The GIS lab is reserved for map and geospatial related work only. New users must be added to the GIS workgroup in order to log in. Please contact David Medeiros (davidmed@stanford.edu) for access.

Once you have been added to the workgroup you will be able to log in to any of the GIS machines with your regular Stanford username and password. Please do not share your login with anyone else.

Whenever you log in to a GIS lab machine you will see two network drives that have been automatically linked to your workstation: the GIS(Q) drive and the Users(R) drive. These are your primary hard drive spaces for working in the GIS lab.

The User or R drive is your project space, use it for storing all of your primary work.

In the GIS or Q drive will find connections to sub folders for Data and Groups. The Data folder holds a large set of general purpose spatial data that as been downloaded to make starting work easier. Groups allows for collaborative projects between different GIS lab users.

You can double click the ThisPC icon in the upper left corner of your desktop to see all your connected drives and networks:

• D:\WinTempStorage\[your SUnet Username] =
• R:\Users = GIS user folder, access limited to signed in user, no access to other user folders. This is your primary work folder, accessible from any lab machine and off campus via VPN
• Q:\Groups = group folders for collaborative work between users, request access from SGC staff
• Q:\Data = Read only GIS data collection on server
• Q:\Projects = No user access
• Q:\Lab_documents = No user access
• D:\WinTempStorage\[your SUnet Username] = local User folder on each GIS desktop

Only you and lab admins have access to your User folder and its contents. No other users can see or access your data and projects. If you need to work collaboratively with other Stanford affiliates please contact the SGC about using to the Groups folder.

User files and data kept on the local D drive may be deleted at any time by SGC staff for routine cleanup, so always make copies of your work in R:\Users.

Data and files on the R:\Users drive will be kept for up to 1 year after a user is no longer affiliated with Stanford, after which the user folder and all contents will be deleted.

The Stanford Geospatial Center (and Stanford Libraries) are not responsible for protecting your data from accidental loss on the GIS server. GIS lab users should create their own periodic backups to a service like Google Drive or a portable HD.

There is a GIS Applications group in the Start menu tiles. It includes quick links to QGIS, ArcMap, and ArcGIS Pro.

You can install ArcGIS Pro or QGIS on any personal computer, with some limitations.

ArcGIS Pro can be downloaded directly from the Settings menu in ArcGIS Online. Click  here  for download instructions. Note, ArcGIS requires Windows to run and will not install on Macs.

QGIS can be downloaded for Mac or PC  here . We recommend using the LTR or "longterm release" instead of the latest release.

When starting a new ArcGIS Pro project be sure to redirect the project save location to your Users(R) drive. This places the project where it will be accessible from any machine you log into in the GIS lab. The default save location places the project on the C drive which you do not have read/write access to.

• GIS feature class names should not contain spaces. If you have a two-part name for a table or feature class, connect the words with an underscore (_), for example, garbage_routes.
• Names must begin with a letter, not a number or special character such as an asterisk (*) or percent sign (%).
• Use descriptive file names. ArcGIS analysis is iterative and results in numerous copies of original data. Use good naming conventions to ID all of your data.
• Use subfolders and geodatabases to organize your project data. It's a good idea to separate raw input data from scratch processing data and finished output data.

• Always use the R:\User folder as your primary workspace
• Avoid storing GIS files on the Desktop or Downloads folders
• Always copy important local files back to your R:\User folder after completing any local GIS work
• Make your own project backups for GIS work - the SGC is not liable for work loss