Gore District Council transformed a paper-based system for tracking public assets — which previously involved week-long waiting times for information updates — into an integrated digital platform that provides staff and residents with real-time, accurate information, including critical updates on road closures during floods and road works.

The Situation / Background

Gore District Council was prompted to embark on their data integration journey when recurring bottlenecks delayed critical work in their organisation.

“Everything was manual,” says Scott Hewlett, Senior GIS Officer at the Council. “Someone would have to manually update information, like asset information, that the rest of the organisation needed. This could happen once a week or once a month. It took up a lot of time.” 

Property information was another critical piece for the Council. “We manage property information, which has a large GIS aspect to it,” says Andrew McPherson, the Council’s IT Manager. “That’s something we can’t afford to get wrong.” 

The Council acts as an intermediary between these data sources and the public — individuals and companies who depend on accurate information.

The Council had also gone without a GIS officer for a year, and had an outdated GIS platform no one could use. This created a cycle where they also couldn’t attract new talent because institutional knowledge had been lost.

“Getting Seamless on board meant we could move forward and move on to the industry standard platform,” says Hewlett.

McPherson also had to consider how this new GIS platform would integrate with their ERP (Civica Authority) and other core systems. “The other advantage that Seamless brought was the FME platform, that we could learn to use and work with ourselves.”

Outcomes for Gore District Council

Residents have access to real time, critical information

Previously, the Council relied on social media updates to keep residents informed about road closures. Now, the publicly available Closed Roads viewer is updated with live data to show where roads will be closed for repair works, or during floods.

During a flooding event in October 2024, it was viewed 2400 times over 3 days. A year earlier, during a much heavier flooding event, the map was viewed 15,000 times over 3 days. 

Improved efficiency and accuracy of information

Before, the Council’s asset information and property data could be several weeks out of date, impacting decision making for asset maintenance and property teams. Asset information (pipes, manholes, water connections) and property owner details, would be collected by field staff and manually copied into various locations for a script to update the mapping system accessible to staff and public. This labour-intensive process relied on old scripts that were difficult to repair when they failed.

Now, the turnaround is closer to daily or even real time. When someone captures data on site, it follows a streamlined process: information is extracted from AssetFinda and Civica Authority, processed, then pushed daily into ArcGIS Online services. This significantly improves data reliability for the public, Council engineers, and the Customer Services Team.

“We don’t have to wait for someone in the field to draw something on a piece of paper or a map, then wait for a couple of weeks to bring it back into the office and see it,” says Hewlett.

“Or potentially lose it in the back of the car,” adds McPherson.

Improved asset management and faster resolution of issues 

One result of having real-time, accurate data is that “it’s improved our ability to respond to changes in our environment much more quickly,” says McPherson. 

“For example: if there’s a burst pipe and somebody notifies us of that, then staff can go out and quickly identify which pipe has the issue, and get that information straight back to the people who can assign staff to deal with it.”

“One of the best things that’s come out of this is that all the field teams can track and update asset information on their phones now,” adds Hewlett. The team does this from a map-based ArcGIS app which sends the data through to their Univerus Asset Management System.

Faster data sharing with partner organisations

The Council has seen efficiency improvements in gathering data from external organisations too. They work closely with Environment Southland, their regional council, with a large quantity of data being exchanged between the two organisations.

“It used to be that they would send us updates, that we would manually input into our system because they were software products with different formats,” says Hewlett. 

“Now we get real time updates from them, which massively cuts down the workload. And we can push updates out to their system as well, so they don’t have to manually update their database.” Now the Council and Environment Southland can collaborate knowing that both have the most up-to-date and accurate information.

Adapting support to the needs of the Council

As a small organisation, the speed of return on investment was critical. Seamless’ prior experience with local governments meant they understood both the essential requirements and organisational aims

“Because we didn’t have to bring them up to speed about our business, we were able to learn from them and get things going faster,” says McPherson. “A trusted partner.”

“It was easy working with Seamless. They gave us direction and helped us work through it, but left us to do the work. I did a lot of upskilling with them, which was really beneficial,” adds Hewlett.

Process

The timing for Seamless coming on board coincided with Hewlett and McPherson starting at the Council. The team talked through their requirements and set out to test an initial proof of concept.

“We had a student go out that summer to collect Parks and Reserves information — playgrounds, rubbish bins. They were able to collect it all on their phone using ArcGIS Field Maps, and the FME integration would migrate the data overnight to into our asset management system (Univerus Asset Finda),” says Hewlett. 

They now use a solution powered by the FME integration platform. Seamless hosts and administers FME as-a-Service and brings their ready-to-deploy Local Government system connectors and automations to optimise workflows across Gore District Council’s systems.

What’s next for the team at Gore District Council?

The Council has built the ‘Gore CBD Street Art Trail’ — using an interactive digital storytelling platform that residents can use on their phones to explore the district. The Cemeteries Map has plot details and photographic documentation from four regional cemeteries, which has been popular with residents for exploring community and ancestral history.

The Council plans to build and release more maps for public use, including district walking tracks and playground locations

About Gore District Council

One of New Zealand’s 67 territorial authorities, Gore District Council has a population of 13,200, living within an area of 1,254km2.

The economy is agricultural based, with several large agri-businesses in the district as well as many small businesses supporting the rural sector.