RGV911 Enhances Address Management with ArcGIS

Rio Grande Valley Emergency Communication District (RGV911) serves as the 911 and addressing authority for Hidalgo County and Willacy County in southern Texas. RGV911 is responsible for issuing addresses throughout its jurisdiction and maintaining geographic information system (GIS) data that supports emergency communications. This data, in the form of address points, road centerlines, and service boundaries, powers Next Generation 911 (NG911) systems, 911 call handling systems, and computer-aided dispatch systems.

RGV911 supports 16 PSAPs (public safety answering points), 25 incorporated municipalities, and 12 small unincorporated communities, with a small team of five GIS specialists. They are mindful of the people’s needs, NG911 data accuracy requirements, and how important it is that they offer continuous, efficient, and effective service to support mission-critical emergency communications across their jurisdiction.

After successfully using long-established addressing and data management workflows, RGV911 faced a series of challenges that required them to envision and implement a new approach to address management. The results highlight the value of a coordinated, enterprise-wide approach to GIS, illustrating that agencies of any size can achieve these benefits.

Continuity of operations was top of mind for RGV911. For years, they had used ArcMap to create and maintain address data alongside a custom-built ticketing system called Spartan. Spartan helped them manage the workflow of incoming address requests, and they knew that it, and ArcMap, both had a limited horizon of support.

When someone needs to obtain a new address or change an existing address, they contact RGV911. These requests were made in person or over the phone, and RGV911 staff would create a ticket for each request in Spartan. An addresser would then review the request and work with a GIS specialist who used ArcMap to verify the information and modify the address GIS dataset accordingly.

Once the work was completed, the person that entered the ticket into the system would call the member of the public that submitted the original request to formally issue them their address. From start to finish, that process required up to half a dozen steps and took up to 14 business days to complete. In addition to being inefficient, Spartan was created by just one person, and the system had become difficult to maintain. If the system’s developer were to leave RGV911, it would significantly impact the organization’s ability to deliver continuous, high-quality service to the public.

RGV911 knew that ArcMap would eventually be retired and replaced by ArcGIS Pro, so looking for an ongoing solution became an early priority. In addition, RGV911 had been, for years, a part of CSEC’s (Commission on State Emergency Communications’) 9-1-1 program in the state of Texas. The decision was made to become an Emergency Communications District (ECD). During the transition from an RPC (Regional Planning Commission) in the CSEC 9-1-1 program to an ECD, they knew they would experience a temporary loss of funding and staff, so they needed an addressing solution in place that would be easy to use—so easy that people without GIS experience, such as their addressing coordinators, could use it. And, after RGV911 became an ECD, the sole developer of Spartan did, in fact, leave the organization. Spartan was no longer maintainable.

 “If the staff member were to leave, Spartan would become obsolete, and that would be a problem,” said Joe Garcia, assistant director of GIS and customer service at RGV911.

To overcome these challenges, well before becoming an ECD, RGV911 began looking for a way to manage address data in ArcGIS Pro. They discovered the Address Data Management solution at the Esri User Conference shortly after its initial release and began its adoption. RGV911 configured the solution by adding optional or conditional attribute fields in the NENA (National Emergency Number Association) Standard for NG9-1-1 GIS Data Model, and set up new attribute rules as well as ArcGIS Pro tasks to automatically populate values within these additional attributes.

RGV911 also added attribute fields for their own use outside of the requirements of NG911, such as a property ID and telco exchange. RGV911 created new attribute rules as well, to automatically populate attribute values such as the NENA Globally Unique ID on their road centerline and site/structure address point feature classes, and to automatically assign attributes like the MSAG (Master Street Address Guide) Community to their address points via spatial intersection against their MSAG Community polygon feature class. RGV911 even configured new attribute rules to automatically populate CLDXF (Civic Location Data Exchange Format) address attribute values based upon their legacy E911 counterparts.

Continually evolving their configuration, they have set up 19 additional attribute rules on their address points feature class and 16 on their road centerlines feature class. Because the Address Data Management solution is specifically designed to adapt to the needs of use cases like NG911 through the exact kind of configuration that RGV911 implemented, it could not only meet the requirements of the NENA Standard for NG9-1-1 GIS Data Model, but additional needs as well.

