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News

Justin Falconer
In Features, News, Services

MuniSight now supports QGIS

For over 15 years, MuniSight has been dedicated to providing our Municipal clients with the very best software and services. As part of that commitment, MuniSight has decided to start providing technical support for QGIS software.

QGIS is a powerful and technical GIS software that can be used to execute complex GIS tasks. The majority of municipalities (including our clients) would not require a program like this, as the program’s functionality exceeds what they would need. That said, a select few of our clients do want to push the envelope of GIS technology in their municipality, and we are excited to help them do so by supporting the QGIS product.

MuniSight’s commitment to QGIS does not change how we will support our Hexagon GeoMedia clients. For over 7 years, MuniSight has strived to provide the highest quality of GeoMedia support, and we plan on continuing to do so for a long time. Our commitment to QGIS simply gives our clients access to another GIS software, should they choose to pursue one.

We are excited to see the benefits that some of our clients will gain from using advanced GIS technology, like QGIS.

What is QGIS?

QGIS is an open source GIS application. The program can be used, free of charge, as a desktop GIS software. QGIS is a very technical GIS software program, that can be used to complete many tasks, including:

  • Bulk feature information updates;

  • Custom cartography; and

  • Custom data analysis and spatial queries, etc.

What is open source software?

In general, open source software is a type of software licensing agreement. It essentially grants users the right to develop, change, and distribute the software free of charge. It is important to note that not all open source software abides by the same licence agreement, so it is important to get familiar with the terms of any software of this nature.

Open source software is typically developed in a collaborative public manner. This means that anyone can contribute improvements by making changes to the source code. Open source softwares do follow release cycles, so any code that is added is checked before a release is dispatched.

Why is MuniSight supporting QGIS?

Some MuniSight clients have advanced needs that can be better addressed by using a technical GIS software (like Hexagon GeoMedia, QGIS, Esri, etc.).

For over 7 years, MuniSight has been supporting the Hexagon GeoMedia software. In order to give our clients access to more options, the decision was made to start supporting QGIS as well.

How can I access QGIS?

QGIS can be downloaded at the following website:

https://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html

How can I access QGIS support?

The QGIS community provides a User Manual and Training Guide, for QGIS users. These guides are regularly updated as new software releases come out, and can be found here:

https://qgis.org/en/docs/index.html

MuniSight can provide technical support for the QGIS product, including everything from installation to troubleshooting. Feel free to contact MuniSight Support with any questions that you may have.

For more information about QGIS:

QGIS website (https://qgis.org/en/site/index.html)

Justin Falconer
In Features, Mobile, News

Launching MuniSight Mobile

MuniSight Mobile is now available for Apple and Android devices.  Our new app lets you take MuniSight with you “on the road”, allowing you to view MuniSight Webmap, audit municipal work being done, find and collect municipal assets, and more, all from your phone.

To Login:
Use your regular MuniSight login credentials, with your email as your username.

Help Material:
For training and help material on MuniSight Mobile, visit help.munisight.com.

Additional questions?
Contact MuniSight Support at support@munisight.com.

MuniSight Mobile prerequisites
In order to use MuniSight Mobile, your municipality must:
1. have an active subscription to Advanced Edition; and
2. have a hosted install of the Advanced Edition application.

Justin Falconer
In News

Supporting excellence in our community – Athlete Janelle Khan-Nielsen

 Janelle Khan-Nielsen with MuniSight President Quinten Griffiths

 Photo Credits: Lascelles Brown

MuniSight is proud to be supporting the development of athletics in our community – Sherwood Park, Alberta. As a result, MuniSight is excited to announce a sponsorship agreement with Janelle Khan-Nielsen, competing as an amateur athlete in the sport of Skeleton.

Originally from Sherwood Park, Janelle is competing for a place to represent Team Canada at the  2022 Winter Olympics in Bejing. A former sprinter, Janelle is currently living and training in Calgary while working as a healthcare professional.

Janelle Khan-Nielsen

Janelle Khan-Nielsen is from Sherwood Park, Alberta, and is currently training in Calgary. Janelle is aiming to compete for Team Canada in Skeleton in Bejing 2022.

To see Janelle’s recent progress, check out her Fall Newsletter.

Photo Credits: Lascelles Brown

“MuniSight is dedicated to providing world class service to our clients, and as such, we are really excited to sponsor Janelle as she trains to be a world-class Skeleton athlete,“ MuniSight President Quinten Griffiths says.

