LOGIC to Merge with Indigo Beam

Indigo Beam and LOGIC Solutions Group are excited to announce our impending merger.

Together the companies will become a leading mid-size consulting firm servicing the Oil & Gas, Government, Manufacturing, and Services industries.

While the merger will diversify and deepen our offerings, the move also brings together the management teams and consultants who have previous experience working together for over ten years at Idea Integration. The new firm will be a true collaboration – a joining of two dedicated consulting firms similar in background and culture, with practice strengths that are complementary and will enable us to expand resources. Operationally, the two brands will remain intact to preserve the equity established in the marketplace over the years. Todd Buehlman and Mitchell Atwood will stay at the helm of LOGIC Solutions Group and Adarsh Karia, Indigo Beam founder will lead their organization.

Both firms are extremely proud of the quality of their teams, services and enterprise information management acumen.

If you are a LOGIC Solution Group client, you can expect the same focus, the same high-quality service and the same team that you have come to know.

Our businesses will operate as usual with a few added benefits:

• Larger economies of scale. The merger will effectively increase the size of our organizations by 2.5x, translating into increased service offerings, an expanded pool of resources, and collaboration across clients.
• Familiar leadership. Todd, Adarsh, and Mitchell have worked together for nearly a decade at Idea Integration and during the initial iteration of LOGIC Solutions Group.
• Well-acquainted teams. Many of the consultants from each organization are familiar with one another and have worked together previously.
• Ease of integration. With a shared background and similar business models and processes, we look forward to team collaboration and knowledge growth.  
• Combined offices. The LOGIC team will be moving into the Indigo Beam offices in the towers at Westheimer and Beltway, just a couple miles away from our current location.

We hope you will join us in celebrating this major milestone as it provides an exciting opportunity.

We look forward to delivering a range of expertise and a quality of service unmatched by any enterprise information management firm. The prospect of working alongside a team of people we admire, respect, and trust has all of us ready for the next chapter.   

LOGIC Solutions Group appreciates the time and opportunities we have been afforded us thus far! You will hear much more about the combination soon, but we wanted to communicate this information as quickly as possible.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

FME Summer Camp: Dive In With Databases

No summer is complete without a trip to camp. Our go-to summer camp just so happens to be FME Summer Camp. We’re breaking out the s’mores and joining fellow FME users throughout the summer to learn what FME 2018 brings with new database formats, enhanced formats, and a game-changing transformer! 

This week, we are hearing from LOGIC team member, Muneer who recently attended FME Summer Camp Session 1 – Deep Dive into Databases.  

Camp Report: Session 1

After attending FME Summer Camp, Muneer shared:

The session opened with a briefing on the new data format readers/writers in FME 2018, namely the TERADATA, SAP HANA, Geodatabase on SAP HANA and finally the one I was quite interested in exploring further, ESRI geodatabase mosaic writer.

Following the updates overview, there was a short demo on the mosaic writer. During the demo, I was thinking of the numerous workflows from my past experience where this capability would have been a very productive application. Exciting preview!

Game Changing Transformer

I was also intrigued by the new FeatureJoiner transformer which supersedes the legacy FeatureMerger transformer. The FeatureJoiner gives you various direct methods to make your data join based on either implicit one-to-one or one-to-many relationships and also presents an out of the box resolver for resulting conflicts. The new transformer is pretty sweet, although the FeatureMerger is still available for users who prefer the merge method.

Summer Camp Session 1 Rating 5/5

The FME team also gave updates on data harmonization and tips for reducing data load risks with FME. These were two valuable topics which I will definitely be looking to apply in future projects.

On the whole, the session was very well planned and the list of topics covered were quite invaluable to my knowledge base. If these topics sound interesting, you can watch FME Summer Camp Session 1 – Deep Dive into Databases. 

Please reach out if you have any FME questions or need assistance with an FME project, LOGIC is 1 of a small set of FME Partners in the US. 

LOGIC's Esri Enterprise GIS Managed Services

Oil and Gas GIS Teams Trust the Esri Platform

Enterprise GIS technology, like the oil and gas industry, is ever-changing. Local operators, downstream producers, and international companies rely on Esri functions to keep their business and GIS practice running strong. The LOGIC team is no exception, we are longtime Esri users, Business Partners and have a 20-year history with the Esri Natural Resources team.

As part of LOGIC Solutions Group’s continuing effort to better serve our oil and gas clients, we now offer Esri Enterprise GIS Managed Services.

Our Team Is Your Team

Our team acknowledges that Esri Enterprise GIS administration is a highly specialized skill that not all IT personnel or oil and gas companies possess. LOGIC’s Esri Enterprise GIS Managed Services include the very best in Esri management, cloud solutions, and cost savings.

Our GIS specialists work with clients to assess their environment and create a strategic Esri Enterprise GIS management plan. This plan ensures that your Esri Platform is running and optimized to meet your company’s goals. LOGIC's Esri Enterprise GIS Managed Services allow GIS departments and users to focus on their work, rather than their system.

