Our journey adopting QGIS in a corporate environment
Hain, Emma
Our journey adopting QGIS in a corporate environment
 Hi, I'm Emma Hain and I kick-started the adoption of Open Source GIS at SMEC. SMEC is a Snowy Mountain Engineering Corporation and it's an engineering consultancy firm. It was born from the expertise of those who planned and built the Snowy Hydro Scheme. We have built infrastructure from here and throughout Asia and Nepal and I've been there for about seven years now and I'm really excited that I was part of this team that did this. So here we go, here's our timeline. So 2011 I started at SMEC and it was a commercial GIS shop using Esri and Mappingfo. In 2012 the Queensland Government came in, we have an austerity phase, a lot of people lost their jobs both in the public sector and the private sector in the engineering. We lost our funding for our software and went from a team of five to just me three days a week. Is there a way I can fix this bit? Apologies. So around that time at my son's school I found out about QGIS from another parent. Sorry. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Sorry, I'm just having trouble here. So back to it, so I tested it and I found it. I found QGIS to be so good for the engineering consultancy. Oh for consultancy generally, it was really efficient. It was really stable. There were no gremlins who knew that you had 15 minutes to get a map out. The cartography was effortless and as somebody who grew up on National Geographic maps it was fantastic to finally be able to draw a beautiful map and the functionality and tools were brilliant as well. So around that time I came into contact with a QGIS core developer, Nile Dawson and I started to form out a strategy about where we would go here. Eventually in 2016 the strategy was accepted and Nile came on board part time for us and that's when things started to kick off. Okay, so here we go. This is what we did. This is the strategy. We had a flexible GIS ecosystem so that means that we had an open source habitat. We used QGIS for most tasks and used other software as the clients required. We provided democratic mapping throughout the company and we also looked at our budget and our flow of funds. Sorry about this. How do I get the next for the animation? There we go. I will get on top of this. Okay, so this is a really important, the flow of funds. We didn't want to put the money to a third developer, right? We want to do invest that money with us. And that meant that also cut out the third party relationship which our IT people loved and we got more bang for our buck. So we used the money. We employed our QGIS core developer and we smeccified our GIS. So what this means is that instead of just dealing with what our software companies wanted us to do, we got to do what we wanted to do. We did this through plugins. We also did this through contributions to the development of the software. Because there are other engineering companies out there and we want them to use GIS, please. Okay, finally, and I think one of the most important ones is to contribute to community. I grew up in a family which contributed to community. We volunteered. We did all that. We did all the things that we could do to make sure that things were. So the way that we contribute to community is that we have now a massive testbed there. We've got a lot of people using that so they can fix the bugs. We can test the beaters. We can provide feedback. And we can incorporate new development into versions. The other one and the side one is the social one as well. So we provide security to our core developer. He has that wage there and he only works part time for us so he can go off and he can go and develop what needs to happen outside of us. And we all grow and we all learn. All right, let's go through the implementation. So we went through the installation from just the general web download but we had a lot of issues there with versioning and people using different versions. Now we do it through an internal corporate software center. And we run automated updates from that in the background too. And we do that overnight and that goes to the plugin as well as the versions. We have undertaken some work on the speed as well. So we only allow for the SMIC plugin to be updated when it loads up. You can go in and you can manually update your other plugins as well. And also with our cache we have set a greater cache limit to allow for greater speed for any network traffic such as Neemap usage. We also provide a splash screen for updates as well. So this is a direct way to communicate with our users and we don't know. I mean we can run something and we can work out who's using it but who's got time for it up. For that we just give it to them. All right, so we have what we call the SMIC plugin. And this provides a whole lot of work that you'll see what we've done from now on. So like others that you've seen this provided direct access to data that we want people to use and everyone who uses QGIS have access to that data in Post-UIS and also the XYZ tiles. We have created the metadata catalog and this uses a geo network open source for that and you can access this internally within the QGIS interface or you can access it externally and that will also take you as well links to the sources of those data and you can see when we've updated it as well you can request for data to be updated there too. Internally we've created the catalog search and you'll see this later and this is one of our issues is that we really want people to use the data that we want them to use. We don't want them downloading their own data because the stuff we do needs to have a certain level of currency. So this is a docking panel that is used within QGIS and so they can access one of those buttons there and it brings them in. They can go to the view, they can view the metadata on the geo network or they can add it to project. In the future what we want to do there is we want them to add it to project, clip to the extent, have the symbology and chuck it in the project folder so that we can access that in three years time. We also have an imagery and elevation one so we collect the imagery we've downloaded from Neemap and we put it in folders or some people put in other folders. We run a bot that goes through that and then we chuck it all into a catalog and we do that with our contour and elevation data as well. So essentially you navigate to a location, click on that location and it will bring up what data is available and you can choose what's suitable for you. So we have a symbology so we are currently running through and as the GIS core we will update default symbology if we really like it and so that runs on the POS GIS. We've also created