Getting Your Data Ready for Utility Network

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Welcome everyone.
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Let's allow a minute or two for everyone to get to their seats and we'll get started right away Just allow a little more time for people to get to their seats and we'll get underway Almost there just a few more seconds All right, that should be enough time Thanks everyone for joining today's session is getting your data ready for the utility network What to fix before during and after migration our session today focuses on common data challenges utilities encounter when preparing to migrate to the utility network As with all SSP webinars, everything you'll hear today is grounded in actual project experience.
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Finally, I will post the speaker bios and housekeeping details in the chat panel.
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However, no, there will be Q &A at the end.
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So please get your questions in along the way in the Q &A sidebar.
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With that, I'll turn it over to Clark.
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Yeah, thanks, Keith.
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Thanks everyone for attending today as well.
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We wanted to start with really what is the utility network and why are we seeing some of these data issues get a little baseline information out there for individuals and potentially some folks that haven't necessarily gotten to the UN yet.
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So the UN really provides that core network management.
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If we think about historically of our geometric network where it was a source to sink type of network but it could be anything from a stream to a road to a railroad as well as gas, electric, telco, water, wastewater, the commodities that we use within our network management.
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Moving to the UN is an intelligent network management platform. What do I mean by intelligent? It understands your commodity.
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It understands the engineering practices that should be in place through those design, through the construction, through implementation, and ultimately into your asset management and GIS system.
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So it understands those connections. It understands the material connection.
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It understands that there needs to be fittings or relationships in place between your network data.
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And getting to this place requires accurate data.
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And so that's really what we're going to be talking to today.
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But once we get to that place and have the accurate data, we can really start to leverage this technology.
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And I think folks that have gone through the practice of getting their data to that location can attest to that.
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But having that topology in place, having those editing workflows, and understanding some of the automation and attribute rules, we get a lot of benefit out of the UN there.
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We also have, again, specific to the domain and structured network, our digital twin enablement, being able to replicate exactly what we have in the field as best as possible in our GIS and in our asset and technology systems.
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Ultimately, being able to model from our old source, really that generation that storage all the way down to our customer.
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We want that interconnected network to be able to understand not only the dependencies of our network, Which can be you know, how much of that commodity am I providing or is that connectivity from my customer to to my energy point active if I have an outage what customers are affected those types of analytics have to require accurate data sets and accurate input of that information to be able to coincide and work in a holistic intelligent network together.
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It also allows a lot of non-coincident connectivity.
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These things were typically in stacked points in the past.
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We have this non-coincident connectivity option, so we're going to be talking through a lot of these scenarios.
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Feature containment, which is really grouping assets in logical areas.
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Think of compressor stations, internal stations, those types of things.
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As well as terminals and different things.
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Our sub-network management and being able to manage, whether those are different phases or pressure networks or isolation zones, all of those are reliant on data and attribution to support this.
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Ultimately also UN is 3D enabled.
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We haven't, you know, most in our industry have not gotten to that point, but folks are exploring those options.
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And again, those are accurate data needs that individuals and organizations must have.
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Once we get there, we can have some enhanced quality control.
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So as we move through the process, we're going to have three phases of data cleanup.
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And that is going to be in a current state through migration and ultimately in the utility network.
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If we get into the utility network state, we don't want to introduce new errors along with ones that we brought along.
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So that enhanced quality control is there.
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That's cleansing that data going to the UN.
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It's driving those editing workflows.
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It's driving that information to be correct and throwing these errors or really what I like to call utility network flags to the editors to be able to do that.
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And what we're also seeing with a lot of our customers is that as this comes over, there are these dirty areas and those are having to clean up and we'll touch on those.
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But gaining all of that and getting the advanced network analytics, being able to support all that subnetwork management, these are all data needs to build to it.
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So as we go to these different conferences, as we look at these implementation patterns and we look at all this great new technology, the root of that and the foundation is your data.
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And as we go from organization to organization, we ask, how good is your data?
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and folks are always like, pretty good, right?
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But pretty good sometimes isn't always sufficient to be able to support all the technology and workflows that you'll get in the utility network.
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So we're gonna kind of walk through some of those.
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What are those data issues and what are we seeing out here in the industry?
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First is the existing asset information, okay?
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So we may have assets in GIS, but they might not be spatially accurate, it might be on the wrong side of the road.
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And oftentimes it's inaccurate or missing attribute information.
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That missing or inaccurate attribute information is integral into the management of your utility network and gaining all the benefits from the utility network.
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If there are things like materials, those are gonna be impacts.
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We'll talk about some of those.
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If we don't even have assets that are a part of our network that are on historical documents, that's going to impact the functionality the utility network.
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So it is very important to start really from the beginning, looking at all of those original source documents, being able to understand, do we have those in a location?
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Do we even have the capability to start entering that information into our GIS?
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And then when do we do that? How do we plan those?
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But it's building that reliable foundation, taking everything that need to know and get that into our systems as well.
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See that everywhere, every single utility that we've worked with. The second is business process cleanup.
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So we're seeing this a lot, obviously not in smaller municipalities or smaller utilities, but certainly in larger IOUs, which we can use as a template.
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But when business systems are merging, and that might be through acquisition, or it might just be through merging of business systems due to asset management strategies and management plans.
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But at this point you start to have inconsistencies or gaps in terms of those relationships or that true picture of that asset.
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That true picture of the asset is eventually what feeds the utility network and all of the related functionality that we've been talking about.
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And so the business process cleanup is imperative to be able to get that complete picture.
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So what am I exactly talking about, right?