LOGIC provides Esri Enterprise GIS Managed Services with a well-defined SLA, whether your Enterprise GIS is on site or in the cloud.

On-Going Support

Once your environment is managed by our GIS Specialists, we stay connected to your organization. We help you optimize your Esri capabilities to get the results you're looking for.

Standard Services

• System monitoring, error reporting, and exception handling
• System optimization based on pre-determined metrics such as map services response time
• Reboot protocol and communication plan
• Applying patches
• System upgrade for Enterprise GIS once a year
• Map service publishing at the setup for up to 30 maps
• Basic map publishing with Web AppBuilder at the setup for up to 3 maps
• Desktop support and desktop upgrades are not in scope  

Advanced Services – Includes Standard Services above plus:

• Custom widget development
• Automation with Safe Software FME
• Additional or advanced data or map authoring
• Training or documentation
• Desktop support or upgrades

Getting It Right

Our goal is simple: creating technology solutions that deliver the right data at the right time in the right place for oil and gas companies. With each Esri Enterprise GIS Managed Services project, we promise to deliver the visibility and transparency of data and to ensure your Esri environment is working properly.

_____________________________________________________________

Let’s explore what LOGIC Esri Enterprise GIS Managed Services can do for your company.

Contact our team

Esri Enterprise GIS in the Cloud

So many reasons to use the cloud… Scale to meet demand. Ensure reliable performance. Reduce infrastructure costs. Kick off new projects with a fast, flexible deployment. Esri and Microsoft’s partnership has made it simple for you to run Enterprise GIS in the cloud. For example, ready-to-go instances of ArcGIS Enterprise are available for popular cloud-based platforms including Microsoft Azure.

What’s Available?

Esri’s Enterprise GIS suite is now accessible via Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, leveraging a growing collection of integrated cloud services. Enjoy all the capabilities of Esri Enterprise GIS on Azure’s virtual desktop. Visualize, edit, and analyze geographic data in both 2D and 3D, and securely share your work with others.

A Local Mid-Tier Oli & Gas Company Moves to Esri On Azure

LOGIC Solutions Group recently migrated a mid-tier Oil & Gas company’s Esri Enterprise GIS environment into the Microsoft Azure Cloud. 

The operator had a stable, on-premises Enterprise GIS instance but has been moving more and more applications to the cloud in order to decrease their hardware footprint, costs, and management. The time had come to upgrade to the Enterprise GIS, so the decision was made to upgrade and migrate at the same time to Azure.

By spinning up instances of Esri Enterprise in Azure:

• Our client does not have to maintain hardware infrastructure
• Servers can be added or removed as demand requires
• Deployment can be addressed via templates to expedite cycle times and ensure uniformity
• The LOGIC services team can manage the back-end servers via a managed services contract and the client can focus on the data and value to the enterprise

“Our end-users were excited about the look and feel of the upgraded version and never even knew that we had migrated to the cloud.” - Local Mid-Tier Oil & Gas GIS Manager

Enterprise Ready

Esri Enterprise GIS users can harness the power of Microsoft’s scalable cloud infrastructure while maintaining full control of geospatial assets. You get distributed processing power to work with real-time GIS technology so you can:

• Monitor and analyze real-time data feeds from any type of sensor
• Process and analyze massive amounts of satellite and remote sensing imagery
• Perform space-time analysis on large datasets up to billions of data points

________________________________________________________________

The LOGIC team can help you understand the process of migrating your Esri Enterprise GIS to the cloud, build out a plan and manage your environment.

Contact us to explore the benefits of leveraging Microsoft Azure with your Esri Enterprise GIS environment.

2018 FME World Tour - 6 Reasons To Attend

Our team has participated in the past two FME World Tours and each year, we are blown away by Safe Software’s annual event. From locations to food and top notch subject matter experts, the Safe team does an outstanding job!

This year you can expect the same day-long format with topics focused on new features, industries, and peer-to-peer networking.

Here are the 6 reasons you should attend the 2018 FME World Tour in a location near you.

1. Hear real-life FME success stories.
2. Discover what’s amazing in the most recent release of FME.
3. Cool Swag (but really, check it out)!
4. Learn tips and best practices you can apply to projects.
5. The LOGIC team is presenting at 3 stops on the 2018 FME World Tour.
6. Low event cost. The total cost for this educational event is $25.00(USD).

Not to mention Safe Software reports, “one thing that virtually all past attendees (99.7% last year) can agree on – it’s that they’d recommend the FME World Tour to a friend.”

Check out our recap post from 2017’s world tour.

___________________________________________________________________

We are excited to announce that LOGIC Solutions Group will be presenting at 3 world tour stops:

Houston - The Westin Houston, Memorial City | Monday, April 9, 2018

Dallas -  Westin Dallas Downtown | Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Denver - The Westin Denver Downtown | Friday, April 13, 2018

Todd Buehlman and Orlando McDowelle will be speaking on how Oil & Gas companies use FME to improve data, leading to improved business insights. 

