Get inspired by the best FME projects

Best Small Efficiency-Boosting Project: Town of Mono, Ontario

Automating parcel data update into ArcGIS Online

Zdravko Jakop presented this project, which impressed the jury with its resourceful and surprisingly simple solution using only desktop and SaaS technologies—a smart, realistic approach considering the tools available to many small to medium municipal governments. This project also stood out in adding a mapping component to a kind of software used by all municipalities: real property and property tax management software.

On a more technical note, we loved how Zdravko managed to automate the syncing of ArcGIS parcel layers with the property information on Keystone Complete, and then make the results available on cloud-based application ArcGIS Online. Just like that, he saved the City between 30 and 45 minutes of menial work a week, and his colleagues now have easy access to updated and validated data in just a few clicks.

Best Automation Project: Public Services and Procurement Canada

Automating ticket management for national underground infrastructure

For this project, Philippe Palmer and Jean-François Leboeuf fully automated a critical process in protecting underground infrastructure. What convinced the jury was the range of technologies used (FME, FME Server, ArcGIS, Gallery App), how the solution can adapt to a range of input formats (each province’s One Call service uses its own format), and how it does all that with an impressive ROI: about 150 hours of work went into generating recurring gains of at least 400 hours a year.

In addition to making impressive time gains by eliminating manual tasks, the project minimizes the risk of error and significantly increases data accuracy. Not only that, but files from repositories on the FTP site are integrated in real time, 24/7. The information is centralized in a database that can be easily accessed at all times, both by operators and by decision makers. Decision makers also have access to detailed reports including historical data.

Best Outside of the Box Project: City of Longueuil, Quebec

Monitoring street lighting conversion to LED

Submitted by François Filion-Rouillier, this outside-the-box project made a great impression on the members of the jury—some even remarked they wouldn’t have thought of the idea themselves! We like that, besides being markedly original, the project integrates a great variety of technologies and that the automation developed for processing unique QR codes adds to the GIS by integrating the information in the Excel file specific to each street light. In addition, this new technique can be reused in future projects in similar contexts, including for processing data flows from the Internet of Things (IoT).

There’s a lot in this project to be impressed with, but the jury also noted that the use of well-integrated mobile technologies allows the City to monitor work progress in near real time and makes it unnecessary to send a supervisor out into the field. Given the current labour shortage, we hope this project will inspire many of our community members!

Best Small Efficiency-Boosting Project: City of Sacramento, California

Ryan Kirkham and Krystal Phaneuf’s project used FME, Collector and ArcGIS Online to rationalize and automate the management of water quality samples. The jury loved the simplicity of the concept behind the two bidirectional workspaces between Collector and the internal database (LIMS). Although the project’s technology is not perfect in terms of accessing information outside of the City’s IT environment, the jury believes the winning project in this category can serve as an inspiration to many organizations looking for simple but effective ways to rationalize their field information collection processes.

Best Automation Project: City of Toronto, Ontario

Valen Lau’s project leveraged FME to automate a formerly manual—and time-consuming—process to generate reports required for the City’s urban planning. The members of the jury and the attendees present at the announcement were impressed not only with the project’s highly complex workspaces, but also with how it pushes the envelope on how FME can be used to produce cartographic elements, in PDF in this case. Many municipal governments stand to gain from learning about this lesser-known application of FME. This project also stood out for the significant productivity gains it brought to the City’s Graphics and Visualization team.

Best Outside the Box Project: City of Terrebonne, Quebec

In this project, Lucie Boucher and Patrice Marseille used FME Server to develop a web portal with a particularly simple and user-friendly interface. The jury and the announcement attendees were impressed with how original the project was and how FME Server was used to make it more supple, in that it made the myriad possibilities of FME workspaces more accessible to a wider range of audiences, both internal and external, on all types of platforms. Another considerable advantage is that the project makes it possible to drastically reduce the purchase of licences for field use or costly named user licences.