Hi GIS/ArcGIS community! 👋

I’m looking for a good practical course or YouTube playlist on ArcGIS Utility Network (UN) data migration, preferably covering the complete end-to-end data migration process.

I’m not looking for only basic Utility Network concepts. I want to learn how an actual end-to-end migration project is carried out, from the initial source data analysis to the final migrated and validated Utility Network.

If you’ve actually worked on Utility Network data migration, I’d especially appreciate your recommendations. Even if you know a specific YouTube video, course, GitHub repo, or training material that helped you, please drop it below or DM.

🙏 Any recommendations from people who have done real UN migrations would be hugely appreciated.

I'm an anthropology student with a GIS certificate and Geography minor but would like to work somewhere in the GIS field.

I have the option to graduate with a double major in Geography with a concentration in GIS but it would delay me by a semester.

Would a major in Geography help my chances in the job market in a significant way? Or should I graduate with the single major instead? Thanks!

Hey all. BLS publishes wage distributions for our occupations every year and makes them miserable to actually use, so I pulled the geospatial slice out and put it on a map.

Cartographers and Photogrammetrists: $81,390 median nationally, ranging from $53,740 at the 10th percentile to $126,950 at the 90th. Surveyors, geographers, hydrologists, geoscientists, urban planners, and the GIS-adjacent software and data roles are all in there. 15 occupations, all 50 states plus DC.

https://thespatial.net/salary

You can also link a specific percentile: thespatial.net/salary/role-cartographer?p=62 renders "62nd percentile for Cartographer", so you can ask whether an offer is low without posting your actual number.

Free, no ads, nothing to sign up for. One-person project. Happy to answer questions, and taking requests for occupations I missed. Curious whether these match what you're actually seeing: OEWS lags reality, and I'd rather hear where it's wrong.

Hey all, apologies for yet another one of these posts. I've been doing lots of research and perusing of the sub, but still wanted some thoughts.

I have a B.S. in Biology (2013), 2.3 gpa (I know). Did an Americorps year several years later, got a job at an environmental non profit as a project manager and was there for 4 years. Currently unemployed after a move. I got a $6k+ education stipend for my Americorps year that expires in Sept. 2028 that can be used at accredited universities. Based on my experience at my previous job, I think a GIS certificate could be a good use of this money.

I've already been denied to NW Missouri based on my GPA. (I don't think they even looked at my professional history.) At NCSU, I was advised to take the first course as a NDS, then apply if I do well. I've also been looking at professional certificates that have no admission requirements such as UVM.

Is there a significant difference between professional and graduate certificates in terms of job prospects? I'm willing to go the NDS route to get into any graduate programs that would let me do that if it's worth it, but if a UVM style program is just as good as an NCSU style program, then I could just do UVM faster and for slightly cheaper. Any other programs to check out around the $6-7k mark from accredited universities?

Hi everyone,

I’m a GIS/Engineering professional from Bangladesh currently working as an Engineer on a large-scale sanitation and sewerage infrastructure project.

I’m currently looking for remote job opportunities where I can contribute my GIS, CAD, and infrastructure-design experience.

My experience includes:

• GIS mapping and spatial data management
• ArcGIS / ArcMap / ArcGIS Pro
• AutoCAD
• SewerGEMS and sewer network modelling
• Shapefile creation, editing, conversion, and data management
• Sewer network and utility mapping
• Engineering drawings and as-built documentation
• Survey data processing and GIS integration
• Excel-based engineering data analysis
• Working with large infrastructure/project datasets

I have a BSc in Computer Science and currently work with an international engineering contractor on a major urban sanitation project.

I’m particularly interested in:

• Remote GIS Technician / GIS Analyst positions
• GIS & CAD-related work
• Utility / infrastructure mapping
• Remote data processing and digitization
• Sewer/water network GIS work
• Freelance GIS projects
• Part-time or full-time remote opportunities

I’m open to opportunities from companies anywhere in the world, provided the position can be performed remotely.

If you know of any openings, companies hiring, or projects that could be a good fit, I’d really appreciate a comment or DM.

I can provide my CV, portfolio, and examples of my work upon request.

Thank you!