pallets for our branding so if we're doing a tender map you get to see our colours and you like our maps so you're going to choose us. We also have the templates as well in the layout manager and that's from all different sizes and the atlas as well. A lot of this is also based on variables so you have one spot to fill it in and then that all brings it into the map. And then we've created discipline themes as well so you can take those base mapping products for transport, modelling, water, enviro and you can take, we get the engineers, they can take that and they can build on it as well. And we also have developed default styles as our base maps because we're sort of working out whether or not we can or cannot use certain XYZ tiles. Alright. Issues. So I've talked about some of these already and the SMEC plugin has helped a lot of those but I'm just going to mention a couple of ones. We've had the great, great privilege of our IT department changing server names on us and telling us. Rocking on Monday. Nothing works. Everybody's ringing up going on Kona access. So in the last two weeks we've built a script there so that's going to help with that because we want it to be seamless. We don't want to burn people. One of the other aspects is HR and employing future GIS stuff and that includes pulling down and employing up. We just ask people to be open minded, go and have a look at QGIS first, see if that's something you would like to do and we employ people who are really passionate about GIS. Okay, because we've got a lot of change coming up with us with digital engineering. And the most exciting one is Slayer but you're going to find out more about that tomorrow at Niles, our lightning talk and that's taking all the ESRI symbology and pushing it into QGIS. We have a big water network project we're working on and the engineers can't work out that colour is that one and that colour is that one and it's a diamond. You get, talking about engineers, they all reckon they're the pale rider but that's us. Behaviour is a really big issue. It's fantastic GIS is out there now. The grads come in, they've had a term of GIS and they reckon they can do a map and they don't need us anymore. So what do we do? We can pull out hair up and go, no you can't do that, that's naughty, but that's not going to work. People have diverse skills. Some of the best GIS people I've met are those people who are not GIS people. The questions they bring is fantastic. We develop a lot of things in conjunction with them. So I'm part of the core GIS team but we also have QGIS as a corporate mapper product and that's the water, the environs, the geologists, the modelers, the transport modelers. Some of the other ones are still not there yet but still we'll get them there. So our general staff engineers cause detrimental impacts on our systems and outputs which I liken to being cowboys. Their data management, that's their saddlebags and they carry that with them in their C drive or recently on SharePoint. That's a good story, talk to Nile about that one. But it is something that can be managed but it's a give and take situation. Our approach is to accept that everyone is diverse in their skills, to allow them to undertake the basic mapping and to ensure their environment gives them a sense of freedom but reduces the risk for us. And this is about the processes, let them do their analysis and it's back on them. It's not on us, they're the professionals, they know what they're doing. Get them to record their metadata as well but just to be on top of the projects if they've got any GIS requirements, some big projects do. Product output, let them do their basic mapping, that's okay, who wants to do basic mapping? We want to do the interesting stuff. So we have set it up so that it's appealing to them, it's quick and it's good looking. We ask that they push the end product to us to QA and this helps them to guide us, to guide them in their style but ensures that what is put out there makes us look good. We make tweak the symbology and the labeling and other facets and if it's an ongoing project where they're producing a lot of maps we do have that, we'll go in and change a couple of things for them and if we trust them we'll tell them what we're doing so that they can do that as well. And this is a great opportunity to market our superhuman abilities in labeling and symbology and other bits and pieces that they've got no idea. You've seen the metadata catalog with the data download. Again generally in ManageM it's about the quick turnaround for them. In the data management side as well we've got to do it because we've got to ensure the data's currency that the service space is not utilized by so many layers of cadastra and also to reduce the web traffic and the downloads. This are the issues in the queue. Digital engineering, we're currently trying to move into a digital engineering group where GIS sits there with the CAD and others. We are also looking at pushing our data out globally because we're now part of Sabata and Jirong. We have a lot of companies from China through the Middle East to America, Africa, South America and also to tie up that project information management. And so in the end we can just wrap up that project, put it somewhere. Three years later we can come back and revisit that project. Any questions? That's it. We do have time for a couple of questions. Anybody have a question for Emma? Yes, thank you. All right. We mentioned you touched upon some challenges around HR. I think you said you need to convince your new recruits to not just say I'm not questioning it because it's more data-free. Yeah, yeah, essentially. And that also happens with some of the grads who come in as well. Oh, but I want to have GIS. Oh, no, I only use Esri and it's just like, well, you know, if you're prepared to look outside of that, we'll consider you. It has to be part of the job that you will be open to open source. So it becomes a recruitment criteria. Yeah. Another question, any of you? Thanks Emma. So what drive was the fact that you run out of money and you had a transition starting yourself? How would you, how would you have driven a change to QGIS? If that hadn't been over the moment? I mean, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. If that wasn't a motivator and I'd found out about QGIS and gone and tried it, I probably would have gone that way anyway because I love it. Like it was just such a much better product for our needs. It was so much more quicker and that's probably what I would have done and I would have done the strategy and it would have been also bringing the money back into us and customising us because we have needs and the software companies don't necessarily know what those needs are.
