SIRE—GIS

County Surveyors, City Engineers and Public Works Officials all face similar challenges when it comes to GIS—coordinating all of the relevant documentation related to the myriad of maps in their possession. Thanks to recent innovations in GIS technology, much of current mapping needs are carried out electronically. Yet, these innovations have not addressed the problem of coordinating current electronic maps with older maps that are only in print. Nor do they address the issue of coordinating all related documentation for each property such as permits related to property, etc. These problems consume staff time and office storage space unnecessarily.

SIRE Technologies provides solutions to these and other GIS problems through the use of its ECM system and by integrating with the most common GIS applications.

Through the use of SIRE Capture™, all permits, maps, monument information, plats, and other documentation can be quickly scanned and stored in a central repository. Thanks to the configurable indexing process offered by SIRE, each document can be identified in any number of ways to accommodate local ordinance or protocol. For example documents (including maps) can be indexed by plat numbers, property address, and/or any other combination of variables.

Once scanned and indexed, all documentation related to the search criteria can be retrieved in a single query using SIRE FileCenter™. SIRE's advanced search engine accommodates for abbreviation irregularities and spelling errors. SIRE's unique viewer makes it easy to view and navigate large scale maps and plats on your desktop computer screen. Maps can be reprinted in their original scale or cropped when just a portion of the map is needed.

To minimize time spent switching between programs, SIRE Technologies' unique architecture allows the integration with the most popular GIS applications. This integration lets the user click on a property inside the GIS application and retrieve all permits and documentation related to that property even though those documents were stored in SIRE's database.

To complement the GIS application, SIRE offers audit trails and electronic layering. Electronic layering allows users to stack scanned maps—such as streets, sewer, railroad, new property lines, etc., or to make annotations to scanned maps. Audit trails provide tracking information on changes made to the map layers. This provides GIS type functionality for older maps where no electronic copy (other than a scanned image) is available.

Because SIRE Technologies can also be integrated with most permit applications, SIRE provides a mean of unifying the major systems of government offices. Therefore, permits issued in one application can be linked to maps created in another application, which are then linked to all related documentation scanned into SIRE's database.