine, Server) File Geodatabase SQL Performance Patch
This patch resolves an attribute performance issue in the file geodatabase introduced in ArcGIS 10.6.1 and repaired as part of the 10.8 release. It primarily effects expressions involving LIKE. If you are seeing performance issues with your queries against a file geodatabase starting at 10.6.1 you should install this patch.

View more security patches

Web Watch –White Papers, Blogs and Useful Resources

Video: Child Search Network: Help Police Find Missing Children in Canada Faster
Over 40,000 children go missing, run away or are abducted in Canada each year, but fewer than one per cent of those cases are broadcast to the public through AMBER Alerts. The MSCS rescu app allows the public to help police locate missing children faster and is available for download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

App of the Month: Improving Market Opportunities for Women
For over 65 years, Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) has been creating business solutions to help address social and environmental challenges. Using ArcGIS StoryMaps, MEDA has shared the progress of their ongoing project, Improving Market Opportunities for Women (IMOW), which promotes the work of women in agriculture. IMOW helps improve the lives of women in Myanmar by strengthening their education, incomes and status.

Map of the Month - Geographic and Temporal Distribution of COVID-19 in Quebec
This map was inspired by a dashboard on the geographic and temporal distribution of COVID-19 in Québec. The tool allows visualization of refined and current data, makes a large amount of information accessible and offers several interactive features. Since more geographic data is now accessible, the dashboard makes it possible to choose the scale of representation. It allows for a better understanding of COVID-19 repercussions and the measures put in place by the government. The map presented here allows us to relate the geographic distribution of COVID-19 in the greater Montréal area and the material deficiency of living environments.

Geographical Thinking Podcast: Making Poverty Visible for all
Centraide of Greater Montréal and United Way Greater Toronto released a special edition of their Radar—an innovative mapping tool—in response to increased community needs and an influx of emergency funding during COVID-19. The Radar tool maps poverty in Canadian communities and helps local United Way organizations prioritize their resources. Listen to Guan's conversation with two executive leaders from the United Way and learn how this GIS-enabled project is helping to uncover critical insights about the Canadian communities that are in greatest need.

My Esri Video Series – My Esri vs. ArcGIS Online – What’s the Difference
Have you ever been confused about the difference between ArcGIS Online and My Esri? You're not alone! In this video we will give a brief overview on the key differences between these two sites, and go over how to ensure you are logged in to the correct place for the workflow you wish to achieve.

My Esri Video Series – Managing your ArcGIS licenses using My Esri
This video describes My Esri and explains how to get started with your newly purchased ArcGIS license. It reviews the steps to access and connect to My Esri and create a license file to allow you to activate your new license.

Follow @EsriCanada on Twitter and check out more technical videos using the hashtag #HowtoArcGIS

Explore Mars with GIS
GIS has made the joy of exploration and understanding more accessible to a wider audience, and our users have produced and shared maps and visualizations from around the world. Now, we can explore other worlds! Esri has recently developed the ability to use other planetary coordinate systems with a 3D globe, and the timing couldn’t be better with the landing of the Perseverance rover. Digital elevation models, precise imagery and spatial data representing previous rover landing sites all display accurately under the Martian coordinate system, and this 3D application enables exploration of the Martian surface.

Location, Location, Location: Property Valuation & The Analytics Grounding It
There are countless professionals behind the scenes working hard to ensure that property values are fair, equitable, and uniform. These are the property assessors, tax assessors, property appraisers, and auditors working for in cities, town, and provinces. These assessment professionals work to put a fair market value on real estate.

Meet The Winners of the 2020 ArcGIS StoryMaps Competition
Through the 2020 ArcGIS StoryMaps competition, Esri and the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network invited storytellers worldwide to solve global challenges through GIS and storytelling. The 2020 Storytellers of the Year used innovative storytelling techniques, mapping best practices, and sound data to create solutions-oriented stories about the Sustainable Development Goals.

What’s New is ArcGIS Quick Capture
Learn more about new features in ArcGIS Quick Capture, including updates to the Android 11 app, changes to split screen functionality and stability and performance improvements.

ArcMap Continued Support
ArcGIS 10.8.1 is the current release of ArcMap and will continue to be supported until March 1, 2026, as established in the ArcGIS Desktop Product Life Cycle. We do not have plans to release an ArcMap 10.9 with the ArcGIS releases in 2021. We understand there may be questions as to what’s next for ArcMap inside ArcGIS Desktop. By viewing the ArcMap Continued Support page, you will be able to find the answers to most, if not all, of your questions regarding continued support of ArcMap as well as resources to help you transition your work moving forward into several Esri products such as ArcGIS Pro.

Deprecation Notice for Explorer, Collector, and Tracker
ArcGIS Field Maps was launched in October 2020 and replaces the functionality of ArcGIS Collector, ArcGIS Explorer, and ArcGIS Tracker on the iOS and Android mobile platforms. These products (Collector, Explorer, Tracker) are currently available to download and are fully supported; however, they will be retired in December 2021.

View more articles in ArcUser | ArcNews | ArcWatch

Training

ArcGIS Online for Administrators
Learn to effectively administer your web portal environment either directly in ArcGIS Online, in Portal for ArcGIS or in both, for those with a hybrid deployment.

In this course, administrators will make the home page of their web portal, reflect their organization’s branding, manage users and content through standard and custom roles, and leverage group sharing options to make sure the right content is accessible to the right person and no one gets their hands on data they should not access. In addition, this course will go over the security features and authentication options for ArcGIS Online specifically and will cover how to monitor your portal (user activities, credits and licenses).

View training solutions