Connecting to HRSA Data Warehouse Map Data With ArcCatalog

This page describes the steps necessary to use ArcCatalog (part of the ArcGIS software available from ESRI) to connect to and use the HRSA Data Warehouse feature service (HGDW_Mapping) located at datawarehouse.hrsa.gov.

STEP 1: Open ArcCatalog. From the Table of Contents (the left-side pane in the Explorer-like window) choose GIS Servers to expand the list of options.

FIGURE 1: The ArcCatalog Table of Contents

STEP 2: Double-click the Add ArcIMS Server option to get the dialog window shown below, then enter the URL of the HRSA Data Warehouse as shown:

FIGURE 2: Add an ArcIMS Server dialog box

STEP 3: After you click OK to create the connection in ArcCatalog, open ArcMap.

STEP 4: Click the Add Data button () on the ArcMap toolbar to open the Add Data Dialog. Pull down the "Look In" list and choose "GIS Servers".

FIGURE 3: The ArcCatalog Add Data dialog box

STEP 5: Double-click on the datawarehouse.hrsa.gov server connection that you created in Step 2. You get the list of services that exist on this server.

FIGURE 4: The list of ArcIMS map services available at datawarehouse.hrsa.gov

(Conceptually this is like seeing the list of folders on a server. For image services you see the image service icon (). You can't drill any farther into this type of map service- you just add the whole service to your map. For feature services () you can drill one more level in, and select individual layers, or you can add the whole service to your map.) The screen shot below shows the entire HGDW_Mapping feature service selected.

FIGURE 5: Selecting the HGDW_Mapping ArcIMS feature service

STEP 6: Once you've added the HGDW_Mapping service to the map, the Table of Contents in ArcMap should look similar to this:

FIGURE 6: The ArcMap Table of Contents, with the HGDW_Mapping service added

From this point, you should be able to work with the data just as if it were data contained in a data source on your own system. Remember, though, that as the data in the HRSA Data Warehouse changes you may see different features. Each time the data in the HRSA Data Warehouse are updated, the change is noted on the Data Refresh Dates page of the HRSA Data Warehouse website.