SSP has written extensively on the benefits and deployment methodology of ArcGIS Online (AGOL).  Recently we have expanded upon our normal AGOL delivery capabilities by reporting near real-time electric service disruptions.

By also leveraging the native functionality of  SSP’s Nightly Batch Suite (NBS) with Schneider Electric’s Responder™, the public can obtain outage information from a utility’s public-facing website.

Beyond our well documented delivery methodology, the outage-reporting process begins with the creation of a simple polygon layer.  The layer can be the utility’s jurisdiction boundary that is broken up into logical feeder (or other delineation) subareas.  Two long integer fields must be added to the layer:

1. Outages
2. Customers

NBS is then configured to automate two processes:

1. Every fifteen minutes, conduct a spatial query to determine the quantity of outages within each polygon feature, and report to the Outages field.
2. Nightly conduct a secondary spatial query to also determine the quantity of Service Locations (i.e., Customers) within each polygon feature and report to the Customers field.  This query is less frequent because the customers typically will not deviate significantly throughout the day.

The symbology of the polygon layer is specified within ArcMap.  Symbology can be illustrated as ranges based upon the percentage of customers without power.  As shown in Figure 1, 0% is clear, 0%-25% is yellow, 25%-50% is orange, and greater than 50% is red.  Text labels can be added (or left off) to show the specific outage and customer values.

Once the map is satisfactory, publish it to the ArcGIS Server.  It can then be utilized as a layer within ArcGIS Online and/or embedded into another website. One will observe that no critical municipal infrastructure is shown in the example map.  This is increasingly important for a public-facing website to address security concerns.

We love questions and/or comments.  I suggest leaving several below.  Do I need to offer an incentive?  (Editor’s Note:  Brian may not be joking here.  He’s honestly very handy with woodworking…if you play your ‘comment’ or ‘question’ cards right you may end up with a nice wooden SSP bookend)