Todd and Orlando will be expanding on the idea that the FME toolset is becoming ubiquitous in the oil and gas industry and is required to make sense of the vast amounts of data, both internal and commercial. Oil & Gas companies have numerous commercial, contracted and internal data sets and struggle to synthesize, load and get them to the right people and systems. 

We hope you are as excited about the FME World Tour as we are! Please reach out if you have any questions regarding the event.

You can register for any FME World Tour city at https://www.safe.com/worldtour/

Source: Safe Software

Hurricane Harvey Relief

Houston and the surrounding area is home for LOGIC. Our team, customers, family and friends have all been affected by Hurricane Harvey. As we all begin the process of rebuilding and moving forward, please keep us in your thoughts.

As Harvey’s aftermath continues to unfold, many organizations are doing vital work to help save lives and give comfort.

If you feel compelled to lend a helping hand, we’ve compiled a list of vetted, local places to donate and helpful resources.  LOGIC isn't endorsing or vouching for any of these groups. It's always a good idea to do a bit of research on any charity before you donate to it. One place to start is Charity Navigator.

Places to Donate:

Living Hope Wheel Chair Association
http://www.lhwassociation.org/donate

Help Harvey Victims on Dialysis
https://www.gofundme.com/the-good-campaign

EMERGE Harvey Relief Fund
https://www.gofundme.com/emerge-harvey-relief-fund

Portlight Strategies
http://www.portlight.org/home.html

Texas SPCA
https://www.spca.org/news_hurricane-harvey

Houston Food Bank
http://www.houstonfoodbank.org/

Resources:

Area Information
http://harveyneeds.org/

Shelter Map
https://johnnyqbui.github.io/Houston-Shelters/

Words of Advice
https://www.facebook.com/jayeesha/posts/10154606903802130

Flood Resources
http://organizetexas.org/houston-flood-resources/

How to Transfer Web Apps Between Users or Different Versions in Web AppBuilder

(Source: Esri)

We all love Web AppBuilder.

Web AppBuilder makes life so much easier when creating and deploying Web Apps with out-of-the-box and custom widgets. One specific thing I’ve noticed is Web AppBuilder allows you to import local apps or your own portal account, but it doesn’t allow the transfer of apps between different accounts. Also, if you are transferring one or two apps, you could download a zip, and share it with your colleagues. But, what happens if you are transferring, say, 10 apps or 50?

So, let’s get down to business: How to Transfer Web Apps Between Users or Different Versions in Web AppBuilder.

The portal request for the list of apps for a user looks something like this: 

https://<server.fqdn.com>:3344/webappbuilder/rest/apps/list?username=<portaluser>&portalUrl=<FQDN-URL>

You can grab a list of apps for any user by changing the username parameter in this URL above. Magic!!! 

via GIPHY

Okay, let’s not get carried away - this is still step one. To find the actual file where changes could be made, I dug around the files, and it hit me that the URL matches a folder structure on the Web AppBuilder. So, the JavaScript files on the server approximate much of what Portal uses for various content management tasks. 

Further analysis uncovered the exact path for the file which contains the list: 

C:\<path>\arcgis-web-appbuilder-2.x\WebAppBuilderForArcGIS\server\db\apps

This file has no extension but can be opened with any JSON text viewing application. 

Below is an example entry:

Once we understood this is the source, all you have to do is replace the “creator” and “modified” JSON items with the new username who will be the new owner of the app, and voilà! After you find and replace the username, launch the startup.bat and relaunch the Web AppBuilder browser. Voilà again!

Now, let’s say you are having to do a fresh install or move to the latest version of the Web AppBuilder.

Good news - you can copy your apps to the apps folder:

C:\<path>\arcgis-web-appbuilder-2.x\WebAppBuilderForArcGIS\server\apps

Then copy corresponding and relevant entries to the app file we discussed earlier: ‪

C:\<path>\arcgis-web-appbuilder-2.x\WebAppBuilderForArcGIS\server\db\apps. 

This will get the apps to show up correctly in the Web AppBuilder main page. Ain’t this great! (Texan for voilà!)

Make sure to stop and start the node.js when you make any changes, and keep tabs on which apps you are copying and the location of the corresponding text.

We are happy to help.

As always, if you run into any trouble or have questions and want to learn more about Web AppBuilder, reach out to the LOGIC team Info[at]logicsolutionsgroup.com!

2017 Esri UC - The Science of Where

Last week was the 2017 Esri UC and apparently the largest Esri UC to date with almost 18,000 attendees.  The excitement and amount of people was evident during the Monday morning kickoff / plenary session with a packed house and hundreds standing in the back trying to get a glimpse of the enigmatic Jack Dangermond.  Whenever a wave of claustrophobia came over, I thought about the fact that Comic-Con actually fills the San Diego Convention Center to capacity each year with 130,000 interesting characters.

Here are my thoughts on the plenary and the days that followed.

