This past spring SSP introduced a new Pole Import Wizard to our Joint Use Management software, SSP SPANS.  The Pole Import Wizard provides both Pole Owners and companies wanting to attach to existing poles a quick way to take field-collected pole information associated with a joint use project and use that information to populate the poles involved in the project.

SPANS has long provided means to add poles to a proposal including manually re-typing in pole information in SPANS or selecting poles from the PoleView map interface.  However, no one enjoys having to collect data in a field tool and then manually re-entering it in SPANS, and while the PoleView selection process is a big improvement over manual data entry, users can still miss some poles that they want in the proposal or add extra poles that they didn’t want to include in the proposal.

The Pole Import Wizard removes the need for manual data entry and pole selection, increasing the speed of filling out the information needed for a proposal request and ensuring the pole data matches what was collected in the field.

Collecting Field Data
In this example, the user is a Pole Owner that is replacing poles because of a road widening project.  The pole owner has sent out a crew to survey the work area and collect pole information for the poles that are going to be impacted by the project.

During their field work the crew collected information on 30 poles that will need to be replaced/relocated because of the highway work on their field device.  They have exported the data into an Excel file that matches the SPANS provided Excel Template.

The Excel template is available within SPANS in the Pole Import Wizard form (shown below).  The template contains a Data Validation tab with Valid Value for pick lists to ensure that the data values match SPANS data pick lists.  The Pole Import Wizard Excel Reader will match column headings in the Excel spreadsheet to data fields a proposal’s pole records.  For this proposal, the Pole Owner is the proposal initiator, so the Pole Owner column is populated with the variable name ‘{InitiatorCode}’.  The Wizard will convert this to the Proposal Initiator’s company code during the data import.

Additional fields can be added for customer-specific requirements through configuration.  Just reach out to the SPANS Support team to talk through your needs.

Using the Pole Import Wizard

Like any other method of entering poles into a Proposal in SPANS, the first step is to create the proposal and fill out its details.

1. Click on the New Proposal button and select Attachment Proposal in the form.
   
2. Fill in the required proposal fields and save.
   

With the proposal in place, now it’s time to add the pole data collected by the field crew

1. Open the pole page and click on the File Import button to display the Pole Import Wizard
   
2. Select the type of file being imported, then select the file using the Paper Click tool. Once selected, the Import tool is enabled.  Click the import tool to load your pole data.  Like any file uploaded to SPANS, it is first scanned for viruses.  Once past the virus scan the data is loaded into SPANS automatically populating the Poles into the proposal.
   
3. Close the Pole Import Wizard to review the poles.
4. Finally, Save & Close the Pole page. Users can re-open the pole page and use the Link All button to link the imported poles to matching poles in PoleView.  Linking the poles ensures that they are displayed properly both in PoleView and in the Proposal map.

And voila – 30 poles are added to the proposal in about 10 seconds.

Summary

The Pole Import Wizard provides SPANS users with a new method of adding poles to a proposal.  By using the wizard, users can avoid having to reenter data and mis-selecting poles to be included in a proposal.  Once field data is collected and shared on a common drive as an Excel file, SPANS users can quickly upload a set of poles into a proposal with just a few clicks, saving time and ensuring better data accuracy.