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This could be SAP or Maximo has been managing non spatial objects historically for years.
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We are marrying that as part of a program to be able to create the GIS that takes that asset information as well as the information from GIS to support the complete picture that feeds the utility network.
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I like to say it's a who, what, when, where, why of an asset.
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If we haven't answered all of those questions, then really we will probably hit some limitations in terms of our network management and the utility network.
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So looking at these business process cleanups, whether that's a service hierarchy, if those are different things and how it's shared between systems, those are very important and things that we often see as part of our data cleanup activities to get to that almost pristine UN picture.
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And then lastly, there are customers that move forward with their data into the utility network knowing that there is a data quality issue, right?
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We know that's a data quality issue.
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How do I handle that moving forward into the UN?
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It's a post-migration.
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we know it's an error, we might have relaxed some rules to support that and we'll see that some how to relax some rules and some of those demo scenarios here today with Dan, but ultimately we want that clean topology.
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If you go live and don't have that clean topology or those rules violations, it starts to prohibit different workflows and some of that oftentimes is workflows in performance.
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If you think about a network that has not have a clean topology, a user is creating a version, we're bringing down all those errors into that, we're having to process those things that start to compound.
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And really in a branched version scenario as what we are going to versus traditional in the past, that inline history that can build and really starts to impact some of your geodatabase health.
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So starting to think about these types of things, start to look at these, but those are the three different categories in which we have seen across our customers that have started to really impact the utility network in some of the scenarios that we've walked through.
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So with that, I'm gonna hand it over to Jacob McGlintsey, senior consultant here at SSP.
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He's gonna walk through some real world scenarios for us and kind of speak to each of these in a little bit more depth.
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So with that, I'll hand it over to Jacob.
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Thank you, Clark.
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Good afternoon, everybody.
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Thanks for joining us here today.
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So I'm gonna talk you through a few examples of issues and items we've seen in these data cleanup areas and how that impacts what we're looking at from a migration future state data utility network impact.
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So one of the first things we wanna look at is when we're talking about data quality in GIS, one of the most crucial and usually underestimated issues is unknown materials on source features.
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So it might not sound like a huge problem, sounds kind of minor, but in a gas utility network, material information is foundational.
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It directly affects how assets are classified, how the network behaves and how accurately the GIS can actually reflect what's in the ground.
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So in the utility network, material values on fittings drive the asset type mappings.
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Those mappings then determine whether a pipeline junction is treated as metal or plastic or something else.
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So this classification isn't just for symbology any longer, it controls everything from connectivity rules to tracing behaviors.
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So when material values are known, GIS can correctly identify whether a fitting represents a steel-to-steel or a plastic-plastic connection or if it's a material transition.
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But when those materials are unknown, the UN doesn't have any choice but to default those fittings to an unknown asset type.
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And that's where some of our real problems start.
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Once those assets fall into an unknown category, they no longer mimic real gas infrastructure.
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The UN loses its ability to make material based distinctions, which enforces compromises elsewhere specifically in topology rules.
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And so our topology rules are what actually enforce the real world gas network behavior.
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They control how pipes and fittings and devices all connect.
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They prevent invalid scenarios like plastic connecting directly to steel without a transition fitting.
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But when those asset groups and asset types are unknown or inconsistently mapped, those rules can no longer be as strict.
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So to keep our editing possible, utilities often have to relax some of those topology rules.
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That means allowing certain connection types that would never really exist in the field.
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And while this avoids immediate errors during your editing, it can introduce some long-term data issues or inconsistencies.
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And relaxed topology allows connections that shouldn't really exist.
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Plastic mains connecting, valves and fittings It can be placed in ways that violate engineering standards.
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But on your map, everything looks connected, looks fine.
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But operationally, it's incorrect.
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It also creates a secondary problem, which is some inconsistent feature creation.
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So as new assets are added, the lack of strict topology enforcement means different editors can create features differently.
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Asset types start to vary, and materials become less reliable.
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And over time, the network becomes a lot of assumptions instead of a standardized model.
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So for a gas utility, it has a serious consequence.
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Your tracing becomes less trustworthy.
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Your material-based analysis, like plastic and steel reporting, becomes unreliable.
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Engineering reviews require more manual validation.
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Downstream systems that depend on that GIS accuracy, like integrity management or risk models, they're all operating on inconsistent data.
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Most importantly, GIS stops accurately representing the real-world gas network.
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And for a utility, that's not just a data issue, it's a safety and compliance concern.
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So while identifying and correcting unknown materials on fittings may feel tedious, it's actually an investment in the integrity of the entire UN model.
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It allows your asset types to be assigned correctly, your topology rules to be enforced properly, and your GIS to once again mirror your real-world gas connectivity.
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So the next one we'll look at is why the differences in snapped versus connected and why that matters in electric and gas utility GIS.
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So one of the most important conceptual shifts that utilities are having to make when moving to the utility network is understanding the difference between features that are snapped together versus ones that are truly connected.
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So in legacy GIS environments, particularly the geometric network, utilities were allowed a significant amount of tolerance where point features could be edge snapped to linear features and still participate in the network.
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So a valve, a fitting, a transformer, a switch might be just a fraction of an inch away from the line, but as long as it was visually snapped, the network treated it as if it was connected.
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So from the user perspective, everything seemed to work.
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Traces would run and your connectivity looked intact, but the system was forgiving in those regards, and most organizations never had to worry about those gaps.
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However, with the utility network, it doesn't allow that.
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So in the UN, features have to be connected at a vertex.
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There isn't a snapping tolerance anymore, and there's no more implied connectivity.
