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Busy Times in the Geocortex Products Department

July 30th, 2008 by Drew Millen

One of the “exciting” things about developing products and services for a major software vendor like ESRI is the fact that our product release schedule is often heavily influenced by the release dates (and events) of ESRI.

The recent release of ArcGIS 9.3 (most importantly for us, ArcGIS Server 9.3 and ArcIMS 9.3) came with it the need to upgrade all products in the Geocortex suite to ensure compatibility.

In reply to today’s Geocortex IMF release announcement email, Steve Tharp at Chesapeake Energy wrote, “Man you guys are cranking it out before the esri UC”.

He’s right… although I suppose its no surprise since ESRI has been doing some “cranking out” of their own.

Earlier this month (on the 10th of July) we released Geocortex Essentials 1.4 Beta (for ArcGIS Server 9.3) and we’re releasing the final at the end of this week.
Last week (on the 23rd), we released Geocortex Uptime 1.2.2 which is compatible with ArcIMS 9.3.
On Monday we released the ArcGIS Server Connector for Geocortex IMF to ensure compatibility with ArcGIS Server 9.3.
Yesterday we released Geocortex Statistics 1.3 which is compatible with ArcIMS 9.3.
Today, we announced the release of Geocortex IMF 5.2.2 which is compatible with ArcIMS 9.3 (and contains some fixes to ensure compatibility with Mozilla Firefox 3).

Posted in Geocortex IMF, Products | No Comments »

Geocortex Essentials Betas available

July 11th, 2008 by Drew Millen

Well, I’m happy to blog that two weeks after the release of ArcGIS Server 9.3, we’re offering full Geocortex Essentials compatibility. I must concede that this work didn’t take two weeks; it took a couple months (we were very busy during the Beta program during which we made some educated guesses that proved correct).

We’re actually releasing two new versions of Geocortex Essentials: Geocortex Essentials 1.3.1 Beta, and Geocortex Essentials 1.4 Beta. 1.3.1 is a maintenance release in the ArcGIS Server 9.2 edition of Geocortex Essentials. It contains updated language resources and bug fixes for customers who’ve built apps on 9.2. 1.4 is the big release that supports ArcGIS Server 9.3.

It has been a pleasure to start using the new features in Web ADF 9.3. Most notably (for developers):

The new Web ADF JavaScript object model (not to be confused with the JavaScript API released in tandem with ArcGIS Server 9.3, which is also cool and we’re doing lots of work with)
Support for MS AJAX partial postbacks which will streamline future development (thankfully, adding full support for partial postbacks wasn’t as arduous as we thought it might be)

Maybe we’ve been staring at it too long, but it appears the long-awaited 9.3 performance improvements are quite noticeable (we’ll be able to quantify these improvements once we start playing with the Geocortex Optimizer Alpha in a couple weeks). Cool.

Next, maximizing the performance of Essentials (which has never received that much attention because we didn’t really worry that much about our stuff being a bottleneck with 9.2) will be a core focus during the next couple 3-week iterations.

But first, I think the team is going to enjoy Latitude’s annual “4th of July” picnic this afternoon/evening up at Shawnigan Lake.

Posted in ArcGIS Server, Geocortex Essentials, Products | No Comments »

9.3 is shipping

June 25th, 2008 by Drew Millen

We just got word that 9.3 is now shipping. We should have a 9.3 compliant release of Geocortex Essentials for ArcGIS Server out the door shortly after we receive 9.3 and are able to address any major changes made between the release candidate and the final release.

Posted in ArcGIS Server, ArcGIS Server-Generation Software, Geocortex Essentials, Products | 5 Comments »

Geocortex IMF 5.2.1 Released

May 30th, 2008 by Drew Millen

Thursday last week, we cut a maintenance release of Geocortex IMF. Version 5.2.1 contains a number of bug fixes and ensures compatibility with ArcIMS 9.2 SP4 and SP5.

If you’re using Geocortex IMF with ArcMap Image Server based Map Services, you’ll definitely want to get a hold of this release.

Geocortex IMF 5.2.1 is our second product release (following Geocortex Essentials 1.3) available on our new Geocortex Support Center (BETA). Send an email to software@latitudegeo.com with subject line “IMF Support Center Account Request” to request an account.

Posted in Geocortex IMF, Products | No Comments »

Geocortex Essentials 1.3 Release

May 23rd, 2008 by Drew Millen

With every release of Geocortex Essentials I compare and contrast to previous releases… Although only labelled version 1.3, this actually represents our 16th release of Geocortex Essentials! (1.0 Beta, 1.0, 1.1 Beta 1, 1.1 Beta 2, 1.1 Release, 1.1 Service Pack 1, 1.2 Alpha 1, 1.2 Beta 1, 1.2 Beta 2, 1.2 Release, 1.2.1 Release, 1.2.2 Beta 1, 1.2.2, 1.3 Beta 1, 1.3 Beta 2, 1.3 Release).

Taken together, I am amazed at how rapidly this product has evolved in just eighteen months.