 Hi, I'm Emma Hain and I kick-started the adoption of Open Source GIS at SMEC.  SMEC is a Snowy Mountain Engineering Corporation and it's an engineering consultancy firm.  It was born from the expertise of those who planned and built the Snowy Hydro Scheme.  We have built infrastructure from here and throughout Asia and Nepal and I've been there  for about seven years now and I'm really excited that I was part of this team that did this.  So here we go, here's our timeline.  So 2011 I started at SMEC and it was a commercial GIS shop using Esri and Mappingfo.  In 2012 the Queensland Government came in, we have an austerity phase, a lot of people  lost their jobs both in the public sector and the private sector in the engineering.  We lost our funding for our software and went from a team of five to just me three days  a week.  Is there a way I can fix this bit?  Apologies.  So around that time at my son's school I found out about QGIS from another parent.  Sorry.  Yeah, pretty much.  Pretty much.  Sorry, I'm just having trouble here.  So back to it, so I tested it and I found it.  I found QGIS to be so good for the engineering consultancy.  Oh for consultancy generally, it was really efficient.  It was really stable.  There were no gremlins who knew that you had 15 minutes to get a map out.  The cartography was effortless and as somebody who grew up on National Geographic maps it  was fantastic to finally be able to draw a beautiful map and the functionality and tools  were brilliant as well.  So around that time I came into contact with a QGIS core developer, Nile Dawson and I started  to form out a strategy about where we would go here.  Eventually in 2016 the strategy was accepted and Nile came on board part time for us and  that's when things started to kick off.  Okay, so here we go.  This is what we did.  This is the strategy.  We had a flexible GIS ecosystem so that means that we had an open source habitat.  We used QGIS for most tasks and used other software as the clients required.  We provided democratic mapping throughout the company and we also looked at our budget  and our flow of funds.  Sorry about this.  How do I get the next for the animation?  There we go.  I will get on top of this.  Okay, so this is a really important, the flow of funds.  We didn't want to put the money to a third developer, right?  We want to do invest that money with us.  And that meant that also cut out the third party relationship which our IT people loved  and we got more bang for our buck.  So we used the money.  We employed our QGIS core developer and we smeccified our GIS.  So what this means is that instead of just dealing with what our software companies wanted  us to do, we got to do what we wanted to do.  We did this through plugins.  We also did this through contributions to the development of the software.  Because there are other engineering companies out there and we want them to use GIS, please.  Okay, finally, and I think one of the most important ones is to contribute to community.  I grew up in a family which contributed to community.  We volunteered.  We did all that.  We did all the things that we could do to make sure that things were.  So the way that we contribute to community is that we have now a massive testbed there.  We've got a lot of people using that so they can fix the bugs.  We can test the beaters.  We can provide feedback.  And we can incorporate new development into versions.  The other one and the side one is the social one as well.  So we provide security to our core developer.  He has that wage there and he only works part time for us so he can go off and he can go  and develop what needs to happen outside of us.  And we all grow and we all learn.  All right, let's go through the implementation.  So we went through the installation from just the general web download but we had a lot  of issues there with versioning and people using different versions.  Now we do it through an internal corporate software center.  And we run automated updates from that in the background too.  And we do that overnight and that goes to the plugin as well as the versions.  We have undertaken some work on the speed as well.  So we only allow for the SMIC plugin to be updated when it loads up.  You can go in and you can manually update your other plugins as well.  And also with our cache we have set a greater cache limit to allow for greater speed for  any network traffic such as Neemap usage.  We also provide a splash screen for updates as well.  So this is a direct way to communicate with our users and we don't know.  I mean we can run something and we can work out who's using it but who's got time for  it up.  For that we just give it to them.  All right, so we have what we call the SMIC plugin.  And this provides a whole lot of work that you'll see what we've done from now on.  So like others that you've seen this provided direct access to data that we want people  to use and everyone who uses QGIS have access to that data in Post-UIS and also the XYZ  tiles.  We have created the metadata catalog and this uses a geo network open source for that and  you can access this internally within the QGIS interface or you can access it externally  and that will also take you as well links to the sources of those data and you can see  when we've updated it as well you can request for data to be updated there too.  Internally we've created the catalog search and you'll see this later and this is one  of our issues is that we really want people to use the data that we want them to use.  We don't want them downloading their own data because the stuff we do needs to have a certain  level of currency.  