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Publishing geospatial data to the web using the EEA infrastructure
*Note: Map Services should be published using the EEA Map Services Tick Sheet for guidance. Contact Sebastien Petit ([email protected]) to receive the document if you don’t have one. ** Completed Map Service Tick Sheets should be returned to Sebastien PetitIntroduction
Collaborators to the EEA including Topic Centres and partners should be able to easily upload their maps and data to the EEA’s infrastructure. This practical guide will help to demonstrate the best and most hassle-free ways to do this.
To be able to upload to the EEA, first you need to be given access rights. To gain access rights you should email your EEA project manager and CC Sebastien Petit ([email protected]) stating your Eionet account and /or ArcGIS online account username, to gain access rights
EEA Infrastructure for geospatial web-services
For geospatial web-services the EEA uses ESRI’s ArcGIS software, which runs on a farm of servers on premises (see figure 1). On top of that we use ArcGIS Online in the cloud. This combination provides a very powerful environment to publish and consume geospatial content.
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The EEA combines the two platforms together for a very good reason. The ArcGIS online platform is designed to host small datasets, for example demographic datasets. The EEA requires that datasets uploaded to ArcGIS online are relatively small in size, and should not exceed 1-2MB, or around 5000 records. This is to keep the agencies costs down and keep in line with our ArcGIS online pricing plan. It is for this reason that ArcGIS online should not be used to host large datasets, and tiled image services must NOT be uploaded to ArcGIS online, but instead uploaded using the EEA ArcGIS servers. ArcGIS Online Explained
ArcGIS online is used by the EEA and its partners to produce and manage web maps. Web maps can bring a number of web services together. These can then be saved and wrapped around a graphic user interface to produce online galleries and other views. They can then be consumed by end users who may want to present them in meetings, conferences etc. These web maps are hosted by the cloud, and can be re-used inside web sites or mobile devices. ArcGIS online also organises EEA applications and services into a number of groups relevant for their content (for example BISE, Water Watch).
ArcGIS online can be managed comfortably by regular users without development skills, once a level of technical familiarity is reached.
Small sized GIS datasets including Excel, CSV-files, KML or shapefiles (as well as script tools, models, etc.) can also be uploaded to ArcGIS online, where they can be shared with other organisations, groups and users.
A brief guide on uploading demographic data to ArcGIS online using ArcGIS for Office extension This guide will show you how to use the Esri Maps extension for Microsoft Office (In this example Excel) to produce and share web maps and simple web feature services.
1. Obtain membership to the EEA organisation by receiving an invite from our administrators (once you have registered an ArcGIS online account). This will allow you to publish content to the EEA sub site.
2. Download the 32-bit or 64-bit Esri Maps for Office 2010 or later extension here
http://www.esri.com/software/esri-maps-for-office/download
3. Install the software. This may require you to have an administrator grant you access. 4. Esri Maps for Office has to be configured to login to the Organization URL. Go to
File->Esri Maps and change the ArcGIS Connection URL to match your
organization (https://eea.maps.arcgis.com). This option can also be set for the installation settings.
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7. Once logged in you should click on the Add Excel Data button. If you have the table open chose Cell Range, and drag over the cells you want to map.
8. Next you can select the Location Type from the applet box based on the demographic data you are mapping (e.g. Countries, cities, states) - for later – how to create your own selection datasets (e.g. bioregions – whatever you want).
9. Proceed to Next and Add Your Data to the Map
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11. Once you are satisfied with the Style Configuration, press OK
12. Note that there are many ways in which you can customise your maps. A good online reference can be found here
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/esri-maps-office/index.html#//029300000026000000
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privileges. If your Share Layer and Share Map buttons are greyed out you can contact Sebastien Petit at the Agency to ask for temporary publisher permissions.
14. To share your data as a web feature service click on Share Layer and give your layer an appropriate name. Here you can select which organisations and groups you wish to share the data with. Making your data publically available will mean that anyone can consume it, even without an ArcGIS online account.
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16. Now when you log into the ArcGIS online site you should be able to see the uploaded feature service and map in your ‘My Content’ tab.
