The Watch Center delivers a set of capabilities that help you monitor real-time all-hazard events in and around places of interest and share essential information with stakeholders.
In this topic, you'll learn how to configure the Watch Center solution to meet specific needs of your organization.
Load location data
To use the solution, you must first load the locations you wish to monitor into the Locations feature layer deployed with the solution. The Locations feature layer includes a sublayer for point-based location data and a sublayer for polygon-based location data. Once loaded, this data is used by the Create Watch Areas big data analytic, which creates buffers around each location based on the distance provided in the Location Buffer field, then merges both layers into the Watch Areas spatiotemporal feature layer used in the Watch Center real-time analytic to generate alerts. Upon initial load, locations can be further managed within the Watch Center app.
There are two options for loading location data: Adding locations one at a time by using the Edit Watch Areas tab of the Watch Center app, or loading an existing zipped shapefile or file geodatabase containing a layer of locations. For point locations only, a spreadsheet or a comma-separate value (CSV) file.can also be used.
Caution:
Avoid the use of special characters such as ampersands, apostrophes, and angle brackets in your locations data, because their use may result in errors when editing records using the Watch Center app.
Add a location using Watch Center app
The Watch Center app can be used to manually create a point or polygon location used by the solution for event monitoring.
To add a location using the Watch Center app, complete the following steps:
- Sign in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to the Watch Center app.
- Click Watch Center to view the app details page.
- Click View.
- Click Edit Watch Areas.
- To add a location point, find the Editor pane and click Location Points or, to add a location polygon, click Location Polygons.
- Click on the map to add a point. To add a polygon, click to create the first corner of your polygon, then click on the map where you want to place each additional polygon corner, then double-click to complete.
To find a location by address, click Search. Enter the address in the search bar, then select it. The map will automatically zoom to the address and display the location of the address. Click on the search result location to create a new location point at the search result location.
- Complete all required fields and any optional fields you choose.
- Click Create.
Batch upload location data
If your organization maintains geographic data of point or polygon locations you want to use as watch areas in the solution, a zipped shapefile or file geodatabase feature class can be used to batch upload records into the Locations feature layer used by the solution to create watch areas.
To batch upload location points, complete the following steps:
- Verify that you are signed in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to the Locations feature layer.
- From the item page, select the Location Points sublayer.
- Click Data, then click to change the View from Table to List.
The List view displays descriptions, field aliases, field names, and field types for each field in the Location Points layer. Review the layer schema and note which fields are required and which are optional. Compare this schema to your data and note which fields in your data map to equivalent fields in the Locations layer schema.
- Click Overview to return to the item page.
- Create a .zip file of your shapefile or file geodatabase. If additional information is needed to align to the locations layer schema, add the additional information, including buffer distances in meters (if applicable), before creating the .zip file.
- From the item page, click Update Data.
- Follow the steps in the Update data wizard to load your data. Map the fields in your data to the equivalent fields in the Location Points sublayer. If your data does not have an equivalent field to a field in the Location Points sublayer, do not map anything to that field.
- Repeat these steps to load data into the Location Polygons sublayer.
Tip:
For more information about uploading data, see Manage hosted feature layers—Append data to layers.
Tip:
For more information about how to load data using the Append tool in ArcGIS Pro, see Append (Data Management).
Configure feeds and analytics
The Watch Center solution uses ArcGIS Velocity to poll feature layers from the ArcGIS Living Atlas or ArcGIS Marketplace Esri partners that contain real-time information on potential threats and hazards. The connections to these layers are managed in ArcGIS Velocity from feeds, which control settings for layer sources, schemas, and polling intervals. Before the solution can be used for the first time, feeds polling layers from the ArcGIS Living Atlas must be started, and feeds polling layers from Esri partners must be configured for the layer provided to your organization from the Esri partner from ArcGIS Marketplace. Learn more about feature layer feeds in ArcGIS Velocity.
