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Enhancing Enterprise Portals with Location Intelligence
by Ian Clemens
"We're not lost.We're locationally challenged."
- John M.Ford
While the past five years of corporate and government IT were focused
on collecting, aggregating and efficiently storing data, the next five
years will likely see major strides being made in using these data
assets: namely, displaying, disseminating and analyzing data.Attention
has turned from how to get the data to how to use it better within an
enterprise-class environment; i.e., a Web-ready infrastructure.The
problem of storing data will not go away - especially so with the
advent of RFID, mobile asset tracking and the potential of collecting
terabytes of data in one day of operation - but some of the focus is
shifting, and organizations are looking for technologies to help them
better utilize data.
Introducing Portals
One such value-adding technology, or tool, is the enterprise portal.We
hear plenty about consumer portals such as MSN.com and Yahoo.com, but
portals are also very popular - and just as useful - within the
organizational firewall.Portals are Web-based systems for providing a
common look and feel that serve as a point of entry for content, data
and applications.Portals provide a framework for organizing structured
(e.g., sales reports) and unstructured data (e.g., HR forms), as well
as for sharing that same content.Microsoft's SharePoint Portal Server
is one example of this technology available to organizations, and if
initial sales numbers are any indication, the product has been a big
success.According to Microsoft, SharePoint is one of the fastest
growing products in the company's history, and yet, according to
Bill Gates' estimation, as reported in Microsoft Watch February
4, 2005, the technology is still underused.
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Figure
1.A Map-Based Display of Leavenworth Penitentiary within
SharePoint Portal Server.(Click
for larger image)
Enter Location Intelligence
Those of us familiar with the power of GIS recognize location
technology as another technology that can not
only add value to data, but can lead to ever insightful displays and
presentations of information.We also recognize that location
technology is still largely underutilized within an organization
outside of tradition GIS workflows.However, despite what's sure to be
a temporary neglect, some organizations are finding that location
technology fits quite nicely as a data visualization tool, and is vital
for business intelligence analysis and systems.It was Richard Wurman,
who in his 1989 book Information Anxiety, put forth the idea of
L.A.T.C.H., as the five fundamental ways of organizing information.The
acrostic reveals that we can organize data by:
Location
Alphabet
Time
Category
Hierarchy
Data can be sorted alphabetically in spreadsheets, we might use pie
charts to display results by category, tables often are used for
hierarchies, but definitely primary in L.A.T.C.H.is Location and Time.
Both are fundamental ways we look at our world.We think in terms of
space (location) and time.
When you combine the notion of location as a fundamental way of
organizing information, with the industry estimate of upwards of 80% of
all data having a location component, we have a winning technology for
both displaying data (a la mapping) and analyzing it.
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Figure
2.Displaying Government Natural Resource Data in the Context of a
Portal.(Click
for larger image)
Where's the "Where" in Portal Technology?
Both portal and location technology are valuable on their own, yet even
more powerful when used in combination.Arguably, location technology
will be embraced by enterprises faster and more successfully if it
leverages the portal framework, one that offers security, user
credentials and document functionality - all as standard functionality.
Portals also offer a development platform, complete with APIs, Portlets
or Web Parts for designing an effective, well designed location-enabled
application.Also, we cannot forget that portals are already widely
used within the enterprise, and so present a ready venue for location
technology.
Below, I focus on a few of the many ways portal implementations can be
enhanced through location technology based on implementations our
company, IDV Solutions, has been providing for our enterprise
customers.Specifically, we focus on six hallmarks of a portal
implementation, and how each can be enhanced markedly through location
technology.These six hallmarks are: communication, integration,
collaboration, document management, personalization, and search.Below,
each of these is covered in turn.
Communication "" "Do you know where I'm coming from?"
A key value of portal implementations is the distribution of
information and knowledge throughout an organization based on
organizational hierarchy and categories (think "H" and "C" of
L.A.T.C.H.).Communications can be tailored within the portal based on
employee, project team, department or virtually any grouping of an
organization.
With the addition of location technology, communication can also be
tailored to location.For example, regulatory compliance information
for a public utility can be organized on the portal so that, based on
the auditor's known place of work, compliance information is delivered
for his or her locale.
