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What’s New is NG9-1-1 Data Manager Version 2.5

Published Date
Author Tyler Scuralli

Your favourite NG9-1-1 preparation solution just got better. Let me introduce you to NG9-1-1 Data Manager version 2.5. This update includes new tools and functionality to make preparing your NG9-1-1 GIS data that much easier.

NG9-1-1 Data Manager (NG Data Manager for short)

Hello, hello! Welcome to a brand-new blog highlighting my favourite NG9-1-1 data preparation solution, NG9-1-1 Data Manager. If you are new to the world of NG9-1-1 Data Manager (I call it NG Data Manager for short), welcome! My name is Tyler and I am a Technical Solutions Specialist on the Public Safety team at Esri Canada, and NG Data Manager is a product that is near and dear to my heart. Let me give you a quick overview. NG Data Manager is a web-based solution that allows users to create and edit their NG9-1-1 datasets in alignment with the NENA NG9-1-1 GIS data model. It’s also highly extensible, meaning if your organization has other fields, subtypes or layers that you need to maintain, this can be done as well.

For those of you who are familiar with NG Data Manager (and maybe even read my previous blog posts when 2.4 was released), welcome back! On July 8th, NG Data Manager version 2.5 was released, and I am here to go over some of the updates that it has received. For everyone who is wondering, NG Data Manager v2.5 is still aligned with NENA’s v2A data model. The next version of NG Data Manager (v3.0) will be in alignment with the v3.0 data model, and that is expected to be released later this year. Let’s jump into some of the new functionality you can now leverage in NG Data Manager.

New tools and functionality

There are quite a few new tools and functionality now available to users in version 2.5. You can find the full breakdown here; however, I’ve included a list of some of the new features below:

Multiple dwelling units (MDU) address editor: The MDU editor expands existing addressing unit tools. MDU Editor supports adding/editing unit numbers for one or more buildings located at the same primary address. It supports unit numbers for multi-story buildings with custom unit numbers or standard floor.unit numbers.

Reject most recent NG9-1-1 data submission: The reject option is useful if you generate an export you need to reject for any reason before submitting or resubmitting the data to the Public Safety - GeoXchange®.

Update road centre line address ranges: The selection tool includes a current extent option to select all roads in the current map view. You can now update ranges for several roads. The tool displays the update results in a table view and results can be saved to a CSV file.

NG9-1-1 submission summary dialog: The dialog displays the number of features that will be exported.

Road centre line and true curve editing: True curve editing was introduced with the release of ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript 5.0. NG Data Manager can now create true curves and edit features with true curves.

Configurator 2.5

RoadCenterLine spatial constraint: The roads editor includes a spatial constraint rule. This constraint is useful when editing/creating a road centre line to ensure it falls within a boundary.

Tool visibility: You can now enable/disable individual workflow tools for each editor. This capability is useful when you want to restrict access to specific tools for a class of users or when the tool is not applicable within your workflows.

Custom update status workflows: Select from predefined workflows or create your own. The workflow controls the promotion rules of the Update Status tool. You can save separate application instances with different update status workflows. For example, the system default status workflow can be assigned to an administrator, while other restricted status workflows can be assigned to an editor.

My personal favourites

A few of my personal favourites from both are the Update Road centre line address ranges tool and the Custom update status workflow functionality in Configurator. Let’s dive into these tools in more detail.

Update road centreline address ranges

The tool you have all been asking about is here. You can now update address ranges for multiple road segments all at once.

The new Update Road Centreline Address Ranges tool now allows you to update all the address ranges for road segments within your current viewing extent.

Screenshot of a street selection tool menu. Available options are Single Feature, Line Intersection, Lasso, and All in extent. The 'All in extent' selection method is emphasized with a red box, indicating the option to select all street features currently visible within the map extent.

Update Centreline Address Range options

The tool works similarly to updating a single road segment. You choose the ‘All in extent’ option, and the app will detect all the road segments within your viewing extent. Then choose the buffer distance (usually the default works best) and let NG Data Manager do its magic.

Screenshot of an 'Update address ranges' tool displaying a road segment for Old Yonge Street. The left panel contains address range attributes and search settings, while the map shows color-coded address points and road segments. A processing results table at the bottom lists warnings and information messages, including updates to house number ranges and segments with no addresses.

Updating Address Ranges for multiple road segments

The app will go through each road segment and update its address ranges fields (these include the from/to fields, parity fields and a few others). While doing this, you’ll see the updates in the ‘Address Range Processing Messages’ table. Once the tool has completed, you can toggle through all road segments and see the updates to the address range fields. And boom! Just like that, we updated 20 address ranges in under 30 seconds. Some important notes on this new tool: the more road segments in your viewing extent, the longer the tool will need to run. If you plan on doing this for all the road segments in your municipality, be prepared that the tool may need to run for quite some time. 

Custom update status workflows

New to Configurator are the Custom Update Status Workflows. Features in NG Data Manager can be assigned one of the following lifecycle statuses: Tentative, For Review, Approved, Active or Retired. Previously, users of an instance of NG Data Manager had access to all these lifecycle statuses. Now, when creating a new instance of NG Data Manager, the lifecycle status options users have access to can be configured depending on your organization’s workflows.

Screenshot of a workflow configuration menu displaying several lifecycle workflow options as radio button selections. Options include workflows such as 'Tentative → For Review → Approved → Active → Retire', 'Pending → Active → Retire', and custom configurations. The 'Use system default' option is currently selected.

Custom Update Status promotion rules in Configurator

You can choose from one of the predefined options or choose ‘custom’ to customize even further.

Screenshot of a custom status workflow configuration screen. The workflow stages are listed in order as Tentative, For Review, Approved, Active, and Retired. Each status can be reordered using drag handles on the left or removed using a delete icon on the right. The Custom workflow option is selected.

Customizable Update Status options

For example, you can create an instance of NG Data Manager where users can only create data in a ‘Tentative’ state and then promote it to ‘For Review’. Then, you can have another instance of NG Data Manager where the new features can be reviewed and then promoted to an ‘Active’ state, ready to be submitted to the NG9-1-1 Aggregator.

Conclusion

Now for everyone who has stuck with me this far, thank you! I have one favour to ask of you, and that is to go out and give these new tools a try. See how they can benefit your NG9-1-1 data preparedness workflows. If you are new to NG Data Manager and want more information, reach out to your account manager to schedule a demonstration with our team and see if this solution is a good fit for you.

Keep an eye out from me for some more NG9-1-1 Data Manager 2.5 highlights and, as always, happy NG9-1-1 preparation. Last thing! Make sure to connect with me on LinkedIn! I’m always posting updates on NG Data Manager and other Public Safety related GIS solutions.

About the Author

Tyler Scuralli is a Technical Solutions Specialist on the Public Safety team at Esri Canada. His role is to help public safety teams make smarter decisions using GIS. Tyler spent four years at Trent University obtaining a degree in Geography, followed by a year at Fleming College completing the GIS Applications Specialist program. His first role at Esri Canada was in Technical Support, followed by a three-year stint working on the Community Map of Canada, a basemap by Canadians for Canadians. Nowadays you can find Tyler speaking about public safety GIS and NG9-1-1 preparedness solutions, such as NG9-1-1 Data Manager (an Esri Canada product) and the Emergency Management Operations solution. Outside of work, you can find Tyler on the slopes on his snowboard or out on the golf course in the summer.

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