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If two features don't share a vertex, they're just simply not connected and they don't participate in traces or subnetworks or any other analysis.
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This difference has major implications for both gas and electric GIS systems.
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For gas, it was common for point features like valves, fittings, regulators, or service taps just to be edge snapped to a main.
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Even if it was slightly offset, the GN would treat it as part of the system.
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But after migration to the utility network, those same features became disconnected.
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a valve that appeared to sit on the end of a main but didn't actually share the vertex, it won't stop the flow in an isolation trace.
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Or a regulator that wasn't truly connected won't establish a pressure system.
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So a service that snapped but not connected might not trace back to its main at all.
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And this creates a false confidence in your data.
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Again, on the map, everything looks correct, but operationally, the network behaves as if the feature doesn't exist.
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For those companies relying on tracing for shutoff planning or emergency response and pressure modeling, that gap between appearance and behavior can cause some major issues.
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So electric utilities experienced the same issue and usually with even a higher risk.
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In those legacy GIS systems, devices like fuses, switches, and transformers were frequently snapped to conductor rather than explicitly connected.
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So, as long as the device touched the line visually, it was assumed to be electrically connected.
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But in the UN, that assumption breaks.
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If a fuse is snapped to a primary conductor but not vertex connected, it may be skipped in a trace, which will be allowing the electricity to appear to flow past the protective device.
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A sectionalizing switch that's snapped but not connected might actually fail to isolate a downstream load.
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or a transformer that looks connected but isn't, may drop out of a phasing trace entirely.
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Because these electric networks depend heavily on order, protection hierarchy, and direction, even a single device that is snapped but not connected can invalidate an entire feeder trace.
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So what makes these snaps items so risky is that it's not obvious.
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Disconnected features still may appear to be connected, sitting directly on top of the lines, and they look good enough in a map review, but the UN only understands the geometry and it doesn't infer the intent.
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So that leads to isolation traces, bypassing valves, pressure subnetworks bleeding together, electric feeder traces skipping devices, get incorrect outage boundaries or misleading impact analysis.
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Then both gas and electric systems, the result ends up being the same, where GIS can no longer be trusted to model the real world behavior.
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So during a UN migration, these snap features are often one of the largest sources of disconnected assets, trace errors, and sub-network validation failures.
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Organizations usually end up being surprised at how many features were relying on that snapping tolerance rather than truly being connected.
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What worked in the GN is now exposed as a structurally incomplete in the utility network.
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So whether gas or electric, the utility network enforces a simple rule that if it isn't explicitly connected then it doesn't exist in the network.
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So for your gas utilities, you've got to ensure that your valves and your fittings and your services terminate correctly at mains.
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For electric, you've got to ensure your protection control and transformation devices connect precisely to their conductors.
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So next we'll look at a couple of inconsistent modeling things we see.
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again this is kind of another gas example here.
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Another major challenge is one of that it'll create a lot of inconsistencies when you get to the UN.
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And two of the most common areas we see in a gas GIS system is transition fittings and CP connections.
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So in both cases the problem isn't the assets that they don't exist in the field, it's just that they're not modeled consistently in GIS.
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So we'll start with transitions, and in a gas system, pipe material changes from steel to plastic are very common.
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In the real world, those material changes require some sort of transition fitting, but in GIS, those are not always modeled explicitly.
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And there's several reasons for this.
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Source records may not call out a transition at all, even though we know one must exist to connect those materials.
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ASBILTS might show a fitting but not label it specifically as a transition, and this results in major inconsistency in how GIS is modeled at these locations, especially for historic conversions from paper.
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In some locations, the material change is modeled with a dedicated transition fitting, and in others, the two-pipe connections might be there with no fitting at all.
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From the utility network's perspective, those are two very different scenarios.
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When transitions aren't modeled consistently as a singular feature, the GS has to compensate.
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That usually means adding additional topology rules to allow different materials connections directly.
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You know, these are rules that wouldn't be necessary if transitions were always represented the same way.
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Or you may actually have to create generic fittings or junctions in order to connect mains of different asset types.
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And again, this weakens our network model, instead of enforcing real-world behavior, the rules start accommodating modeling shortcuts.
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And over time, this will lead to a network that allows connections that shouldn't be allowed and makes it harder to validate material integrity.
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There's also some downstream impacts, particularly with CP tracing.
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Dedicated transition fittings are extremely valuable for CP modeling because they can act as intentional barriers in a trace.
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So when transitions are modeled consistently, CP traces can stop at material boundaries, just like they would in the field.
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But when they aren't, CP tracing becomes less reliable and more dependent on assumptions.
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When we talk about CP cable connections, which introduce a similar, but slightly different set of problems.
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So in many legacy GS environments, cables have been connected to mains in a variety of ways.
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Some are either edge snapped directly to the pipe, others snapped to nearby fittings or valves.
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Sometimes they just touch visually and rely on the snapping tolerance to appear connected.
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But again, that's not how it works in the real world.
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So in reality, those cables are connected directly to the pipe using a specific type of weld or attachment.
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And that connection is intentional, it's a physical thing, and it's standardized.
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And the utility network expects us to model that connection correctly.
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The challenge is that pipes and cables belong to different asset groups and asset types within the pipeline line feature class.
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And then the utility network, those types can't simply connect directly to each other.
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They must be connected through a junction or device that represents that connection point.
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So when that junction doesn't exist or when the cables are snapped inconsistently to different feature types, it forces, again, it forces us to allow different connections or loosen those topology rules.
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Once again, we're sacrificing the model's integrity to accommodate this inconsistent data.
