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Creating IMSMA Core Deployment Records

Purpose

During and following an IMSMA Core deployment, the IMSMA Advisor will need to document a variety of configurations related to the Solution. This will assist GICHD with supporting the country or operator and will also provide reference documentation for the country or operator to refer to. A Deployment Record also assists with upgrading the IMSMA Core deployment and troubleshooting issues reported by the Operator or Organization.

An IMSMA Core deployment involves configuration of ArcGIS Enterprise, PostgreSQL, Survey123, ArcGIS Pro and other software components. The intent of this document is to lay out what configurations should be recorded for each program, and provide sample documents to begin filling in this information.

Storage of IMSMA Core Deployment Records

Deployment records are stored using a combination of GitHub and Box.com, depending on the preference of the IMSMA Advisor, the complexity of the data and the wishes of the Mine Action Programme. GitHub is well-suited to storage of code, scripts or files where a record of changes is beneficial. Box is suited to storage of larger files, folder structures and simpler file-system access using Box Sync.

ArcGIS Enterprise Configuration

Portal for ArcGIS

The Portal’s configuration can be easily changed by administrators or publishers, to include the creation of new apps and web maps or changes to existing settings. This means that the exact state of a Portal is likely to change frequently over the life of an IMSMA Core deployment, so not all details are required for a deployment record. The relevant details to record about an IMSMA Core deployment from the Portal perspective include:

  • Portal external URL: such as https://drc.imsma-core.org/portal

  • Federated Server External URLs, ex. https://drc.imsma-core.org/server

  • Hosting environment, local and external IP addresses

    • Ex: AWS VPC instance, local IP 172.16.31.226, external IP 55.23.44.61

  • Full User List – identify the users of the Portal, their affiliation, role and contact information.

  • Full Groups Listing – identify the Groups that have been created to support the IMSMA Core deployment, which are often used to specifically assign access to certain users for certain content

  • List of Key Services – ItemIDs for key map and feature services that are used by the system, these URLs will be helpful when configuring or resetting Survey123 logic.

ArcGIS Server Services

The best method for recording the map and feature services used in an IMSMA Core deployment is to keep a copy of the Map documents (.mxds) or ArcGIS Pro Project(s) (.aprx) used to publish these services. These files can record symbology, filters or definition queries, and other settings that will help in the re-creation of these services or may be usable by future deployments.

Survey123 Forms

Survey123 Forms are best recorded as a .xlsx file that contains the Survey123 XLSform and configurations. This file may be accompanied by a readme.txt or similar file that describes the use of the form, considerations for publishing, the overall data structure and information about the source of certain information like community locations, pcodes, administrative boundaries and other data included in the choice lists.

In this format, new Survey123 forms can easily be created from the template and then adjusted to fit a program’s needs.

Data Structure for Survey Forms

Ideally, the Deployment Record should include a zipped file geodatabase representation of the data schema used by the Survey123 forms. This provides an easy way to republish the survey data to an enterprise geodatabase and review the structure of the data. This file geodatabase can be created by copying feature classes from the PostgreSQL IMSMA Core database to a file geodatabase using the copy and paste commands in ArcCatalog or ArcGIS Pro. This data can then be cleaned using the Truncate Table geoprocessing tool, if desired, to provide a blank “template” database for a deployment.

Documentation

Information Management Processes and Standards should be kept in the Deployment Record as well. These documents are often created by IM staff during the IMSMA Core development process and are excellent records of the workflows, data sharing and background on the program’s requirements.

HI-Syria Example

  • Survey123

    • XLSforms

    • Single External Choices list

    • Maybe some doc about the naming convention and other settings that were set in Connect

  • Pro

    • One “final” project – fully configured

    • Export the tasks as .esriTask files

  • Tools

    • Folder of project-specific Python (if necessary)

  • Data

    • Copy of the blank data structure (Survey123 schema without any rows)

    • (if possible) include example records for each data type

  • Documentation

    • High Level IM Process/SOP Description (from Mission)

    • IM Process from the IMSMA Expert Perspective

    • Portal Configuration

      • Users

        • How were users created, how were roles defined, and how were logins provided to users, naming conventions?

      • Groups

        • Group structure and/or hierarchy

        • Group membership

      • Information Products

        • WAB app #1

      • Apps and Web Maps

        • “Schematic” documentation of the web maps and apps

          • RA Tasking Map 1

            • Includes RA layer, symbolized by X, filtered by Y

          • Collector Map for RA Activities 1

            • Includes RA Layer, symbology X

          • Survey123 Form on Device 1