Tag Archives: storm
ArcGIS for Water Utilities on GitHub
In case you missed it, earlier this month, we launched a series of ArcGIS for Local Government GitHub repositories to share source code for our web, desktop, and mobile applications. For those that aren’t familiar with GitHub, it is a code sharing and social networking site for the developer community. Here is the original blog.
This week, we added the Water Utilities, Address and Capital Planning desktop tools to the local government desktop add ins repository. You can now access all the source code for these tool sets and contribute your additions back. We are also working on the Mobile Map template and should have that posted shortly.
Would restricting rules in the Attribute Assistant to run only when a field changes help you?
We receive a interesting question from a user on the Water Utilities Forum. They asked if it was possible to set a date on a field only when a specific field is modified. The Attribute Assistant extension, that is part of the Water Utility Network Editing application has a rule to set a field value when a specific field is changed called FIELD_TRIGGER, but not a date. We could extent this rule to support setting values such as date or time, but maybe there is a better way to do this, holistically for all the rules. What if we changed the ON_CHANGE field to a string field, where you could specify a field or a series of fields that a rule would run only when those fields values changed. Alternatively,we could add another field to the Dynamic Value table to list those fields and leave the current schema in place. That would simplify the changes, still give you a toggle to turn the rule on and off and let you restrict ON_CHANGE rules to only when specific fields have changed. If you think this enhancement would be useful, let us know.
Expanding the power of the Attribute Assistant
Here at Esri, we always try to help one another out. Well the Local Government team asked if we could expand the functionality of the Attribute Assistant and make a series of construction tools to help with address data management workflows; and we obliged. We came up with some pretty cool new rules for the attribute assistant and some interesting construction tools that will be used to streamline address maintenance workflows. Even though these have been designed for managing address information, you may find them very helpful. Let’s first take a look at these new attribute assistant rules.
The first rule we needed to create was CASCADE_ATTRIBUTE. This rule will allow you to make a change to an attribute in a table or layer and push that new attribute value to every feature that contains the value. So in the address world, we have implemented a Master Street Name table. Say a road was renamed, we can go into the table, change the road name, and the rule will open up the Road Centerline layer and make that change to every road with the old name, then open up the Site Address Point Layer and update the road name as well. Pretty cool, huh?
The second rule we created was VALIDATE_ATTRIBUTE_LOOKUP. This rule will validate an attribute change against a look up table or layer. Let’s look out how you would use this in address land. If I created a new road and I want to make sure the road name matches a road in the Master Street Name table, I can set this rule up to monitor my Street Name field and check that value against the Master Street Name table. The cool thing about this rule is all I have to do is enter a piece of the road information. If it finds more than one record in the street name table, it presents a prompt, where you can select any of the matching values. How is that for data validation?
I also mentioned we are working on some new construction tools. These are still in development, but here is what we are working towards. One tool will allow the user to click a reference point, in our case, an address point that represents the location on the centerline of which the address is derived, create this point if it does not exist, then create a series of site address points with information from that reference point or the centerline underneath it. So basically, you can create a series of points all with information from source point. The second is a tool to draw a new road and split any intersecting roads and prorate their address information.
If you want to try the new rules out, as well as a few other enhancements, we have posted a beta of the tools on the forum.
Thanks
Mike from the Water Team
Release Candidate of the Infrastructure Editing Template Tools
We posted an updated version of the Editing tools today. This update has an only a few visible changes, but we did a lot of work to the plumbing of the tools. We condensed a series of duplicate functions, streamlined some of the processes and removed one of the dlls which was causing issues on non admin installs. We also did a bunch of clean up to better manage memory and improve stability.
Since we are supporting multiple config files now, we also changed the name of the config file that is being used to Loaded.config. If you have a config file you have created, let the tools create the new Loaded.config file and port your changes into it. There are a few new tags that we want to make sure you have. You will find it easier to navigate to the config file location with the Config file tool on the Infrastructure Reporting Toolbar. We also included a Bat script that will copy a config file to the appropriate location and open the folder for you.
We included a new copy of the Dynamic Value table with an updated Value Method domain. You should look at manually adding the new rules to your domain or importing the one included in the NewDyn.gdb.
I will be working on updating the docs and hope to have them all posted later this week.
For all the details, check out the change log included in the beta thread.
Thanks
Mike from the Esri Water Utility Team
Feedback from the User Conference
I wanted to thank all our Water and Wastewater users that attended this year’s User Conference. It was a fun week for us and I hope it was for you too. It is such a busy week, we did not get a chance to talk to all of you, so we wanted to solicited any feedback you had for us. Of those we did talk to, we received some great enhancement request. I listed some of them below for the editing template, but if you have any other suggestions, want to expand a topic or if we missed your request, let us know. You can post them as a comment or send us a note(ArcGISTeamWater@esri.com).
- Tool to move taps and laterals from an existing main to a new main
- Ability to add a flag or barrier then run traces from the Infrastructure Editing Toolbar
- Ability to load Multi Configuration files
- Ship the Configuration file in the documentation folder with a script to load it to the correct location
- Report of the trace results
- Sewer design tools
- Warning or deactivate the Attribute Assistant on a split
- Tool to add spin to a rotated feature
- Attribute Assistant rule to validate attribute input
- Attribute Assistant rule to not allow disconnected features to be created
- Tools to help localize the data model
- GP Models as tools to move features from Proposed to In-service, In-service to Abandon
- Intersected Line layers in profile trace
Where are the users of the Templates
We get asked all the time, who is using the Water Utility Templates? We know of a lot of users and partners that have downloaded them, implemented them, and helped us improve them, but we do not know who and where you all are. We put together a simple ArcGIS.com map for you to provide us your location and some feedback. Let us know what you think.
