iPads, Androids, Surfaces, & Mobile GIS-Based Asset Management

This morning I grabbed a few screenshots from my iPad and thought it might be good to quickly review the mobile side of Elements XS.

When it comes to mobile access, our primary objectives are to:

  1. Provide a streamlined interface designed specifically for mobile devices
  2. Provide real-time read / write access to ArcGIS data without copying or synchronizing data
  3. Provide a streamlined interface for users to access data and input labor, materials, equipment costs, and other asset & work management data
  4. Provide real-time read / write access to and from utility billing and other third-party applications where necessary

That being said, here are a couple of screenshots showing how we do this.

Here’s what we call the “Tablet Workspace” – in this case, we’re looking at an interface designed specifically for fat fingers (skinny fingers will work too) and a tablet (iPad, Android, Microsoft Surface, etc.).  The screenshot below shows where the user can get a quick look at work that’s assigned to them – they can also use this interface to organize and prioritize their work for the day:

Here’s how a field tech can see the details of the day’s work on his iPad:

Here’s where users can use their tablet device to add inventory, labor, equipment costs, and fill out other details related to the job:

Here’s how the utility billing integration can be displayed on a tablet device – pulling information in real-time from the utility billing application and posting information back to the billing software where necessary:

Take a picture using the camera on the iPad and attach the picture to the job:

Use the iPad to see where this job is on the map:

Here’s how we use HTML5 maps on tablet devices – giving full access to ArcGIS & other asset details:

If you want to learn more about Elements XS and our approach to mobile asset management let us know!

Ready, Set, Go (Offline!)

In a perfect world everyone would have lightning fast internet throughout their entire service area and all communication between field and office staff would be real-time.

The cold hard truth is that the 49ers lost the Superbowl, I wake up every morning and go to work (not the beach), and lots of Elements users have limited or no internet access in the field.

Although Elements XS can’t do anything about the Superbowl outcome, it can provide a viable solution for folks without internet access in the field.

The process is simple:

1. Check out your stuff. 

Take a look at the list of jobs assigned to you, then decide what you’re going to take with you.  The check out process takes your work orders offline and stores them on your local device.  This also locks out the work orders so other users don’t make changes and unintentionally undo all of your hard work.

Offline Mode Check Data Out

2. Do your work. 

Instead of being mad that you don’t have internet access, just fill out the work order on your local device.

Offline Install Meter

3. Check it back in.

Once you’ve filled out the work on your local device (and you’re back in an area with internet service) just check the data back in to the office.

That’s it.  The entire process is pretty under-complicated really, and that’s how we like to keep things around here.

If you want to see it in action, just let us know.

Software for Santa

Yes, Virginia. Santa uses Elements.
Yes, he has a lightning fast hot rod sleigh. And magic reindeer. And countless elves at his disposal… but the real magic of Christmas is not really magic at all (sorry) – it’s actually just great software. Plain and simple. Santa uses Elements.

Lap Visits
Whenever a child sits on Santa’s lap, a photo of the child is automatically uploaded to Santa’s Elements database and tied to the child’s customer account where Santa can see siblings, parents, past photos, and notes on past behavior. Depending on what the child asks for (and how the child behaves during the visit), the child is flagged as either Naughty or Nice and notes are made accordingly. Babies who cry when they sit on his lap for the first time are still typically flagged as Nice, unless they try to bite him (in which case the child’s account gets put on a special watch list for next year).

Manufacturing
How do the elves keep track of which toys they’ve completed, which toys are waiting on parts, which toys are on hold, and which toys have been cancelled (due to naughty behavior)? Easy. Purchase Orders, Item Receipts, Service Orders, and Inventory Management in Elements all play a key role. Repair requests and ticket management are also used heavily by the elf bosses.

List Management
When parents (or elves on shelves) notice bad behavior, photos and complaints are submitted (via the web) and the data is linked to the child’s account where Santa regularly pulls reports to see how many children are falling from the Nice list to the Naughty list and vice versa.

Routing & Toy Distribution
This is where the real magic happens. Santa is very fond of the web-based technology and HTML5 map integration – the maps look great on his iPad and it allows him to route the entire planet, flagging which toys go to which kids. Geofencing and automated alerts notify Santa which chimneys are coming up and which homes have the good treats.

Snack Control
You better believe Mr. Claus keeps track of who is leaving treats, how many, and the quality of these treats. Treat quality is also taken into consideration while the delivery route is being processed to make sure that Santa gets the best snacks when he needs them most (we typically find that homes with the best snacks get visited earlier in the evening).

Error Correction and Missed Homes
It’s hard to believe, but every now and then Santa misses a house (usually due to poor data coverage in that super-fast sled of his). When this happens Santa can quickly look to his map to find which homes were missed and find the quickest way to get down the missed chimney, deliver the goods and grab a snack. Once the gifts have been delivered, Santa simply marks the work order as “Complete” and all of the elves back at headquarters are notified accordingly.

