Always working to enhance the capabilities and functionality of our platforms, the team behind groundMapper and theMapCloud have been making some important upgrades to our data management processes.
Our focus is to make geospatial data easily accessible as a service – reducing or removing the need for our users to source, process and maintain data from multiple third parties.
With over 300 datasets available from theMapCloud, it’s vital that we continue to ensure that the data is current and quality assured. We understand that our customers rely on this data to make informed decisions, and so we are making some improvements to our process in collecting data from our third-party suppliers.
While we have effective processes in place, they are not as efficient as they could be. We are conscious of the need to provide data updates in a very timely manner and to ensure that our end to end processes are streamlined.
We have been investing in the work to fully automate our key data pipelines so the data gets updated in a more timely way, we reduce or remove the manual processes involved and provide greater customer value. We’re not quite finished yet but have made some great progress over the latter half of this year.
What work is being done?
We are in the testing stage of running a series of processes using FME (Feature Manipulation Engine) and FME Cloud to regularly check for updates, and if data has been updated it will load that data into our platforms.
These updates are then implemented automatically, meaning that manual checks and processes are greatly reduced.
Failsafe
Of course, when relying on automation for projects of this nature, it’s important that there’s always a human there as a back-up, to ensure the right data is being updated in the right way at the right time.
We perform a whole series of validation checks, to ensure the data displays correctly on our platforms, giving our users the confidence to consume it in their applications as a fully managed service.
More time to spend on your data
Not only will automation improve the timeliness of the data, but it will enhance quality assurance and reduce the time our team spends on the existing processes.
This means we’ll have more time to seek out other useful datasets and find ways of using and manipulating this data to give increased value to our customers.
If you identify new data you need, please contact us directly as we are continuously extending the data catalogue in line with our users expectations.
thinkWhere Geospatial Data Manager, Aimee Rossi:
“In an industry where our customers need to be able to make informed decisions quickly, up-to-date data is vital.
“At thinkWhere we always work to ensure that the datasets we provide are comprehensive and current, giving our customers peace of mind that the data they’re working with is the data they need.
“This work we are undertaking to automate data collection processes from third-party sources will hugely reduce the time on processing updates, which in turn will allow our team to deliver more for our customers in terms of new datasets and enhanced levels of quality assurance.
“It’s a hugely positive step forward for thinkWhere and our community as we continue to set the standard for data in the geospatial realm.”