The plenary focused on The Science of Where, a curious tagline that inundated the conference.  As it sounds, the science of where attempts to conflate sciencey bits with GIS, which is definitely true.  GIS analysts do amazing and rigorous observation and analysis as well as work through hypotheses and theorems.  Though, much of GIS focuses on managing assets spatially, not exactly science.  Overall, the message was appreciated. 

Monday evening after the plenary, LOGIC hosted our UC Dinner Cruise. Nearly 60 industry colleagues (including folks from BP, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, BHP Billiton, EnerVest, Marathon, Colonial Pipeline, Esri, Safe Software / FME, etc) enjoyed dinner, drinks and a cruise around the bay. As always, it was a good time, and we look forward to hosting it again next year.

Tuesday, the plethora of great sessions began to overwhelm, though I focused in on the Spatiotemporal Data store/ GeoEvent processor/ GeoAnalytics talks. The ability to create and dynamically filter and summarize event-driven layers is beyond cool.  I have a feeling this movement will revolutionize the way GIS data is captured and consumed.  Good stuff!

That afternoon, we hung around the oil and gas user papers presentation area and caught a great talk from our client, EnerVest, about their evolution to Enterprise GIS.  Nathan Wood of EnerVest talked about using the Esri platform and FME to change the way data was created and leveraged within the organization, and where LOGIC provided assistance! Nice work, Nathan.

Tuesday evening was another successful outdoors Petroleum Users Group Social overlooking the bay with hundreds of peers from the industry sharing stories.  Thanks to Danny Spillmann, Geoff Wade and the gang for delivering a fun event. Nice vibe in the industry.

As always, the Esri UC is a nice break from the summer heat in Houston as well as a good time overall.  Great catching up with colleagues and clients and hearing about what is on the horizon for Esri. Until next year!

Author:

Todd Buehlman

,  LOGIC Vice President - Business Solutions

Two New Widgets

We recently rolled out two new widgets, bringing our catalog count up to eight! Similar to our other widgets, the Advanced Save State and Advanced SharePoint Search and Filter widgets are designed to streamline complex or multi-step tasks. Our widgets do the leg work to make daily tasks for GIS departments and users easy and integrated.

Meet the new widgets.

The Advanced Save State Widget allows you to save and share graphics and other map parameters with Portal groups or individuals. 

Thoughts from the LOGIC team: Pretty cool!

The Advanced SharePoint Search and Filter Widget allows you to pre-filter results based on selected refiners. Users are then able to select additional features to compare the pre-filtered data against (such as wells), with the widget returning related documents from SharePoint. 

Thoughts from the LOGIC team: Definite time saver!

To learn more about our new widgets and tour our widget catalog, visit: http://logicsolutionsgroup.com/widgets/

FME Does It Again!

It’s no surprise that FME put on an amazing conference again! Last week closed out Safe Software’s 2017 FME User Conference in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia at the Vancouver Convention Centre. 

The LOGIC team was represented and put together a first-hand tour of the happenings in and around the FME UC this year.

The Plenary for the win!

Though pre-conference meetings started on Monday, the official conference opened on Wednesday with the morning plenary session. We noted a solid spread of baked goods and fruits, but the smoothie bar took the cake both in form and function. We can appreciate a well-designed system of any kind!

The art pieces hanging from the ceiling were a hit and had us waxing philosophically. The complex, interconnected structures represent the challenges companies have trying to deal with varied and messy data, while the egg shape represents the promise of rebirth and renewal using FME.

What can we say…it was 8:00am and we were all in!

After juicing up on coffee and smoothies, folks began filing into the main hall for the plenary session. I was drawn by the alluring sounds of electronica from the hall and to my pleasant surprise, a live DJ was wooing the attendees as they arrived.

8:30 am DJ.

Almost an oxymoron, but I liked it!

As I settled in, I began to examine the schwag bag that was handed out at registration as the FME team is known for great schwag. Wow!

Great stuff, tote bag, funky socks, water bottle… actual usable stuff.

Another home run, and I haven’t even gotten to the “learning” part yet!

During the session kick-off, Dale and Don, kingpins of FME, did a short intro and welcomed us to the event.

Two humble, affable, down-to-earth guys that are clearly having the time of their lives building an empire out of what they love.

Dale and Don graciously introduced us to Astronaut Chris Austin Hadfieldwho spent over an hour talking to us about the power of change and how we were all problem solvers, just like his astronaut crews.

Chris was truly inspiring - even if re-projecting a data set from NAD 27 to NAD 83 is not quite like doing an emergency spacewalk to patch your ship, but hey! We’ll take it!

Outside the Convention Centre

If you happen to visit Vancouver, a must see is the area surrounding the Convention Centre. There is a giant Orca that looks like it is about to come to life like in Disney’s Pixels movie and a steady flow of cruise ships picking up or dropping off people from their tour of Alaska. Next time, we might jump aboard and make a little side trip before or after the conference! 

