Municipal Dataworks: Linking to GIS (MDW)

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MUNICIPAL ° OJ1TfflVWiOF11CS UPDATE LINKINGTbGIS For the first time, Municipal DotoWorks has been linked to o GIS system. It is, says Wendy St. Amour, o good example of how o picture is worth o thousand words. For the last couple of years, the County of Essex has been tion both visually and numerically of how the different infra - taking full advantage of the latest technological develop- structure elements relate to each other and to the urban envi- ments to track its assets. ronment. The county started using Municipal DataWorks to track With Mike Sherwood and Cathy Paduch, the county's GIS its assets in early 2006 and was the first municipality to use technicians, taking the lead the county started to integrate the MDW's web services module to view its asset data in a web two systems early in February. base format. About a year and a half ago, the county imple- "It was actually a much easier process than we anticipat- mented its own Geocortex site and with the MDW web ed," recalls Cathy. "All we had to do was create a link between services module was able to view the MDW assets on a map. the MDW asset base and the ID number of the asset in the GIS "Municipal DataWorks tells us what we have. Geocortex system. Updating the MDW databases and making sure that shows us where it is," says Wendy St. Amour, the county's IT we had all the assets in the system was probably the most manager. "It made sense to bring the two together so that time - consuming aspect of the project." with a push of a button you can get an immediate apprecia- continued on page 38 0 D vi M CD z M N C z M N O O v 23