Support for Organizational Workflows

ESRI's server-based GIS solutions support both geocentric and geospatially enabled organizational workflows.

Geocentric Workflows

In a geocentric workflows, GIS is the foundation of the business process and is primary to achieving business objectives. Common geocentric workflows can be found in

• Land records systems
• Transportation systems
• Forestry management applications
• Risk analysis applications

GIS servers support geocentric workflows by creating an environment where geospatial applications and services can be built once, and then shared with many throughout the organization. This leads to business process standardization and use, reduced redundancy, and unlocking of skill specializations. For example, a skilled GIS transportation engineer who is an expert in multimodal transportation models can publish and share network solvers that can be consumed and leveraged by all transportation engineers and applications.

Citiworks^® Server was created by Azteca Systems, Inc. to act as a browser-based system to manage assets, issue service requests and work orders, perform inspections, and manage customer needs.

Geospatially Enabled Workflows

Geospatially enabled workflows are traditional business workflows that have been infused with geospatial capabilities in an effort to make them more efficient or accurate. These workflows can be found in core systems such as

• Business intelligence
• Supply chain management
• Customer relationship management (CRM)
• Asset management

In these instances, GIS server technology enables geospatial functions to be transparently integrated into broader enterprise applications. Geospatial applications can be delivered to end users who may not even realize they are implementing GIS techniques and processes. For example, a retail customer service operator might typically interface with a CRM system to accept customer product orders. The operator may not realize that GIS is being used within the CRM to profile inbound customers calls (based on phone number) in an effort to provide specific product cross selling opportunities and to log spending trends based upon geography.