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One thing you can do is introducing a dedicated wire junction to represent how these cable connections are made, and it solves the problem cleanly.
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It provides a consistent feature that represents that real-world attachment point.
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It allows that proper connection between pipes and cables, reduces your topology errors, and improves your trace accuracy.
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More importantly, it's standardizing how you model CP across the entire gas system.
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So the real issues here aren't the transitions or the cables themselves, it's just again the consistency in how they're modeled.
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Utility network thrives on a consistent intentional modeling and when the same real-world thing is represented multiple ways in GIS, the system becomes harder to maintain and harder to validate and harder to trust.
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So the next item we'll discuss here is mid-span devices and why that matters.
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So another critical issue continues to surface in both gas and electric utilities with these mid-span devices.
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These are devices that are placed along a linear feature rather than at a true network break.
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And while that modeling may have been tolerated in legacy systems, it creates significant problems in the utility network.
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So at a high level, the issue is pretty simple.
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Devices that control flow or voltage or pressure or isolation have to exist at an endpoint where the network can distinguish upstream from downstream.
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When they're placed mid-span, the UN can no longer determine that, and this problem shows up very clearly in both gas and electric GIS just in different forms.
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So we'll start on the gas side with valves and regulators that aren't placed at the ends of the lines.
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So in a gas system, valves and regs are not just map features, they represent control points. Valves define isolation boundaries and regulators define pressure systems.
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They establish where one operational system ends and another one begins.
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Because of that role, these devices have to be located at the ends of the mains in the utility network.
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In a legacy GIS, especially in a non-geometric network, it was common to place a valve or regulator mid-span along a pipe.
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That pipe stays continuous and the device simply just on top of it. Visually it all looks logical, it looks correct, and tracing still appeared to work.
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But the utility network doesn't interpret flow and control that way.
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As devices that control gas flow, valves and regs have to split the pipe into upstream and downstream segments.
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That physical separation is how the utility network understands pressure zones and isolation areas.
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If a valve or regulator is sitting mid-span without breaking the pipe, then the network has no clear way to establish a system boundary.
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So when a device is modeled mid-span, the network can't properly determine which side is which.
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So your pressure zones start to bleed together.
26:31
Isolation traces don't stop where they should.
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And again, it may look correct in the map, but it no longer represents how the system actually operates.
26:40
So electric utilities face the same problem, often with more immediate consequences.
26:45
In electric GIS, it's common to see switches, reclosers, fuses placed mid-span on conductor.
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The lines drawn continuously, devices symbolized along it, but in the UN that modeling breaks the electrical logic.
26:59
Electric control devices are responsible for your isolation, for protection, and for voltage regulation.
27:04
And to perform these roles, the UN must clearly understand what is upstream and what's downstream and where the currents interrupted or modified.
27:13
So when a switch or a recloser is modeled mid-span, the conductor remained electrically continuous from the network's perspective.
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And as a result, those feeder traces may bypass the switches completely.
27:26
Your protective devices fail to interrupt a downstream load, and your subnetwork controllers just may not function at all.
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So what ties all these issues together is basically the same core problem.
27:37
These are features that look right but behave wrong.
27:40
The UN's designed, again, to model how these systems actually function with that intelligence, not just how they're drawn.
27:46
Devices that control flow, pressure, or electrical connectivity have to be placed and connected in ways that allow the network to interpret their role correctly.
27:56
Whether it's a pressure regulator or electric switch, that rules the same.
28:00
Devices that control a system can't be modeled as if the system flows right through them.
28:05
They may look correct in the map, but they fundamentally break how the utility network understands flow, isolation, pressure, and power delivery.
28:13
And so the last thing we'll touch on today is why stack points are detrimental in a utility network migration.
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So one of the most common and damaging data conditions uncovered during a migration is your stacked points.
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On the surface, they may seem harmless.
28:32
You have multiple fittings and devices or junctions exist in the same location.
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So stacking them visually feels logical.
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But in the utility network, stack points introduce serious structural problems that directly undermine connectivity, tracing, and the network intelligence.
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So it's important to remember that the UN is not just a spatial system.
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It's a connectivity-driven network model.
28:55
Each point feature is expected to play a specific role with defined upstream and downstream relationships.
29:01
So when multiple point features are stacked on the same vertex without clear connectivity, the network loses its ability to interpret how the system actually flows.
29:12
In legacy environments, especially with the geometric network, those stack points were often used to compensate for modeling limitations.
29:20
So multiple features might be placed at the same location to represent a complexity without explicitly modeling each connection.
29:28
Snapping tolerance and implicit connectivity allowed the system to just kind of figure it out.
29:33
But the UN, again, won't work that way.
29:35
With the utility network, each point feature represents a discrete physical connection and when multiple points are stacked at the same location the network can't always determine which features connected to which or the order of those connections or whether it's meant to represent a flow-through or some kind of control or even a termination.
29:54
So this causes immediate problems during migration.
29:58
Tools will struggle to determine correct edge junction relationships. Your connectivity rules will fail validations.
30:05
Some stack features may even migrate as isolated while others appear connected but behave unpredictably.
30:11
So in both gas and electric systems, stack points introduce unintended connectivity paths.
30:17
Because multiple features occupy the same vertex, your tracing may jump between unrelated assets or it may bypass a control device or may just completely ignore a functional boundary.
30:29
What makes this especially tricky is that stack points, again, they look correct.
30:33
Map review alone usually doesn't reveal the problem.
30:37
Only when traces start to behave unexpectedly does the issue surface.
