Addressing Adds Up

Dr. Tim De Troye, GISPGIS Coordinator, South Carolina

Do the Math

0+0 = 1???$0 Budget + 0 Additional Positions =

1 State Address Points Layer

With no budget and no additional positions – how can you do this?

Leverage Relationships

• Build partnerships with local government• Takes time, but it’s worth it’s weight in gold• Much less expensive to spend time building

relationships than to recreate/purchase data

How Do You Get Them To Say Yes

• Communicate in language decision makers understand: happy citizens = happy voters

• Provide concrete examples on how the data will be used

Who Does the Work?

• Counties create address points• State GIS Coordinator builds/maintains

relationships and acquires updates

Who Does the Work?

• Dept. of Health and Environmental Control processes the data – find a group where it will serve their core business needs

• Data made available to state agencies needing it

Getting the Data

• Ask nicely, ask often … but not too often• Recognize data sharing by the county is doing

you a favor• Always say thank you, even if the file is

incomplete or corrupt

Getting the Data

• Never ask the county to do anything more than absolutely necessary – e.g. just email me the file

• Field structure, merging data – automate with– ESRI’s Data Interoperability extension – Model Builder

First Time Acquisition

• Examine data – many different “flavors” of address points:– GPS on doorstep or mailbox– Photo revised points– Automatically generated points along roads– Parcel centroids

• Various field structures

Time Involved

• First time – examine data, set up automated tools to process address points – several hours per county

• Data refresh – straight forward – repair field structure if necessary and run automated tools – as fast at ten minutes

Follow Up

• Provide feedback to counties – never critical• Get updates and process• Provide lists of uses and agencies using their

data

Next Steps

• Set up data replication for counties with ArcGIS server (and willing IT departments)

• Set up Microsoft Scheduler with “zip and ship” scripts for other counties – automate update process for data acquisition

Next Steps

• Set up data replication across state agencies• Assist counties with no address points, as time

becomes available• Publicize when assistance is given to the

counties and “victories” of data use

News Flash: State and Locals Working

Together

Addressing Adds Up

Dr. Tim De Troye, GISPGIS Coordinator, South Carolina