Parish Online Workshop: Norfolk

Last night we held a Parish Online workshop in the stunning surroundings of the Barnham Broom Hotel and Golf Course. Unfortunately the view was slightly spoilt by the terrible weather but that didn't stop us.

The weather did not look like this...

The meeting was kindly set up by the Norfolk ALC so on behalf of Getmapping we'd like to thank them for that. It was a well attended meeting and we had some very interesting discussions with Parish Clerks and happily some great feedback.


So we gave an introduction to Parish Online and then ran through a live demo on the big screen. We also discussed the PSMA and how it has helped Parish Councils use Parish Online. Then it was question time and we did a few more live demos.

We were pleased to get so much positive feedback from the Parish Online product and the event so thanks to all who came to make the event a success.


To sign up or register for a trial, enter your Parish name on this site...

Parish Online on Twitter

You can now find Parish Online, as well as other Getmapping people and products on the social network Twitter.

@ParishOnline for our web mapping software for Parish Councils

@GetmappingPLC for Getmapping's news and events

and you can also find some of our staff on twitter;

@GetmappingChris is product manager for Getmapping's Web GIS products
and,
@WoodingChris is one of our senior developers.

#exciting stuff!

What's New in District Online (Release 3.4)

A few weeks ago we released version 3.40 of our Web GIS. This update applies to all our hosted GIS products; District Online, Parish Online and other customised applications we've made for our customers.


In this update we've concentrated on the Admin Panel that allows administrators to better control the users, user profiles, map groups and map styling. It also now includes the ability to set columns in GIS tables as hyperlinkable (if that's a word) text. This allows a user to Info Click on a map object and then click through to a related document (internal or external) or a webpage.


We've also included functionality that allows the administrator to control which GIS columns are actually shown. This reduces the potential clutter in an Info Click result so that users can see the interesting/important data more easily.


We're working hard on updates ready for version 3.50 and this will come hot off the heels of 3.40 so keep an eye out on the release notes page and this blog!

Parish Online Tutorials

So to complement our recent Parish Online videos introducing the product and to help people understand the PSMA, we've released 8 new videos to show the key features within Parish Online.
We hope that they will assist in the free evaluations we give out and show what can be done in the online software.

There are a few ways you can enjoy these new video nuggets;

From our Web GIS website

From a YouTube playlist

or from the Getmapping YouTube channel

Enjoy!

Understanding Parish Online and the PSMA

Recently we've had a few questions from people asking about the way Parish Online works with the PSMA. Now the world of digital mapping is full of acronyms and to the uninitiated it can get confusing.

So to help with the PSMA, here's a short video to explain it.

September: the month of conferences!

As I write this I'm on a Lufthansa A320 heading back from Nuremberg feeling absolutely exhausted. September has been a busy month for us with the majority of the major conferences taking place around this time of the year. Here's what I've been up to!

Addresses, architecture and answers
The month started with a trip to the swanky new Ordnance Survey HQ in Southampton. The OS Insight event that was being held there is where the OS showcase their new products and get feedback from the reseller and partner community (that's us!). At this event they showed us a preview of what everyone now knows as AddressBase, the new addressing product that supersedes the NLPG, AL2 and PAF.

This event answered many of the questions surrounding addressing so was a very useful event. With this insider information and test data our team of developers got started on integrating the new product into our District Online and Parish Online product. We also took the opportunity to add a number of new filters that will greatly assist our Local Authority customers. We expect this to be rolled out in the next week or so meaning that our Web GIS users remain up-to-date with their PSMA datasets.

Satellites, sensors and science
The following week saw me down in Bournemouth for the Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Society (RSPSoc) Annual Conference. I've been a member of this society for a good few years now and the annual conference is a great event full of brilliant scientists and professionals delivering interesting and thought-provoking presentations. The highlight for me was Dr Robert Bindschadler's (NASA) talk on the use of Remote Sensing in analysis of the Antarctic. It was a great insight into the work he has done over the last 25 years. Now it doesn't really affect my day-to-day job as there isn't really a need for Web Mapping services on the most Southern part of this Earth (yet!), but it's great to see what others are doing in my field of interest; namely Remote Sensing and GIS.

