ALB-ROAM Data Collector:

an OpenGIS Software Solution

for Field Data Collection
APHIS PPQ Mobile Solutions Meeting
9/13/2016

Kevin J. Davis, Eugene Pepper, Julia Harrell

USDA / APHIS / Plant Protection & Quarantine
Asian Longhorned Beetle Program & DART
 Presentation Agenda

Team Introductions all

Overview of Asian Longhorned Beetle

Program Eugene Pepper (5 min)

Overview of Roam Software Julia Harrell

(10 min)

Demonstration of New York Ground

Survey/Callbacks and Ohio Removals
Projects Eugene Pepper (10 min)

Set the Stage for Live Demo Julia

Live Demo of Roam Project Creation

Kevin Davis (20 min)

Audience Q&A Session all (10 min)

 ALB Program Overview
Active programs in Massachusetts, New York, and
Ohio.
Cooperative with State and Federal Staff

Program field office staff number about 250 with 75%

of those working in the field daily.

All field office staff are data users ranging from

program administration to the use of on-site
property and individual tree information by field
staff.
ALB Regulated / Quarantine Areas
 ALB Program Overview
Program activities include:

1. Ground and Aerial Surveys

2. Treatment/Tree Removal
3. Monitoring (Survey QA, Contractors, Trapping)
4. Regulatory Compliance Program
5. Spatial Analysis, with Forest Service and OITS Lab

Data collection and processing is a challenge for

program field offices.
 ALB Program Overview
Data Challenges:

High Volume up to 15 teams collecting data each day.

Number of trees surveyed annually is over 500,000. Number of
property visits is over 100,000 in New York offices.

Multiple workflows Ground survey, climbing survey,

regulatory survey, tree removal all have specific workflows

Workflows with Interdependent Aspects ex: A ground

survey team may collect an infested tree, and that data will then
be further edited by the removals team.
 ROAM Performance Info (based on MA)

From 10/2015 9/2016 - Over 400,000 Trees Surveyed Using

Roam

Over 50,000 Staff Hours of Data Collection Using Roam

No Hardware/Software Failures Resulting in Data Loss

Greatly improved data quality and access to fresh data for near-real
time (next day) analysis, planning, mapping & reporting purposes.
 ALB Program Overview
Functional / Field Requirements for a Data Collector :
Rapid data collection

Ruggedized

Offline data collection

Spatial reference layers

GPS & Camera Integration

Support For Related Tables

Restricted edit/delete functionality as necessary for each

program activity
 ALB Program Overview
Functional / Field Requirements for a Data Collector :
Rapid data collection
Teams are collecting hundreds of data points each day, data entry forms must be
efficient. The data collection application must be performant when storing large
volumes of data.

Ruggedized
Teams work in extreme environmental conditions. The collector needs to be able
to operate in heat and cold, wet and dry, dust, survive impacts, and have an 8 hour
battery life.

Offline data collection

Teams work in remote areas with no reliable internet connection

Spatial reference layers

Teams need to see property lines, addresses, roads, orthoimagery, etc. to
determine tree ownership and accurately collect data
 ALB Program Overview
Functional / Field Requirements for a Data Collector :

GPS Integration
When collecting data in dense tree stands, GPS allows users to orient themselves
and plot trees in the right location. It also provides for navigation in large
woodlots to specific sites.

Support For Related Tables

Property visits, survey records, and tree removal progress reports have one-to-
many relationships. The data collection application needs to associate child
records with their parent record in the field.

Restricted edit/delete functionality as necessary for each program activity

Each activity has different rules for what fields are required, what fields can be
edited, and what records can be altered/deleted. Data collection software must
enforce those rules.
 ALB Program Overview
Office Requirements for a Data Collector :

Rapid Data Quality Assurance

Office staff need to be able to quickly verify accuracy of records and rectify errors.

Flexible, user-driven reporting

Management needs the ability to generate standard weekly reports for national
reporting as well as generate on-the-fly reports and maps to meet operational
needs.

