Visitor Map’s Mission

The Forest Service Visitor Map provides online access to authoritative agency data. This includes roads, trails, and recreation sites, through an intuitive and easy to use map interface. The audience for the Visitor Map is geared towards the public interested in visiting our nation’s national forests and grasslands. Xentity team member Critigen has assisted the Forest Service with the setup  and development of all three platforms for the Visitor Map. This includes Android, iOS and web versions. In an effort to provide continuity and ensure the longevity of the application, the Forest Service established a solution to provide ongoing maintenance. Also, support for the various online and mobile environments.

In Need of Maintenance

Applications almost always require maintenance to ensure smooth operations. Based on Xentity Team member Critigen’s history and familiarity with the development and deployment of the Interactive Visitor Map (IVM) this operations and maintenance task was developed as a means to provide ongoing support to the USDA Forest Service’s “Visitor Map” mobile and web applications. This task encompassed the following items: 

• Meeting the needs of the public
• Operating with a high level of performance
• Operating without bugs
• Coordination across platforms
• Monitoring for use patterns and bugs
• Updating to conform to changes in the backend map services environment

Xentity team member Critigen worked to coordinate content and functionality across all platforms. They standardized inconsistent workflows, interfaces, features across the IVM web and native mobile applications when possible and where appropriate. Ongoing efforts also included monitoring Android, iOS and web applications for necessary updates and changes to IVM as needed. Furthermore, they monitored feedback from Android, iOS and web applications to accomplish this. This includes application bugs and crashes.

They subsequently reviewed information for bugs, end-user performance issues, and crashes along with logging any enhancements for consideration. The USFS reviewed this information. Then Critigen performed fixes for bugs, performance related issues, and enhancement requests as approved. Furthermore, they noted any external issues identified outside of the application. Afterwards, they raised these issues as potential needs to address through the backend map services. Once identified, code changes to the IVM and web and native mobile applications would be made.

Continuing a Smooth Operation

Through this effort, Xentity Team member Critigen continues our support of the Interactive Visitor Map providing ongoing access for agency data and making this information available to the public. We at Xentity were happy to be a part of this process, considering our love of data and the earth.