Lab 07 - Oversee Snowplows in Real Time - ArcGIS Dashboard & Web AppBuilder

Introduction

This geospatial lab exercise was an introduction to working with real time data in AcrGIS Online, creation of a ArcGIS online Dashboard, and creation of a web app using Web AppBuilder. To accomplish these goals, an ESRI online tutorial, Oversee Snowplows in Real Time, was completed. This tutorial sets up a hypothetical situation where you are a GIS coordinator in Utah who needs to monitor the progress of snow removal after a snowstorm. To accomplish this monitoring, you need to create two different apps, one for citizens to view that shows information related to how much of the roads have been cleared so far, and one for city officials that shows additional information about the city's snow plow fleets so that city officials can better manage the situation. Both of these created apps use real time updating information about snow removal and snow plow location to create an up to date map for citizens and city officials. 

Methods

The first step in this ESRI tutorial was to create a real-time web map. This was done by simply creating an ArcGIS Online map and adding the provided data that was part of this tutorial. This data was symbolized to aid in visualization and the refresh interval was set to every 0.1 minutes or 6 seconds, the minimum refresh interval allowed. 

Data on the location of snow plows in the city were symbolized with arrows which were then rotated with the geographic heading option to show the direction in which the snow plows were currently heading. Snowplows were also labeled and filtered to aid in organization.

With this done, the next step was to create the ArcGIS Dashboard which displayed a list that updates in real time that contains the name and speed of each snow plow, a bar chart that displays plow's real time speeds, a pie chart that shows real-time percentages of clear vs. unclear roads, and a list that shows the street names with their plowed status. This Dashboard was set up with the provided title and summary from the ESRI tutorial and then was created using the Web Map created in the previous section. With this done, the first step was to create the list that shows plow information using the vehicle (latest) layer from the web map to display the real-time location of each plow. The plows in the list were then organized by plow name and speed and labels were added to the list.

Next, a Serial Chart was added to the map that used the vehicle (latest) layer as a data source and was set up in a way to display the real-time snowplow speeds as a bar graph.

With this completed, the next step was to add a pie chart to the Dashboard that uses the Streets Plowed Status data layer as its source. Data was categorized into plowed or unplowed status with additional label and filter information added top the pie chart.



Finally, a simple list element was added to the Dashboard that lists each of the streets as well as what their up to data plowed status is. 



Finally, using information from the Web Map and the Dashboard completed previously, a Web App was created using the WebApp Builder as part of ArcGIS Online. Title and summary information were entered in based on the information provided from the ESRI tutorial as well as a color scheme and theme. Finally, the Stream widget was added to the Web App which allows for the visualization of the real time data present in the Web Map and Dashboard created earlier. 

Discussion

This tutorial continued to increase my knowledge and experience with many of the online resources offered through the ArcGIS Online interface. I personally have very little experience with real-time data that updates as you work on it, so completing this tutorial definitely helped bolster my understanding and experience with such data types. Also as part of this tutorial, I was able to gain experience in the creation and use of both Dashboards and Web Apps, both of which I have only had limited exposure to before the completion of this tutorial. 

Conclusion

The completion of this ESRI tutorial certainly helped me better my understanding of both working with real-time data as well as some of the other online resources available when working with ArcGIS Online. I now feel more confident in working with real-time data as well as the creation of Dashboards and Web Apps. The knowledge that I have gained in the completion of this tutorial will certainly aid me in future classes and employment as I continue my training as a member of the geospatial field.