Our present to you – Beta versions
ArcGIS Team Water would like to thank you all for your interest inthe templates on the resource center. The number of downloads has beengreat, the feedback and comments have been very helpful and seeing thesetemplates influence your applications and pilot projects is awesome. Weare happy the community has been able to benefit from the work on the resourcecenter. We want to continue enhancing the templates and providing youwith the toolsets you need to manage and extend your uses of GIS technology inyour organization.
Directly from your feedback and comments, we have fixed a lot ofissues and added some new functions. We are not ready to do a fullupdated release, but I wanted to start sharing some of the things we areworking on. I created a new section on the forums where you will be ableto access beta versions of the toolset or applications that are included withthe templates. At the time of the blog post, I have already postedupdates to the Attribute Assistant and the Infrastructure Editing Desktoptools.
We have had a lot of people trying to implement their own rules inthe Attribute Assistant and when a rule was configured incorrectly, theextension would fail, but provide no feedback. To help you understand howthe extension is processing data and to find errors, I added a debug mode tothe extension. The debug mode will prompt you for a location to save alog file when you start editing. The extension will write out every stepand try to record what is going, what rules are being processed, any errorswith the rules, etc. This is the first version of the debug mode, so I amsure there is room for improvement, so let us know if it helps or if you havesuggestions on making it better.
There are many other fixes, to many to list, but I wanted tohighlight the debug mode, because we think it will help you configure thispowerful extension on your own datasets.
Sticky Thread with beta versions: http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/20000-Beta-Versions
Thanks and Happy Holidays from Esri and ArcGIS Team Water
Infrastructure Mobile Map Template For ArcGIS 10 Release Notes
The September 30, 2010 release of the Infrastructure Mobile Map template for ArcGIS 10 addresses the following:
New Functionality
1. Added street layer to cache and ArcMap Document (mxd)
Resolved Problems
1. Resolved a bug with address geocoder
2. Resolved several bugs with workorders, only highlighted when workorder tab is open
Known Issues
There are no known issues at this time.
Infrastructure Editing Template for ArcGIS 10 Release Notes
The September 30, 2010 release of the Infrastructure Network Editing template for ArcGIS 10 addresses the following:
New Functionality
1. Added error handling for Sewer Profile and warnings for Null data
2. Extended MS Office support to version 2003
3. Added a source feature to support tracing in the water network ; populated FacilityIDs on SewerStormwater mains
4. Added option to only connect to selected features on Connect Closest tool on toolbar
5. Added option on Connect Closest construction tool to hold “Ctrl” when creating a feature to only find the closest selected features
6. Create Lines with End points tool renamed to Create Lines with Points
7. Added option to Create lines with Points tool to create a point at each vertex and make two point lines
8. Added check to Create lines with Points tool to avoid creating a point if a feature of the same type already exists
9. Added prompt to Connect Closest and Add Line with Points tools that requires user to select template for secondary feature created
10. Added progress dialog to Attribute Assistant and changed icon of Attribute Assistant to identify when Active/Inactive
11. Added Generate_ID_By_Intersect method in Attribute Assistant
12. Modified Add-In installation process to look for the configuration file installed with the Construction Tools first, if it does not find the configuration file, then the installation process will utilize the Add-In configuration file
13. Added a new tool to select junctions by the number of edges
14. Added several new functions in sewer profile tool; each main segment is drawn separately, option to plot Taps on graph, include labels on mains, allow fields to be defined in configuration file, add Laterals option to create the dogleg at a percent, and allow for the entire line to be drawn at 45 degrees
Resolved Problems
1. Resolved registration issue with the custom construction tools
2. Resolved issue with LAST_VALUE and ROTATION methods in Attribute Assistant
3. Removed Generate_ID_By_Area method in Attribute Assistant
4. Resolved several issues with rules in Dynamic Value Table
5. Resolved issue with Isotrace configuration
6. Resolved issue with Getting Started Document
7. Resolved issue in trace configuration tags
8. Resolved several smaller bugs in Attribute Assistant and Infrastructure Editing Toolbar code base
Known Issues
There are no known issues at this time.
Water, Wastewater & Stormwater ArcGIS Ideas
A Water and Wastewater category has just been added to the
ArcGIS Ideas website. So the water,
wastewater and stormwater ArcGIS user community now has a formal place to
suggest products enhancements and enables the community to promote, rank
and comment on submitted idea.
What is the ArcGIS
Ideas Website?
The ArcGIS Ideas website is the place for ArcGIS users to
suggest product or industry specific enhancements to ArcGIS. When you post an Idea you can tag it with
descriptive terms and also choose up to 3 categories that your idea is relevant
to. The categories are both products and
industries. Water and Wastewater is now
available as an industry.
Tagging and categorizing your posted ideas are very
important because this allows other users to find your ideas, comment on them
and promote or demote them depending on whether they believe it’s a good idea
or not. As posted ideas get promoted they gain more points.
Water and Wastewater
Ideas
In the past you’ve given us ideas and feedback on ArcGIS in
the water, wastewater and stormwater industries by telling us in person,
sending us emails, Twitter and posting on the discussion forums. Your feedback has driven the development of the Water Utility Templates as well as changes in ArcGIS. We’re glad to continue to receive ideas in
any way, but we want to urge you to submit your ideas to the ArcGIS
Ideas website going forward. Posting to
the ArcGIS Ideas website will engage the rest of the user community in refining
your idea and helping to promote its importance to Esri’s development and Water
Utility Resource Center teams.
So…. got an idea? Go
ahead and post it now: http://ideas.arcgis.com/