So this is a docking panel that is used within QGIS and so they can access one of those buttons  there and it brings them in.  They can go to the view, they can view the metadata on the geo network or they can add  it to project.  In the future what we want to do there is we want them to add it to project, clip to the  extent, have the symbology and chuck it in the project folder so that we can access that  in three years time.  We also have an imagery and elevation one so we collect the imagery we've downloaded  from Neemap and we put it in folders or some people put in other folders.  We run a bot that goes through that and then we chuck it all into a catalog and we do that  with our contour and elevation data as well.  So essentially you navigate to a location, click on that location and it will bring up  what data is available and you can choose what's suitable for you.  So we have a symbology so we are currently running through and as the GIS core we will  update default symbology if we really like it and so that runs on the POS GIS.  We've also created pallets for our branding so if we're doing a tender map you get to  see our colours and you like our maps so you're going to choose us.  We also have the templates as well in the layout manager and that's from all different  sizes and the atlas as well.  A lot of this is also based on variables so you have one spot to fill it in and then  that all brings it into the map.  And then we've created discipline themes as well so you can take those base mapping products  for transport, modelling, water, enviro and you can take, we get the engineers, they can  take that and they can build on it as well.  And we also have developed default styles as our base maps because we're sort of working  out whether or not we can or cannot use certain XYZ tiles.  Alright.  Issues.  So I've talked about some of these already and the SMEC plugin has helped a lot of those  but I'm just going to mention a couple of ones.  We've had the great, great privilege of our IT department changing server names on us  and telling us.  Rocking on Monday.  Nothing works.  Everybody's ringing up going on Kona access.  So in the last two weeks we've built a script there so that's going to help with that because  we want it to be seamless.  We don't want to burn people.  One of the other aspects is HR and employing future GIS stuff and that includes pulling  down and employing up.  We just ask people to be open minded, go and have a look at QGIS first, see if that's something  you would like to do and we employ people who are really passionate about GIS.  Okay, because we've got a lot of change coming up with us with digital engineering.  And the most exciting one is Slayer but you're going to find out more about that tomorrow  at Niles, our lightning talk and that's taking all the ESRI symbology and pushing it into  QGIS.  We have a big water network project we're working on and the engineers can't work out  that colour is that one and that colour is that one and it's a diamond.  You get, talking about engineers, they all reckon they're the pale rider but that's  us.  Behaviour is a really big issue.  It's fantastic GIS is out there now.  The grads come in, they've had a term of GIS and they reckon they can do a map and they  don't need us anymore.  So what do we do?  We can pull out hair up and go, no you can't do that, that's naughty, but that's not going  to work.  People have diverse skills.  Some of the best GIS people I've met are those people who are not GIS people.  The questions they bring is fantastic.  We develop a lot of things in conjunction with them.  So I'm part of the core GIS team but we also have QGIS as a corporate mapper product and  that's the water, the environs, the geologists, the modelers, the transport modelers.  Some of the other ones are still not there yet but still we'll get them there.  So our general staff engineers cause detrimental impacts on our systems and outputs which I  liken to being cowboys.  Their data management, that's their saddlebags and they carry that with them in their C drive  or recently on SharePoint.  That's a good story, talk to Nile about that one.  But it is something that can be managed but it's a give and take situation.  Our approach is to accept that everyone is diverse in their skills, to allow them to  undertake the basic mapping and to ensure their environment gives them a sense of freedom  but reduces the risk for us.  And this is about the processes, let them do their analysis and it's back on them.  It's not on us, they're the professionals, they know what they're doing.  Get them to record their metadata as well but just to be on top of the projects if they've  got any GIS requirements, some big projects do.  Product output, let them do their basic mapping, that's okay, who wants to do basic mapping?  We want to do the interesting stuff.  So we have set it up so that it's appealing to them, it's quick and it's good looking.  We ask that they push the end product to us to QA and this helps them to guide us, to  guide them in their style but ensures that what is put out there makes us look good.  We make tweak the symbology and the labeling and other facets and if it's an ongoing project  where they're producing a lot of maps we do have that, we'll go in and change a couple  of things for them and if we trust them we'll tell them what we're doing so that they can  do that as well.  And this is a great opportunity to market our superhuman abilities in labeling and symbology  and other bits and pieces that they've got no idea.  You've seen the metadata catalog with the data download.  Again generally in ManageM it's about the quick turnaround for them.  