Bringing point data into ArcGIS

Step 1: Get the data into a format with at least these three minimum fields:

Some sort of unique water X – Coordinate (Decimal Degrees) Y – Coordinate (Decimal Degrees)
source / hydrant ID number
1 -70.259583 44.239150

Hints: Don’t forget to have the Y coordinate as a negative number… or you'll end up in
Kazakhstan! Also, don't forget to format the cells containing the X and Y coordinates as
numbers with an appropriate number of decimal places – before saving the file as a D-
Base (dbf). If you forget this step when converting the data into a .dbf, it will truncate
most if not all of the decimal places, so all of your points will end up on top of each
other.

Additional fields might include Description of water source, Directions to the source, etc.

Step 2: Save the file as a D-Base in a location that is accessible to ArcGIS

Step 3: Open up ArcGIS and bring in a roads layer to check the new points against.
Bringing another base layer in first "sets" the layer coordinate system to NAD 1983
UTM Zone 19N. So when you save your points as a shapefile – you can
automatically save the shapefile under this "State Standard" coordinate system.

Step 4: Go to the "Tools" menu and select "Add X,Y Data"

Step 5: Locate your D-Base file and select it – indicate which fields contain your X and Y
data (this is done automatically if you name your fields X, Y).

Step 6: If the points we collected with a GPS, click on the "Edit" button and then use
whatever coordinate system was in use by the GPS when the coordinates were being
collected. If this is unknown, my first choice is to use the WGS84 system because that is
the geoid that the GPS system uses by default.

Step 7: Click Ok – You should see your points on the screen – check them against the
roads layer or another set of base data to ensure that they are at least in the correct town!

Step 8: If everything looks ok – you can export the X, Y data as a shapefile by following
these steps.

Right click on the file name, go to "Data" on the menu, select "Export Data." Make sure
that you are exporting all features, and be sure to select the radio button for "Use the
same Coordinate System as the data frame" – this will save the shapefile with the same
NAD83 / UTM Zone 19N that most other MEDEP data follows. Name your shapefile
and save it in a good location – congratulations – you are done!