Among the most adrenaline-packed sports in the Olympics, Skeleton involves a running start with the skeleton sled, called a “push”, and jumping onto the sled head-first, and face down, to begin the ultra-fast descent to the bottom of a winding ice-track. Skeleton athletes can reach speeds of over 140 km/h with their heads mere centimetres from the ice.1

Alongside athlete blog posts for MuniSight’s blog, Janelle will be sharing a quarterly newsletter on her training and competition progress. Check out Janelle’s Fall Newsletter. You can also follow Janelle on Facebook and Instagram.

MuniSight would like to invite our clients to join us in cheering for Janelle. Go Janelle go!

1 For more on Skeleton, visit: https://www.ibsf.org/en/our-sports/skeleton-info-graphics.

Justin Falconer
In News

Announcing MuniSight’s new Help Portal!

MuniSight Help Portal – Self-serve solutions online!

We are excited to introduce a new client support tool, the MuniSight Help Portal. Our Help Portal will allow our clients to access to step-by-step instructions on performing tasks and answers to commonly asked questions all in our online repository of solutions.

Topics and Features:

The Help Portal currently covers topics for our MuniSight Webmap, MuniSight PD, and MuniSight AG. The portal will be adapted and expanded as necessary to include the most relevant and important topics that our customers are interested in.

The Help Portal gives you:

  • Access to real-time answers and instant information all online

  • Faster learning about new operations and features available within our products

  • Training made simple for newly hired staff within your municipality

  • A pre-built FAQ that you can “copy/paste” for your own public page (see here for more)

A search bar is included at the top of the Portal that allows for you to easily search and find available content.

Simply put, the MuniSight Help Portal saves you time and allows you to learn our applications faster than ever.

Dedicated to Our Customers

We at MuniSight are dedicated to strong customer service, and we believe that this new portal will augment the comprehensive technician support we already offer to our clients.  We are excited for this new launch, and we value your feedback as we expand our offerings.

To access the Help Portal, please visit http://help.munisight.com/support/home.

Schedule a demonstration today.

Contact MuniSight Support

Justin Falconer
In Features, News

Announcing MuniSight AMP

MuniSight AMP – Asset Management Planning made Simple

MuniSight’s Asset Management Planning (AMP) platform is a powerful tool that can help Municipalities extract the most value out of their existing assets. MuniSight AMP was built with municipalities in mind, and is tailored towards providing a simple and efficient solution to help municipalities manage their assets.

What is Asset Management Planning?

Asset Management Planning is the process of optimizing the usage of municipal assets, to support a Municipality in achieving its objectives and goals. The process involves evaluating assets based on level of service, relative condition, asset failure risk, and replacement cost. A properly run program involves all aspects of municipal operations including the training of personnel, the implementation of policies that consider the implications of Asset Management Planning, and the adoption of tools (such as software) to help a municipality organize their information. MuniSight AMP acts as a tool to help Municipalities manage their Asset Management information, while providing a best-in-class template on how to develop Asset Management Programs and integrating with existing MuniSight products.

Schedule a demonstration today.

MuniSight AMP Features & Functionality

The Dashboard

The dashboard provides a snapshot view of the state of a Municipality’s Asset Management program. Here you can find the summary information that guides day-to-day operational, and year-to-year strategic decisions. The information shown in the Dashboard is driven by the data captured in a Municipality’s AMP system.

Asset Inventory

Get a good handle on what assets exist in your municipality by using MuniSight AMP’s Asset Inventory reports. These reports can be run easily, to help Municipal Administrators get a clear list of all of their assets.

Asset Detail

If you are looking for a high degree of detail, then the Asset Detail Pages are the right place to go. These pages list all of the most detailed information relating to a particular asset’s management. Navigate to this page by using AMP’s search functionality, or through the Asset Inventory reports.

Level of Service, Relative Condition, Asset Risk Failure, and Replacement Cost Assessments

Leverage MuniSight AMP’s templates and processes, for completing assessments on particular assets. MuniSight AMP also maintains smart modelling technology that can predict the replacement cost value of various assets.

Schedule a demonstration today.

Contact MuniSight Support

Justin Falconer
In News

MuniSight welcomes British Columbia municipal governments!

This September MunSight is excited to welcome British Columbia municipalities to our community. BC municipal staff face many similar operational challenges as our current clients; however, BC municipalities have many unique challenges that our team is very excited to explore.

