Background
Stettler is a town in east-central Alberta, about 180 km south of Edmonton and nicknamed "the Heart of Alberta." With only 6,000 residents, it's a clear example of how cloud computing can bring enterprise-level capability to a local government that doesn't have an enterprise-level software budget.
Mango isn't Stettler's first online GIS system. GIS Coordinator Graham Scott told us it replaced an existing platform that was, in his words, "costing our township a lot more" — and the switch has been an easy one to defend:
I like using Mango a lot more, and it looks much better too.
The problem Mango solved
Stettler has built ten maps in Mango. They range from a public map with the everyday information residents actually look for — zoning, garbage-collection days, compost-bin locations — through to more specialised maps that detail things like cemetery plots.
But the move wasn't only about ease of use and better-looking maps. What really stood out to Graham was support: faster and more responsive than solutions costing far more. "The Mango team respond very quickly to questions," he said.
Results
What first attracted Stettler was the combination of price, ease of use, and responsive support. After several years, other strengths have become just as important.
The town leans heavily on Mango's support for raster datasets, uploading its own aerial photography quickly and easily — imagery that's far more current than the base-map services such as Bing provide. Performance has impressed too: where slow-loading maps are a common web-mapping frustration, "the data loads very quickly with Mango" for Stettler's maps.
Stettler's experience shows that even small towns on modest budgets can deliver first-class web mapping to their communities.
I would highly recommend Mango to anyone in local government, as it can become such an asset to your staff and community.