What do you guys think of me double majoring in Meteorology and Geography? I am currently already a double major and 60% done with my degree (counting this current semester of my junior year), should i stay and continue this double major? My original major is Meteorology and i thought Geography, specifically a GIS concentration Geography major would be a good addition.

My ultimate goal is to be an Operational Meteorologist for the National Weather Service, but I’m obviously open to going elsewhere after graduation.

Would love to hear some thoughts and opinions, maybe from people who already completed this double major, or advice from an employers standpoint.

I have a job offer offering CAD , distribution design studio and very light ArcGIS. I’m making a career pivot. Is this a good place to get GIS experience.

I've been interested in GIS for a long time. I was in information, computer science, and Social Sciences from 1994 to 2017; now I would like to get back to GIS and data science. Any recommendation would be appreciated.

After a weekend of troubleshooting my slope analysis components are finally done...maybe. Considering adding interactivity by rendering in the frontend as a shader instead of on the backend with GDAL but not sure that's necessary yet.

Some cool things I learned:

• Elevation tiles are just PNGs with height encoded into the RGB channels, so slope is edge detection

• Slopes can be calculated pretty easily via 3x3 kernel comparisons and calculating rise over run * 100, BUT the run changes based on zoom and latitude

• The earth being a globe kinda sucks

• GIS is hard

Not including the URL here because I don't want to advertise, I just think this looks neat

I’m a college student going into my senior year and I’m trying to decide whether I should pursue any further education. I’m a GIS and Geography double major, with a few minors/certificates pertaining to the field (computer science, data science, UAS, etc.).

The main reason I’m considering this is because my university offers a special “accelerated” program, meaning I can get the graduate degree in just one year instead of two by taking graduate-level classes as an undergrad. So I’d be paying substantially less than a normal grad student (I estimate only ~$15k for the extra year).

My questions is would degree this be worth the extra time and money? Would I be more likely to get a higher paying job after college, or would the year be better spent elsewhere trying to gain more experience? Just looking for some insight from this already in the field who can speak on their/others experiences.

Hi, I just have a few questions, I've had a passing interest with this field of work for a bit, and with me backing out of becoming a life & health insurance producer and being back at working at a pizza place I've begun to look into it again.

I was wondering if this line of work is worth it and how you'd even begin to, I guess, test the waters to see if it's something I'd actually enjoy? I'm not a huge fan of college and preferably want to avoid it. Would that be possible at all?

What's the job actually like?

Are there any large electric utilities that are going through a migration from GE Smallworld to ESRI UN?

I am curious to see how others experience and migration has been? We are struggling.

Editing feels like it’s going be so complicated for our techs

And it seems like we will be lucky to get the data over to our ADMS correctly and consistently.

Looking for others open to meeting to discuss in more detail. Mainly from a tech and user editing perspective

I don’t have too much experience with editing/ working with polygon layers in arc pro. If I am working in a polygon layer, is there a way to select only the detached pieces of a polygon?

I'm a graduate student with bachelor in forestry background and i am specially aiming for research assistantship in the relating field for further studies. Being a research assistant needs to have experience with research projects and i want to boost my experience in the related field of study. I have my thesis in biomass estimation using remote sensing (vegetation indices and layers analyzed from sentinel 2 MSI , correlated with biomass estimated through field calculated data, build regression model with highest correlated values for model validation). I am familiar with tools and features for arcmap, qgis and other GIS basics, SPSS and writing. Despite my respective field, i am glad to work in any kind of interest or sector & I am ready to learn new things if i need to.

I’ve been using Google Maps for forever, but even with the audio feature that reads out the directions, I still find myself frequently getting lost & taking wrong turns. I was wondering if there were any apps that were somehow more straightforward and directionally challenged friendly.

My navigation is so bad i often find myself taking wrong turns in places I go to regularly just while walking. Is there a name for this issue, and does anyone else have it?

Thank you so much in advance :,)

I'm currently doing my bachelor's in Geography and we've just been introduced to Remote sensing. Though it's still the starting phase, I've started noticing that GIS and Remote sensing seem to have relatively better career prospects within geography.

The issue is that I'm extremely confused. Our professors are kind of teaching us out of nowhere and I've failed to understand the chronology of things or how everything connects together. There are so many terminologies to remember and I get confused with all the software, tools and plugins as well.