In addition to feeds, the solution includes two analytics in ArcGIS Velocity. The Create Watch Areas big data analytic ingests records from the locations layer, creates buffers around the locations based on the values provided in the Location Buffer field, and then merges the data into the Watch Areas spatiotemporal feature layer. Each run of the model overwrites records in the Watch Areas layer so that updated location information is always used when monitoring watch areas. The Watch Center real-time analytic is then used to poll event feeds, merge them together into a single layer, and then join and filter for only those events that are occurring within a watch area.
To use the solution you must first start the Create Watch Areas big data analytic and then the Watch Center real-time analytic. Learn more about real-time analytics and big data analytics in ArcGIS Velocity.
Tip:
Follow the steps in the order they are presented below when setting up feeds and analytics for the first time.
Start big data analytic
The Create Watch Areas big data analytic ingests records from the location points and location polygons layers, buffers them by the buffer distance indicated in the Location Buffer value of each record, and then merges the resulting records into the Watch Areas spatiotemporal feature layer. The Watch Areas layer is created during the first run of the analytic.
To start the big data analytic, complete the following steps:
- Verify that you are signed in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to the ArcGIS Velocity application.
- Using the site menu, click Big Data.
- Click Create Watch Areas analytic to launch the analytic Details page.
- Click Edit, and click Start.
- The text of the Start button will change to Stop Initialization. Do not proceed until the button displays Stop.
- Click Schedule, then click Runs periodically.
- Set the schedule to 1 Hour on Every day, then click Apply.
- Click Save.
- In the warning message that appears, click Yes.
- Click Start.
Tip:
By default, the analytic is not scheduled, but in the steps above, you schedule it to run once every hour. The feed can be configured to run more frequently, but if your organization has a lot of locations used as watch areas, frequent polling may exceed the maximum throughput allowed with an ArcGIS Velocity Standard license. Learn more about throughput considerations for licensing in ArcGIS Velocity.
Configure Watch Areas feed
The Watch Areas feed is used in the Watch Center real-time analytic to spatially join any record from the Watch Area spatiotemporal feature layer to any intersecting event record. Since the Watch Areas spatiotemporal layer is created during the first run of the Create Watch Areas big data analytic, the Watch Areas feed must be configured to point to the Watch Areas layer before it can be used and before starting the Watch Center real-time analytic.
To configure the Watch Areas feed, complete the following steps:
- Verify that you are signed in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to the ArcGIS Velocity app.
- Using the site menu, click Feeds.
- Click Watch Areas feed to launch its Details page.
- Click Edit to edit the feed.
- In the Select Layer step of the Configure Feature Layer dialog box, navigate to the Watch Areas feature layer, select it, and click Next.
The Watch Areas spatiotemporal feature layer is managed by ArcGIS Velocity. ArcGIS Velocity creates a feature layer and a map image layer. For this step, make sure to use the feature layer, indicated with a point marker symbol. In both cases, the name of the layer will include a large alphanumeric string after the words Watch Areas.
- In the Filter Data step, set the following parameters:
- For the WHERE clause, enter 1=1
- For the Output spatial reference, select GCS WGS 1984 (4326)
- Click Next.
- For the Confirm Schema step, you should see an example record displayed. If an example record is not displayed click Resample.
- Click Next and click Next again.
- For the Identify Key fields step, enter the following values:
- Start time: CreationDate
- Track ID: globalid1
- Click Next.
- Set the Feed Polling Interval to Runs Periodically every 35 minutes on every day.
- Click Next and click Complete.
- From the Feeds page, click Start to start the feed.
Start ArcGIS Living Atlas feeds
The Watch Center solution includes four feeds that poll natural hazard layers from the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World: World Hurricanes (Forecast Error Cones), World Earthquakes (Events by Magnitude), USA Weather Watches and Warnings (Events Ordered by Size and Severity), and USA Wildfires (Current Incidents). These feeds are already configured and executable.
To start the USA Wildfires feed, complete the following steps:
- Confirm that you are signed in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to the ArcGIS Velocity application.