The FME UC Social – A.K.A. Better than the parties you see on Silicon Valley or other UC’s. These pictures really need no introduction. We soaked it in.

That robot is standing next to the one, the only, our very own - Justin Piwetz.

Yes. Those are GIS themed cake pops.

We came home with some hardware!

LOGIC was recognized for our ability to provide valuable business solutions

to our clients in the upstream, midstream and pipeline space.

Sure, we use technology to solve problems and FME is a go-to in our tool belt, but the end goal is to help our clients run their business better, faster, and cost effectively; not to install cool tech for cool tech’s sake.

We appreciate the recognition from Safe Software, it is always nice to get a shout out for following good business practices.

In closing, besides learning how other companies are approaching FME and solving complex business issues, Safe Software puts on quite a conference. We’ll be back next time for sure!

Please let us know if you would like to discuss how we might use tools like FME to help you solve your business challenges.

We’re headed to the FME UC, pretty exciting eh?

The LOGIC team is excited to be attending and presenting at the FME UC in Vancouver next week!  On May 24th, hundreds of data experts will be arriving at the FME International User Conference. More than 100 sessions will focus on this year’s theme of shaping our world with data, giving us an even greater opportunity to sharpen our skills, gain knowledge, and connect with other global FME users.

We’re especially looking forward to:

1.    Sharing our clients’ FME success stories. We will be talking about how our clients are using FME to improve data quality, conflate commercial, government and company data sets and enrich data through automated analysis.  If you’ll be in Vancouver, be sure to catch our session: FMEHelps Oil & Gas Companies Save Time and Enrich Data on Wednesday, May 24, 2017 from 1:00 - 1:30pm in VCC West Room 118.

2.    Connecting with FME users. We are looking forward to learning how others are using the latest and greatest transformers and FME tools to bring value to their work. FME users are doing seriously innovative stuff with their data, and the 2017 speaker line-up is stacked with over 100 data experts from around the world. The quality and magnitude of presentations is going to be epic.

3.    Keynote with Astronaut Chris Hadfield. Chris is the First Canadian Commander of the International Space Station (2013) and will be leading the conference opening comments.  Very cool!

If you’re attending the FME UC, connect with us while you are there! Email Todd to get the details: todd.buehlman[at]logicsolutionsgroup.com or connect with us on LinkedIn

Keep an eye out for more FME news from Vancouver as we head into next week.

Good Vibes at the 2017 Esri Petroleum GIS Conference

The Esri Petroleum Conference (formerly known as “PUG”) has always been our staple industry event during the year, although due to external circumstances, the past few years have been quiet. This year, however, was one of the best local GIS events in recent history. Our own Mitchell Atwood summed it up nicely in his LinkedIn post:

“On behalf of LOGIC Solutions Group, thank you for a great Esri Petroleum Conference 2017 in Houston this week; always good to catch up with long term relationships and establish new ones. There is a nice vibe in the O&G industry and you can see the optimism in people’s faces. Thank you for the opportunity to be part of it.”

LOGIC highlights from the conference include solid presentations, fun times at the expo and overall, a great job by the Esri events team. Check out the finer points below.

Solid presentations from some locals.

There were a lot of sessions with valuable information and innovative ideas presented. We were specifically excited about the

Green Field Enterprise Web GIS Implementation at EnerVest - Value Created and Lessons Learned.

Bill Keller led this session by highlighting the value of Enterprise GIS and the role LOGIC played in making it happen.

As a Chief Geophysicist, Bill brings a ton of credibility and spoke to the value Enterprise GIS delivers to business like no other.

We also all unanimously enjoyed the plenary. It is extremely fascinating to see how well choreographed these events are. Obviously, lots of practice goes into the event.

High attendance made for a really fun Expo.

This was our 5th year at the conference and this year we had a lot of fun at our booth. Thanks to everyone that stopped by to chat widgets, learn more about our project with EnerVest or just say hi!

We had lots of cool swag but the crowd favorite (by far) was the LOGIC t-shirts –they went like hot cakes.

Hope you got one!

The Esri team put on a great event!

From stellar sessions and solid hands on labs – the Esri team rocked the conference. One change that our team noted was moving the social to the last day of the conference. The turnout for the social was remarkable even though this was the first time the gathering was on the last day of the conference. This speaks directly to this year’s attendee energy level.

Our time at the Grove was a lot of fun as always. The weather was perfect and the food was delicious.

We weren't the only ones with smiles on, the George R. Brown Convention Center has had a delightful face lift since the last time we were there. Check out this neat sculpture that sits right outside the doors:

Not to be outdone by the George Brown, the new Marriott next door has a Texas shaped lazy river. Not bad Marriott, the LOGIC team co-signs on this!

Always a good conference, looking forward to next year! The plenary videos and presentations should be released by Esri soon, until then, check out the photos!

FME World Tour 2017

Thursday, April 7th was the 2017 FME World Tour in Houston. Safe Software’s yearly road trip aims to promote and educate on the FME platform. We’ve been looking forward to the 2017 edition since last year’s FME WT! In addition to the LOGICians there (thanks Lisa), it was great to see so many local energy firms in attendance.