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And by then, you've kind of lost trust in your system.
30:45
And for gas, this could mean incorrect shutoff plans or pressure zone errors.
30:48
For electric, this could mean incorrect outage extents or protection failures.
30:54
Dirty areas and topology errors will be created at every one of these locations where these stack points exist, which will inhibit your tracing and your network validation.
31:03
Stack points will also degrade your topology rule effectiveness.
31:08
Those rules are built around clear one-to-one relationships.
31:11
You know, this device controls this line or this junction connects these two lines.
31:15
But when multiple point features coexist in the same spot without intentional separation, rules will either fail outright or they have to be relaxed to avoid those constant errors.
31:26
And just like in other areas we've talked about earlier, relaxing those rules will weaken your entire model.
31:31
So, addressing those points doesn't mean to just move assets unrealistically far apart.
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It means restoring an actual functional order, so separating your devices and junctions into proper sequences, introducing junctions where needed, or ensuring each asset has a clear place in the network.
31:50
And then preserving that spatial integrity while restoring the real-world representation of the connectivity.
31:58
Electric utilities have learned this the hard way with unstacking points.
32:02
Feeders simply just don't trace correctly.
32:06
Gas utilities face the same problem with pressure isolation and CP modeling.
32:10
So they're not just a cleanup issue.
32:13
Again, it causes a structural flaw when you move to the utility network.
32:17
Unstacking those points restores what the UN needs the most, which is that clarity and intent of those connections in the system.
32:27
Back to you, Clark.
32:28
Yeah, great. Thanks Jacob. Those are some great real world examples, and now we want to start to jump into actually RTS Pro and start looking at some of these data cleanup activities. So I'm going to flip this over to Dan. Dan is part of our data team and routinely works with our clients to be able to not only identify all these through data assessments, but help support data cleanup. So Dan's going to walk through some examples and I'll hand it off to you.
32:58
Okay, thanks. Hi, everybody. So right away, I will show a solution to a stacked point situation.
33:09
So here we are in an electric demo. This is a transformer here.
33:15
And in there, you know, say in the geometric network data, this is a light.
33:19
This light was actually snapped right to the transformer at the pole, which causes errors in the UN, of course, as we just heard.
33:33
So kind of the way to do this with lights, at least, one way to do it was to pull the light off and create an association.
33:43
So now this light is now associated in network.
33:48
It's not, you know, it might not be snapped to the line, But the association is there.
33:56
That's something that's a UN, something new in the UN.
34:00
It's that whole idea of associations that allow you to do something like this.
34:04
It gives you that flexibility to kind of this ownership, almost.
34:12
So it's kind of a nice way to do it.
34:16
I've seen this very similar approach with a CP test wire.
34:27
So as Jacob was saying, you can add your attachment.
34:32
If this was gas, you could add your attachment point, wire junction here.
34:38
Either have an association wire, or it could be an actual specialty line, like a wire, and then have a test point out here.
34:49
And doing that consistently really looks good.
34:56
and just gives you better data overall.
35:00
So, but as far as some demos go, we'll start with this guy here.
35:08
So this is, let me select this situation here and we'll go look over on the Attribute tab.
35:18
We have, so we have a T and we have plastic pipe, And we have a plastic other pipe, but our T is metal, and that's what's causing the problems.
35:34
We have a deer area here already, you know, it's, this one's, you know, fairly obvious.
35:42
We changed this over to plastic, to the plastic three-way, save it, clear it, bring it up to the utility network tab and click on Validate current extent, and it will, there it goes.
36:13
So it's just a quick example of how those rules work.
36:18
It's out of the box rules that you cannot connect plastic to metal, for sure.
36:28
Go back to another bookmark here.
36:33
Let's show the mid-span.
36:35
So this is a mid-span valve.
36:38
So it's actually an emergency valve, which emergency valves in this data model always break the main.
36:45
So when we do the same thing, I'm going to select it, Perhaps select up here just to see where we're at.
36:51
So we've got a emergency valve.
36:54
If you look at the pipe, the pipe does not, I just select the pipe.
37:01
So there is no, it does not break with that valve, that's at all.
37:05
And that's why we have this error.
37:08
The solution would be to split, the solution is, first of all, is this valve in the right spot?
37:13
And if it is, then that pipe needs to get split, right?
37:17
it right up the vertex of that bell. That's the solution in that case.
37:26
Which could be done programmatically or manually, depending on how many issues there are.
37:35
That's actually true of almost all of our, all these things.
37:39
It all comes down to just how many are we about. And there's a similar, a very similar situation on the electric side.
37:54
Oops, sorry, did that out of order. There we go. In this case, let me zoom in a little bit.
38:03
In this case, it's the same thing as we have a mid-span transformer. And it's the same thing.
38:11
A transformer needs to break the line, always.
38:17
And so it's, yeah, it's very, just like the other one, the solution is to split that conductor right there if your transformer's in the right spot.
38:34
And it says, yeah, this is currently a dirty area because of that.
38:41
Okay. Another common one. We can go to the unknown. We're talking about unknown asset types.
38:52
So let me go up and select, see what's happening here.
38:55
So we have an overhead secondary line, and we have a service location.
39:05
That service location's asset type is unknown, and out-of-the-box rules, there are no connectivity rules for unknown asset types.
39:19
Now, as was mentioned earlier, you can add those rules to allow unknowns.
39:27
And maybe you do that temporarily early on, but it's potentially risky.
39:35
And if you do do it early on after a migration, you really need to make sure you fix that stuff up and get rid of the rule, ideally.