- Using the site menu, click Feeds.
- Click USA Wildfires feed to launch the feed Details page.
- Click Start to start the feed.
- Repeat steps 1 through 4 for USA Weather Watches and Warnings, World Hurricanes, and World Earthquakes feeds.
Tip:
Ensure that the Watch Areas Feed Status is Started and not still Initializing before moving to the next step.
Note:
ArcGIS Living Atlas are continuously updated. Earthquakes and Watches and Warnings are updated every 5 minutes. Hurricanes and Wildfires are updated every 15 minutes. While the ArcGIS Living Atlas layer updates, ArcGIS Velocity will be temporarily unable to access the ArcGIS Living Atlas layer. If you are in ArcGIS Velocity at this time you may observe error messages associated with the layer, however these are temporary and will resolve automatically when the ArcGIS Living Atlas layer finishes updating.
Note:
ArcGIS Living Atlas layers periodically go down for maintenance or upgrades. Use the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World-Live Feed Status page to monitor layer status.
Configure Esri partner feeds
Note:
This workflow is optional and doesn't need to be completed to work with the solution.The Watch Center solution includes several pre-configured feeds to support connections to event layers purchased from Esri partners in ArcGIS Marketplace. Supported layers include: DataCapable, Dataminr First Alert, Dataminr Pulse, Factal, Gridmetrics, Samdesk, Seerist AI Events, and Seerist Verified Events. These feeds must be configured to point to the layer provisioned to you by the Esri partner after your purchase.
Note:
Do not start Esri partner feeds if you have not purchased the associated Esri partner layer and configured the feed for the provisioned layer. On an ArcGIS Velocity Standard license a maximum combined total of 10 analytics or feeds can be running concurrently. If you start a Esri partner feed without configuring it with a purchased layer, it will consume a license but will output no data into the real-time analytic.
Note:
Esri partner layers purchased and provisioned by ArcGIS Marketplace are managed by the ArcGIS organization's administrator or a custom role to make purchases. If you are configuring the solution for your organization. and do not have these privileges, contact your administrator to provision sharing for Esri partner layers. Learn more about sharing layers purchased from ArcGIS Marketplace.
To configure a Esri partner feed, complete the following steps:
- Confirm that you are signed in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to the ArcGIS Velocity application.
- Using the site menu, click Feeds.
- Click the name of the feed you want to update to launch the feed Details page.
- Click Edit to edit the feed.
- In the right panel above Partner Feed Placeholders, click the X to close the Partner Feed Placeholders.
- In the Select Layer step of the Configure Feature Layer dialog box, navigate to the layer provisioned to you by the Esri partner, select it, then click Next.
- In the Filter Data step, for the WHERE clause, enter the SQL statement that corresponds to the feed you are configuring:
These SQL statements are intended to ensure performance of the Watch Center real-time analytic by preventing excessive polling of the source Esri partner feeds. If necessary, they may be adjusted to fit your organizational needs.
DataCapable Points
lastUpdatedTime BETWEEN CURRENT_TIMESTAMP - INTERVAL '15' MINUTE AND CURRENT_TIMESTAMP DataCapable Polygons
lastUpdatedTime BETWEEN CURRENT_TIMESTAMP - INTERVAL '15' MINUTE AND CURRENT_TIMESTAMP Dataminr First Alert
eventTime BETWEEN CURRENT_TIMESTAMP - INTERVAL '15' MINUTE AND CURRENT_TIMESTAMP Dataminr Pulse
eventTime BETWEEN CURRENT_TIMESTAMP - INTERVAL '15' MINUTE AND CURRENT_TIMESTAMP Factal
date BETWEEN CURRENT_TIMESTAMP - INTERVAL '15' MINUTE AND CURRENT_TIMESTAMP Gridmetrics Power Outages
1=1 Samdesk
event_time BETWEEN CURRENT_TIMESTAMP - INTERVAL '15' MINUTE AND CURRENT_TIMESTAMP Seerist AI Events
timestamp BETWEEN CURRENT_TIMESTAMP - INTERVAL '15' MINUTE AND CURRENT_TIMESTAMP Seerist Verified Events
date_time BETWEEN CURRENT_TIMESTAMP - INTERVAL '15' MINUTE AND CURRENT_TIMESTAMP - In the Filter Data step, for the Output spatial reference, select GCS WGS 1984 (4326).
