I had a great time at the ESRI UK annual conference this year plenty of people to talk with and useful presentations.  Being part of a small family run firm can be a bit awkward at these type of events because you can be on your own!

ESRI UK staff were brilliant, open to conversation and genuinely interested in where their products were being used as well as giving good demonstrations and helping out with queries.   I think one sign of a good professional who enjoys their job is the giving of information or help over and above what was asked for.  Which leads me to a nice follow up email I received from someone working in software developmet at ESRI UK.

I have been for some time interested in customizing and learning scripting/programming for use in ArcGIS, but had no clue where to start.  This gentleman suggested a few things at the conference and pointed me in a direction.   Whether it’s part of the ESRI training/culture or that he was a nice person willing to help (probably all three) is immaterial I much appreciated the help!

So here is the email extract (I’ve kept the ESRI employee annoymous for now, but you know who you are!):

Just thought I would email some links to online resources to help you if you’re thinking of embarking on customising ArcGIS… (I’ve given links to both ArcGIS 9.3 / 9.3.1 and 10.0 below so you can look ahead and see what’s coming up – ArcGIS 10.0 will be out in the summer sometime).

If you’re customising ArcGIS Desktop you have two routes to look into…
1.       The first is Geoprocessing with ModelBuilder (a drag and drop user interface) or for more control you can use Geoprocessing with Python scripting (and at ArcGIS 10 the new ArcPy which apparently offers much greater control map automation).
2.       The Second is ArcObjects which are the software components/objects that ArcGIS Desktop itself is built from. There’s a lot in ArcObjects so it can be pretty scary initially but there are a lot of samples and examples available online. At 9.3 / 9.3.1 you write custom tools and toolbars for ArcGIS Desktop with ArcObjects (using templates in visual studio) but in ArcGIS 10.0 this changes slightly to “Add-Ins” – your code will still be the same but they’re easier to deploy/register with ArcGIS.
Training: (obviously ESRI (UK) runs training courses too – but here’s a free seminar, look out online for more free seminars)
–          Free ArcGIS 10.0 seminars: http://training.esri.com/campus/seminars/index.cfm
Geoprocessing:
–          ArcGIS 9.3 / 9.3.1: http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?TopicName=What_is_geoprocessing?
–          ArcGIS 10.0: http://resources.arcgis.com/content/geoprocessing
ArcObjects:
–          ArcGIS 9.3 / 9.3.1:  http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?TopicName=An_overview_of_customizing_ArcGIS
–          ArcGIS 10.0: Road map to learning ArcObjects: http://help.arcgis.com/en/sdk/10.0/arcobjects_net/conceptualhelp/index.html#/roadmap_to_learning_arcobjects/0001000000p1000000/
Hope these links help guide you to the right option – unfortunately I can’t provide much ongoing support but I’m always happy to answer the odd question. Assuming your ArcGIS products are under maintenance then you can contact the support desk with any actual technical issues and you can always contact your ESRI (UK) Account Manager who will put you in contact with someone in our technical presales team who can help out.

Cheers and good luck

Update1: Oh, forgot to point you towards the ESRI (UK) DeveloperHub website: http://www.esriuk.com/developerhub/ – there is a “top 10” links section on there.

Update2: Just been pointed to another help link which is supposed to provide some guidance on the VBA / VB.NET / Python matter: http://help.arcgis.com/en/sdk/10.0/vba_desktop/conceptualhelp/index.html#//000100000131000000

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