ArcGIS Server
ArcGIS server is used to host advanced web services (Examples include the Natura 2000 viewer, Corine Land Cover) as well as more data heavy map services and datasets. Partners operating outside of the agency can publish remotely to the servers if they have a desktop version of ArcMap (Version 10.1 or higher).
Whereas ArcGIS online is a great place to host and share web maps, feature services and small datasets, ArcGIS server provides a more powerful, developer orientated platform to host advanced geospatial applications.
Everything we publish inside ArcGIS server at the EEA is linked up inside ArcGIS online. To keep this guide simple we will focus on the publication of map-services. Feature services and Image tiling services can also be produced in the same way.
Using ArcGIS desktop (10.22 SP1) to Publish map-services
Publishing map-services is simple in the latest version of Arc Map. The EEA has a number of
guidelines to follow. Out of experience we learned that we should scale down to what we support. Guideline 1: Data Types
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You should rename the file Geodatabase, and then you can export your shapefile to the file geodatabase by right-clicking on the shapefile in your map document table of contents > Data > Export Data > Locate your file geodatabase and export.
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Guideline 2: Map Document:
We also require the data to be saved in an ‘.mxd’ map document that structures and represents the data properly. It is best if you structure your folders so that the project folder (root) has subfolders – Data – for the source data, Map – for the mxd map document and Doc – containing any readme information
Map documents can have many structures but we advise you to follow these guidelines.
1) Re-project your content into Web Mercator (WGS_1984_Web_Mercator_Auxiliary_Sphere) projection. Most API’s Google, ArcGIS, Bing use this projection. The map may look wrong if you do not do this. It will improve the performance drastically.
2) Give your layers clear names. The web services need to be understood easily.
3) Group what belongs together. For example if you need to layout on different scales make sure those layers are grouped together.
4) Scale dependencies should always be the last grouping. Make it possible to show the layer at all scales by inlcuding extra layers that are default turned off.
5) Groups turned off should show something when turned on. Meaning that some or all of the underlaying layers should be turned on.
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7) Turn off those fields not relevant to the map service. 8) For code lists use “domains” to give proper naming.
9) Remove any base map or background information not part of the map content. Map services are merged together into a web map at a later stage. A Base map is added from ArcGIS online.
10) If you have tables with data in them that you want to include, also drag them into the mxd. Guideline 3: Metadata
Once your map is tested and functional you are ready to write metadata – information about the service, the data sources, and accreditations, hyperlinks and tags which add to the content and scope of the map service.
In ArcCatalog right click on the database and select properties. Add the domains as lookup tables. (Make sure you use the same field type)
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Use the INSPIRE Meta data form inside ArcCatalog
Fill the most common metadata fields and use the INSPIRE version inside ArcCatalog by going into “Customize”->”ArcCatalog Options”. Select “Metadata” and in the Metadata Style select “INSPIRE Metadata Directive”.
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Guideline 4: Publishing
The agency wants to roll out its publishing plan in a series of gradual steps so that we can safeguard our data, services and servers. To this this initially the EEA requires users to publish everything to the test environment. Datasets will then be moved by our administrators into our production
environment
Registering an ArcGIS server using the EEA’s infrastructure
You will need an EIONET account with publishing privileges to gain access to this. 1) In ArcCatalog go under “GIS Servers” and press “Add ArcGIS Server”
2) Select Publish GIS Services and press Next
3) Type the server Url and your credentials – this will be to the test environment such as
http://test.discomap.eea.europa.eu/arcgis
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5) Double click to see if you can access the content. You should see something like this.
Publish your map to EEA’s infrastructure.
Open the map you created and follow the following steps. 1) In ArcMap go to “File” > “Share As” -> “Services”
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3) Select the server to publish the content towards (the test server you just added), create a service name and press “Next”. Make the service name easily understandable
4) Select the agreed folder you can publish under and press “Next”.
5) Go to Capabilities and check “WMS” and “WFS” if applicable. 6) Check the “Item Description” and check if all content is filled.
7) Press the “Analyse” button. It will list you a number of issues if you have issues. Most of the time a “Data source is not registered” would be shown. This is normal as we expect you to upload the data to the server. (In large data cases, please contact EEA)
8) Press the Publish button and you service will be packaged and uploaded to EEA’s infrastructure.