- Click Next.
- For the Confirm Schema step, you should see an example record displayed. If an example record is not displayed, click Resample.
- Click Next, then click Next again.
- For the Identify Key Fields step, enter the fields that correspond to the feed you are configuring:
DataCapable Points
Start time: startTime, Track ID: id
DataCapable Polygons
Start time: startTime, Track ID: id
Dataminr First Alert
Start time: eventTime, Track ID: uniqueKey
Dataminr Pulse
Start time: eventTime, Track ID: alertId
Factal
Start time: date, Track ID: id
Gridmetrics Power Outages
Start time: Start_Time, Track ID: Event_ID
Samdesk
Start time: event_time, Track ID: id
Seerist AI Events
Start time: timestamp, Track ID: F_id
Seerist Verified Events
Start time: date_time, Track ID: F_id
- Click Next.
- Set the Feed Polling Interval to Runs Periodically every 1 minutes on every day.
- Click Next, then click Complete.
- From the Feeds page, click Start to start the feed.
- Repeat steps 1 through 14 to configure any additional Esri partner feeds.
Note:
The solution uses a placeholder layer to reference Marketplace feeds. You will need to swap out this layer with the layer provisioned to you by the Esri Business Partner.
Note:
If one or more Esri partner layers are used in the real-time analytic model, that layer should also be added to the Watch Alerts and Watch Reports apps used by the solution so that they can be used for visual reference. Learn more about adding layers purchased on ArcGIS Marketplace layers to a web map.
Start real-time analytic
Real-time analytics perform processing on data ingested from feeds, analyzing each individual message as it is received. Real-time analytics are used especially for transforming data, geofencing, and incident detection. The Watch Center real-time analytic delivered with this solution is configured to align individual event feeds to a common layer schema, merge them together, and spatially join them to watch areas to create watch alerts. Once the big data analytic has been started, and all relevant feeds have been configured and started, this real-time analytic can be started to begin real-time detection of watch alerts.
To start the Watch Center real-time analytic, complete the following steps:
- Verify that you are signed in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to the ArcGIS Velocity app.
- Using the site menu, click Real-Time.
- Click Watch Center analytic to launch the analytic Details page.
- Click Edit to open the analytic in edit mode.
- Verify that the analytic has no red error messages, then click Start to start the analytic. If analytic displays red error messages, review the location in the analytic where the error icon is displayed and resolve the error as directed by the analytic. Warning messages in yellow are ok and expected for any feed in the model that you have not started.
Note:
When started for the first time, the Watch Center real-time analytic creates Watch Alerts, a new spatiotemporal layer. This layer is used by watch officers in the Watch Center app for monitoring of potential threats and hazards. The Watch Alerts layer is managed by ArcGIS Velocity and is configured to retain data for up to 1 week, as well as to update existing records that share a common track ID. This setting may be modified before the initial run of the model, but may not be modified once the spatiotemporal layer is created by the analytic. Learn more about data retention in ArcGIS Velocity.
Enable editing on Watch Alerts layer
When watch officers use the Watch Alerts Monitor dashboard, they can use the editing capabilities of ArcGIS Dashboards to dismiss alerts that are not relevant to their organization. In order to dismiss alerts, editing must enabled and configured on the Watch Alerts spatiotemporal feature layer. In order to prevent the analytic from overwriting user edited values in this field, the alertstatus field must be removed from the Watch Center real-time analytic once the analytic has been started.
