5 Cool New Applications of Mobile GIS

The full potential of GIS is only just being realised. Esri and other location focused companies are driving forward with regular, new service releases which extend the possible applications of the technology. A wave of company mergers and acquisitions is underway in the location sector.

There are many exciting new ways to apply location technology. We thought it worth listing 5 cool new applications of Mobile GIS:

5 Cool New Applications of Mobile GIS

Geo-Triggers

Geotrigger technology adds location awareness and location based alerts to mobile apps. Esri’s 2012 purchase of the Portland based Geologi, has helped raise the profile of this technology. They describe how the service works as follows:

‘An invisible area drawn on a map is set to have an action or message associated with it. When your mobile device crosses into the “trigger zone” the Geotrigger Service sends a location-based message to that device, or even notifies your server for custom events.’

The Esri Geotrigger service is now in Beta. WebMapsolutions initial work with Geotrigger services is with intelligent features. For example a roads maintenance worker drives through an intersection and the traffic lights they pass send a text message indicating the need for inspection. There are many other ways to apply Geotriggers including:

– Retail loyalty – engage consumers with personalized content and deals as they enter a store
– Real estate – send messages to prospective home buyers when their search criterion matches a home nearby.
– Tourism – Inform tourists of interesting locations as they explore a city.
– Public alerts – notify citizens of local events, or road closures

GIS to Business System Integration

Over 80% of business data has a location component. Yet many business systems do not leverage location technology. There is much potential to integrate existing business system with GIS. WebMapSolutions have begun looking into ArcGIS to SAP integration.

GPS-GIS Mobile Apps

The combination of GPS with GIS on mobile devices is very powerful. Together these technologies allow the visualization and analysis of a users surrounding area.

Online-Offline Mobile Apps

Many field based staff still rely on pen, and paper. Location technology is now replacing this outmoded approach and dramatically improving the efficiency of work done in the field. Using GIS and GPS in both online and offline mode, data can be visualized and collected using mobile apps. When back online this data is then pushed to cloud based services. Our company have just released an offline data collection and editing mobile app to Esri’s ArcGIS Marketplace.

Location Analytics

Having the ability to view location analytics while in the field is an interesting new mobile GIS capability. In the retail sector selecting new site locations is an important activity. Many organizations still provide senior staff with paper based information on potential sites they visit. Using location analytics, dynamic data can be generated on key criteria including socioeconomic data, drive times and much more while in the field. Location analytics is revolutionising the location selection process.

Contact us for more information.

Tags: disconnected editing, geotriggers, location analytics, offline data collection, SAP

Categories: ArcGIS Online, Mobile GIS, Web and mobile GIS

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