Comprehensive Utility Network Design
Organizes and checks facility data according to industry construction standards, widely accepted engineering analysis methodologies, and company-defined business practices
Interfaces with work management systems to streamline the process of managing projects from inception to Completion
Operates on multiple GIS platforms, providing flexibility without sacrificing functionality or consistency
Fully integrated with Bentley Electric, which includes all the functionality of Bentley Map and is based on MicroStation
Retrieves and submits work requests in batch mode or as scheduled events
Creates designs online (within a GIS) or offline (outside a GIS) in several formats
Allows definition of default attributes at both a global and feature level, increasing productivity
Controls graphic layout offsets, conductor annotations, and other placement settings through global defaults
Automatically assigns compatible units to features
Build special compatible and macro units
Easily compares the costs of multiple designs
Allows users to modify the work details of a design to allow for extra labor and materials
Provides for adding comments and leader lines to the graphic design to assist construction crews
Generates bills of materials, cost estimates, and other reports
Creates construction drawings using built-in or custom plotting templates
Analyzes designs to determine optimal sizing of conductors, fuses, and transformers
Saves designs as templates for reuse with similar jobs
Allows users to relocate and replace existing features while automatically preserving connectivity
Automatically updates spatial and WMS databases throughout the design process
Creates designs in a point and span mode whether you have a connection to a GIS or not
Creates designs in the field or in the office with the same user interface, features, and ease of use
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Open Architecture
Operates on multiple geospatial platforms, including field data-capture systems, without any sacrifice in functionality
Deploys easily with legacy systems as well as third party business solutions across the enterprise
Adheres to Open GIS Interoperability Specification (OGC) standards
Intuitive Interface
Adheres fully to Windows™ application standards
Lets users customize the way information is displayed as well as the toolbars, shortcuts, and other navigational tools
Design Assistant makes designing easy—users drag & drop objects into a design and get automatic compatible unit assignment as well as continuously updated cost information.
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Workload Management
Workplace Today, a powerful and configurable data organizer, provides intuitive lists for the user’s pending, past-due, and in progress work, and can also be tailored to the user’s preferences
Tracks the timelines of each project and shows which ones need attention
Calculates the duration of each project and stores notes about project details
Multiple Design Formats
Lets users produce designs that are separate from work requests
Lets users create designs in three different formats: GIS, Offline, and Template
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Drag and Drop Placement
Provides handy catalogs of features and units (macro, compatible and material)
Lets users select a feature from the catalog and drag it to the desired work location, including the path level
Automatically adds the feature if the resulting configuration complies with the current business rules
Dynamic Cost Estimates
Provides real-time cost estimates for a design as you create it
Continuously calculates and displays the estimated cost of all labor, materials, and equipment at each work location and for the entire design
Provides instant detailed cost breakdowns via integrated report generation using Seagate Crystal Reports™
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Built-In Data Model
Provides a built-in framework for organizing and manipulating data structures that utility companies use most often in modeling their networks
Includes 30 landbase objects, 80 electric objects, and 30 gas objects with pre-defined attributes, relationships, and behaviors
Can be easily modified to fit a company’s business processes
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Integrated Work Management
Manages work requests and designs in either a standalone mode or in combination with your Work Management System
Provides seamless integration with an external Work Management System (WMS)
Supports the most widely used WMS products on the market today
Keeps track of the life-cycle status and scheduled due date of every job as it progresses from initiation through completion
Treats work requests and designs as discrete data sets and stores them in separate folders
Lets users quickly link several designs to a work request to evaluate different construction scenarios before selecting the final design for Implementation
Provides access to a design (and its facility, unit, and cost data) from the work request
Lets users find information faster and organize it in different ways for viewing—by due date, project type, work request name, customer name, etc.
Automatically replaces old designs with the finalized design and work request
Updates the main geospatial environment in a single operation to incorporate as-built data
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Geospatial Format
Work in your choice of GIS environments for designs containing spatial data from the spatial database, such as coordinates of work locations and other geometry
Offline Format
Provides design capabilities while working in the field without a network connection
Transfers offline facilities into the geospatial system when you point to their locations
Lets users switch back and forth between offline and geospatial formats as often as needed
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Template Format
Supports all basic design tasks, such as creating work locations, assigning features and compatible units, and generating cost estimates and bills of materials
Contains information about work locations and work details
Gathers coordinates from the geospatial system and applies them to the template’s work locations
Automated Layout
Offers a comprehensive set of configurable tools for laying out features quickly, efficiently, and consistently
Employs powerful placement logic based on mapping and construction standards as well as user-defined business rules
Places valid combinations of multiple features and annotations in a single operation and lets the user temporarily suspend these placement rules
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Optimization & Equipment Sizing
Determines the most cost-effective construction solution that will meet engineering and performance requirements
Expedites the design process by handing complex engineering calculations
Makes it easier to compare costs and make choices that serve customers without wasteful overbuilding
Checks design against network characteristics (such as phasing, voltage, and load estimates)
Recommends the minimum equipment ratings—for primary and secondary conductors, distribution transformers, and fuses—that will meet industry standards
Applies a set of company-specific criteria (such as maximum allowable voltage drop), which users can override for any job by specifying a different set of analysis parameters
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Construction Unit Defaults
Supports unit data in the form of macro units, compatible units, and material units and offers a number of options for assigning units to the work locations of a design
Enables users to users accept the default unit that the company has set up for the selected feature, or lets them replace it with another standard unit
Enables users to create customized compatible units to reflect a job’s extra costs; compatible unit data can be loaded and updated from an external system
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Powerful Editing Tools
Lets users make changes simultaneously to an entire group of features even if the facilities are of different types, making tasks like voltage conversion and phase roll easy and intuitive
Enables easy feature replacement with one click
Provides tools for adding facilities and annotations at a single location
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Standard and Custom Reporting
Generates a wide variety of standard reports: cost estimates, cost comparisons, as-built comparisons, plant account reports, bills of materials (both major and minor), and design orders
Compiles reports using Seagate Crystal Reports; templates can be easily customized, and information can be accessed with any Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) reporting tool
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Data Validation
Eliminates the need to enter data multiple times, reducing the chances for error
Prevents many data error problems such as invalid facility connectivity and invalid data dependencies
Supports configuration to automatically derive new feature data from existing features so that dependent data will always be inserted correctly the first time
Context-Sensitive Help
Makes it easy to get quick answers to your questions about a wide array of features
Includes “smart” topic headings, synchronized navigation and content panes, and an interactive table of contents and index.
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