39:45
Get rid of the rule that includes unknowns.
39:48
But, you know, so this is a simple case of, again, changing this to a secondary service asset, to the asset type, because this is a secondary.
39:57
Now, if I changed it to primary service, it would still be an error, because there's a rule there, too.
40:02
You can't connect a primary service location to a secondary, to a secondary conductor.
40:10
It's really the same, same kind of, same kind of rule there, built in.
40:17
Okay. And we'll find another. And so, okay, so we'll stay over here on electric for this one.
40:32
And we talked about required, there's required junctions.
40:38
So let me select and select who we have here. So there's an overhead secondary that's transitioning to an underground secondary.
40:51
This is the undergound, this is the overhead, and yeah, there's a support structure there.
40:59
So there's the pole here.
41:01
Well, the pole doesn't count as a valid junction here because it's part of a different, technically a different network.
41:10
That's the structure network versus the electric network.
41:14
So you know, so you see in real life, yeah, the poles there in real life, both of these conductors are at that pole.
41:22
But the UN needs an electric junction there.
41:26
In this particular data model, let me clear, in this particular data model, we have what's called a secondary junction was created.
41:44
So if I can place that guy right at the point where they meet, which is the pole, hit OK, save it, clear it, go over to my utility network, validate current extent, and it's happy because we have that junction.
42:13
It just has to be there because of that transition between the two conductor asset types.
42:28
And let's switch over to gas, where we also have a required junction example. This one is broken.
42:40
We can zoom in so we can see what's going on. Hard to see sometimes with the dirty areas going.
42:49
So, again, I'll select and see the problem. We have two distribution pipes. One is plastic. One is coated steel.
43:02
There there's no junction there of any kind. And in this case, it can't just be any junction.
43:10
It needs to be a transition fitting to fix this.
43:15
So if I want in place transition fitting here, everything would be fine. Yeah.
43:23
So it's just another area, just as Jacob was talking earlier, you just, you got to have it.
43:30
And, you know, and maybe, you know, there was a normal fitting, maybe there was just a coupling. But that's actually, you know, the rules wouldn't be valid.
43:43
It's still not valid on a coupling at that transition point.
43:51
I believe, let's say we did the mid spans, we did, yeah, okay. Yep.
43:58
So, to kind of sum up here, you know, we're looking at individual ones. And there are additional types of errors too.
44:07
I mean, we'll see illegal geometry errors which kind of fall into, you know, just having a corrupt geometry, say a line with length of zero, stuff like that.
44:21
I mean, those are common too and there are ways to fix them. But it is something we see a lot of.
44:28
And so that.
44:31
Does kind of wrap up this quick demo in.
44:36
Arc here.
44:38
Yeah, so I can.
44:40
Transfer over. Yep, you're good Dan.
44:42
I got it so I appreciate the demo and yeah, it's it's always nice to dive into our chest pro and see some of those examples versus just PowerPoint.
44:51
So thanks for going through some of those examples.
44:54
So to tie it all back together after going through kind of what are causing our issues, some of those real world scenarios, and then have Dan going through and cleaning up.
45:05
As Dan indicated, that was certainly more one by one.
45:08
We've created a lot of automated approaches to that as part of our services for customers.
45:13
But if we think of these three phases of cleanups and we're focusing on the utility network, I think overall, everyone should be looking at how to build out their most accurate network that is going to enable them to get the functionality in the utility network that is there and there to be used.
45:29
But there are three phases in terms of how we're looking at a utility network project and these data cleanup activities specific to that.
45:36
The first is, if you have not moved forward and you are in your current, say, GIS or a geometric network, day one, we need to do a data assessment.
45:44
And that could be done through a number of scenarios.
45:46
Obviously, SSP offers those services.
45:49
Our data assessment actually does migrate to the utility network to generate all of those errors.
45:54
It creates some spatial outputs.
45:55
You actually get that file GDB of your data in the utility network.
45:58
So a lot of good benefits there to identify it, but identify your errors.
46:02
Understand what your data quality issues are.
46:05
Understand the ones that are going to be those mid span devices that are going to break the tracing, that are going to break that sub network management.
46:11
Get a handle of what the scale is, right?
46:15
It might only be a thousand, 1200.
46:17
We've seen some smaller ones and we've seen hundreds thousands of things that need to be done.
46:22
So start there, understand it, make a plan, understand what can you do internally with the resources you have and where would you potentially need to partner with firms like SSP to help support that data cleanup.
46:33
If you are already in your project, you're moving forward, you're going to the utility network, whether that's you doing that internally on your own or working with a third party, you still have these opportunities.
46:44
Presumably you are going through iteration or mocks of these Those mocks and migrations are going to be able to identify those data errors.
46:52
You're going to want to, in that utility network that you're migrating, to actually turn on that network topology, kind of see what you need.
46:58
Start to look at those different errors. What can you clean up with the migration and work with your vendor or work with your internal personnel?
47:04
What still could be cleaned up in your current state as you go through the project?
47:08
We've seen a lot of customers that, even though we're going through a UN project, there is still data cleanup being done to support that until that final production run.
47:17
So keep that work, keep that in mind. Data clean-up data, you know, what do we need to do?
47:22
Or what rules do we need to add to allow bad data in while we clean it up in our future state?
47:28
So then that gets to our future state. Maybe you're already in the utility network.
47:33
Or maybe you're saving some things for the UN and the future state because you don't have potentially the time or the resources or maybe even the dollars to clean it up now. And that happens.
47:42
Every single customer is going to bring something forward into the UN.
