Five Things You Didn't Know You Could Do with ArcGIS and Microsoft

By Carrie Speranza, CEM, Director of Emergency Management Solutions, and Jeff Baranyi, Emergency Management Technical Lead

As part of its annual cycle, Esri recently updated several of its products and apps. Being an emergency manager, I was most excited to learn about the updated integration between the ArcGIS and Microsoft systems. When it comes to leveraging technology systems to manage incidents, these two systems seem to be used most often, so highlighting what these updates can do for program effectiveness and efficiency is important. ?

Just like for the spring 2023 update cycle, we are back to summarize a few key updates we thought our colleagues may find useful. If you haven't had a chance to check out the latest integrations between ArcGIS and Microsoft, check out the five things you need to know below. Each area is divided into two sections: a bottom-line up-front (BLUF) overview intended for emergency management executives and a technical capability section that geographic information system (GIS) professionals may find interesting as they continue to build out their capabilities.

1.?????? All you need is an active ArcGIS Online account.

BLUF: Did you know that if you already have an ArcGIS Online account, you have complete access to the functions and capabilities below? It’s true. No other add-ons are needed. Reach out to your organization’s information technology staff or your GIS manager to ask if you have an ArcGIS Online account.

Technical Capabilities

By providing Microsoft 365 users with an ArcGIS Online account, Microsoft apps like Excel, SharePoint, Teams, and Power BI integrate with ArcGIS so you can leverage the power of location in the productivity apps you use every day. The capability includes accessing your own ArcGIS Online layers within these Microsoft apps, as well as access to premium content and functionality.

For more details on account types and privileges, check out this link: doc.arcgis.com/en/microsoft-365/latest/get-started/accounts.htm.?

The good news is that you also have some basic map functionality within Microsoft, even without an ArcGIS Online account. These functionalities include access to geospatial data if there’s a latitude-longitude coordinate; matching data with addresses, boundaries, or latitude-longitude coordinates; and the ability to search and view millions of maps and applications that are available across the ArcGIS system. ?

2.?????? ArcGIS for Excel

BLUF: Did you know you can edit data in Microsoft Excel, and it will populate a map with the spatial data points? Previously, when emergency managers had an abundance of data to maintain–whether it’s mass care shelter data, warming and cooling center data, or logistics and warehousing data–we would typically manage the information using Microsoft Excel. If we wanted to see a spatial depiction of the data, we then asked our GIS analyst to create a map using that native dataset. With the most recent updates to ArcGIS for Excel, you can open Excel and click on the ArcGIS tab on the banner at the top of the page. A map will appear side by side with the dataset (check out the image below). This functionality allows you to edit the Excel data in real time, displaying it on a map automatically.

Let’s see how it’s done.

Technical Capabilities

With ArcGIS Online, you are ready to leverage ArcGIS for Excel, an add-in for Microsoft Excel. The app can be added to your program by a Microsoft Excel administrator or a user with a Microsoft 365 subscription (assuming your system administrator has granted them the appropriate privileges). To add ArcGIS, go to the Insert tab and click Office Add-ins, or contact your Microsoft Excel administrator for assistance.

The ability to edit data, like the status of a shelter, is a relatively new feature. To test this capability, click the ArcGIS tab in Excel, click Show Map, and log in to your ArcGIS Online account. Click the Layers button (second from the top) to add your layers to edit. After adding the layers to the map, you can update the features in the layers, like operational status. In the example picture below, we changed the status of a shelter to “open,” and the updated data is now reflected in our dashboard and briefing apps–automatically!

It's common for GIS staff to get a list of addresses to geocode and input into a digital map. But with the new updates to ArcGIS, you can do this within Excel and manage the data yourself.

To show another example, let’s say you received an Excel file of cooling centers, but all you have is an address, and your director has asked you to put them on the map.

With the ArcGIS for Excel add-in, there are ArcGIS functions built in, like “get address” and “get coordinates.”

The ArcGIS functions within Excel can calculate the coordinates of your address, like =ARCGIS.GETCOORDINATES(B2), and you can copy and paste this through the rest of your sheet. With coordinates, you can add this to the map by clicking the Layers button and then Add from Excel. It will autodetect your coordinate fields allowing you to add them directly to the map.

Did you know you can publish this as a layer in ArcGIS Online right from Excel? Give it a try.