Integration with national databases

Data collected needs to be available nationally in IPHIS, ESRI cloud, or other
APHIS-level databases.
ROAM Software Overview
 What Is Roam?
Roam is one of the best examples of FOSS4G available for mobile mapping and field
data collection (FOSS4G = Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial). Highlighted
features of Roam include (but arent limited to):

Point, Polygon and Line capture/digitizing support

Drawing pad
Digital camera support
WSYWIG data entry form building tool
Attribute Identification
Easily customizable map interface
GPS logging and tracking

Not only is the ROAM application "free as in beer" (gratis, freeware), but it is also "free as
in speech" (libre, open source). Those in the know understand that while gratis is great,
libre is laudable! In a cramped budget environment, taking full advantage of FOSS4G for
field mapping & data collection solutions can help stretch remaining program dollars that
much further. And because you have full access to the source code, if theres that one
critical unique feature you just gotta have then you are completely at liberty to hire a
developer and invest only a small amount of valuable funding to add that one thing no
need to bust the budget on a complete system, just to get that one missing feature
 Who Created Roam?
Roam was developed created and sponsored by Digital Mapping
Solutions, a leading geospatial solutions company providing
Enterprise mapping software for government and commercial clients
in Australia and New Zealand for over 20 years.

Theres a commercial, enterprise version of the IntraMaps Solution that is similar

to the ESRI ArcGIS Server ecosystem, and theres also the Free and Open
Source version of Roam that has a more limited set of functionality (but still
extremely functional). The extensible architecture of Roam means that while it
can be made to sync data with an enterprise server environment - the free
version doesnt do it automatically out of the box it runs in standalone mode.

Roam has many government agency clients in that part of the world. There are
as yet only a handful in the US that we know are using it - including Los Angeles
County Enterprise GIS and the Idaho State Tax Commission GIS.
 What are the Roam Benefits?
Allows for local (field office) level data retention so that the information can be used in daily
field operations and planning efforts in nearly real time. This is a critical aspect that IPHIS
and IPHIS Mobile have not been able to address.
Very simple, intuitive user interface. Experience in the Worcester pre-pilot testing suggests
that most field users can be trained within an hour, or so, of first seeing the application.
Operation is map and workflow based, rather than database centric.
Allows each ALB office to use the most up-to-date, high quality local/state government GIS
data as their base-map, rather than generic global or national level map data from Bing or
USGS.
Allows ALB GIS staff to update any or all of the background map layers, without the need
for a developer to make any changes to the code.
Each ALB office can use different background layers in their field mapping project, as
appropriate to their office, and have some individual control over how the maps look in the
field without their preferred cartographic style impacting any other ALB office.
No software licensing or yearly maintenance/support costs.
 What are the Roam Benefits?
No need to worry about a software vendor suddenly deciding to change their business
model, discontinue the software, or make fundamental changes to the way it operates, like
moving everything to a new platform. As Roam and QGIS are open source, implementers
have access to the entire code base and are able to fork and modify and/or maintain it for
as long as they need. Minor enhancements can be made by writing Python scripts.

Very flexible software Roam/QGIS can work with many different GIS and aerial imagery
file formats, and several back-end databases (Imagery formats: MrSid, ECW, JPEG, PNG,
GIF, TIFF, etc. Databases: SpatiaLite, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, etc.).

Roam can run in standalone/offline mode without the need for cellular or Wi-Fi connectivity
in the field.

The operational model for data collection with Roam would ensure that a copy of all the
data would reside in the local ALB office GIS system, and it would undergo QA/QC and
receive any needed corrections before it was pushed up to an enterprise GIS system and
to the IPHIS Oracle database. This will ensure adequate data access at each level in PPQ
from the local Field Office to the National Operations & Policy Managers, and all the way
up a Senior Management reporting dashboard.
 Its Open Source, does that mean its hard?

Not at all! If we could only use two words to describe Roam, they would be: Fast &
Easy! Roam does not require any programming, per-se, to stand up a basic field data
collection application. The basic steps are:

1. Create a geodatabase (this is just a spatially enabled database - SQLite, ESRI File
Geodatabase, or even ESRI Shapefiles will do, in a pinch).