47:46
And that might be, we might introduce a rule to allow that or it might just be a known entity that they're going to clean up day one.
47:53
But this is a different plan, right? And this is an understanding of what is your resource capacity and how are you going to clean this up and how do you continue to clean this thing up?
48:02
We have customers that we have short programs that are six months and we have customers that are In in the myths of six seven year programs for source record validation for improvement of their networks for data Improvements that continue on and on and on in that future state in that utility network.
48:21
So it's about planning It's about understanding but you're not dead in the water Particularly if you get to UN with these errors, we want to see everything cleaned up as possible There are going to be critical data cleanup items that you must have to gain the functionality in UN If you've gone to your organization and said we are going to gain tracing down to the customer Well, you need data that's gonna support that right and that's gonna be breaking those devices, you know, those misspan devices It's gonna make sure that your services Are connected at a vertices in a service tab the count that then can trace down to your premise or your customer They're going to be imperative things that need to be in place from a data standpoint to get the goals of you in But if you're there, you know, let's talk let's understand those issues and be able to kind of get through those So as part of our managed services, we help improve that service delivery to the business.
49:07
We can be an arm of your business, work within your business, work within your system to be able to support that.
49:13
We consider data as an asset and a currency, right?
49:16
If your asset is the most accurate it can be, that asset is a currency, it can be utilized as such.
49:21
We can also help support working in different revenue streams, and we have consultants that can help be able to plug this type of work into O &M versus Capital based off a different delivery and delivery mechanisms or what we're actually providing for the customer in their system.
49:37
Also provides a lower cost of delivery and predictable cost model.
49:41
You can understand how that cost model is going to occur over time based off of what you need to clean up, whether that's historical documents, whether that's new capital construction getting the system, all these variable things.
49:52
Ultimately, it allows you and your GIS teams to focus on core utility work and core utility GIS requests.
49:58
We have seen with a lot of our customers is that they start getting away from their day-to-day jobs.
50:03
They're not able to answer to the CEO when they come and request something about information in their system, or they have to drop something else.
50:10
They're always focused on managing teams and this data cleanup and all this different stuff.
50:14
They can't use that as a system of engagement.
50:16
They can't drive GIS forward.
50:17
They can't use that new technology and manage GIS like they'd want to because they're focused on some of the minutia that we could take away.
50:25
Reduce risk through accountability.
50:26
It's a shared risk model.
50:28
if we don't deliver, then folks don't pay for it.
50:30
So we like to do that.
50:32
And ultimately, continuous improvement.
50:34
If you are building your system, if you are showing improvement, more accuracy, more accuracy through your UN, more accuracy through your consumers, more accuracy through the field, more accuracy through everything in your business.
50:45
As GIS becomes that asset management and that centralized repository, as your system of record for these assets, it's imperative to have them as accurate and up-to-date as possible.
50:56
So with that, we haven't been tracking Keith, but want to open up to Q &A.
51:02
Hopefully we've got a couple in the hopper and I'll pass it over to you.
51:05
All right. Thanks, Clark. And thanks to everyone who's been so many questions.
51:09
I'll start at the top and we'll get through as many as we can.
51:12
All right. First question. It's a long one.
51:14
If I don't have service...
51:20
Sounds like a good one. We lost Keith.
51:23
Real long.
51:24
Yeah, real long one.
51:25
We lost you, Keith, and if you don't have a service...
51:28
this here. I'll step in here. Let me pull up the questions.
51:33
Um, we do have a few questions. Let me go get through these.
51:36
Um, if you don't have service taps or tease bottled in GIS, it looks like I will get a U. N. Error.
51:46
What have you seen other customers do to support this data as they go into the U. N.
51:52
Okay, I think I understand where we're going here.
51:54
So you we wouldn't have a service type or T on the main that connects to our service.
52:00
So in those scenarios, as Jacob was explaining, we would want to to at least create those as part of a migration, right?
52:08
So as part of a migration, we would want to create that.
52:11
Let's say I'll call it a service facility that's going to be at that main.
52:15
Often customers have a hierarchy with these anyway, and you'd want to associate that with the meter customer premise all that fun.
52:21
But we would we can create those in a migration or create those holistically to support that, but the key importance here also is you're going to want to create a vertices at that spot, right?
52:31
So that vertices and the snapping is going to be important.
52:35
So at a minimum, I would suggest to create generic service taps or service tees.
52:42
You could typically based off of different construction patterns patterns or vintages understand which asset you want to add there as well.
52:49
We work with companies around that the kind of create some hierarchies in in terms of what you would add but that would be the suggestion to get to a point and then ultimately you'd love to kind of go back into the source records and get the actual information actual actual materials and verify it versus the unknown verified anything else there Jacob or think we cover them cover that one all right thank you can I go to you and with all of these we need to read this again can I go to the UN with all these errors what half what if I can't clean this up? Okay. Yeah, no.
53:25
Um, so look, there are scenarios where you can't clean this up, right?
53:30
And that might just be resource limitations that might just, you know, might you might be a GIS shop of one, right? We run across a lot of that.
53:38
How does a GIS shop of one who's also moving to the utility network themselves, do all this cleanup, right?
53:44
And it's just not feasible. third party support, right?
53:47
You could come to come to us.
53:49
Um, or if you look at your rules, so your topology rules are now managed at an enterprise geo database level.
53:57
If you take any of the Esri solutions off the shelf, whether that's electric wastewater, you know, pipeline gas, they have a set of rules in the enterprise GDB that's tied to the utility network.
