There is growing interest in linking GIS or spatial analysis capability into the everyday reporting and analysis tools used within Business. This is not linking simple images of countries but full blown GIS server implementations that provide a capability for Business Reporting solutions that are typically focused on charting, pivoting and tables to include a dynamic linked spatial analysis capability.

I will explore the use of OGC standards to provide a generic connection framework between Business Intelligence tools such as Business Objects, Cognos, Hyperion and Excel with Geospatial solutions such as Geoserver that conform to OGC standards. The integration is based on the concept of a platform that manages data flows, controls the application logic and provides the required visualisations to the BI tool. This being done within an OGC framework for communication with the GIS server. OGC standards – WMS (Web Map Service), WFS (Web Feature Service), WFS-T, SLD (Styled Layer Descriptor) and KML are used to interoperate with GIS Servers in a generic, standards based manner.

I will also provide an overview of how this platform is being used in a number of Government agencies and will take a specific look at the business issues for Program Management in FAHCSIA and how they were able to use the platform to plan the location of carer support groups, taking into account disability population, other carer support sites such as Autism Play, Connect Playgroup and Supported Playgroup locations, using ARIA and SEIFA.