If you would like to learn more, go to Get Started with ArcGIS for Excel here: https://learn.arcgis.com/en/projects/get-started-with-arcgis-for-excel/

?3.?????? ArcGIS for Teams

BLUF: Did you know you can find, view, and share ArcGIS content in Microsoft Teams chats? Imagine being able to view and change the status of spatial data points in real time while in a meeting. You can also embed maps and dashboards in your chats and in different Teams channels by creating different tabs—you only need to look at one program at a time. This is streamlining at its best!

Technical Capabilities

With ArcGIS for Teams, you now can search for open-source data in ArcGIS Online and add data from your organization’s ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise apps from within the Teams environment. To learn more about this search function within ArcGIS for Teams, check out this blog post: esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-for-teams/sharing-collaboration/arcgis-for-teams-search/

This new capability allows the use of creative workflows within Teams and ArcGIS, for example, you can embed ArcGIS Apps as tabs in all your Teams channels, as shown below.?

4.?????? ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate

BLUF: It seems everyone knows about Microsoft Excel, SharePoint, Word, and Outlook, but did you know you can connect your business systems using Power Automate? Power Automate is a Microsoft product that feeds data from one program to another, but the unique part about this feature is that the connection results in an action.

For example, you’re managing the status of an emergency shelter in an ArcGIS Dashboard, and you click a button that says, “activate shelter.” By using the ArcGIS Connector for Power Automate, the system can now automatically send an email, SMS message, or a Microsoft Teams alert to the person or group that needs to know the status change.

The most recent ArcGIS update also includes a create/update/delete feature, meaning you can repeatedly edit the status of something. For example, if you activated the emergency shelter at 9:00 a.m. and then closed the shelter at 5:00 p.m., both status changes are now maintained in the record history log, not to be overwritten.

This capability can be replicated for significant event updates, resource management, etc.

Technical Capabilities

There are several ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate, and they work with ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Enterprise, and ArcGIS Platform for developers (Note: These are premium connectors that require a Microsoft 365 subscription). The power of these connectors is the automation you can create in a no-code/low-code environment with spatial processes. There are a series of actions like Geocode, Geoenrichment, and Create/Update/Delete, as well as triggers that allow you to “listen to your data.”?

For example, in the image below, we are “listening” for changes made to the data (i.e., additions, updates, deletions of data points) in a Shelter feature service. As the data is changed, we’ve asked ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate to post a status update message to a Microsoft Teams channel to update our staff, write a history layer to Excel, and update a “history” GIS layer, showing all the changes that have been made to this data over time.

Want to see how others are creatively using ArcGIS for Power Automate? Check out these blog posts: community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-for-power-automate-blog/bg-p/arcgis-for-power-automate-blog

?5.?????? ArcGIS for SharePoint

BLUF: Did you know you can show list data in a map view within SharePoint? This is most useful for organizations who reference lists of data in SharePoint, which we’ve seen when multiple organizations need to access the same data, at the same time, securely within the Microsoft system. With the most recent update, you now can show those datasets in a map view, embedded within the SharePoint site itself. So not only are you able to see your data lists, but you’re also able to see them spatially, as well.?

Technical Capabilities:

There are key technical capabilities of the updated ArcGIS for SharePoint:

• There is a map web part that allows you to add ArcGIS software-based maps directly to your SharePoint sites.?
• You can treat SharePoint Lists as GIS layers by geocoding the items on the list to put them on a map.
• You can also do 2D and 3D geotagging of files and even see plans in a 3D environment.

To learn more, check this out: Get started with ArcGIS for SharePoint learn lesson: learn.arcgis.com/en/projects/get-started-with-arcgis-for-sharepoint/

Why Is All This Important?

Emergency management organizations frequently use ArcGIS apps like ArcGIS Dashboards, ArcGIS StoryMaps, and ArcGIS Survey123. We like to think of these apps as “windows” that allow you to look at your data a bit differently depending on what you need to do with it. The Microsoft family of apps that we’ve discussed above extends the ArcGIS apps to give you additional “windows” into your data, using tools from Microsoft that you likely use every day.

As an executive, it’s important to know that leveraging these two systems means everyone within your organization is working with the same information across a broad range of tools and capabilities. From the perspective of GIS analysts, it allows them to leverage their colleagues and get them to use, manipulate, and manage geospatial data—that means more people working together to solve wicked problems with current data.