Hennepin County, MN – Enterprise GIS Modernization

Hennepin County, Minnesota, home to Minneapolis and the largest county in the state, partnered with WSB to evaluate and strengthen its Enterprise GIS environment. The County’s GIS Office manages a complex GIS ecosystem that supports internal operations, public-facing applications, and data sharing across numerous departments and partner agencies. At the time of the engagement, the County sought assistance assessing its existing ArcGIS Enterprise implementation, addressing system stability concerns with Portal for ArcGIS, and developing a long-term strategy to improve adoption of Enterprise GIS technologies and modernize its GIS platform.

WSB led a comprehensive Enterprise GIS discovery and review process that included interviews with GIS staff, evaluation of existing architecture and workflows, and analysis of current and future business needs. The resulting assessment documented the County’s existing Enterprise GIS environment, identified opportunities for improvement, and provided a strategic roadmap to guide future investments in GIS technology. The project produced a set of actionable recommendations focused on strengthening the County’s Enterprise GIS platform. Key recommendations included resolving Portal stability issues, expanding the use of Portal for ArcGIS as the County’s centralized GIS content management platform, formalizing a transition plan from ArcMap to ArcGIS Pro, and developing a long-term strategy for modernizing GIS infrastructure and adopting cloud resources for publication environments.

Hennepin County successfully implemented many of the recommendations from the review. The County executed a successful transition from ArcMap to ArcGIS Pro and leveraged the project’s findings to guide modernization of its ArcGIS Enterprise platform. WSB has continued to support the County’s Enterprise GIS initiatives by assisting with the planning and implementation of ArcGIS Enterprise upgrades, including development environment modernization and ongoing strategic guidance.