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Migrating Your Land Grid System

Migration Steps

  • Exiting the Contract

    Notify end date to current vendor

    We supply the new land grid at no cost and proceed to create a sandbox environment for testing

  • Find and Replace

    Our tools find all installs of your land grid and removes / replaces with our land grid

    The provided report is a management tool showing usage and users

  • Spatial Adjust

    With our smart processes and hard work, we spatially adjust all your internal polygons to the land grid, both in the PLSS states and in Texas.

  • Manage and Store

    We instill process improvements that help you manage and store your land grid data across the enterprise and within desktop environments effectively and efficiently.

(Click on arrows to view the steps)

Before migrating any land grid, there are some important questions that need to be asked.

Does the land grid data you use provide you with the full picture - including lots and quarters? Or does your land grid give you just the sections and townships? Other important questions that may have arisen include: Is the data easy to implement into company projects? Is the data seamless and contiguous? How much does the data cost your organization? Is the data leased or owned? How is the data delivered and in what formats?

There should be no mystery behind your spatial data. If you remember the science behind that point or polygon, you will always be able to check the source and accuracy. Apart from possibly saving you large amounts of money from bad habits, the land grid provides the backbone to accurate and complete map projects. The best part is that you will have confidence in your data and, most importantly, your maps.

Below are some tips you can use to make sure you are getting the full picture from your land grid data:

  • » Check the accuracy using streaming USGS topos (+-40 feet accuracy, this is what most vendors use in the PLSS states).
  • » Check the accuracy using streaming imagery.
  • » Are you getting all the layers (lots, surveys, quarters, etc - headers, bottom holes, formations, etc)?
  • » Is it seamless and contiguous (run a dissolve across the states for polygons)?
  • » When was it last updated?
  • » Does it have a common data model within its own dataset and across the other related datasets?
  • » Is it easy to integrate?
  • » Don't be fooled by claims that one is better than the other - compare each to the source.

Some important things to remember:

  • » A ground survey is always more accurate than digital data provided by data vendors. This type of data should always be treated as the primary.
  • » Some data vendors lease their data. Once subscription is cancelled, they may ask you to remove the data.
  • » Most subscription datasets are set on auto-renew. Don't be caught out paying for something you don't need.

Once you have determined your current state of affairs, it's time to consider what it is actually going to take to make the move to another vendor

Do you have a plan for removing the old datasets (if required)? Do you have a plan for migrating the new land grid data to the server and desktop level? Are you going to re-fit your internal polygons to the new land grid? If so, how?

White Paper: Beware of that data contract

The trick behind auto-renewing data contracts

There are a few things to watch for when signing data contracts. First, is leasing or renting the data versus owning the data. Second, is having to remove that data after the end of the term. Third, some data contracts have long term auto-renew clauses. Usually, you will find that all three of the above can be found in the same contract.

Lease versus Own

It's generally better to own data than to lease data. By owning data you own an asset that doesn't burn the back pocket year after year. It also gives you the freedom to manipulate and change the product to suit your individual needs. Lastly, owning the data removes any worry of having to remove the data at the end of a term.

Exiting and Migrating Gracefully

It's important to have a plan before deciding to move off of your current land grid. Being able to identify land grid data, the employees accessing that data and how many times that data is referenced in individual maps is going to be an important step in finding, replacing and removing the old data. Lastly, you will need to spatially adjust internal polygons to the new land grid system.

Setting up and testing a staging environment with the new land grid while waiting for the historic contract to end will allow for a smoother transition.

DOWNLOAD:

White Paper: Beware of that data contract
White Paper: Best practice land grid migration

Migration Steps

  • Exiting the Contract

    Notify end date to current vendor

    We supply the new land grid at no cost and proceed to create a sandbox environment for testing

  • Find and Replace

    Our tools find all installs of your land grid and removes / replaces with our land grid

    The provided report is a management tool showing usage and users

  • Spatial Adjust

    With our smart processes and hard work, we spatially adjust all your internal polygons to the land grid, both in the PLSS states and in Texas.

  • Manage and Store

    We instill process improvements that help you manage and store your land grid data across the enterprise and within desktop environments effectively and efficiently.

(Click on arrows to view the steps)

STEP ONE - EXITING THE CONTRACT

Notify the old vendor by giving them a date you would like to end the contract. Choose a date that gives you enough time to comfortably migrate the new land grid from a sandbox environment to a production environment.

Request your no-charge land grid dataset from US Land Grid.esktop devices.

  • » US Land Grid will not bill you until you reach your end date with your old vendor

STEP TWO - FIND AND REPLACE

Our service team comes on-site and runs our management tools, which will produce reports showing data usage and occurrences across the enterprise and desktop devices.

  • » We create a sandbox environment replicating your current environment minus the old land grid.
  • » We run a find and replace with our new land grid on the server instances - completely removing old versions of your land grid from the server environment.

STEP THREE - SPATIAL ADJUST

Through automated processes and some hard work our team spatially adjusts all your internal polygons, both in the PLSS states and in Texas.

STEP FOUR - MANAGE AND STORE

Our new process and automation improvements stay with your new land grid after we leave enabling you to effectively manage and store your land grid data across the enterprise and within your desktop environments

It's not the cost of other vendors' data that is painful, it's how you manage and store your data. Our professional staff remove the old data and migrate the new data, all the while identifying risks and creating an optimal environment for everyone within the organization.

The Different Tiers

Find and Replace

  • Tier One

    Find and replace all historic land grid data stored in one centralized location (including MXD's).

    Provide a management report which identifies land grid data, the employees accessing that data, and how many times that data is referenced in individual maps.

  • Tier Two

    Find and replace all historic land grid data across multiple servers and multiple data stores (does not include desktop computers).

    Provide a management report which identifies land grid data, the employees accessing that data, and how many times that data is referenced in individual maps.

  • Tier Three

    Find and replace all historic land grid data across multiple servers, multiple data stores and up to fifty seats of desktop computers.

    Provide a management report which identifies land grid data, the employees accessing that data, and how many times that data is referenced in individual maps

    Includes all data formats.

Spatial Adjust

  • Tier One

    Spatially adjust all internal polygons stored in one centralized location.

    Includes both US Land Grid automated processes and manual migration work.

  • Tier Two

    Spatially adjust all internal polygons stored across multiple servers and multiple data stores to our land grid data (does not include desktop computers).

    Includes both US Land Grid automated processes and manual migration work.

  • Tier Three

    Spatially adjust all internal polygons across multiple servers, multiple data stores and up to fifty seats of desktop computers to our land grid data.

    Includes both US Land Grid automated processes and manual migration work.

    Includes all data formats.

Our experienced service staff do all the hard work to make sure the experience is painless and smooth.

The US Land Grid policy of providing our land grid data at no charge to those in a historic contract enables our customers to migrate to a production/sandbox environment for thorough testing and buy-in by different business groups. This provides a minimal risk environment where no disruption is caused to users while evaluation and eventual seamless integration is done in the background.

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