In the data management side as well we've got to do it because we've got to ensure the  data's currency that the service space is not utilized by so many layers of cadastra  and also to reduce the web traffic and the downloads.  This are the issues in the queue.  Digital engineering, we're currently trying to move into a digital engineering group where  GIS sits there with the CAD and others.  We are also looking at pushing our data out globally because we're now part of Sabata  and Jirong.  We have a lot of companies from China through the Middle East to America, Africa, South America  and also to tie up that project information management.  And so in the end we can just wrap up that project, put it somewhere.  Three years later we can come back and revisit that project.  Any questions?  That's it.  We do have time for a couple of questions.  Anybody have a question for Emma?  Yes, thank you.  All right.  We mentioned you touched upon some challenges around HR.  I think you said you need to convince your new recruits to not just say I'm not questioning  it because it's more data-free.  Yeah, yeah, essentially.  And that also happens with some of the grads who come in as well.  Oh, but I want to have GIS.  Oh, no, I only use Esri and it's just like, well, you know, if you're prepared to look  outside of that, we'll consider you.  It has to be part of the job that you will be open to open source.  So it becomes a recruitment criteria.  Yeah.  Another question, any of you?  Thanks Emma.  So what drive was the fact that you run out of money and you had a transition starting  yourself?  How would you, how would you have driven a change to QGIS?  If that hadn't been over the moment?  I mean, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.  If that wasn't a motivator and I'd found out about QGIS and gone and tried it, I probably  would have gone that way anyway because I love it.  Like it was just such a much better product for our needs.  It was so much more quicker and that's probably what I would have done and I would have done  the strategy and it would have been also bringing the money back into us and customising us  because we have needs and the software companies don't necessarily know what those needs are.
Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_0_983.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_984_2363.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_2364_4655.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_4656_8999.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_9000_9059.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_9060_11075.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_11076_11675.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_11676_13559.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_13560_16055.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_16056_16139.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_16140_18323.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_18324_24179.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_24180_24335.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_24336_24383.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_24384_24599.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_24600_25691.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_25692_25775.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_25776_25859.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_25860_26831.png Emma_Hain__Our_journey_adopting_QGIS_in_a_corporate_environment_uh7OlMA2WLM_26832_26876.png
Hi, I'm Emma Hain and I kick-started the adoption of Open Source GIS at SMEC. SMEC is a Snowy Mountain Engineering Corporation and it's an engineering consultancy firm. It was born from the expertise of those who planned and built the Snowy Hydro Scheme. We have built infrastructure from here and throughout Asia and Nepal and I've been there for about seven years now and I'm really excited that I was part of this team that did this. So here we go, here's our timeline. So 2011 I started at SMEC and it was a commercial GIS shop using Esri and Mappingfo. In 2012 the Queensland Government came in, we have an austerity phase, a lot of people lost their jobs both in the public sector and the private sector in the engineering. We lost our funding for our software and went from a team of five to just me three days a week. Is there a way I can fix this bit? Apologies. So around that time at my son's school I found out about QGIS from another parent. Sorry. Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Sorry, I'm just having trouble here. So back to it, so I tested it and I found it. I found QGIS to be so good for the engineering consultancy. Oh for consultancy generally, it was really efficient. It was really stable. There were no gremlins who knew that you had 15 minutes to get a map out. The cartography was effortless and as somebody who grew up on National Geographic maps it was fantastic to finally be able to draw a beautiful map and the functionality and tools were brilliant as well. So around that time I came into contact with a QGIS core developer, Nile Dawson and I started to form out a strategy about where we would go here. Eventually in 2016 the strategy was accepted and Nile came on board part time for us and that's when things started to kick off. Okay, so here we go. This is what we did. This is the strategy. We had a flexible GIS ecosystem so that means that we had an open source habitat. We used QGIS for most tasks and used other software as the clients required. We provided democratic mapping throughout the company and we also looked at our budget and our flow of funds. Sorry about this. How