Space planning and management is an important part of any college campus or school district. It helps facility managers ensure that they are optimizing the utilization of their space.
Often, facility spaces become underutilized as we move towards a remote hybrid environment. This can create an optimization problem as these unused areas still require costs such as heating and cooling, IT equipment, and general facility maintenance. Space planning and maintenance personnel in many organizations are wrestling with how to best address this issue and still provide optimized space usage across campus.
In addition, it is important for the organization to track which department is using each space so they can effectively split up the costs and expenses associated with those spaces by square footage.
Thankfully, the latest GIS technology enables affordable solutions for intelligent space planning and management. With Esri‘s ArcGIS Indoor solution for space planning, users get a comprehensive space management system that is focused on tracking space usage and monitoring their hybrid workspaces more efficiently.
These following five steps provide an overview of how to build a facilities space planning dashboard using ArcGIS:
1. Georeference
Before using the floorplan information from CAD, the CAD files must be Georeferenced so they are put in the proper real-world coordinates. Users can take advantage of the Georeferencing tools that are built into ArcGIS Pro.
2. Import CAD Data to GIS
CAD layers can be converted into a GIS format for enhancing their useability for space management in a variety of ways. One of the simplest ways to accomplish this is to utilize the geoprocessing tools that are available in the ArcGIS Indoors solution. Users can easily import the data directly into the ArcGIS Indoors information model with these tools.
3. Add attribute information
Once the CAD layers have been converted into GIS format, it’s important to add the desired fields and drop-downs that will be used to help with the space planning decisions. Often, these fields contain information such as square footage, department use, ownership information, and contact person.
4. Symbolize and Publish
Once the data is in the proper format and the fields have been added and populated with the necessary information, you are ready to choose your preferred symbology in the ArcGIS Pro software. Color schemas can be a single color or vary by your selected category from the floorplan data. Finally, once you have the data and the mapping layers ready to share, you can publish them from ArcGIS Pro to ArcGIS Online. This will enable the data to be shared securely throughout the organization.
5. Create dashboards
As you may know, maps only tell part of the story. To allow floorplan maps to come to life as decision-making tools, a dashboard is created to show off space usage and other necessary information that we want at our fingertips in order to make efficient decisions. The beauty of using a cloud-based solution is that changes can be reflected in real-time to the decision-makers upon completion of updates from those who manage the space. These updates can be accomplished through either a web browser or mobile device using Esri‘s native apps.
View a complete tutorial of these steps in our recent webinar:
Users can purchase Esri’s ArcGIS Indoors space planning and management solution for a complete solution for managing facilities spaces using GIS. This solution, built on the ArcGIS platform, offers the following capabilities:
Space optimization
Office space planning
Space reservations
Plan staffing moves
Cloudpoint is pleased to partner with campus facilities managers looking to optimize efficiency and add value to their facility and space management decision-making capabilities. We offer GIS implementation and managed services for campus facilities, delivered via the ArcGIS platform through a bring-your-own license arrangement.
For more information on how your organization can benefit from these services or the ArcGIS Indoors Space Planning tools, please reach out via our contact page or call us at 877-377-8124.