2. Set up a map project in QGIS (open source desktop GIS analogous to ArcGIS) that has all
the map layers (streets, aerial photography, hydro, boundaries, etc.) you want to see on the
field map and assign them pleasing, easy to distinguish (in harsh sunlight) symbols and
colors that your field crews will understand.

3. Make some choices in the WYSIWG Configuration Manager to decide what kind of
widgets to use for each data field (checkbox, pick-list, multi-select, etc.) and provide a set
of possible field values the user is allowed to choose from, if its that type of data element.

4. Copy the entire directory structure to the hard drive of your field tablet, and you are ready
to start mapping! Theres no traditional windows installation process, and also no danger
of Roam ever being incompatible with some other application installed on your tablet
because it runs entirely in its own self-contained Python environment.
Use Cases where Roam makes sense

1. High Volume Data Collection

2. Multi-site Visits needing history tracking
3. Property Management
4. Individual Point Data Collection (ex. trees or
traps )
5. Polygon Data Collection (ex. Property shape
changes, Land hazard areas, etc.)
 Weve collected some data, so now what?

This is where the differences in both functionality and operational philosophy with
some of the other mobile solutions becomes distinct.

The take-home here is that there are choices that have to be made and
responsibilities that have to be assumed when you fully participate in a federated data
governance model rather than exist under a centralized data governance model.

Because theres no out of the box mechanism to just upload the data to somewhere and
the IT people will take care of it all for you, this means that if your program elects to use
Roam, it also has to make a commitment to program staff employing good data stewardship
practices and being willing to work collaboratively with DART and BISSM staff to create and
maintain a solid business process and data workflow that works for the field, yet still protects
the data and makes it available to the entire PPQ enterprise.

This is an evolving project and we understand that not all programs have the technical
resources to replicated everything ALB has done, but weve learned some things along the
way and we think there are ways to standardize some of the process so it can be applied
more generically across the agency for other programs.
 Weve collected some data, now what?

The ALB Roam project is a good example of the bottom up flow of data from the
field to the enterprise scenario.

While it does involve a good bit more hands-on management and responsibility for the data at
the field office level than the other mobile options, it also makes real time, full access to the
data for mapping, analysis, and operational planning at the local level much, much easier.

It also helps the programs field office staff truly understand that they bear an important
responsibility to help ensure theres no garbage in so that when someone else needs to
make a map, run a report or perform some analysis on that data, theres not going to be any
garbage out.

The Open Source / DIY mindset comes into play here as well its your programs data, so
its also your responsibility to help ensure its correct and treated properly. It has to be a
partnership with IT. It also means program staff playing an active role in the QA/QC process
and managing the data appropriately at the office level and then replicating some reasonable
subset of it (this will differ by program) up to the enterprise level. This will also require
program staff to enhance their skill levels with geospatial technology. But thats good thing
Spatial Database Structure
Field Data Collector (ROAM)
raw data location

Location of General GIS data

layers used to make base
Production maps (a.k.a. MXDs)
Database

Staging
Database

Weekly Report Database

Location of ArcMap maps used in managing spatial data

Location of all Python scripts and Calculation Scripts 2

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 Enterprise Data Integration
All the data in the production database is
available for use in field office operations
management, risk assessments, work
status monitoring, survey team
assignments, reports, maps, etc.

The data in the production database can

be exported to other databases like
IPHIS, ESRI Enterprise SDE, etc.
Next Steps in the Roam project involve
doing just that replicating data up to
the Enterprise ArcSDE database in Fort
Collins and then a subset of non-spatial
data into IPHIS.
National Databases
Data in the office production geodatabase
can be easily exported to other databases
like IPHIS, ESRI Cloud, other USDA offices
or USDA research partners.
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And now we will do a live demo of the New York
Ground Survey / Callback Project

-and-

we will also create a brand new Roam mapping

project to collect data for Pest X on the fly.