do I get the next for the animation? There we go. I will get on top of this. Okay, so this is a really important, the flow of funds. We didn't want to put the money to a third developer, right? We want to do invest that money with us. And that meant that also cut out the third party relationship which our IT people loved and we got more bang for our buck. So we used the money. We employed our QGIS core developer and we smeccified our GIS. So what this means is that instead of just dealing with what our software companies wanted us to do, we got to do what we wanted to do. We did this through plugins. We also did this through contributions to the development of the software. Because there are other engineering companies out there and we want them to use GIS, please. Okay, finally, and I think one of the most important ones is to contribute to community. I grew up in a family which contributed to community. We volunteered. We did all that. We did all the things that we could do to make sure that things were. So the way that we contribute to community is that we have now a massive testbed there. We've got a lot of people using that so they can fix the bugs. We can test the beaters. We can provide feedback. And we can incorporate new development into versions. The other one and the side one is the social one as well. So we provide security to our core developer. He has that wage there and he only works part time for us so he can go off and he can go and develop what needs to happen outside of us. And we all grow and we all learn. All right, let's go through the implementation. So we went through the installation from just the general web download but we had a lot of issues there with versioning and people using different versions. Now we do it through an internal corporate software center. And we run automated updates from that in the background too. And we do that overnight and that goes to the plugin as well as the versions. We have undertaken some work on the speed as well. So we only allow for the SMIC plugin to be updated when it loads up. You can go in and you can manually update your other plugins as well. And also with our cache we have set a greater cache limit to allow for greater speed for any network traffic such as Neemap usage. We also provide a splash screen for updates as well. So this is a direct way to communicate with our users and we don't know. I mean we can run something and we can work out who's using it but who's got time for it up. For that we just give it to them. All right, so we have what we call the SMIC plugin. And this provides a whole lot of work that you'll see what we've done from now on. So like others that you've seen this provided direct access to data that we want people to use and everyone who uses QGIS have access to that data in Post-UIS and also the XYZ tiles. We have created the metadata catalog and this uses a geo network open source for that and you can access this internally within the QGIS interface or you can access it externally and that will also take you as well links to the sources of those data and you can see when we've updated it as well you can request for data to be updated there too. Internally we've created the catalog search and you'll see this later and this is one of our issues is that we really want people to use the data that we want them to use. We don't want them downloading their own data because the stuff we do needs to have a certain level of currency. So this is a docking panel that is used within QGIS and so they can access one of those buttons there and it brings them in. They can go to the view, they can view the metadata on the geo network or they can add it to project. In the future what we want to do there is we want them to add it to project, clip to the extent, have the symbology and chuck it in the project folder so that we can access that in three years time. We also have an imagery and elevation one so we collect the imagery we've downloaded from Neemap and we put it in folders or some people put in other folders. We run a bot that goes through that and then we chuck it all into a catalog and we do that with our contour and elevation data as well. So essentially you navigate to a location, click on that location and it will bring up what data is available and you can choose what's suitable for you. So we have a symbology so we are currently running through and as the GIS core we will update default symbology if we really like it and so that runs on the POS GIS. We've also created pallets for our branding so if we're doing a tender map you get to see our colours and you like our maps so you're going to choose us. We also have the templates as well in the layout manager and that's from all different sizes and the atlas as well. A lot of this is also based on variables so you have one spot to fill it in and then that all brings it into the map. And then we've created discipline themes as well so you can take those base mapping products for transport, modelling, water, enviro and you can take, we get the engineers, they can take that and they can build on it as well. And we also have developed default styles as our base maps because we're sort of working out whether or not we can or cannot use certain XYZ tiles. Alright. Issues. So I've talked about some of these already and the SMEC plugin has helped a lot of those but I'm just going to mention a couple of ones. We've had the great, great privilege of our IT department changing server names on us and telling us. Rocking on Monday. Nothing works. Everybody's ringing up going on Kona access. So in the last two weeks we've built a script there so that's going to help with that because we want