Here are some of our observations from the 2017 FME World Tour Houston.

Safe Software is continuing to invest in FME

FME is such a powerful tool for ETL (Extract > Transform > Load), data enrichment and data conflation for oil and gas companies, so I was happy to hear Safe Software is continuing to invest in their tool by growing the number of out-of-the-box connectors. They are also updating their already solid user interfaces, including the FME Server experience.

FME fosters a collaborative community

Safe Software continues to build upon the community aspect of FME through interactive and fun learning opportunities. This year, they asked folks to huddle into teams to answer technical questions in the hope of winning swag – something all conference attendees (including myself) love.  This activity definitely got everyone engaged and thinking about FME. The LOGIC team came home with a few topics to brainstorm.

LOGIC and FME in 2017

This week we’ll be presenting a paper at the 2017 Esri Petroleum GIS Conference, focusing on an FME implementation with our client, EnerVest. The Green Field Enterprise Web GIS Implementation at EnerVest allowed the GIS team to automate data downloading, cleanup, conflation, spatialization and loading into ArcSDE.  This type of FME engagement helps oil and gas companies focus on finding or producing oil and gas instead of manual data massaging or script writing.

To further our FME knowledge, two of our team members will be attending the FME User Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, May 24-26th. The FME UC, is focused on technical “how-tos”, learning tips for your data, and getting answers to your trickiest integration questions. Let us know if you have any technical questions you want answered and we’ll do our best to get the info for you at the UC. Submit your questions to Todd. (todd.buehlman[at]logicsolutionsgroup.com)

If you haven’t been to an FME World Tour, make plans to join us next year, the event and accompanying community are awesome. Going forward, we have plans to continue utilizing and promoting FME as a powerful (and cost effective) ETL platform. Please let us know if you have any related FME questions. 

Attending Esri Developer Summit 2017

Author: Garima Vyas

I recently attended Esri Dev Summit 2017

and I must admit, I found the conference to be an amazing experience. Palm Springs is the best place to hold a conference in March. Such beautiful weather and views, I was sad to leave.

This was my first time attending the Dev Summit as a software user and the agenda did not disappoint. Even though I went to the conference with a predetermined set of favorited sessions in the Esri Events app, I did quite a bit of rearranging after watching the plenary on Tuesday, March 7 and then the keynote on Wednesday, March 8.

Here is Andrew Turner showcasing GeoBots - Ask Alexa:

Here are my top 7 conference highlights:

1. Internet of Things Sessions

There were several Internet of Things (IoT) based technical sessions. These sessions presented everything IoT, from the smallest known computer: Raspberry Pi to Arduino like microcontrollers. 

I was amazed by the amount of work the Esri Prototype lab has accomplished and the wide range of implementations using various gadgets. Nice job team!

To learn more, look for videos from the following sessions:

a) GeoEvent Server: IoT by Morakot Pilouk

b) IoT and Indoor Tracking with Raspberry Pi, by Mark Baird

c) Latest Innovations from Esri’s Prototype Lab

2. Virtual Reality Live Demos

Exploring Virtual Reality (VR) with ArcGIS: Rex Hansen, Pascal Mueller and Adrien Meriaux presented this Esri Technical Session where there were several demos and walkthroughs of how to create 3D content and experiences for GIS data. I was completely blown away by the live demos, one of my favorites was the Esri HoloMaps.

Here is one shot using snapchat spectacles:

3. Charging Stations

Although the bean bag chairs were deeply missed this year, the loungers with power plugs were very popular. I never once found an empty chair.

4. Thursday Night Party

Throw carnival in the mix of a dodgeball game, you only get some fun times. So many games and a couple of fun rides before the dodgeball tournament made for an exhausting conference, but I’m ready to go back next year!

5. Esri Events app

I must give kudos to the Esri Events app. The app let me filter and categorize sessions based on technology, expertise levels, room or location of the sessions among other things. It also let me take notes which I later emailed and shared with colleagues. I could type and sync notes from my laptop, iPad or iPhone and not miss out on anything.

6. Food and Outdoor Lunch Areas

I was disappointed in the food at the conference. Very limited meatless options (cold wraps, salads or fruits). Next time, I plan to stock myself up with bars and other snacks. Walking an average of 6-7 miles from 8 am-8 pm everyday requires major fuel. Also, I was surprised that the lunch area didn’t feature more umbrellas since the Palm Springs’ sun was shining bright. The events team did try to help by walking around handing out sunscreen packets and reminding you to put the sunscreen on. However, a little more shade would have made lunching outside more enjoyable.

7. Plenty of Session Options

There was a lot going on at the conference simultaneously. I ran around attending as many sessions as possible and could only catch about 20% of the conference due to overlapping sessions. This is not necessarily a bad thing but I did have a tough time getting over my fear of missing out, #FOMO. I am working on my list of 20 remaining sessions by going over the videos and slides as they are added to the Esri Event's You Tube channel. 