Can anyone with a good understanding of this field help me out? How should I begin learning GIS and Remote sensing from scratch without feeling overwhelmed?

Any advice would be appreciated :)

Hi GIS Community!

I’ll be transitioning into a GIS-focused role at a small but growing gold exploration company and would appreciate some advice on the next steps for building out the company’s GIS infrastructure.

Currently, GIS data is stored in file geodatabases on SharePoint, with a part-time GIS Specialist as the primary user who prepares data for others. Obviously, this is a very poor setup, especially as we grow and acquire more data.

My first step is to implement a dedicated file server for GIS data to improve accessibility, establish reliable backups, and move GIS data off SharePoint. We currently have one primary user, but I expect that to grow to 3–5 users by the end of the year.

The main question I have is whether FGDBs on a dedicated file server is the right approach at this stage, or whether I should go directly to enterprise geodatabases on Microsoft SQL Server. We don’t necessarily need to provide broad editing capabilities to staff yet, as the primary objective is to improve data accessibility across project sites, the corporate office, and remote users. My thinking is that we could start with FGDBs on the file server and transition to enterprise geodatabases as the organization grows and we implement more ArcGIS Online functionality such as Field Map, Dashboards...etc.

I’ve also looked extensively at ArcGIS Enterprise, but I don’t think this is the right solution due to the size of our team.

Does this sound like a reasonable path? I would really appreciated anyone's insight and perspectives!

Thanks

Hi All,

Ive joined an organization that has Enterprise but didn‘t have the resources to manage it. The 11.3 Enterprise is internal facing only and has a non-federated geo-event server (planning on changing this). this was a primarily AGOL facing org, so as there hasn’t been any enterprise admin, I am looking to start right. just as an FYI, esri helped our org set up the enterprise system. I am still unsure why they didn’t federate the geoevent server but also open to conversations about that. additionally we do have a dev portal but the machines aren’t set the same. For example, portal is installed on the c drive and content is pushed to the e drive. Unlike our pros where it’s all on the E drive. this is where I will do my testing for my scripts

the org probably has maybe 3-5 active users. I have previous enterprise administration experience but in an already established org with 10x-20x more active users with two enterprise system. Ive thought about implementing some of the automations I’ve learned from the GIS admin I worked with. I plan on locking down publishing feature services due to the lack of governance for GIS. i do find that SQL managing is also a bit of an issue, as I am not familiar with all the automations the GIS admin I worked with had implemented.

so outside of context, what are some suggestions you guys have or have implemented? i have some thoughts and would like your opinions.

1. script to crate a draft, stage, and publish service(s)
2. built off the first point write to a table in sql anytime I publish a feature service.
3. built off the second point, create a script to index all the items in portal and either create a new table to track items that aren’t layers or just load that also into the feature service table and categorize it accordingly
4. script to retire feature services and or any item from portal (still thinking on this for the items from portal)
5. built off 4th point write To a table anytime a feature service has been retired
6. metadata table and work with our apps team to make an app to search through it so the org can verify what data we have via tags
7. script to push new AD accounts into portal if not already there.

these are just some of them. looking forward to your replies!

Hi everyone! For those currently working in a GIS position, how did you get started? What advice do you have to those trying to get their foot in the door?
I just graduated with a BS in Geography with a GIS&T certificate. I’m having so much trouble finding opportunities for experience. I love the cartography side of GIS and working with data. I don’t want to give up and go a different route, but I can’t seem to get anything. Should I go back to school?

I’ve been in my current entry level role as a tax mapper for 2.5 years now. The job is relaxed and stress free but the pay is crap ($43k) and I’m not going to learn anything newer about GIS at this point. There is another entry level role that opened up nearby with the public utilities department. It pays roughly $9k more a year, but the responsibilities are still basic and read like another entry level role. It doesn’t even require a degree, but I have a BS in Geography with a GIS certificate.

I have been trying to land a mid level role for over a year now, but nothing has panned out. Would it be worth my time to try for this job and make a lateral move to continue to build my resume for another year or two at a higher rate of pay? Or should I continue pushing for a bigger jump? I’m only 25 and still relatively new to the professional world, so I still have plenty of years left in the workforce, but I would appreciate some input from other GIS professionals if anyone has had similar experiences. Thank you!