Location is also a strong element of a comprehensive reporting
solution.Too often our reporting solutions miss this element, and
therefore do not portray a complete information picture.Back to the
example of a public utility, what better way to give context to a
large transformer outage then by displaying this asset on a map in
relation to affected population, weather patterns and even mobile
service vehicles?
Integration "" "Putting the pieces together"
Portals integrate applications by providing a one-stop view of
disparate information, from accounting to human resources to project
management.Pervasive enterprise applications like ERP and CRM are
popular candidates for portal integration.Among other benefits, this
integration saves the user the hassle of logging in and out of numerous
systems.
Here also location technology has something to add.Imagine an asset
management system for a large bank where location-based queries can be
added to the list of available filters: instead of "Find me all talking
ATMs scheduled for repair in the next six months," location technology
enables "Find me all talking ATMs scheduled for repair in the next six
months, within 60 miles of our repair centers." All types of
application information can be tied to and subsequently accessed
through a portal.
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Figure
3.A banking and finance decision support portal tied to an
asset management system.(Click
for larger image)
Collaboration "" No more "Wish you were here"
Collaboration is one of those IT buzzwords we read a lot about right
now, and not without good reason.Collaborative portals allow active
team involvement in projects through discussion threads, work spaces
and information sharing.In particular, considering so many information
workers "work together" right from a home office, and virtual teams are
a corporate reality, effective collaboration tools are a necessity.
Portal collaboration tools allow employees, for example, to be actively
involved in document generation and routing, all within a single
browser-based application.
Location technology can aid successful collaboration by giving users an
effective tool for communicating with one another: maps.Maps are a
fantastic way of visualizing information, and providing a context for
comparisons.Think about it: a cartographically styled map contains
thousands of data points (streets and roads, political boundaries,
points of interest, businesses, etc.), and when we overlay our
information on that map, we get a richer look than we thought possible.
A safety and security team for a world sporting event, for example,
could make use of map-based collaboration: a team member drills down on
the map of the inspected area, annotates the map with pertinent
information, and then saves the annotation for retrieval by other team
members.
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Figure
4.A crisis imagery portal in support of Hurricane Katrina
restoration efforts.(Click
for larger image)
Document Management "" "Don't touch that document.You don't know
where
it's been."
Document management capabilities enable employees to create, edit and
distribute content via a centralized workspace.Did you ever e-mail a
document off for numerous edits, to later misplace the original, and
have no way of tracking the document to the source, or of retracing the
changes that were made? Portals are a better way to store common
documents in a virtual project file, and track any additions and
deletions.
Document management can be radically enhanced by tagging documents with
a geographic reference, and organizing the document based on location.
For instance, a site selection team can store aerial photos, drive-by
digital photos and lease documents within a portal, and by assigning
those documents a location reference, stakeholders could search a map
within the portal, find the site of interest, and pull up all available
documentation, easily and quickly.
Personalization "" "It's all about me"¦ and my location"
The value of personalization is that portal content can be customized
by a user to meet the user's information needs.Information portal
tools are built in what are called portlets or, in Microsoft parlance,
"Web Parts" that allow the user, given appropriate credentials, to mix
and match information content and functionality.
With over 80% of data having a location aspect, a location web part
could be offered that could be dropped right into the user's portal
view, and tied to an information source for an immediate, powerful map
visual.And through IP address geocoding, portal content could be
dynamically updated based on the user's login location.
Search "" "Seek and Locate"
Search is another hot area in IT, and one that is already being
successfully combined with location in the B2C realm as local search.
The enterprise should be no different.Portal search engines index and
retrieve content across an organization's applications, workspaces and
departments for powerful, centralized information retrieval.By
using the location component of this data, we might structure a
search a novel way; for example, in oil and gas, "Show me all Excel
documents referencing 'Detroit Refinery' and pertaining to this map
view." Search, in this way, becomes more relevant and visual.
Conclusion
The combination of portal implementations with location technology
presents itself as a tremendous value generator for organizational
data.The goal of this article was to stimulate discussion about how we
can better utilize the location component through portal communication,
integration, collaboration, document management, personalization, and
search.Ultimately, by using the location component in our portals,
data can be better analyzed, displayed and disseminated leading to
better returns on data investments.
Ian Clemens is the Chief Technology Officer of IDV Solutions, a Location Intelligence Solutions provider for the Fortune 2000 and Government.
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