Interesting Facts about British Columbia:

  • British Columbia is the third largest and most westerly province in Canada and it is four times the size of Great Britain. The length of BC’s coastline is over 27,000 kilometers.

  • Half of all British Columbians live in the metropolitan area of Vancouver.

  • Two-thirds of British Columbia’s land base (we’re speaking of an area larger than France!) is forest land, and more than half of that area has had little or no human contact.

  • British Columbia is one of the top 3 producing regions of cranberries and blueberries in the world.

  • BC is home to the world’s largest hockey stick! It was originally created for the Expo 1986 and then acquired by the city of Duncan, BC, where it is on display today. The stick is 62.48 metres long, weighs 28.12 tonnes (62,000 lb) and is therefore 40 times the size of a regular hockey stick. Make sure to take a look on your next trip to Vancouver Island!

  • Speaking of world records, BC resident Sarwan Singh who lives in the City of Surrey in the south of BC holds the world record for “Longest Beard” on a living male. It measures over 2.33 metres.

  • The wettest city of Canada is Prince Rupert on the west coast of British Columbia. With an average of 239.7 days of rain per year and a total amount of 2593.6 mm of rain per year, it was given this title by The Weather Network.

  • Nanaimo, a coastal city on Vancouver Island, is the Bathtub Racing capital of the world. The first race took place in 1967 to showcase Nanaimo to the world and contestants are required to use a bathtub boat.

Note: Information provided by VGC International College

Justin Falconer
In Features, Mobile, News

Call for MuniSight Mobile Beta Testers!

 

MuniSight is excited to announce the launch of our Mobile Application. Now you will be able to enjoy your MuniSight Advanced system from your iOS and Android devices.

We are looking to our experienced MuniSight Users to provide beta testing that will give us crucial information on the MuniSight Mobile Application. If interested in becoming a MuniSight Beta Tester please sign up below and our Support Team will be in contact with you in the coming weeks!

 

Justin Falconer
In News, Training

FCM: Municipal Guide to Cannabis Legalization

This month, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) released a report pertaining to the impact of upcoming Cannabis Legalization on Municipal Governments. Some highlights of the report are noted below, while the link to the full report can be found here (Municipal Guide to Cannabis Legalization).

Getting the legalization of Cannabis right, will depend on Government. The development, implementation, and enforcement of regulations pertaining to Cannabis will have a profound effect on how well, legalized non-medical, cannabis is introduced to Canadians. Getting this right will depend on all levels of government.

Municipal Governments will bear a significant amount of responsibility. While the Federal Government has made the Cannabis commitment, and Provincial Governments are responsible regulations pertaining to distribution amongst other things, Municipal Governments will bear most of the responsibility with the operational aspects of the changes. These operational aspects, such as Zoning, Business Regulations, Enforcement, etc. are expected to be quite significant. Municipal Governments must be prepared to address these challenges by ensuring that they have the resources and systems in place to manage the change.

The FCM’s full report can be found here.

Justin Falconer
In News

AAMDC Spring 2018

 photo: Justin & Quinten at MuniSight’s tradeshow booth

MuniSight was happy to support the AAMDC Spring Conference as a participant. The event was held in Edmonton, AB on the week of March 19th, 2018.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth to say hello! It was great to see many of our customers at the event!

Justin Falconer
In News

MuniSight welcomes Manitoban municipal governments!

MuniSight is excited to welcome several Manitoban municipalities to it’s community of municipal governments.

About Manitoba’s Municipal Governments

Manitoba currently has 37 urban municipalities, 98 rural municipalities, and 2 local government districts for a total of 137 municipal governments. Urban municipalities are identified as Cities, Towns, and Villages, while rural municipalities are identified quite simply as a Rural Municipality. This structure was mostly derived because of the Municipal Act of 1995. Prior to this structure, Manitoba operated with 197 municipal governments before an amalgamation took place, mostly in 1997, to consolidate smaller municipalities together. In 2015, Manitoba went through a similar exercise, where many municipal governments combined together once again.

Manitoba’s population is mostly centered in Cities (66%), followed by Rural Municipalities (24%), Towns (4.5%), and Villages (0.5%). Rural Municipalities occupy the most land area by far, with a cumulative share of 24% of the Province’s total land area, and have an average population of 3,050 inhabitants.

Once again, MuniSight would like to welcome those Manitoban municipalities who have joined our community, and we look forward to continuing our work in the Province.

Regards,

Quinten

Note: Census data was obtained from Statistics Canada.