GIS and Back Office Data Integration, West Oxfordshire District Council

West Oxfordshire District Council (WODC) extended and redesigned their website to include a dynamic, geographical information system (GIS) driven local information system - My West Oxfordshire.

http://www.westoxon.gov.uk/



My West Oxfordshire	Property Search Details	Online Services

BOCC was approached to integrate WODC's(1) back-office geographical information system (GIS) with a new accessible web front end. BOCC developed an application to render real-time graphical and textual data to a wide audience using any web browser - including PDAs and other mobile devices.

My West Oxfordshire was implemented as part of a wider project to continue to build and upgrade WODC's services online, adhering to Government targets (2)(3) to electronically deliver all services by the end of 2005. Other features of the website include:

Feature	Description
Content Management System (CMS)	BOCC developed the CMS for WODC four years ago. Enhancements and new modules have been continually added to the CMS. We made sure that the original system would be flexible and scaleable to include such future enhancements.
Email alerts	Users are able to register their interests against selected pages throughout the website. Registered users automatically receive an email indicating that the page content has been amended and they may want to take a look.
Web benefits calculator	Set-up and integration of an automatic online calculator for benefits.
Online payments	A modular online payments system integrated with the WODC PARIS(4) back-office system. Allows for the payment of a varying number of WODC services, including council tax, business rates and miscellaneous payments.
BOCC E-forms	The BOCC E-forms(5) product was integrated with the existing CMS and WODC back office systems in a variety of ways, including data replication into WODC's customer relationship management (CRM) system and passes the user seamlessly through to the online payments system where appropriate.
Website redesign	The website was visually redesigned and developed to ensure that it meets with double-A conformance for the W3C web accessibility initiative (WAI)(6).

To complement these information delivery systems, TSI decided to develop an interactive e-Learning system with assistance from the Department of Trade and Industry(2). The aim was to provide workplace learning, refresher information and continuing professional development (CPD) assistance for practitioners and students at all levels in the trading standards profession.

BOCC worked with WODC's information technology staff to provide the street and postcode search using a data extract from the National Land and Property Gazetteer and the National Street Gazetteer. By selecting a particular property, data from WODC's existing GIS are displayed online for any user of the website. This includes a map and recent aerial photograph.

The GIS system was Cadcorp SIS (Spatial Information System)(7) and we decided to integrate using web services and Cadcorp's GeognoSIS software. BOCC provided assistance to set up suitable overlays containing the textual data and wrote the interface scripts using Macromedia's ColdFusion. A caching strategy was developed and implemented to reflect the nature and type of user queries expected.

BOCC designed the user interface and also the application of watermarking and copyright details onto the graphical data - application side - since this was more efficient than using the source GIS to undertake this legal requirement.

Non-GIS data is also provided in the same single-page, seamlessly providing information to users from multiple back-office systems. This data includes council tax band, council tax charges, business rates and links to relevant online services. This provides a single resource for users to find services relevant to them in their local area.

The website and databases are hosted on a dedicated server at BOCC, monitored 24 x 7 by our own systems staff.

The system utilises Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Macromedia ColdFusion Application Server(8) and Microsoft Internet Information Server as key technologies. The system integrates with existing internal systems.

Pages output to browsers are Extensible HyperText Markup Language 1.0(9) and Cascading Style Sheets 2.0(10) compliant.

1.	West Oxfordshire District Council website http://www.westoxon.gov.uk/
2.	Directgov website http://www.direct.gov.uk/
3.	Local e-Gov website http://www.localegov.gov.uk/
4.	Ideal Technology Services website http://www.its2003.co.uk/products.htm
5.	BOCC E-forms product information http://www.bocc.co.uk/products/eforms.cfm
6.	World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) http://www.w3.org/WAI/
7.	Cadcorp website http://www.cadcorp.com/
8.	Macromedia ColdFusion application server http://www.macromedia.com/software/coldfusion/
9.	Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) 1.0 http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/
10.	Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) 2.0 http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/

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GIS and Back Office Data Integration, West Oxfordshire District Council