As for the rest of the event, many new interesting leads and connections were made that will affect how Getmapping's products and services will form in the future... all very exciting stuff! I would highly recommend becoming a member of RSPSoc as it gives you the opportunity to interact with such an amazing group of people. My only fear for next years conference (in Greenwich) is I'll inevitably get dragged into taking part in the Ceilidh. Spoons at the ready! (inside joke, sorry!).

Geo-geeks, Twitter and Surfing
Before I knew it anther week was over and I found myself (geographically, not philosophically) in Nottingham for another big event, the Association of Geographic Information (AGI) GeoCommunity annual conference. This is the largest collection of GI professionals in the UK you're ever likely to find. It was great to catch up with friends, colleagues and also find new possibilities and areas that our Web GIS products could be used.

This year was interesting due to the ever-increasing use of twitter during the conference. #geocom was heavily used and I found myself drawn in to the silent discussion undercurrent over the twittersphere whilst presentations were taking place (@GetmappingChris). Some were serious points, some were questions and some were light-hearted jokes, but it was all an added media experience I enjoyed. The biggest twitter uproar was the flagrant use of Google Maps during an Ordnance Survey presentation; something the die-hard cartographers were shocked at (including me I might add)!

So my highlight (apart from the notebook full of leads and techy ideas) was Kimberly Kowal's (Lead Curator for the British Library) presentation, a cartographic tour de force of stunning visuals, historic mapping and geeky nuggets of knowledge. My lowlight, well, there are two. The first being that my house is now FULL of conference paraphernalia; notebooks, magazines, flyers, pens, hemp bags, postcards and print outs! The second, my shock and horror as I realise that whilst talking to someone on my right at dinner, my (rather delicious) starter had been whisked away without having the chance to finish it! The only consolation to this... seeing my colleague fail spectacularly on the surf machine at the evening party! Fortunately he remained unharmed and is currently busy coding features in District Online!

Parishes, PSMA and the Ordnance Survey
As I headed to Heathrow for the next part of my September, my colleagues were holding a Parish Online event in Hook. This was to generate interest in our Parish mapping tool for Clerks and Councillors to help them manage their Parish more easily.

With our 30 day free trial still running we're seeing new Parishes sign up every day. This is brilliant news as we really believe in the power of mapping to assist in the Parish Clerk's work.

With the PSMA allowing Parishes a licence for OS maps, Parish Online is established as an essential tool for viewing and using the mapping data without needing professional GIS software. We're also happy to hear that the Ordnance Survey see Parish Online as a great way for Public Sector bodies to use mapping in an intelligent and easy way. I will have more news on Parish Online in the weeks to come as we continue to improve it based on feedback from our customers and new leads from the previous conferences.

Bratwurst, weißbeer and sunshine
Now by the title to this you would assume I spent the week in Germany relaxing outside with a beer and fine Bavarian cuisine? Well not quite! I was at Intergeo, one of the largest exhibitions I've ever been to! We had a stand and were able to showcase our Web GIS (District Online and Parish Online) as well as our European aerial survey operations and data streaming services. We also had the chance to catch up with companies that we've been working with recently, such as Cyclomedia. Our collaboration to add Cyclomedia street-level imagery into District Online has been a great success in its current beta-guise.

As for Germany as a whole, I love it and have spent quite a lot of time there in the past so it was nice to reacquaint myself with fantastic food and drink and the occasional bit of sunshine (when I managed to escape the conference centre!). At least the great weather over Europe has been keeping our Flight Operations department busy!

So that was my September! October looks to be busy too with the PSMA roadshow that we'll be taking part in. Hopefully I'll have time in between to clear up my house!
Thanks for reading and look out for me and my colleagues at the London, Nottingham, Cardiff and Manchester shows!

Milton Keynes parishes join Parish Online

We are pleased to announce that all 47 parishes in Milton Keynes have joined Parish Online.