Note:
The Watch Alerts spatiotemporal feature layer is created when the Watch Center real-time analytic is started for the first time. This section cannot be completed until the Watch Alerts spatiotemporal feature layer is created.
To enable editing on the Watch Alerts layer, complete the following steps:
- Verify that you are signed in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to the ArcGIS Velocity app.
- Using the site menu, click Layers.
- Click Edit on the Watch_Alerts_{solution id} feature layer.
- Click Enable editing, then click Save layer.
- Click Close.
- Using the site menu, click Real-Time.
- Click Watch Center analytic to launch the analytic Details page.
- Click Edit to open the analytic in edit mode.
- Double-click the Create encoded fields for Survey123 url parameters-1 tool
- On the field mapping for the alertstatus field, click the Delete Field Calculation icon.
- Click Save, then exit the ArcGIS Velocity app.
Share with users
The Watch Center solution includes apps that support two types of users: watch officers who work in a watch center monitoring alerts, assessing risk, and creating watch reports, and internal stakeholders who use those watch reports for awareness and to respond and mitigate the risk of an event. Watch officers use the Watch Center app (and associated apps, maps, and layers), while internal stakeholders use the Watch Reports dashboard.
Share spatiotemporal feature layers
Watch Areas and Watch Alerts are spatiotemporal feature layers that are created after the first runs of the Create Watch Areas and Watch Center analytics, respectively. Once these layers exist in your organization, they need to be shared so they can be used by apps in the solution.
To share the Watch Alerts layer with the Watch Officers group, complete the following steps:
- Verify that you are signed in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to your root content folder.
- Next to each of the following items, check the check box:
Name Item type Watch Alerts_{solutionid}
Feature layer (hosted)
Watch Areas_{solutionid}
Feature layer (hosted)
- Click Share.
- In the Share window, click Organization.
- In the Share window, click Edit group sharing.
- Check the Watch Officers group check box.
- Click Apply and click Save.
Share items with the organization
Several items used by the Watch Reports dashboard in the Watch Center solution must be shared with all users within your organization, so all stakeholders can access the dashboard. To share these items with the organization, complete the following steps:
- Verify that you are signed in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to the Watch Center folder.
- Next to each of the following items, check the check box:
Name Item type Locations
Feature layer (hosted)
Watch Report
Feature layer (hosted)
Watch Reports
Web Map
Watch Reports
Dashboard
- Click Share.
- In the Share window, click Organization and click Save.
- Click Update.
Add watch officers to group
Included with the Watch Center solution is a group designed to provide access to all layers, maps, and apps used by the Watch Center app. To access all features of the Watch Center app, watch officers need to be added to the Watch Officers group deployed with the solution.
Note:
User accounts must already be created for watch officers before you can perform this workflow. Watch officer user accounts must have a minimum user type of Contributor.
To add watch officers to the Watch Officers group, complete the following steps:
- In a browser, sign in to your ArcGIS organization.
- Click Groups at the top of the site.
- Click the Watch Officers group to open the group details page.
- On the Overview tab, click Invite members.
- Check the check box next to the members that you want to add and click Add members to group.
Modify default configurations
Note:
This workflow is optional and doesn't need to be completed to work with the solution.The Watch Center solution is configured to support all-hazards alerting and reporting workflow, however, organizations can modify the default configurations to better fit their needs. This section provides guidance for the most common ways users may want to modify the default solution configuration to fit their organizational needs.
Modify statistics
Note:
This workflow is optional and doesn't need to be completed to work with the solution.The Watch Center app includes a Review Stats page with statistics and charts displaying alert activity over the last 24 hours. These statistics and charts may be modified to meet the needs of your organization.
The statistics are stored within Watch Alert Statistics, an embedded ArcGIS Dashboards app. Organizations may wish to adjust the default filters applied to these elements, so that the statistics reflect alert categories of importance to the organization. For example, instead of showing a chart and 24 hour percent change statistics for hurricane-related alerts, the dashboard elements could be filtered to show a particular alert type used by a Esri partner event feed. The dashboard presents a serial chart and an indicator element grouped together. Both elements have filters that are used to display a particular category of alerts. In order to fully modify an element group to display the same category, the filters used on both the value and reference statistics in the indicator element must be adjusted, as well as the filter used on the serial chart element.
