Situation

The NIW Developer Services section receive approximately 450 requests a month for maps of NIW services. The facilitation of these requests consumes a considerable amount of resource for the team who supply these maps as each individual request must be created via the NIW GIS platform and physically sent to the customer.

Action

We have developed a web service that will facilitate the automatic creation of Service Mark-up maps for customers via an interface with the new NIW Digital Services platform. Using FME Server, a consumable web service has been built which allows a customer to input specific parameters for location, page size and scale. This will then automatically return a Digital PDF map showing the location of NIW services in the request area along with key attribution of some infrastructure assets.

A fully functional proof of concept has been developed in house by Asset Information Development that will facilitate the automatic generation of these maps using a FME Data Streaming Service. Working closely with Developer Services and the Digital Services project team, AID have developed a workflow that can be used to automate map creation based on information supplied by the customer at the time of application. Significant progress has been made in terms of map creation via FME and further engagement with the Digital Services Platform developer is forthcoming to collaboratively deliver this solution over the coming months.

Results

The automated map generation will remove the need for NIW staff to process map requests manually allowing resources within the Developer Services team to concentrate on more value-added tasks. It will increase the level of service to customer for these requests with most map outputs being available within minutes of a request being made and payment being received.