Geocortex Blog

After about 10 months of development, Geocortex Optimizer 1.0 has been released. We’re really excited about it as it has a lot to offer ArcGIS Server and Geocortex Essentials users. It collects lots of data, creates loads of reports and we even managed to fit in a great looking, easy-to-use application to configure it. “Configurator” will provide a nice break from editing those configuration files as we asked our beta testers to do.

It has been an awesome experience to work so hard for so long with such an excellent group of developers. Congratulations to all involved. We also had some great feedback over the last few months from our beta testers and incorporated many of their ideas into 1.0 as well as saved a few of ideas for version 1.1. The winner of the beta program’s IPOD giveaway will be announced shortly. Stay tuned.

Registration is now open for the 4th annual Geocortex User Conference, which will take place April 26-28, 2009 in Victoria, British Columbia.

Like years past, we’ll combine two days of core conference seminars (three tracks: business, Geocortex Essentials fundamentals and advanced IMF/Essentials) with optional pre and post conference training. Look for a new advanced course around Geocortex Essentials customization.

New seminar topics this year include content related to transitioning from Geocortex IMF to Geocortex Essentials, Geocortex Essentials 2.0 and the Geocortex REST API, an introduction to Geocortex Optimizer and advanced Geocortex Essentials configuration. As always, there will be lots of user presentations and a look ahead at what we’re working on for future releases.

Some might notice we’ve dropped the “IMF” off the historic conference title. Though there will be sessions regarding Internet Mapping Framework, emphasis will be on topics related to Geocortex Essentials and the ArcGIS Server platform (including both Web ADF and the new/emerging APIs).

We hope to see you in Victoria in April 2009!

We’re Internet Geographers, but sometimes our customers ask us questions like, “What Content Management System works best with your software?”. They can be complicated questions to answer because it really depends on what your needs are. Do you need multiple authentication methods? What’s your budget? Who will be managing the content, are they web-savvy? What are your privacy needs?

Last April, we faced similar questions when we decided to build a Support Site that would focus on our ArcGIS-generation software. After much deliberation, we decided to use Microsoft’s Sharepoint.

Some of the reasons we selected Sharepoint:

• offers integration with existing systems
• can handle multiple authentication types
• written using a language we work with every day
• has several levels of authentication
• has easy WYSIWYG windows for text input
• can handle file management

As it turns out, it does all of these things in varying degrees, out-of-the-box. I’ll be posting several blog entries over the coming months, describing some of the ways we’ve found to accomplish our business goals using Sharepoint.