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!

What's New in District Online (Release 3.3)

We're always keen to adopt new technologies or data that help our customers save money and become more productive through using GIS. This latest release of our Web GIS is a simple one; we've added a feed of Cyclomedia Street-level imagery.

You may be familiar with this type of information if you've ever used Google Street View. It allows you to see what is on the ground in a 360 degree interactive view. This allows people using District Online (our Web GIS for Local Authorities) to inspect sites without actually going there.

This data also has large cost-savings implications for the Local Authority as staff can use the imagery to save them visiting sites in person. This saves time and money as well as having a positive impact on the environment by reducing the amount of travelling.

This survey was carried out in April by two Cyclomedia cars who photographed Bath's streets, as well as some of the pedestrianised areas. The benefit of having structured surveys is that Council employees know exactly when the imagery was taken and can therefore rely on it for their work.

This latest update is only available for our Bath & North East Somerset users at present as we want to trial how it is used and how we can improve it in the future. We'll be implementing overlays of GIS data and 3D measurement tools that will make life even easier.

What's New in District Online (Release 3.2)

Since our last revision of District Online in March we've been working hard to bring our users some more functionality.

Without waffling on I'll get straight down to what we've done;

The first thing that is very important to the day-to-day use of District Online is increasing the frequency of our NLPG updates. We now update these on a weekly basis. Our updates are received from GeoPlace LLP on a Monday so that's the day the database gets updated. This keeps District Online users more in tune with the LLPG datasets that may be used locally.

To complement the weekly updates for NLPG, we've also included some new functionality in the NLPG Search tool. Users can now search by UPRN (Unique Property Reference Number) and USRN (Unique Street Reference Number). This should make District Online a lot easier to use in planning departments, for example.

The NLPG tool also has a new feature that allows you to include historic addresses. So now, by default only the current addresses will show and you have to tick a box to have the historic addresses included.

You'll also notice that the NLPG points now appear at 1:2500 without labels instead of 1:1250 scale. This is something that was requested by one of our customers. We thought it was a great idea so have applied it to all our Web GIS accounts.

The next new feature is in the Print tool. We've included an 'output to PNG' option which means users can embed mapping in other documents more easily than with just the PDF output. A PNG file is the same as a JPG image file and is supported by many pieces of software, such as Microsft Word, PowerPoint or Paint. You'll notice that the PNG export doesn't include a border which means you won't need to crop the image to make it fit and look right in other documents.

The final new feature in this update is the Circle tool in the Scratchpad. This allows you to create a circular polygon around a point on the map. You can specify the size of the circle in metres. Circle objects created with this tool work in exactly the same was as other objects, so you'll be able to use it with the Data Extraction Tool to export text information from other layers. I may have gone a bit overboard with this new feature in the image above!

Well, that's all for now! We're already working on our 3.3 release and i'll be sure to keep you informed with other news and info from the Web GIS team soon!

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!

What's New in District Online (Release 3.1)

One of the advantages of using a fully hosted Web GIS is that we can deploy new versions of the application quickly and with minimal disruption to the user. Gone are the days of waiting years for new updates to be released and then having to install them on every single computer at a cost of thousands!

With District Online, as soon as we make changes to the application, you can see them immediately. This means we regularly make updates and apply new functionality without disrupting your work.

So the end of March brings one of these updates, and while the mapping interface itself may not appear to have changed much, we have made some fundamental changes in the administration panels and the core back-end code. Let's take a look at all the changes we've made.

There are a few things in District Online mapping interface that you will notice. Firstly, the left panel where the options to choose base layers (such as Aerial Photography and Ordnance Survey mapping) can now be undocked to present an easier view of the base layers, as well as the GIS layers such as Tree Preservation Orders or Flood Map zones.

What's more, you can now expand and collapse these groups of layers to give you a clearer view of the GIS information that is available to you.

For staff at Bath & North East Somerset Council you will also notice that there are many more layers to choose from. This is an ongoing programme to give more staff access to more information, all through the simple District Online interface. So if you notice that your department's data is not in District Online yet, make arrangements with your GIS team and you can benefit from sharing your data with your colleagues.

Now I won't go into detail on the administration panel updates because the majority of people won't have access to them, but the key functionality changes allow the administrator to create these new groups of GIS layers and assign them to users. These layers can now be assigned custom colours, symbols and labels based on their attributes and data types.

So, as ever, have a look at the updated District Online and hopefully you'll be using it every day!

Any comments or suggestions, drop us a note in the User Forum (currently in need of some input!) and one of our team will reply.