Data Request. We have automated our data request process. Writes out the data request form and tracks stats back to Sharepoint. We have freed up 1 FTE for our team with the process. 

My most prized automation is a workspace called Support-GmailUser-NewAccount.fmw.

When a user signs up for the community, a webhook triggers the workspace to check their email for disposable addresses (like Gmail or Hotmail). If it finds one, the account is put into a moderation queue and a message is sent to Slack.

The message contains links to run Support-GmailUser-Approved or Support-GmailUser-Banned so we can moderate new users in Slack.

If you want to know why there has been so little spam recently, this is why! The only time spam gets through now is when it’s an email domain that I don’t have listed, which is fairly rare.

We have other community automations. In fact, I’m writing this reply specifically to test one of them!

Probably one of the most basic ones but…

The other company we’re a reseller for only publishes a price list in US$, but our clients expect us to quote prices in Euro’s. In order to cut down on a lot of frantic exchange rate calculations when somebody calls to ask about pricing I have set up a Google sheet with all of the US$ prices and a calculation to Euro’s using the exchange rate that’s being put into a single cell by an FME automation that queries an exchange rate API once per day.

My priced automation rather nostalgic one, dates back to 2002, when the only automation in FME Desktop was the batch processing using a .bat file and .fme file.

The process was to run a FME Workspace on 20,000 dgn files to extract data from 1-60 levels and then write them to about 20 different MapInfo TAB files.

This was for data pertaining to the CATV/ Broadband utilities.

I had to save the fmw as FME Mapping File and make some changes and then use a .bat (Windows batch) file to call the .fme file to run on each of these dgn files one after the other.

The process ran overnight for close to 18 hours and when I came back next day morning to the office, thankfully the files were neatly done.

FME 2000!

Good old mapping file days :-)

SRG

I developed a highly effective automation in FME, which involves a workflow to integrate two systems through an API. Within this workspace, I performed thorough analyses to facilitate data transfer between the two systems. Additionally, this workflow produces comprehensive reports that support management in monitoring the daily progress of ongoing projects.

I have developed an automation that checks for, downloads and updates our regular data supply from the Tasmanian Government, a simple process that keeps our base data up to date. A simple thing, that runs in the background, but keeps our data fresh and helps our users make better decisions.
Our other great achievement (IMHO) is using FME and Integration suite OData APIs the integrate our Esri Utility Network Model with our SAP system. We are still working through the details, but have it working for many of our assets and once running smoothly will remove the duplication our editors have to do to maintain both systems, ultimately freeing up time and reducing errors and data mismatches between the systems

Built a tiny automation that scrapes the Community Ideas board and emails me a weekly roundup of any new suggestions or status changes. 🙈 Perfect for seeing what the team’s working on and where to drop my votes !

It broke a few months ago and I still haven’t found time to fix it, but while it ran it was basically my own little “Ideas Digest.”

It’s a great Question!

This question brings me a bit of nostalgia.

Years ago, I needed to perform a very interesting automation that involved Twilio + FME.

It was necessary to trigger a geocoding flow from a phone call.

It was an XML integration (format) triggering a flow in FME Form and FME Flow monitoring if there was a new connection - that is - update in the input XML (from Twilio).

I had to standardize the most chaotic GIS dataset years ago - Thousands of records spanning decades with 30+ attributes and barely anything was in the ‘correct’ attribute.

The transformations were quite simple but orchestrating the sequence was quite challenging. My automation tackled everything from address parsing, remapping, categorizing, geometry changes, and the occasional language translation. I considered a python script but the workflow visualization in FME was essential to mapping out what needed to be done and in what order.

It was a one-time use sort of situation, but this automation remains the most complex I’ve ever built and my most prized. It set a pretty high benchmark on what I can do with FME early on.

The Winter Operations data workflows I did for Iowa DOT to provide situational awareness by pulling & standardizing road condition, snow plow, and 511 closure data from 8 surrounding state DOTs + Iowa into public ArcGIS Online REST Services. But the real icing on the cake was creating a workspace that then pulled that data from ArcGIS Online and put it into a KML for TV partners to use. I even got an email from a NBC weather producer in New York asking how they get it for their state!