54:07
What you're going to have to do is introduce, you're going to have to determine, do I want to bring these errors over and clean them up and not the functionality in UN that I would get and clean them up over time or do you want to add rules to get the functionality in UN while you clean up the data?
54:24
If you're going to be adding those rules you need to look at introducing rules that will allow these types of connections right if you're gonna allow an unknown material to connect to a steel pipe or I'm gonna have a transition that's an unknown material between them a steel and plastic pipe as well.
54:40
So there's variations there but there are there are alternatives.
54:43
And certainly every single organization isn't going to get every piece of data cleaned up.
54:47
That's impossible.
54:49
Um, so, so every customer does bring something over and we kind of work with them on it.
54:55
Okay. Any other Jacob, anything?
54:58
Yeah, net out. You absolutely can make that move.
55:01
It's, it's like what Clark was mentioning. What are you comfortable with?
55:03
Do you want to load it up front with your rules while you work through? So you gain that functionality?
55:09
Do you not want to add those rules?
55:10
So you're actually enforcing, you know, the real world connections, but Determining some of that un capability so it's you absolutely can't get there.
55:19
It's what flavor You know, do you want to do you want to get there with?
55:24
Okay, great Uh, let's we have a couple more here.
55:28
So if you have any more questions, please use the chat box We'll stay on the line or the question Box and we'll stay on the line as long as there's questions um Okay, so what should I clean up first?
55:42
What error types should I clean up first?
55:46
So as part of an assessment, we determine what is critical for you as an organization and your business.
55:54
That's not a real easy question to answer in terms of what should be cleaned up first.
56:00
Oftentimes, it's going to be a more consultative approach where we understand what your functionality you want out of the utility network versus what the data has.
56:08
And so we're going to work with the organization to determine those.
56:10
But as part of our data assessment, we put them in severity.
56:13
So like a severity one, severity two, severity three, severity one is you are not gonna have this functionality.
56:17
You have to have this data cleaned up, whether that's in the source or through the migration.
56:21
So that's a work in progress.
56:22
Obviously some of the things we saw today, stack points, mid span devices, not splitting those, those are gonna be some really critical pieces.
56:31
So I would generally tend to be in that arena of cleanup first.
56:39
And how do you deal with abandoned materials?
56:44
Okay, abandoned, so hot topic these days.
56:48
So abandoned materials, you can't have stacked points, you can't have stacked lines, right?
56:55
So if we think about an abandonment in a pipeline system in a cutout where that pipeline is going in the exact same spot, the utility network can't have that at that precise location.
57:04
You could have a Z offset, you could have an X, Y offset.
57:07
But oftentimes, since a lot of customers are coming from third party tools in the past that did take assets and move them to abandoned feature classes, we've seen a pretty big trend recently towards that, where customers and as we're migrating them to the utility network, we're facilitating that schema update to replicate those UN features.
57:30
So your junction device line, structure line, structure you're replicating those into abandoned feature classes.
57:38
And as part of a workflow, it can be automated.
57:41
It can be a simple tool in Pro.
57:43
As part of that workflow, it gets abandoned at that spot and it moves those to the abandoned feature classes.
57:48
So it's a clear representation where it's still on the map, still can be represented as abandoned, but it's actually removed from the UN network.
57:58
That's an option.
57:58
Others have decided they want to keep it in UN, don't want to move it out.
58:03
and so there will be a Z or XY offset.
58:05
Personally, if I had to vote, I do like the abandoned feature classes.
58:08
I think it matches a lot of workflows that traditionally we have seen in the utility space and GIS management.
58:14
So I think that's the cleanest, but there are certain different scenarios where others like to keep that in there.
58:20
Those scenarios could be asset management triggers, different things that are required to keep it kind of in that same feature class versus moving it physically out of there into abandon.
58:31
Good question.
58:33
Hey Clark, I'm back. Can you hear me?
58:36
Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, great. Okay, next question.
58:39
If we have a network jumper that could possibly have an end vertex within another network jumper, would this create the stacked error that you all mentioned?
58:48
Okay, so you've got a jumper connected to another jumper or it's probably like this where I've got a jumper over a jumper that would create a stack point because traditionally that jumper is a point that we are just symbolizing as a jumper in a lot of those scenarios.
59:05
Others are actually represented as a jumper that is a curved line.
59:11
So those would be two different scenarios.
59:13
We'd have to kind of look at exactly what that GIS data looked like.
59:16
If it's point-on-point based off a symbology, it's stack point.
59:20
If it's a jumper that we're looking at truly kind of a curved representation there, there's going to be some issues with some curves in managing UN on that side, but you know different issue than we're necessarily talking about today all right thanks next up what is your recommendation on cleanup cleanup before in the gn or clean up after in the un yeah depends on what it is ideally it's cleaned up in gn if you can like if you're getting to a spot where you know what these issues are and you're able to and you have the time before your utility network migration to get that done. That's always some of the best scenarios, right?
59:58
You can have it there.
59:59
You can see it clean moving forward in that future state. So it's more based off of timing.
1:00:04
I'd like to say if I can get that source updated.
1:00:08
We've, again, never seen that everything is completely cleaned up, so it's often gonna move into that future state realm.
1:00:17
So It's a blend.
1:00:17
It depends on what it is and level of effort and availability of internal resources or external partnerships to be able to do that.
1:00:26
All right. Thanks, Clark. Uh, we are at the end of our time.
1:00:29
Uh, if we didn't get to your question, there is a survey at the end where you'll be able to ask it for us and we can get back to you. Uh, with that, thanks everyone for joining today.
1:00:37
And thanks to our speakers. Have a great rest of your day, everyone.