Talk of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) evokes images of maps of cities, towns and remote locations. While GIS is incredibly valuable for departments and agencies that protect national security and maintain infrastructure, visualizations offered by GIS tools go far beyond industries reliant on maps and directions. A large majority of citizen-facing organizations can also benefit from abstracting where their data originated and how it relates to other spatial and non-spatial content, all while displaying the content on a map in real-time.
At the broadest level, GIS solutions allow users to visualize, question, analyze, and interpret data to understand relationships, patterns, and trends. With dispersed teams of people working together from various organizations across the country or globe at any point in time, collaboration is critical to ensure all users and stakeholders are in coordination with each other. Furthermore, groups need to not only see and work together on data and projects, but also discover important trends in the data that can reveal project efficiencies or even point to ways to improve national security measures. And on top of it all, organizations must be operating in more cost effective and secure ways than ever before.
Boundless has answered all of these needs with its launch of Boundless Exchange, an open source GIS content management platform that facilitates collaboration throughout the enterprise. Boundless Exchange integrates geospatial content and analyzes data throughout business workflows. Because Exchange supports OGC standards, users benefit from interoperability, which allows the quick and easy connection of enterprise-wide programs. Teams or communities are able to contribute to the entire content ecosystem, such as working on existing projects or introducing crowdsourced projects into the organization. This type of collaboration allows everyone to contribute and, in turn, enhance projects and the organization’s GIS ecosystem as a whole.
With Boundless Exchange, the days of isolated maps and data are over. This solution brings the power of GIS collaboration to anyone with Internet access – no development or coding experience necessary. Perhaps even more useful for users without extensive background in GIS or data integration is the fact that Exchange enables users to tell dynamic stories with their data. This feature ultimately improves communication with stakeholders and empowers technical users to effectively convey significant amounts of geospatial content in a way that resonates with non-geospatial stakeholders.
As GIS standards continue to evolve, the GIS team at Carahsoft is proud to partner with innovative, cost-effective solutions for next-generation geospatial teams. Boundless Exchange will allow GIS groups to expand their efforts with collaboration from all team members and keep executives informed on critical project data and progress. For more information on how your organization can benefit from Boundless Exchange, check out this overview.