Below is my personal gallery of photos captured. Enjoy!

If you are considering going next year and have any questions, feel free to reach out to me garima.vyas[at]logicsolutionsgroup.com

LOGIC Celebrates 5 Years!

As LOGIC celebrates our five-year anniversary, we reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going.

Most of us began working together as far back as 2000 and later created LOGIC Solutions Group. With industry support, client backing and second-to-none consultants, this decidedly new business focused our core strengths – information management centered on GIS in Oil & Gas. Initially, we set up shop with a few executive offices in City Centre. During this time, (mostly spent back to back in small offices), we learned a lesson that has become the central pillar of our practice: trust is everything.

Show people exactly who you are and where your focus is. They will either run for the hills or become lifelong friends and evangelists. So far, so good!

We diligently began hitting the market for consulting opportunities, hired on a handful of consultants, secured several pieces of business and began managing P&L statements that were more “L” than “P” in the beginning. Quarterly meetings were held at 4-top and 6-top tables with impassioned discussions of conquering the consulting world.

Slowly but surely, we increased momentum as more and more clients trusted us with their initiatives. We were also able to solidify LOGIC with top-notch, relationship-based consultants while continuing to strengthen our long term relationship with Esri and we furthered this relationship by securing offices alongside Esri Houston in 2013. Proximity allowed collaboration and partnering opportunities while our team continued to grow. At the same time, we were building a relationship with Safesoft’s FME, formalized a partnership focused on O&G workflows and presented a couple of client success stories at the FME World Tour.

We also started working with two supermajors on their strategic vision for geospatial data management. We began building out roadmaps and supporting projects for one and helped to implement a cutting edge, state of the art enterprise GIS solution for the other. When scaled, these larger deployments created domain knowledge and opportunities to deliver similar engagements with a handful of large mid-tiers, small operators and pipeline service providers.

We’re all in this together for the long haul, side-by-side. No matter where you are or what you’re doing.

2015: OUCH! We’ve all experienced an industry downturn of epic proportions.

We were able to put out wildfire after wildfire by being open, honest and communicating with our clients - these same clients have stuck by us as the industry continues to improve. With this openness, we’ve managed to remain profitable, retain long term relationships with our consultants, and provide a solid, fun place to work while continuing to provide value to our clients.

LOGIC is a team of both our consultants and our clients. Regular events and interactions give us insight into how we can grow our consulting practice, what direction they see the industry heading and how their communication needs and preferences are evolving.

As momentum shifts from crisis control to the new normal of lower commodity prices, companies are still figuring out how to operate in this phase of O&G history. Over the last year, we’ve added new talent to our team and expect that trend to continue as the industry improves.

What do 2017 and beyond hold?

By remaining true to our founding principles, our clients hold our business partnerships in high regard. Our drive to better serve our clients is setting the stage for new strategic partnerships and technologies for us to keep delivering cutting-edge solutions.

The industry will look different going forward, and so will we. Although we’ve gotten leaner and smarter, we’ll still be providing clients with continued value and deliver innovative information management and GIS for the oil and gas industry. We look forward to working with you!

Recent Projects: Highlights Of Our Work On The Website and Blog

The mini case studies are aimed at providing insight into the business and technical challenges facing your peers, the industry and our team. Each one will highlight the challenge, the solution, current project status and any realized benefits.

We’ll be covering the updates on the blog. Keep an eye out and reach out with any questions.

Global Database Upgrades for Major Oil & Gas Company

ArcSDE

is Esri's technology for accessing and managing geospatial data within relational databases. ArcSDE geodatabases allow you to use other Esri products, such as ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Server, as well as custom applications to store, use, and manage all your GIS data in one database management system.

Recently our team led a global ArcSDE upgrade effort for a major oil and gas company. Over the course of the project, our team worked with dozens of offices around the world to remotely upgrade and test the involved databases using a mix of scripts and test plans.

As a result of collaborative planning and clear communication, the upgrade was completed with no hiccups or unexpected issues. Our client quickly regained use of ArcSDE to fulfill day-to-day needs with some additional features delivered by the upgrade.

Spatial Data Management Workflow Automation with FME for Super Major Business Unit

Our client manages an enormous amount of data. Ingesting, synthesizing and distributing data are the responsibilities of the Data Management team. Our team worked with the client to understand their goals, systems and data functions.

Enter Safe Software’s FME, which allows for the automated flow of data between applications. From there, we helped them build out a robust Extract, Transform and Load architecture that leverages Esri’s ArcGIS Platform, Python, SQL and FME suite in order to meet their daily data needs.   

The development of spatial data management workflows has allowed the large E&P to automate many data transfers, improve quality and enrich data for improved business function. The workflows are taking care of those data tasks we all face each day and is still operating while the team gets some much needed sleep – we are talking lifesaver status!