Sleigh Maintenance
Everyone knows there’s no room for mistakes here. Rocket-Blaster Fuel levels are monitored closely; scheduled maintenance tasks for landing lights and chimney expanders (yes – chimney expanders – how do you think he gets down those skinny chimneys?) are also managed in Elements. This year’s high tech sleigh uses a synthetic blend of rocket blaster fuel and pixie dust – levels of which are monitored closely in Elements.

So there you have it – when you open your presents this year you can thank the guys at Novotx who work day and night to make sure Christmas goes off without a hitch.

Throwback Thursday

Thursday is becoming my favorite day of the week. Why? Because 1) it’s almost Friday, and 2) I’m super excited about our new series: Throwback Thursday.

This weekly blog post is dedicated to all that vintage memorabilia that’s still kicking around the office. Stacks of work orders dating back to the 80‘s. Drawings of repairs that nobody can quite identify. Faded, rained-on, mudded-on, torn up maps that require a good set of beer-goggles to decipher.

These are photos submitted by our customers showing off the way they did things before Elements came around. Before the days of mobile work orders and GIS integration. Before web-based software. Before utility billing integration, and certainly before iPads. These were the days of good ol’ pen, paper, rolled up maps, and nifty notebooks.

Since implementing Elements for GIS-based asset and work order management, the stacks of paper are disappearing – bad news for Dunder Mifflin, good news for our customers.

More photos to come – so sit back, enjoy, and we’ll catch you next week on Throwback Thursday. In the mean time, check out our photo album over on Facebook and give some photos a “like” or two.

Have a photo you’d like to submit? Send it over.

ElementsXS GIS Users Conference 2012

John Denver was right – those Rocky Mountains are flippin’ awesome.

Our 2012 Elements XS User Conference was a huge success. To kick off the conference we announced our new online community – giving customers easy access to submit and monitor progress for support tickets and feature requests. The community also gives users improved communication with each other via new user forums and groups.

New features were announced including offline enhancements, HTML5 map viewer improvements, an inventory overview, and more.

The highlight of the conference was the customer examples and presentations.

Wade Lowe from Lake Apopka Natural Gas District (Winter Garden, FL) blew everyone away with their innovative methods of combining Elements XS with utility billing and GIS. Generating over 20,000 work orders per year, these guys have fully embraced Elements, the utility billing integration, and GIS-based asset management by throwing an 80” multi-touch display on the office wall that runs Elements. (Check the link to see for yourself.) Wade showed us how this massive interactive Elements map shows past due work orders, in-progress work orders, and color coded emergency work orders based on severity and location.

Todd DeBoer from the City of Baxter, MN showed how they are able to use Elements to integrate with external data sources. Pictures of signs, as-builts, and other property-related documents are quickly and easily accessible for the City of Baxter via Elements. He discussed how data stored in separate databases can be accessed from Elements using GIS and how the City of Baxter has used Elements to create a user-friendly search environment to locate and maintain assets.

Josh Stanley from Green Mountain Water & Sanitation (Colorado) showed off their improved processes for water and sewer permits using the multi-task service orders and assignment workflows in Elements XS. Josh has been successful in making Green Mountain become a completely paperless (thats right, paperless) office as field staff now use Elements XS on Android tablets to access work orders and complete jobs in real-time in the field. Josh showed how they integrate with utility billing and use the user-definable filters on the Elements home page when shut-off day comes around to make life easier. We could literally hear the ooos and ahhhs when Green Mountain explained how Elements has reduced the number of phone calls (and the number of ibuprofen) taken by office staff on shut-off day.

Keep an eye out on the user groups and forums as we’ll be posting details from each of these examples in the coming weeks!

GIS & Work Order Management Systems: 6 Things to Consider

If you’re reading this post, you’ve probably come to realize that there are many options for integrating GIS with a work order system, and there are several products out there that will let you somehow integrate your work orders with your GIS.  At the end of the day, most of those products will allow you to successfully create a work order and tie it to your GIS in some fashion.

That being said, it can be difficult to find a good work order system that’s a good fit for your organization (especially when integrating with GIS).  That being said, here are a few items to consider when evaluating GIS-based work order and asset management systems:

1. Web Based.

Do you want your GIS and work order system to be accessible via the web?  If so, you’ll  probably want to look for a system that is 1) web-based (does not require an installation on the local device) and 2) cross-browser compatible (works in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, IE, or your browser of choice).  Some work order systems require a client side application to be installed and maintained – especially when integrating with GIS.

2. Live Field Access.

Does your service area allow for real-time data access via the web, or do you need to take data offline?  Web-based applications are great, but if you don’t have the web in your service area, make sure your web-based application has some method of taking data offline.

3. iPads and Tablet Access.