it to be seamless. We don't want to burn people. One of the other aspects is HR and employing future GIS stuff and that includes pulling down and employing up. We just ask people to be open minded, go and have a look at QGIS first, see if that's something you would like to do and we employ people who are really passionate about GIS. Okay, because we've got a lot of change coming up with us with digital engineering. And the most exciting one is Slayer but you're going to find out more about that tomorrow at Niles, our lightning talk and that's taking all the ESRI symbology and pushing it into QGIS. We have a big water network project we're working on and the engineers can't work out that colour is that one and that colour is that one and it's a diamond. You get, talking about engineers, they all reckon they're the pale rider but that's us. Behaviour is a really big issue. It's fantastic GIS is out there now. The grads come in, they've had a term of GIS and they reckon they can do a map and they don't need us anymore. So what do we do? We can pull out hair up and go, no you can't do that, that's naughty, but that's not going to work. People have diverse skills. Some of the best GIS people I've met are those people who are not GIS people. The questions they bring is fantastic. We develop a lot of things in conjunction with them. So I'm part of the core GIS team but we also have QGIS as a corporate mapper product and that's the water, the environs, the geologists, the modelers, the transport modelers. Some of the other ones are still not there yet but still we'll get them there. So our general staff engineers cause detrimental impacts on our systems and outputs which I liken to being cowboys. Their data management, that's their saddlebags and they carry that with them in their C drive or recently on SharePoint. That's a good story, talk to Nile about that one. But it is something that can be managed but it's a give and take situation. Our approach is to accept that everyone is diverse in their skills, to allow them to undertake the basic mapping and to ensure their environment gives them a sense of freedom but reduces the risk for us. And this is about the processes, let them do their analysis and it's back on them. It's not on us, they're the professionals, they know what they're doing. Get them to record their metadata as well but just to be on top of the projects if they've got any GIS requirements, some big projects do. Product output, let them do their basic mapping, that's okay, who wants to do basic mapping? We want to do the interesting stuff. So we have set it up so that it's appealing to them, it's quick and it's good looking. We ask that they push the end product to us to QA and this helps them to guide us, to guide them in their style but ensures that what is put out there makes us look good. We make tweak the symbology and the labeling and other facets and if it's an ongoing project where they're producing a lot of maps we do have that, we'll go in and change a couple of things for them and if we trust them we'll tell them what we're doing so that they can do that as well. And this is a great opportunity to market our superhuman abilities in labeling and symbology and other bits and pieces that they've got no idea. You've seen the metadata catalog with the data download. Again generally in ManageM it's about the quick turnaround for them. In the data management side as well we've got to do it because we've got to ensure the data's currency that the service space is not utilized by so many layers of cadastra and also to reduce the web traffic and the downloads. This are the issues in the queue. Digital engineering, we're currently trying to move into a digital engineering group where GIS sits there with the CAD and others. We are also looking at pushing our data out globally because we're now part of Sabata and Jirong. We have a lot of companies from China through the Middle East to America, Africa, South America and also to tie up that project information management. And so in the end we can just wrap up that project, put it somewhere. Three years later we can come back and revisit that project. Any questions? That's it. We do have time for a couple of questions. Anybody have a question for Emma? Yes, thank you. All right. We mentioned you touched upon some challenges around HR. I think you said you need to convince your new recruits to not just say I'm not questioning it because it's more data-free. Yeah, yeah, essentially. And that also happens with some of the grads who come in as well. Oh, but I want to have GIS. Oh, no, I only use Esri and it's just like, well, you know, if you're prepared to look outside of that, we'll consider you. It has to be part of the job that you will be open to open source. So it becomes a recruitment criteria. Yeah. Another question, any of you? Thanks Emma. So what drive was the fact that you run out of money and you had a transition starting yourself? How would you, how would you have driven a change to QGIS? If that hadn't been over the moment? I mean, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. If that wasn't a motivator and I'd found out about QGIS and gone and tried it, I probably would have gone that way anyway because I love it. Like it was just such a much better product for our needs. It was so much more quicker and that's probably what I would have done and I would have done the strategy and it would have been also bringing the money back into us and customising us because we have needs and the software companies don't necessarily know what those needs are.
contribute to community. I grew up in a family QGIS as a corporate mapper product and that's the