So far, automated workflows have been applied to:

· IHS

· Drillinginfo

· P2/Tobin

· Rextag/HART

· Internal databases

Customized Portal Tools for Advanced Selection, Filtering, and Display Capabilities to Denver based Operator

This project included the need to optimize a smaller Portal for AcrGIS environment, and to provide a custom Portal Theme with an advanced selection and filtering tool. The result was a solution which stabilizes and adds advanced features to Esri Table Control, giving it more functional power.

The custom Esri Theme allows our client to easily spin up new Web Applications via Web AppBuilder.

Some benefits of the new environment include:

· Stable ArcGIS for Portal environment (no more random error messages)

· Advanced filtering of data on map

· Advanced visualization choice of the data

· Ease of Web Application authoring and deployment

Global Geospatial Data Management Assessment for Super Major with Detailed Roadmap and Implementation Deliverables

The LOGIC team led a geospatial data management assessment for an international integrated Super Major. The project began by analyzing the current spatial and related data management environment and resulted in providing a roadmap to move their GIS efforts forward.

The main focus of the assessment was Upstream, however with any comprehensive roadmap, Midstream and Downstream were taken into account. 

Here are a few highlights of the strategic assessment areas that were addressed.

A detailed implementation roadmap including timeline and budget were delivered at the completion of the assessment. 

·  Geospatial data governance:

· Governance structure, processes and procedures

· Roles and responsibility

· Data standards

· Geospatial data architecture:

· Data classification framework

· Data architecture

· Physical architecture

· Security

Please contact LOGIC today for further questions on any of the projects mentioned.

Hello World - 2016 is off to the races!

Written by:  Todd Buehlman, LOGIC Solutions Group

Hello World (tip of the hat to our coders out there). 2016 is officially off to the races! Of course, at near $30 oil and much indication it is going to get worse before it gets better, maybe some want to slink back to 2015…or better yet, 2014. 

Well, only time will tell.  Many think we may be able to clear the glut by early summer and some are hopeful that movement from Saudi Arabia and OPEC will speed a recovery along but that all remains to be seen.

Even while we in the O&G industry are looking for steady ground underneath us, Esri is moving forward with new WebApps, widgets, data types, administration tools and functionality on “The Platform”. ArcGIS Online continues to grow in terms of administrative and map making control.  In addition, as ArcGIS Online evolves, so does Portal and the rest of the WebApps and widgets we all want and need. All of which is good news. 

The LOGIC team is working towards our second widgets release (read more on our first release if you missed it). Our focus on GIS has not waned as our clients (you!) are busier than ever and trying to do more with less.  Enterprise GIS, Portal, Widgets and Safesofts’s FME will be our focus this year as we work to establish or stabilize our client’s environments, expand their capabilities with Portal and Widgets and help save time while improving data quality and richness with FME.

No one can see into the future, but as is always the case, this too shall pass. Hang tight, let’s get efficient and have a good time doing it!

Have a great 2016 from the LOGIC crew.  More blogs to come this year as we dive deeper into FME, Spotfire, more widgets and other hopefully salient topics.  Feedback or requests are always appreciated.

LOGIC’s Widget Library and The End of Platform “Bolt-Ons”

Without in-house expertise or ever tightening bandwidth, an enterprise Esri setup and configuration can be daunting.  The push to possibly shorten time-to-market, increase out of the box functionality or to manage lag time between major Esri releases for a company’s first Web Map can result in the purchase of 3^rd party products that advertise to be a bolt-on and accelerator to the Esri framework.

Although the 3^rd party tool may have done the trick for a particular instance, the environment now has an added layer of complexity that still needs to be maintained… and paid for.

Why not start managing Esri with Esri. Publishing powerful WebApps with Esri tools makes managing Esri from within the Platform free and easy. With ArcGIS for Server, Portal for ArcGIS 10.3+ and Web AppBuilder, you can leave behind those 3^rd party tools. Setting up and maintaining the Esri tools for specific functions within your organization is now a breeze for in-house GIS departments or outside experts.

In addition to Esri’s pre-made tools, LOGIC is happy to debut our LOGIC Widget Library. Today, we released the first phase of cost effective widgets for the Oil & Gas market. Saving time on repetitive or multi-click tasks in a map in order to access business critical information lets geoscientists and Land Men make better and quicker decisions.

Our widgets are designed to take complicated or multi-step tasks and streamline them. We've done the legwork to make daily tasks for GIS departments and users easy and integrated. 

Our widgets include:

• Energy IQ Trusted Data Manager Integrator
• Zoom To Land Grid
• Advanced Elevation Profile
• Advanced Production Summary
• Tibco Spotfire Integrator
• Tibco OpenSpirit Integrator  

Dig into the individual features and functions here. 

Now more than ever, the fact that companies continue to manage expensive bolt-ons that add layers of intricacy and overhead is coming under fire. The time has come to take the power of the Esri Platform into your own hands and start utilizing the innate capabilities of Web AppBuilder, Collector, Operations Dashboard, Navigator, ArcGIS Pro and the LOGIC Widgets.