Modernizing Land Records Management with ArcGIS Parcel Fabric at Tooele County

Moving forward with streamlined parcel editing and automated plat map production. 

In Tooele County, Utah, local government officials found themselves struggling to manage parcel data with outdated technology. The editing process was fragmented, with two departments working in separate environments, lacking standardization. To update plats, county staff manually hand drew edits before they were scanned and stored as physical maps. This labor-intensive approach often led to missing line work and data loss, particularly during a previous migration from AutoCAD.

While the county was technologically forward-thinking, it lacked the budget of some larger entities. The county needed a solution that would allow editors to be more productive with taxpayer dollars. Recognizing the need for a more streamlined and modern approach, the county, under the leadership of a recorder who was a staunch advocate for technological advancement partnered with Esri partner Pro-West & Associates to implement a geographic information system (GIS).

Staff from both organizations embarked on a two-phase project. The first phase involved migrating to ArcGIS Parcel Fabric, while the second phase focused on implementing a map series to automate the creation and management of plat maps. This initiative was designed to consolidate all editing and decision-making within a single department, automate processes, streamline workflows, and standardize and organize the county’s maps.

Tooele County and Pro-West staff first began by migrating existing parcel data to ArcGIS Pro and Parcel Fabric. This would allow errors to be corrected and line work to be filled in over time. It also enabled the team to start incorporating the workflow efficiencies and technical capabilities of Parcel Fabric without delay.

Before they began working in Parcel Fabric, county parcel editors completed on-site training with Pro-West, supported by Esri’s wealth of online video resources, to learn key tools, best practices, and workflows in ArcGIS Pro, .

“Our training was tailored to our unique needs and scenarios that we encounter, which kept it focused and gave us the skills to begin working with confidence in the new environment,” explained Emily Jones, director of operations for the Recorder/Surveyor’s Office. “Our entire team has found ArcGIS Pro to be user-friendly and it has allowed us to completely change how we work for the better.” Jones has become the go-to team member for technical expertise among the county’s parcel editors.

Working with ArcGIS Pro has brought many advantages to Tooele County’s mappers. The team can work concurrently, with the ability to incorporate editors’ updates while others continue to work in Parcel Fabric. This includes team members working remotely, who can now perform tasks in any location instead of only when they are in the office.

One of the most important efficiency improvements is the ability for editors to be more productive. They now perform two to three times the amount of work they could complete previously, delivering better value for taxpayer dollars and enabling more timely updates.

With parcel data maintained in Parcel Fabric, a script was implemented to automatically publish up-to-date parcel data every night. This has saved more time and improved access to authoritative information.

“We have confidence in our data because we’ve been able to clean up errors, perform maintenance, and publish updated data much more efficiently. We know our users are seeing accurate data now when they view our maps,” said Jones.

Tooele County mappers are embracing the benefits of the ArcGIS Parcel Fabric environment, including:

• User-friendly tools
• Remote data editing capabilities
• Concurrent editing
• Improved visualization of property information
• Enhanced search capabilities
• Increased productivity
• More efficient editing practices
• Parcel history tracking

To complete the transition to a modern parcel management workflow, the county collaborated with Pro-West & Associates to implement a map series in ArcGIS Pro. The map series provided the capabilities the county needed to automate and standardize the publication of over 2,000 plat maps. It also eliminated the difficult process of updating and storing individual maps.

Parcel updates made in Parcel Fabric are automatically published to the map series, where they are used to generate new plat maps that reflect accurate data. A standardized layout developed for Tooele County is applied to all maps, ensuring labels display and behave in a way that works for the various scales required by the county.

“Using the map series process has transformed the way in which we produce plat maps,” said Jones. “Our maps used to be out of date because making updates to 2,000+ maps was so time-consuming, but now it’s a highly streamlined workflow that allows us to easily share up-to-date information.”

The county can visually identify errors in data, such as overlaps in parcel boundaries, on the maps produced by the map series, and quickly make updates in Parcel Fabric.

Tooele County remains focused on benefiting from advancing technology to further improve productivity in the Recorder/Surveyor’s Office. For example, the county recently opened 24-hour recording submittal to offer flexibility outside of office hours to users in any location, and is looking to artificial intelligence to process those submittals more efficiently and improve the services and information available to users.

“Migrating to ArcGIS Parcel Fabric and map series has provided a foundation to take advantage of other technologies to meet our users’ expectations while operating within our budget,” said Jerry Houghton, Tooele County Recorder/Surveyor. “We want to do as much as possible with the resources we have, and technology is an important part of that.”

For counties facing similar challenges, both Jones and Houghton offered key advice. Jones emphasized that finding the right technological partner can help speed the process.

“Find a partner who will help you reach your goal,” said Jones. “Working with experts will get you there faster and give you the right training and support during an important transition. For Tooele County, having a partner has been nothing but beneficial.”

Houghton added that hesitation with new technology is inevitable. “So, anything you can do to get ahead of it now is beneficial—it will only get harder later,” Houghton said. “Once you do that, it starts to get exciting, and more and more ideas emerge about how to become more efficient.”