case study
Powered by ArcGIS Enterprise and task-driven solutions, Isanti County, Minnesota, opens a world of information and self-service capabilities to users.
Leadership at Isanti County, Minnesota, recognized the powerful potential of geographic information system (GIS) technology for staff and residents. The county’s GIS team identified opportunities to streamline land records management, support street and sign management, share comprehensive information by integrating other key business systems, and improve overall GIS access and ease of use.
County leadership’s goals for GIS encompass both internal and public use. To improve internal operations, county staff needed easier access to authoritative data across departments. Simultaneously, county staff aimed to provide the public with self-service data access. This would enhance the quality of service while minimizing the time spent responding to individual data requests.
With numerous goals to achieve and the motivation to start benefiting from GIS as soon as possible, county employees collaborated with Esri partner Pro-West & Associates to make their vision a reality.
Working together, the team began with a comprehensive enterprise GIS design. Then, they designed and executed a database structure that would form the foundation for many of the county’s goals.
With a major phase of the project complete, the focus narrowed to land records. The business systems involved in the county’s parcel management workflow were connected. This eliminated redundant data entry and allowed all available information on a property to be accessed from the same location instead of having to use multiple systems. The data was also cleaned to ensure accuracy.
To replace the county’s legacy application for viewing data related to parcels, zoning, land use, and more, focused ArcGIS software-based solutions were configured, providing users with more user-friendly ways to efficiently find the information they need.
The Tax Parcel Viewer lets users search for parcels and see general information about them.
A Tax Parcel Viewer solution based on ArcGIS provides easy access to property records via hyperlinks in a pop-up for each parcel. Users can navigate to the parcel of interest and, if they need more detailed information, quickly choose which available documents they wish to open. Filtering further speeds the process of finding the required information, for example, finding properties in a specific area.
Another valuable tool for understanding property records is a graphic visualization of the expected value of a parcel over time—a capability that was not available with the county’s previous GIS deployment.
The Residential Comp Finder allows residents and realtors to search for comparable properties’ sales values, while Recorded Documents Lookup provides easy access to recorded documents associated with a property, thanks to integration with the county’s TriMin document management system.
The Residential Comp Finder helps people see the sales and assessed value of properties by either searching or selecting a parcel.
For Isanti County staff, the greatest need was for easier access to data. They created a user-friendly application that incorporated tabs for modules including Property Information and Sales and Assessor Features, each of which includes layers that may be turned on or off as needed. Graphs and other visualizations aid clarity and data interpretation, while search capabilities—both a search bar and advanced search with additional filters—also support efficient and user-friendly information access.
The Equitable Property Value application allows users to easily access information to help them understand their property value and tax information.
Beyond land records, solutions such as the Isanti County Child Care Finder and Find My Commissioner provide important information to the public by leveraging the county’s existing data.
The Find My Commissioner application allows users to quickly find out how to contact their commissioner.
Another application providing new and valuable capabilities is the Public Notification solution. Isanti County includes many lake districts that are using the solution to send newsletters to their residents, while the county is leveraging its capabilities to mail flu vaccine reminders plus numerous other communications. With many options available for selecting a group of recipients and a variety of formats to which data can be exported, it has been successful in bringing further efficiencies to county operations.
To bring all of its GIS solutions together, the county deployed the Isanti County Geospatial Hub site built using ArcGIS Hub, with the goal of making its GIS-enabled applications even more user-friendly. With all available solutions in a single location, users can quickly navigate to the one they need and efficiently find answers to their questions.
“Establishing one location for all of our task-specific solutions has been extremely valuable,” said Nate Kirkwold, GIS manager at Isanti County. “Our users have a much easier experience finding what they need, encompassing all connected county systems and all of our available data.”
The Isanti County Geospatial Hub is where all the applications and solutions can be found.
In all, the county has worked with Pro-West to deploy 13 GIS solutions to support key organizational workflows across multiple departments:
“[The Geospatial Hub] is also a great foundation for expansion—we are planning on deploying more GIS solutions and will add them to our hub so they can be easily found by our public and internal users,” continued Kirkwold.
The implementation of public solutions such as Tax Parcel Viewer and Public Land Survey System (PLSS) Viewer are enabling the county to meet its goal of delivering self-service capabilities to the public and local professionals such as realtors and surveyors. These capabilities are also saving significant time for GIS and assessor staff who were previously tasked with gathering information in response to incoming requests.
Recorded Document Lookup helps users find documents linked to parcels.
County staff are also benefiting from easier access to data needed in their daily work. They no longer need to visit multiple business systems to find information, and they can quickly visualize data collected over time and operate more efficiently.
“Members of the public and land records professionals can find the information they need in seconds—a vast change from the day or two of time our team used to spend processing data requests,” said Kirkwold. “Residents no longer have to wait for our staff to respond, aren’t restricted to office hours, and we have more time to devote to other responsibilities. It’s a win for everyone.”
Isanti County has been successful in reaching the goals it set at the start of the project:
Kirkwold says the county has many plans for the future that will “benefit multiple departments at the county as well as our residents.”
Plans include implementing a sign management solution that will support efficient inventory and maintenance for the county’s Highway Department.
“As this is an election year, we are also looking at adding solutions to help voters find the correct polling place, and other ways we can leverage GIS tools to support the elections process,” said Kirkwold. “We’ll also be working on existing solutions to offer additional capabilities, including enhancing our Tax Parcel Viewer for public users, and adding a module for personal property to our internal application.”
Establishing one location for all of our task-specific solutions has been extremely valuable. Our users have a much easier experience finding what they need, encompassing all connected county systems and all of our available data.
Learn more about the products used in this story
Esri offers multiple product options for your organization, and users can use ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Enterprise, ArcGIS Pro, or ArcGIS Location Platform as their foundation. Once the foundational product is established, a wide variety of apps and extensions are available.
