2026 WA GIS Conference: Full Schedule

3:00pm PDT

What "They" Don't Tell You About WAB-to-ExB Migration

Wednesday May 20, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm PDT

Modernizing a complex, long-lived GIS application is harder than it looks on paper. King County's iMap has served residents and agencies for years, and rebuilding it on ArcGIS Experience Builder Developer Edition meant confronting real challenges that go well beyond swapping frameworks.

In this presentation we will walk through the real obstacles we encountered and how we navigated them. Along the way, we filled gaps in ExB's native capabilities with custom widgets developed through an AI-assisted workflow, including open-source tools from the MapSimple project that are now running in production.

We'll share the process, the tradeoffs, and the practical techniques we developed along the way, with iMap as the case study that ties it together illustrating what it truly takes to modernize a mature GIS system.

Speakers

Harkeerat Kang

GIS Engineer, King County

Harkeerat Kang is a GIS professional with over 25+ years of experience working in public sector. Her focus mostly has been on designing, implementing, integration of systems, application development and solution architecting.

Adam Cabrera

Map and AI Whisperer, MapSimple

Adam Cabrera is a GIS professional with 30 years of experience spanning the full arc of the industry, from command-line tools to modern web frameworks. He serves as Geo Engineering Manager at the King County GIS Center, where he leads a team building public-facing geospatial appl... Read More →

Wednesday May 20, 2026 3:00pm - 3:30pm PDT
401-402

Technology, ExB

8:30am PDT

A Tale of Two Experience Builders: Migrating Tacoma's Map Applications

Thursday May 21, 2026 8:30am - 9:00am PDT

401-402

Two of the City of Tacoma's most foundational and complex web map applications are the Equity Index and Staff DART (an internal, "kitchen-sink" application). Over the course of 2025, we migrated both of these highly customized applications to Esri's Experience Builder. We’ll share how we preserved core functionalities, enhanced design and usability, and improved performance. Along the way, we will also highlight key lessons learned, technical challenges, and practical insights to support others considering migrating similar complex application solutions.

Speakers

Alicia Bradshaw

Senior GIS Analyst, City of Tacoma

Alicia Bradshaw is a Senior GIS Analyst at the City of Tacoma where her primary role is to curate the City’s GIS data. She has 10 years of GIS-related experience ranging from research about brownfield redevelopment in Michigan to stormwater education and public transportation planning... Read More →

Idalis Laboy Cintron

GIS Analyst, City of Tacoma

Idalis Laboy Cintron is a GIS Analyst for the City of Tacoma with 8 years of experience in the GIS industry, where she manages the City’s authoritative spatial data, ensuring it supports internal operations and public-facing applications. Her experience also extends to vector tiles... Read More →

Thursday May 21, 2026 8:30am - 9:00am PDT
401-402