• Geocortex Essentials Workflow – tools for building and running workflows that model your business processes
• Geocortex Essentials Manager for REST Elements – a new Web GUI administration tool for building REST sites
• Compatability with ArcGIS Server 10.0
• Support for Microsoft .NET 4.0
• Other features and bug fixes

Essentials 3.0 includes the much anticipated Geocortex Essentials Workflow feature.  Workflow is an entirely new way to build task based web mapping applications with Geocortex Essentials.  Workflows are simple representations of your business processes that can be visually designed using the Geocortex Workflow Designer and deployed through the Essentials REST API.  Below is a screenshot of the desktop Workflow Designer tool.

Geocortex Workflow Designer Screenshot

Once deployed, workflows can be shared across multiple applications and client technologies like Flash and Silverlight.  This is only the beginnging of Geocortex Workflow — we’re really excited about this new technology and have a ton planned for it in future releases.

To download Geocortex Essentials 3.0, visit the Geocortex Support Center.

Finally, if you think we’re going to sit back and relax after such a big release, you’re in for a surprise!  Essentials 3.1 and 3.2 are just around the corner and are bringing some awesome new features like security for REST sites, enhanced and scalable printing, and support for new ArcGIS features like time-aware layers and feature services.  Happy Summer!

Since it is a maintenance-only release, there are no new features in 2.3.3.  It is intended to target ArcGIS Server 9.3/9.3.1 installations – our upcoming, major 3.0 release will be announced in a few days and will support ArcGIS Server 10.0.

ArcSDE 9.3.1 Service Pack 2

ArcGIS Image Server 9.3.1 Service Pack 2

ArcIMS 9.3.1 Service Pack 2

We’ll definitely be there and, like many, we’re pumped about the considerable advantages in the development experience going from Web ADF to REST.

At the same time, I don’t want to be perceived as being too flippant about the matter of Web ADF being deprecated at 10.1… there are hundreds (if not thousands) of organizations out there that have invested heavily in Web ADF based on the notion that it was to be ESRI’s core platform for the future and that it represented the best (or only) available alternative at the time they selected it.

There are natural technology deprecations, and there are more forced technology deprecations. Given there are lots of folks for whom Web ADF is actually working quite nicely now, ESRI’s announcement (while defensible and not a surprise for most) will have a real impact on many organizations and necessitate a transition they’d just as soon not make. Which sucks.

We’ve spent the last eighteen months transitioning our Geocortex Essentials product from being Web ADF-centric to being REST-centric. I’ll be drinking a beer partly celebrating a shift away from the challenges people (including us) have experienced with Web ADF, while also thinking about the work that will be involved for lots of folks out there who will need to rewrite a lot of their relatively recent custom code in which they’ve made significant investments.

For ArcGIS 10

For 9.1, 9.2, and 9.3

This year didn’t fail to disappoint, and there were a few very noteworthy announcements like this.

“The Web ADFs will be deprecated in the next release after ArcGIS Server 10.”

I like how it’s tacked on the end. Answer, answer, context, then… POW.

Though the writing has been on the wall for some time (it was actually a key theme during our recent Geocortex User Conference), this is nonetheless a significant announcement for many organizations now that it’s official. Note that my interpretation is that ArcGIS Server 10.1 will be the final release of ArcGIS Server containing Web ADF. But of course, there is the following:

“The next release of ArcGIS Server after 10 will run entirely as a 64-bit application.”

From this we infer no ArcObjects (based on our current assessment, anyway), and therefore no ArcGIS Server local connections via Web ADF as of 10.1. If we’re correct, though it appears Web ADF will be deprecated following 10.1, limitations will appear as of 10.1.

It’s for these reasons that we’ve been so aggressively developing REST technology, and encouraging people to deploy using REST whenever possible. We’ve been preparing for this announcement for the last eighteen months, and have been getting migration strategies in place.

From a development and technology perspective, we see REST emphasis as a step forward and we’re excited about it. We’ve spent thousands and thousands of hours building on both Web ADF and REST, and we welcome this shift; it will ultimately reduce development complexity and increase effectiveness of apps. We have some concerns around ESRI’s deprecation timelines, and we envision this prompting otherwise unnecessary migrations for folks that have invested in Web ADF and for whom it is a good fit and working well. That said, we recognize there are bigger issues at play; we’ll do everything we can to minimize impact for customers to ensure smooth transitions over time.

Be sure to check out their summary of pros and cons of various API choices. We have some additions/refinements to their points, but it’s nonetheless a good overview.

It’s great to see work happening on emerging technologies like HTML5:

“We plan on incorporating specific HTML5 functionality within the ArcGIS API for JavaScript this year.”

HTML5 is still a ways off, but it’ll have a big impact long-term. We can’t wait to start working with it.

What else? Because I just can’t get enough of human-like robots, the following jumped out at me:

“We plan to release both an API and an application for the Android operating system around the end of this year.”

Also, as if we don’t spend enough time already fidgeting with our iPhones and their ilk already, check this out:

“ArcGIS for iOS is the latest ESRI mobile product available at the ArcGIS 10 release that extends GIS to the popular Apple iOS platform. It includes a ready to deploy application which will be downloadable from the Apple App Store, and a native Objective C API that developers can use to build GIS applications that meet their business needs. By making ArcGIS available for iOS, existing customers can extend the reach of their GIS to a wider market.”

Definitely check out the Q&A section on the cloud as I expect it’ll be a major focus at the conference this year.

Anyway, loads more to discover in the Q&A, but I thought I’d roll-up a few items that jumped out at us right away.

Traditionally connecting to Bing Maps was a bit of a headache since you (the administrator) had to acquire a Bing Maps token using a special Bing Maps username and password.  Also, the token would expire so application logic had to be written to re-acquire a token once it had expired.  There’s actually more details involved with tokens than I’d prefer to get into in this post – perhaps it’s enough to say it wasn’t entirely straightforward.

Well, recently Microsoft has “deprecated” the notion of Staging VS Production services, and access to Bing Maps can now be managed via a “Bing Maps Key”.  To acquire a Bing Maps Key, you use your Bing Maps Developer Account (which actually uses your Windows Live ID).  More information on acquiring keys can be found here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff428642.aspx

Access to Bing Maps via tokens is still supported by Microsoft.  They suggest that tokens are only required if you require transaction reporting (discovering how many requests your users are sending to Bing Maps).

To be honest, I was initially a bit frustrated with this change – particularly with the timing: right before the ArcGIS 10 final release (and the corresponding 2.0 client API releases), and therefore right before our Geocortex Essentials 3.0 release.  Changes in underlying architecture mean that we have to change our software to cooperate.  After implementing the change to ensure Geocortex Essentials and our client APIs will work with Bing Maps keys, my frustration melted away.  The keys are a much cleaner, easier way to work with Bing Maps, and they don’t expire.

This year (disclosure: as part of the VIATeC league, comprised of a comparable demographic of fellow IT professionals), our softball team is doing really well. In fact, with just a week to go in the league, we’re presently undefeated and sitting in the number one spot.

I’m Canadian, which disinclines me from even remotely acknowledging our present #1 standing. However, I’m also not on the team this year, and I’m excited by how well things are going for them.

Go team!

One solution I have found is to set the MXD full extent wider than the extent of all data in the MXD (this is the default full extent).  Create the cache tiles at whatever your desired scales are.  When the tiles are finished, you can then go back to your MXD and set the full extent to your desired full extent (the extent that is used by the “full extent” button on the site).

Consult the release notes to determine if this release contains updates that may be important to you.  The release and accompanying documentation can be found in the downloads section of our Support Center.