As part of the State Natural Resource Management (NRM) Capability Grant funding, and our project to enhance GRID features in 2017, Tracey and I have been on the road providing refresher training on new functionality of GRID, our easy-to-use NRM focused web mapping platform. There have been some really important additions to our product that we were keen to show to the NRM community.

PHCC staff learning how to add aerial imagery as a WMS layer to GRID.

What I also really enjoy doing is taking some time out from focusing inwardly on the technology (e.g. staring at screens) to engage with the GRID community and find out more about how people are using the product. Sure, we all know that GRID provides a means to capture, visualise and report on environmentally focused activities; but you learn something new every time you talk to people.

Our last training session was in Mandurah, at the Peel Harvey Catchment Council offices (well, in the Shed). Two weeks before that we were at the Peppermint Grove Library showing GRID to Coastcare groups in the Perth NRM region. In April we will be in Bunbury for the South West Catchment Council team, and in May it looks like we will run a similar refresher course in Perth for the Rangelands NRM team, and in Geraldton for the Northern Agricultural Catchment Council.

Chris explaining how the new filtering tools work

When I first started with Gaia Resources, NACC had just come on board, and the GRID Enhancements Project was just gaining momentum. Since then I have seen our development team put in some incredibly useful features you might be familiar from using expensive off-the-shelf GIS applications and business systems (like filtering, symbolising by attribute and permissions models). They’ve included some long-asked for enhancements driven by our annual roadmap workshops, and some bonus improvements along the way. We’ve blogged previously about a number of these, so I’ll let you read about them in those entries; but the wonderful thing is seeing people’s eyes light up as they realise how they can put the new tools to use in managing their own environmental data. And, inevitably, good new functionality prompts us all to think about other things that would be useful… so, looking forward to bringing more of that to the table in 2018!

If you’re interested in GRID, feel free to get in touch with me directly, or start a conversation with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Chris