Do you want to access the work order system via iPads, iPhones, Androids, and other devices?  Well, if you’ve seen the retina displays on those fancy new iPads then of course you do, right?  You’ll want to make sure that your work order system (including the GIS integration) will be available on the device of your choice – either via an App or via live web access.

4. GIS Integration.

Do you want to make changes to your GIS from the work order system?  If you want users of the work order system to be able to make changes to your GIS you’ve basically got two choices:

  1. Real-Time Integration. (Best Choice!)  In this case we’re reading directly from and writing directly to the GIS application (typically using ESRI’s ArcGIS Server and ArcSDE technologies).  Users can make real-time, live changes to your GIS (with appropriate user permissions) directly from the work order system.
  2. Data Synchronization.  If the above option is not a viable solution (due to cost or other resources), users can also make changes to the GIS in the work order system then synchronize those changes back to the GIS.  This method can get messy in a hurry if not properly managed – we don’t recommend it.

5. Non-GIS Assets.

Are you going to track assets that are not in your GIS?  It’s true, the non-GIS assets (things that don’t belong on the map) always seem to get overlooked.  If you plan on tracking work on trucks, heavy equipment, and other assets that are not GIS-based be sure to take that into consideration.  Some GIS-based work order systems store the asset management data in the same database as the GIS, some GIS-based work order systems don’t.  If you’re tracking work on a backhoe, and your backhoe is not an asset in your GIS, it doesn’t make much sense to use GIS to track the backhoe.  Make sure you understand how data is stored and tracked for non-GIS assets – make sure the work order system doesn’t require to you add things to your GIS that don’t belong there.

6. Financial and Utility Billing Integration.

Do you want to integrate with your utility billing or financial application?  If so, you’ve again basically go two options here:

  1. Real-Time Integration. (Best Choice!)  Here we’re reading directly from the utility billing (or other) application, getting information in real-time.  In this case no data is being duplicated or stored in multiple locations.  When combined with a web-based and GIS-integrated work order system this becomes a very powerful tool.  Users of the work order system can access job-specific customer, location, and meter information directly from the billing system while on the job site, using the work order system.
  2. Data Synchronization.  In this case data is typically copied or synchronized periodically from the utility billing software to the work order system.  This method typically gets the job done, although the data is not live, it’s being stored in multiple places, and it usually requires a bit of manual intervention to keep it running.

So there you have it – six things (of the many) to consider.  For information on how we integrate GIS with work orders and other asset management data visit www.elementsxs.com.

GIS & Asset Management | Denver 2012

Attention: Denver, Colorado. We are coming for you!

We’ve got Elements XS users from across the country getting together in this great place for our 2012 User’s Conference. Are you excited? Because we are. The conference is just over 2 weeks away and we can’t wait to tell you about all the new features we have been working on. If you haven’t registered yet, make sure to do it today – you don’t want to miss it!

iPads, GIS, and Asset Management

We often get asked if Elements XS will work on an iPad for GIS-based asset management in the field.  The answer is, of course, yes – but there’s more to the story.  Not only is Elements XS web based, but it’s also cross browser compatible so you can read from (and write to) your GIS in real-time as well as track your work orders and other asset management data using any modern browser on any device.  Yes, you can use Elements XS on that skinny MacBook Air you purchased.  And your Samsung Galaxy.  And all of your other web-enabled devices.

Two of the technologies our customers are finding to be most valuable in the tablet world are 1) the HTML5 map interface and 2) the Tablet Workspace.

The HTML5 viewer in Elements XS allows users to read directly from and write directly to their ESRI ArcGIS Server in real-time, over the web, without synchronizing data. The map viewer has been optimized for touch (pinch to zoom, swipe to pan, and so on) – giving your field staff the tools they need while on the go.

In addition to the standard interface, Elements XS also includes a streamlined mobile interface designed specifically for tablets.  This interface is designed for fat fingers and a touch enabled device.  Is it as fun as Angry Birds?  Not a chance – but it does make for a pretty productive field staff.

Check out the Elements XS site to learn more about the software, or visit novotx.com to read more about the team responsible for Elements XS.

Elements XS 2012 User Conference

Well, it’s finally here – the Elements XS 2012 User Conference!

This year we’re extra excited about the conference. Why? Because we’ve made some great progress with some excellent customers over the past year and we’re excited for everyone to get together and learn from each other.

Will we be announcing the next iPhone? No. But we will be announcing some pretty awesome features and we’ll be looking for feedback from conference attendees.

We’ll also be introducing new online communities and support resources to make it easier for our customers to interact with each other and get support from our staff.

Lastly, the conference will be held one day prior to, and in the same location as CUSI’s UMS National User Group so our shared customers can take advantage of both conferences.

What does the future hold for Elements XS? You’ll have to come to the conference to find out. Needless to say, we’re [a bit overly] excited about it!

The conference is free, so click here to register online and get the full conference details.

See you in October!