How-to and technical resources
Frequently asked questions
How can I maintain situational awareness for my jurisdiction during an incident?
Use the Incident Status Dashboard template to monitor key indicators and current conditions in real time. With this level of situational awareness, you can share insights quickly with senior leadership so they can make more timely and effective decisions as potential issues emerge.
How can I brief command staff and elected officials during an incident?
The Incident Briefing Solution template helps you share updates with executive decision makers so they can see what’s important and decide which actions to take. Use these apps for daily briefings or for status updates during disasters to keep decision makers proactively informed no matter the situation.
Where can I get live feeds of data to include in Situational Awareness applications?
The ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World provides many valuable live feeds like weather and traffic that you can add directly to your maps and apps. These are hosted by Esri, other organizations, and our user community. Content relevant to disaster response and situational awareness is located in the Earth Observations section of the Environment category of the Living Atlas.
How can I share information with the public?
Use the Public Information solution template to share incident information and alerts with the public. Communicate about ongoing events using both authoritative emergency event data as well as ready-to-use data from Esri. Users can see the status of any active incidents, identify areas affected by official advisories, and read summaries for each incident or alert. When you use maps to keep the public informed, people can better understand how an emergency will impact them and take the appropriate precautions, helping reduce loss of life and property.
My map contains layers that require a subscription. How can I share it with the public?
To share a map that contains subscriber content with the public, create a map-based app and configure it to allow access to the content through your organizational subscription.
What happens if my Public Information app goes viral?
Since ArcGIS Online leverages the cloud, it is designed to scale to accommodate a large load. Follow best practices like using hosted feature layer views and using tile layers for complex data to ensure you can get critical information out to your constituents to help them stay safe.
