1Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development GIS in the Cloud: A Perfect Tool for Improving Collaboration, Efficiency, and Transparency Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development Ileana Abot, GISP – Former GIS Manager

Agenda Agenda  Project Overview  Project Selection Criteria  Project Description: “Collaboration”  Demo  Project Description: “Efficiency”  Demo  Project Description: “Transparency”  Demo  Key Takeaways & Future Plans 2Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

Hamilton County Hamilton County  Location: SW Ohio  County Seat: Cincinnati  Total No. Jurisdictions: 50  Population: 802,374 (2010)  3 rd most populous County in Ohio Ohio  Land Area: sq miles 3 Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

Project Overview March 2013  CAGIS started a Pilot Project for implementing “ArcGIS Online” implementing “ArcGIS Online” throughout the consortium members throughout the consortium members  Hamilton County Planning and Development participated Development participated in the Pilot Project in the Pilot Project  ESRI conducted workshop with participating agencies to set-up configuration and provide major guidelines (ArcGIS Online) 4Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development Hamilton County Agencies City of Cincinnati Agencies CAGIS Utilities

Project Overview 5Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development Hamilton County Planning Department of Planning and Development Formed in 2010 after the consolidation of the following departments:  Regional Planning  Zoning  Storm Water & Infrastructure  Building Inspections  Community Development Comprised of aprox.60 employees

Project Overview April - May 2013  Conducted group meetings – brainstorming - to identify potential projects, map content, etc. projects, map content, etc.  Performed interviews with departmental staff to estimate future groups and determine the level of involvement (either GIS users or not)  Assessed level of resistance – people reluctant to access new technology 6Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development Hamilton County Planning

Project Overview May 2013  Finalized configuration and performed user assessment – applicability matrix 7Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development Hamilton County Planning

Project Selection Criteria  Identify projects that involved more than two agencies and could potentially benefit from sharing data and maps  Identify processes that needed improvement such as avoiding duplication of efforts and/or could potentially save costs  Identify areas where response to customers could be improved – increase transparency 8Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development COLLABORATION EFFICIENCY TRANSPARENCY

Collaboration Storm Water Mapping  Since 2010, Hamilton County Storm Water District started mapping their infrastructure comprising 36 jurisdictions  Besides the complexity of its extension, this ten year project is divided in four phases in order to be able to distribute a balanced contribution among all participating communities  This project is a multi-agency effort project involving to name a few: Hamilton County Planning, Hamilton County Engineer, Hamilton County Health, Hamilton County Soil& Water District 9Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

10Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development Collaboration

11Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development Collaboration

Collaboration 12Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

13Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development Collaboration

14Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development Collaboration

Collaboration Sex Offender’s Program  Cooperated with Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office by updating school and daycare centers databases and their 1,000 ft. buffer  Statewide Program: these databases, in addition to the street centerlines, are deployed by 88 Sheriff’s Offices in Ohio  City of Cincinnati and other Hamilton County offices access this database on a regular basis  Advantages: when changes are made on the central database, the updates are reflected on the map content the day after 15Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

16Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development Collaboration

17Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development DEMO

Efficiency Storm Water Detention Inventory Inspections  Storm water inspectors are assigned to inspect approximately detention basins per year, mostly during winter times  Workflow:  inspector receives a printed list of sites to be inspected  inspector visits the site, takes notes and pictures  once in the office, inspector fills a fillable pdf form based on information gathered in the field and uploads pictures on local server  inspector prints the form and hands it to GIS staff for database update  once the updates are processed by GIS editors, rest of the division sees the updated info 18Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

Efficiency Storm Water Detention Inventory Inspections  We created a web application so inspectors can select the point location and edit a limited number of attributes  Tested on iPads - deploy application  Workflow:  inspector organizes list of sites to be inspected by checking the web map (by township)  inspector visits the site and makes changes on iPad  in the office, GIS Manager reviews the edits, and reconciles & posts to update server for distribution 19Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

20Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development DEMO

Transparency Hamilton County Water Service Areas  During Fall and Summer times received at least 5 daily phone calls regarding the water service provider info for an address – most cases for reconnecting services  Although there is a major service provider covering almost 80% of the County jurisdictions, Hamilton County has contracts with ten different service providers  People calling were misinformed; they would ask: is this County Water? I would want to reconnect the services to this address  It was time consuming to repeat myself over again with different customers 21Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

Transparency Hamilton County Water Service Areas  Solution: we embedded a web map showing the different water service providers in the County into our Water Supply division website  Stopped receiving phone calls  Found technical impediment which demanded additional coordination with webmaster  One important remark: make sure your data is accurate or as accurate as possible before publishing it  Overall, this solution increased transparency: general public has access to data through the web saving time for both customer and county’s staff 22Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

23Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development DEMO

Transparency Delhi Township Zoning  Hamilton County Planning provides Zoning map update services to different communities within the County by contract  Traditionally, we would update the GIS layer and prepare and print a pdf map for the Township  Early in 2014, when a new request for an update came in, we though that besides the printed and pdf digital file, we clould offer the creation of a web map  To my surprise, they were curious about this web map thing but more importantly they wanted to know how much was going to cost them 24Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

25Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

Transparency Delhi Township Zoning  I responded that it was going to take one hour of my time and, in addition, they could add a link to the web map in their own website  We extended the ability to access digital information to another community – ripple effect  Township officials and residents can check their zoning district by an address search – having access to the most up-to-date information 26Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

27Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development DEMO

Key Takeaways  No matter how small your GIS team is, you can do it! Three GIS staff members Three GIS staff members Two UC interns: undergrad student + graduate student Two UC interns: undergrad student + graduate student  No matter how busy you are, you could start with a small project  No matter how reluctant your colleagues or supervisors are, once you show them what it can be done they’ll be on board! 28Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development COLLABORATION EFFICIENCY TRANSPARENCY

Future Plans  Department Maintains Census and other population related data  Department is Primarily responsible for land use planning and zoning  Department Prepares and disseminates information and maps on variety of subjects related to planning  Department Coordinates Subdivision Development Review 29Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

30Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

31Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

32Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development

Thank you! 33Ileana Abot - Hamilton County Department of Planning and Development