Anyway, cut last night, Geocortex Essential 1.3 contains some major new features:

Data Linking: Using ADO.NET, OLEDB and/or ODBC, administrators can define connections to a variety of data sources; including RDBMS, files, Web Services, GeoRSS feeds, and even live links to data sources like Excel spreadsheets. Data sources are abstracted from the administrator; they can be extended to connect to custom data types
New Print Templates allow administrators to create printable maps with the WYSIWG interface provided by a new desktop tool, Geocortex Report Designer. Print Templates can include the map, overview map, north arrow, scale bar, scale, legend, projection, date/time, and any other configurable text or images. Print Templates can be exported at high resolutions to multiple formats including PDF, RTF, HTML, XLS, TIFF and text.
The Reporting Engine allows configurable reports to be designed and deployed to Sites to include spatial data, map data, data from external data links, and other sources. Print ready reports can be exported to a variety of formats including PDF, RTF, HTML, XLS, TIFF and text
We’ve restructured Geocortex Essentials to include a Workflow Engine, built on Windows Workflow Foundation in .NET 3.0. This streamlines application development and allows developers to focus on deploying quick solutions that solve business needs.
Easy to use interfaces in Geocortex Essentials Manager for configuring security authorization, and adding users to roles

This was a major release because, after months of work, we had a whole bunch of functionality that was orchestrated for the Beta tossed over the wall a couple days before our user conference last month.

We’re all pumped to have the final release out the door. For the next development iteration (3 weeks) our focus will be on ensuring compatibility with ArcGIS Server 9.3 (shipping in June) as well as ongoing JavaScript/REST API research and development.

Posted in Geocortex Essentials, Products | 4 Comments »

One Step Closer to ArcIMS/ArcGIS Server Feature Parity

February 19th, 2008 by Drew Millen

Geocortex Essentials 1.2.1 is now available, and the demo site has been updated. Here’s a list of some of the new features:

Enhanced security/authorization
Full support for geoprocessing models
Extract Data API (GUI still under development for out-of-the-box deployment, but developers can create tasks that clip and extract data for download now)
Field aliasing (i.e. renaming), auto-formatting, inclusion/exclusion
Buffer selected markup
Feature hyperlinking
Upload Shapefiles (which can then be used just like any other layers in the Layer List)

We’re heads down developing towards our next release (code name “Crispy Crunch”) which will be ready for the ESRI Business Partner/Developer Conference in Palm Springs (mid-March).

Posted in Geocortex Essentials, Products | No Comments »

Latitude Geographics is Selling Chocolate Bars

February 6th, 2008 by Drew Millen

I always thought that code names for software products were kind of cheesy. A lot of companies use code names internally for describing an upcoming product release, some use them externally. For example, long before Windows Vista was available information on the next version of windows was coded under “Longhorn”. Code names typically have themes… Longhorn is the name of a bar between the Whistler and Blackcomb ski resorts (Whistler and Blackcomb were code names for Windows XP and Windows 7 AKA “Vienna” respectively). Seemingly, Microsoft has chosen the “Whistler” theme for it’s code names.

Our agile development approach has our development team releasing (either publically or internally) Geocortex Essentials every three weeks. It has become important to refer to upcoming releases of Essentials; however, the development team wasn’t always sure what version number each release would correspond to (for example, should an upcoming release be labelled 1.3 or 1.2.1??). Alas, in order to accommodate flexibility in choosing version numbers, while still being able to distinctly describe and discuss upcoming releases we have adopted code names.

Geocortex Essentials code names have assumed the chocolate bar theme; thus, developers are coding heavily towards “Oh Henry”.

Posted in Products | 1 Comment »

New Webinars Scheduled

January 14th, 2008 by Darin Herle

We put together a number of webinars for the launch of Geocortex IMF 5.2 a little while ago, and got some great feedback from clients. So, we’ve added a few more and hope to offer them on a recurring basis. Topics vary from new products to new releases to technology we feel clients and prospective customers should keep their eyes on. Check out our Learning and Education page for more information and to sign up.

Posted in Business, Clients, General, Geocortex, Ideas, Products | No Comments »

Axosoft OnTime: Shameless Plug

January 5th, 2008 by Drew Millen

Over the holidays, it can get pretty quiet around the office. It’s a good time to polish up some processes surrounding development.

I’ve been spending some time improving our Agile development practices and have once again been incredibly impressed by the extensibility of our defect and feature tracking system, OnTime by Axosoft.

When we decided to start using OnTime, I was initially compelled by how easy it was for the end-user. I’ve used or experimented with a few issue tracking systems in the past (e.g., Bugzilla, Scarab), all of which seem for too complex to install, use, or maintain when compared to OnTime. Lately, however, I’ve been more impressed with how flexible OnTime has been with regards to customizing it to match our feature development “workflow”.

I can create custom workflow steps for features which “forcefully” guide them from conception to completion, while employing access restrictions. For example, we can allow any system user to request a feature; however, only a user in the Project Manager group can elevate the feature to “approved” and assign a target release version.

Posted in Products | 3 Comments »

Geocortex Essentials 1.2 Released

December 14th, 2007 by Drew Millen

Geocortex Essentials 1.2 is shipping! We’ve been working on it since June, so we’re pretty pumped it is finally complete and out the door.

From Geocortex Essentials Manager (our GUI-based web app for building ArcGIS Server apps) to a bunch of new features and improvements, the whole company is pretty excited about this release. The Essentials team is keen to enjoy a weekend before the sales team inundates us on Monday with late-stage feature requests they want to see added to the 1.3 workplan “in the spirit of agile development”.

Posted in Geocortex Essentials, Geocortex Essentials Manager, Products | No Comments »

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