GIS Field Apps Keep Public Works Department Running Smoothly

The City of Nacogdoches, considered the oldest town in Texas, has significantly expanded its GIS program over the last seven years. Smart devices coupled with mobile solutions from Esri—such as Workforce for ArcGIS, Collector for ArcGIS, and Survey123 for ArcGIS—have enabled the city’s engineering department/GIS division to get its data out in the field and into the hands of the people who can make the most of it.

The public works department has become one of the city’s heaviest users of GIS. Tasked with a range of undertakings, from managing commercial dumpsters to issuing work orders for street, sanitation, and pothole maintenance, the department wanted to move away from sluggish, paper-based processes to app-centered workflows. Building on its already robust use of the ArcGIS platform, the GIS division made this digital transition easily and economically.