Creating a Template Favorite

September 4, 2013 — Matthew Stuart

A client of ours recently asked SSP to develop a template favorite for modeling a switchgear cabinet based on their existing, hand-drawn switchgear cabinets. 

This template favorite – which provides a quick and accurate way to place standard groups of equipment – was to be deployed first to a test environment where this utility could practice placing the cabinet.  The intent was that they could use the template for adding additional switchgear favorites in the future.

This article will briefly show how we created the switchgear favorite for this client.  First, a quick refresher on how to create a simple template favorite in ArcFM™:

  1. Start an edit session.  Template Favorites may be created on the Features list or the CUs list.  In Designer™, template favorites created using CUs contain Work Management System information and may be used in designs.
  2. Right-click User Favorites and select Create Template Favorite.  (A user template favorite is available only to the user who created it.  To create a system template favorite, right-click System Favorites and select Create Template Favorite.  System template favorites are available to all users of that geodatabase and may be created only by an administrator.)
  3. In the Description field, enter a value that uniquely identifies the template favorite.
  4. Select a feature for the template favorite to snap like in the Snap Like Feature field.  This tells the system how you want the favorite to act.  If you want the favorite to act like a wood pole, then the template favorite will snap to features that wood poles snap to.
  5. Select an Edit Task. The default selection (Create ArcFM™ Feature) but there are other options (Dot to Dot, Radial Edit Task) if you want to allow rotation of the main point.
  6. Clicking the Limit Sketch Points box allows you to limit the amount of clicks necessary to place the template favorite features.
  7. Add at least one point or span by right clicking the name of the template in the upper left panel of the Create Template Favorite window.
  8. When finished, click the create button.  The new favorite is added under User Favorites.
  9. You may single-click (Features list) or double-click (CUs list) the template favorite to Send to Targets.
  10. Open the Attribute Editor and select the Targets tab.  The template favorite will be displayed on this tab.
  11. You may expand the elements in the template favorite to view the features or CUs within. 
  12. On the Targets tab, click the template favorite to be placed on the map.
  13. Click the location on the map where you want to begin placing features in the template favorite.  Click the map to create sketch points.
  14. Double-click to finish the sketch or right-click and select Finish Sketch.

To create a Composite Favorite that can be used in designs, a user will typically select an existing drawing  (ensuring that only the features that are needed in the favorite are selected – no more, no less)  and then right-click the Favorites folder under the CU tab to create the Composite Favorite.  Once the dialog comes up a user just needs to add a CU to every feature for which he or she needs materials.  

A template favorite, on the other hand, is not built from an existing drawing.  It is built within the dialog box.  It is not placed on the map until all clicks are made and all options are selected. 

For this utility, we set the first click to be the switch cabinet.  After that, additional clicks added the associated fuses and switches.  Once we placed all the points and completed the drawing, a wizard asked us to populate attributes for each one.  When the wizard was completed, the cabinet and all the switches and fuses were placed, and busbars connected the cabinet with each switch and fuse.

The template favorite is based on points and spans.  It provides an incredible amount of flexibility for drawings that require related features to be placed in different ways at different points on the map. 

It is not for everyone, however, and our client eventually decided that they did not need all that flexibility – mostly because 95% of their switchgear cabinets are placed in only five very specific ways.  So, instead of a template favorite, we created five different composite favorites for the 95%.  The plan in the future is for them to edit one or more of those five composite favorites to cover the other 5%.

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Matthew Stuart

Director, SI Delivery

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