Learn more about configuring indicator and serial chart elements in ArcGIS Dashboards.
Modify priority values
Note:
This workflow is optional and doesn't need to be completed to work with the solution.The Watch Center solution assigns a priority value to each watch alert. To ensure consistency, the solution uses a four category scale— 1=Advisory, 2=Minor, 3=Major, 4=Critical. Each event used in the solution has been aligned to this priority scale based on existing fields in the feed.
These values are created in the field mapping step for each event feed in the Watch Center real-time analytic. In the field map of each event feed, the alert priority field includes an ArcGIS Arcade expression that converts one or more field values containing information about an event's importance into one of the four category values used by the solution. The Arcade expressions used in the field map of each event feed can be modified to reflect the priorities of your organization.
Learn more about using Arcade to adjust classification of event priorities.
Modify feed sources and settings
Note:
This workflow is optional and doesn't need to be completed to work with the solution.The Watch Center solution comes pre-configured with four feeds that connect to layers in the ArcGIS Living Atlas: USA Wildfires, USA Weather Watches and Warnings, World Hurricanes, and World Earthquakes. You wish to re-point one or more of these layers to ArcGIS Living Atlas layers more relevant to your organizational needs. For example, a Canadian user may wish to replace the USA Wildfires layer with the Active Wildfires in Canada layer.
You may also need to modify polygon-to-point conversion settings. The Watch Center real-time analytic converts polygons into points so they can be merged into the Watch Alerts spatiotemporal feature layer with the other point-based alerts. The Create unique ID and convert polygons to points step in the analytic handles this conversion. For the USA Wildfires, World Earthquakes, and DataCapable Polygon feeds, the output point is based on attribute coordinates in the feed source before the location was buffered. For USA Weather Watches and Warnings and World Hurricanes, the output point is given the coordinates of the watch area location. If the watch area location is a polygon, the output point will be the centroid of the watch area. Depending on your needs, it may be desirable to have the alert return to the location geometry rather than the centroid, for example with a very large weather warning polygon
Complete the following steps to modify a ArcGIS Living Atlas feed source and polygon to point conversions for alerts:
- Confirm that you are signed in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to the ArcGIS Velocity app.
- Using the site menu, click Real-Time.
- Click Watch Center analytic to launch the analytic Details page.
- Click Edit to start the analytic, and then click Stop.
- Double-click the step Create unique ID and convert polygons to points.
- Click the Geometry field.
- Click Configure an Arcade expression, and follow instructions in the Arcade expression comments to modify the expression.
- Click OK, click Save, then click Start.
Connect other data feeds
Note:
This workflow is optional and doesn't need to be completed to work with the solution.Organizations may wish to extend the Watch Center solution to support connections to data feeds not supported by the default solution configuration. ArcGIS Velocity can support a wide variety of real-time connection types, including Internet of Things (IoT) platforms, message brokers, or third-party APIs.
Learn more about working with feeds in ArcGIS Velocity.
Extend reports to external systems
Note:
This workflow is optional and doesn't need to be completed to work with the solution.Organizations may also wish to extend the Watch Center solution so that watch reports generated by the solution are shared to external systems.
To extend reports to external systems use the following information:
- ArcGIS Velocity—The solution can be extended using output options in ArcGIS Velocity to support automated email and text message generation.
- ArcGIS Survey123—The watch reports are created using ArcGIS Survey123, which supports the use of webhooks. Webhooks are a widely supported method used to allow multiple applications to interact with each other.
- ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate—You can use build automation workflows that consume or act upon ArcGIS layers.
- Microsoft Teams—You can create use cases that include automated emails, text messages or notifications in Microsoft Teams.