Geoprocessing Tasks with ArcGIS Server

I hope to make this an ongoing series about utilizing Geoprocessing on the web. There is so much information to cover...I cant possibly cover it all in a post or two.

People that know me and perhaps have read this blog over the years know that I used to be a ArcGIS Server hater. We have been working with it since its first beta at 9 and had always found it slow, clunky, and almost impossible to develop a stable application with. Well, this has obviously all changed with 9.3 and I have blogged the praises of of it many times. In my eyes, 9.3 is truly a ground breaking product and allows for very rapid application application development with the Javascript or Flex (flash builder?) api. However, the most powerful aspect of ArcGIS Server hasn't been getting the attention it oh so deserves. Geoprocessing tasks. Most of the folks I talk to, arent even aware that you can use them. The ability to use Geoprocessing tasks were available at 9.2 by way of the ADF, but we realize not too many folks would touch them there, and rightfully so.

So, the conversation usually starts like this: "hey, you know all those cool models you have built to do all those complex tasks?" "Yes" "Well guess what...you can actually take those and publish them on the web" "No freakin way". Then I go on to explain about model builder and just how easy it is to publish them.

Take this example. You have a web application that needs to allow the user to easily find their parcel and then determine the exact types and percentages of the different soil types contained on that parcel. In ArcIMS, this was essentially undoable (ok, not without some heavy data preprocessing). Tasks such as these are trivial with ArcGIS Server. Open model builder, drag out a few tools (think clip and union) and some data sources, and viola, your are done. Publish that to ArcGIS Server, and there you have it. And that's a very straightforward example. Can you think of a tool that you may have created that could be pushed a to a wide, web based audience? I'll bet you can. Imagine the possibilities here. ESRI has done a fantastic job with this, yet I dont think that the general public (meaning Joe Shmoe ArcMap user) has any idea that ArcGIS Server can do this.

So, I put you on notice. Over the next few weeks, we are going to be blogging about setting up your own Geoprocessing Tasks, publishing them, and utilizing them in your applications (Flex and JS examples too).