Adopting the Address Data Management solution soon after it was released allowed RGV911 to switch from ArcMap to ArcGIS Pro well ahead of becoming an ECD, and allowed them to train staff that had no previous GIS experience to create and maintain addresses in GIS.

“I didn’t want to get caught in the last minute trying to switch without researching and knowing about it,” Garcia said. After learning about how the Address Data Management solution would meet their needs, Garcia had his staff attend and complete ArcGIS Pro training prior to uninstalling ArcMap and switching completely to ArcGIS Pro.

“They had to learn [ArcGIS Pro], and now they’re all pretty good at it, so it worked well for us,” he said. And “the Address Data Management solution solves a lot of the human error side of things.”

After establishing using the Address Data Management solution, RGV911 turned their attention to replacing Spartan, their legacy address ticketing system. With Esri’s help, they implemented ArcGIS Workflow Manager along with ArcGIS Survey123 to not only replace Spartan with well-maintained off-the-shelf software, but to add efficiency to the process of managing address requests from the public.

Now, the public can request new addresses and change existing ones by visiting an ArcGIS Hub site and submitting a Survey123 form online. RGV911 staff also can submit a different Survey123 form for requests they receive in person or over the phone. Both forms create jobs in Workflow Manager that GIS specialists use as the inputs into their address management tasks, which are completed using the Address Data Management solution and ArcGIS Pro.

Upon completion of the work, instead of having to call the original submitter back on the phone, an email is sent to notify the submitter. Garcia said the ArcGIS Hub site “acts as our primary website.”

The public can also initiate an address request ticket from there, which according to Garcia was something they didn’t have before and has since improved the accuracy of the request.

“Before, you had to [request an address] in person or on the phone. Now, they can do it on their cell phone, which is great because it will find their property on their cell phone and uses the location of the phone.”

RGV911 also built dashboards using ArcGIS Experience Builder to convey the status of address requests as well as their history. These dashboards help staff keep track of pending requests, respond to inquiries about the status of their address requests, and report monthly statistics to executives and directors.

By implementing the Address Data Management solution, RGV911 significantly improved the quality of their address data for NG911. In the first week of using the solution, RGV911 reduced their NG911 quality control errors by 50 percent, using the Address Data Management solution to better identify and resolve errors with missing or duplicate unique identifiers on their road centerlines and address points.

Errors were also reduced through the solution’s use of attribute rules to automatically populate attribute values like the ESN (emergency service number) and MSAG Community, eliminating the chance of human errors from manual entry. By using the Address Data Management solution to maintain a current, accurate address dataset, RGV911 has been able to significantly reduce the number of errors that are discovered upon submitting their GIS data for NG911 use.

Adding Workflow Manager and Survey123 allowed RGV911 to dramatically reduce the time it takes to act and resolve address requests from the public. A process that initially took up to 14 business days to complete now takes between three and five business days. These improvements also positively impacted other addressing tasks, such as requests for addresses in new subdivisions. In what used to be a separate workflow, subdivision addresses are requested online just like other addresses, ensuring all requests for addresses, regardless of their type, follow the same workflow. This makes tracking and auditing requests significantly easier than in the past.

The dashboards that RGV911 built using Experience Builder also helped improve customer service. RGV911 staff have easy access to the audit trail of address requests, such as when a request was submitted. Implementing the dashboards helped resolve a lot of customer service issues by allowing staff to easily determine when an address request was submitted and its status. The dashboards are even able to pull historical data from the retired Spartan system. This is useful, for example, if a resident calls to request a copy of their address assignment letter when connecting to utility services, or if the service provider needs to verify the resident’s address.

Others have noticed RGV911’s success. A nearby ECD plans to implement a similar solution after visiting RGV911 and seeing their configuration of the Address Data Management solution, Workflow Manager, and dashboards. RGV911 was even recognized during the Plenary Session at the Esri User Conference.

“Our team being recognized at the international level… I think that’s one of the greatest and coolest things that could happen,” Garcia said.