We are seeing more and more that Parish Clerks, Councillors and in this case, the Local Authority, realising the power of this online mapping tool. It's simplicity, wealth of mapping information and easy-to-use GIS tools prove indispensable for those managing the Parish Councils in the UK.

With increasing emphasis by the UK coalition government on promoting Localism, the low-cost Parish Online service ticks all the boxes by automatically feeding important local and national mapping information to the Parish administrators.

The parishes in Milton Keynes can now access information such as; Tree Preservation Orders, Listed Building locations and conservation areas. This mapping and Local Authority information all helps the Parish to understand their environment and make more informed decisions at the most local level.

We'd like to thanks MK Council and all the enthusiastic parish administrators for joining the Parish Online community.

The Parish Online 30 day free trial is still available to individual parishes. It can also be purchased by the Local Authority as a group. Please contact us to find out how to do this.

Parish Online joins the Getmapping Web GIS family

When we launched the Web GIS Portal for our District Online customers we always wanted to migrate our Parish Online customers, which were on a separate website, onto the same system. We saw many benefits to doing this (which i'll come on to) so over the last few weeks we have put in place a number of changes. Let's have a look at what we've done....

Firstly, we have a new online ordering system that allows new Parish Councils to sign up for a free 30 day evaluation of Parish Online. After the trial period is up, there is an option to pay the low annual subscription fee and they'll be able to use Parish Online for all their Parish responsibilities.
We're really happy with this and hope it brings more Parishes into this mapping community.

These new Parish Online users will be able to log in using the Web GIS Portal and consequently have access to the new tools that are available in the new system, which brings me onto the next new update....

New Parish Online users will be presented with a new mapping interface. It hasn't dramatically changed, but is the result of the improvements we've been making to our other product, District Online. Let's run down the new features;

• A new layer control. This organises the map layers more neatly and can expand and contract to incorporate new layers. It also pops out from the left-hand side to help when you're choosing layers.
• A measurement tool. This tool allows you to measure points, lines and areas. You will find it under the Tools menu bar.
• Map View Parameters. This is a simple tool that displays coordinates for the edges of the map view. It also displays coordinates for the centre of the map window. This is also under the Tools menu.
• Legend. This is under the Map menu and shows you the layers that you have visible.
• Data Extraction tool. This allows you to extract information about the mapping data. For example I could extract a list of addresses from a particular road. You can extract information from any layer and export it to a CSV file (which can be used in Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice). Details on how to use it are in the Help files once you've logged in.
• Scratchpad tool. This is a new layer that can be used to annotate the map. Using this layer for temporary annotations means it doesn't get mixed up with your asset information in your Parish layers.

I'm sure these new tools will become very useful to our Parish Online users.

So what else is new?! Well, new Parish Online users are no longer restricted to what Ordnance Survey data they can see. The new PSMA licence agreement means our Parish customers are now able to view Ordnance Survey mapping for the whole of England, Scotland and Wales. This also includes the new Ordnance Survey OpenData layers so we were more than happy to add these into Parish Online. This is great news for our new users.

We've also secured an agreement that lets us add in mapping layers from Natural England. So now, all new Parish Online customers will be able to see a national coverage of this useful data. Here are the layers;

• Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB)
• Countryside Rights of Ways (CRoWs)
• National Park boundaries
• Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs)
• Ancient Woodlands
• RAMSAR Sites, and,
• Environmentally Sensitive Areas.

Historic Woodland from Natural England. (Copyright Getmapping & Natural England)

We hope that these additional layers and all the updates i've mentioned make Parish Online a lot more useful for day-to-day Parish tasks.

For existing Parish Online users we will be migrating accounts over to the new system in the next few weeks. We'll notify you when your account has been updated and you can then use the new Web GIS Portal.

If you are a Parish Clerk or Councillor, give it a go! You've got nothing to lose, and we're sure you'll love it! Use this Parish Online Ordering System to get your account.

Please let me know what you think of the updates by getting in touch with myself (Chris Mewse) using the Comments below or visit our Parish Online Community group on LinkedIn!