InPrint Fall 2015

FALL2015

No Software Is An Island

Maximize Your Investment With the GIS-centric Platform Pg. 6

IN THIS ISSUE Miami Beach Calls in the Inspector Pg. 8 Getting Serious about Parks and Recreation Pg. 14 IO Toolset Helps Municipalities Optimize Infrastructure Asset Management Pg. 26

FROM OUR EDITOR

ADVISORY BOARD Brian Haslam | President & CEO Carl Horton | Chief Technology Officer George Mastakas | Vice President of Enterprise Solutions Wayne Hill | Vice President of Client Relations Tom Palizzi | Vice President, Executive Producer Brent Wilson | Vice President of Sales Steve Thomas | Executive Manager, Customer Support INPRINT STAFF Editor in Chief | Tom Palizzi Managing Editor | Kaye Ryser Associate Editor | Camille Olsen Copy Editor | Reece Hanzon, Danielle Edwards Graphic Design | Kent Hepworth Graphic Design | Rachel Haslam SUBSCRIPTIONS To subscribe, change your address, or cancel your subscription: inprint@cityworks.com CONTACT US Tel: 801-523-2751 Email: info@cityworks.com Archives available at: www.cityworks.com AZTECA SYSTEMS INC. 11075 South State Street, Suite 24 Sandy, UT 84070 801-523-2751 www.cityworks.com Copyright © Cityworks 2015 All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

S

uccess is measured in many ways. Most often, it is judged in financial or material terms; my favorite example being, “he who dies with the most toys wins.” Yet, ironically, success can also be the failure to reach a defined objective.

Defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, success is the outcome of an undertaking, specified as achieving or failing to achieve its objective. Though the simple objective to build good software is more implied than discussed, I measure our collective success in the positive energy that prevails throughout the Cityworks community. During the plenary session at this year’s Cityworks User Conference, I discovered the common denominator that I believe is the driving force of our success: we all believe.

Though it is not a job requirement, part of an employee profile, or outwardly evident in any other way, we at Cityworks all seem to share firmly held convictions—trust, faith, confidence—in the same essential things.

We believe in integrity, honesty, and respect. These principles make up the core of our business, upon which we all base our belief in the inherent power of the relationship between information and geography. We specifically acknowledge how information is created, managed, and analyzed in a Geographic Information System (GIS).

Our belief in GIS as an authoritative system of record speaks for itself. The term we established has become a defining thread throughout the GIS community: GIScentric. We believe in transparency, collaboration, and innovation. We believe in the cloud; that Cityworks is a platform, not a program; and that no software should be an island.

At the foundation, however, we believe in people. We believe in the capabilities of our staff and the contributions of our partners, but most of all we believe in you.

Our success is wholly dependent upon yours, and it all begins with belief.

Thanks for believing and for reading this issue of Cityworks InPrint!

Tom Palizzi Executive Vice President

The information contained in this document is the exclusive property of Azteca Systems Inc. The work is protected under United States copyright law and other international copyright treaties and conventions. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as expressly permitted in writing by Azteca Systems Inc. All requests should be sent to Attention: Cityworks InPrint, Azteca Systems Inc., 11075 South State Street, #24, Sandy, UT 84070. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice.

Azteca Systems, Cityworks, Cityworks SAM, and Powered by Esri are registered trademarks; Cityworks Desktop, Cityworks Anywhere, Cityworks Server, GIS Empowered by Cityworks, and Empowering GIS are trademarks of Azteca Systems Inc.; and www.mycityworks.com, www.gocityworks.com, www.cityworks.com, and @cityworks.com are service marks of Azteca Systems Inc. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective trademark owners.

20 YEARS

2015 marks the 20th anniversary of Cityworks, and we thank you all for being a part of our history, our success, and most of all, our community!

IMPRESSIVE Cityworks SAM , but not the TM

TRAINING we have in mind.

“LIVE” ON-CAMPUS

Along the continuum from new employee to veteran manager, your work demands more of you every day, and you certainly don’t need government statistics to know education is the key. Make the grade at the Cityworks Campus!

Personalized, hands-on training led by expert staff in our state-of-the-art facilities will no doubt give you the edge you need. Work alongside people just like you from around the globe as trainers guide you through exercises that enlighten, strengthen, and refine your Cityworks skills.

[Get those

ROCK HARD CITYWORKS APPS

you’ve been looking for.]

Don't waste another minute—enroll in a Cityworks training today! You'll walk away with better skills, fresh ideas, and answers to all your questions.

On-Campus training now in

TEXAS & WISCONSIN as well as Salt Lake City.

EXERCISE all your training options at www.mycityworks.com/cityworkscampus (Select “Live” option for on-campus training.)

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CONTENTS

6

PRESIDENT’S CORNER

6

The GIS-centric Platform and Multiservice User Experience

8

Miami Beach Calls in the Inspector (ArcGIS & Cityworks) to Investigate Sewer Line Breaks

USER COMMUNITY

10 Storeroom Investment Pays Off Big for Weatherford, Texas 12 Leaks Spring up in Herriman and Saratoga Springs, Utah: How Cityworks Employees Dealt with Them Using CitySourced

14

More Than Just a Fun Place: Cityworks Empowers Cities to Get Serious about Parks and Recreation!

16

Upgrading Civic Tree Triage: Washington, D.C., Uses ArcGIS Platform to Improve Urban Forestry Management

18

Optimizing Work at City of Sugar Land’s New Surface Water Treatment Plant

20 22

An Award–Winning Solution for the City of Auburn, Alabama

PARTNER COMMUNITY

8

Destin Water Users, Inc. Optimizes Water System Operations and Enhances Workflow Efficiency

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24 25 26

Collect Data from a Mobile Entity with LiGO®

28 30 32 33

Cityworks 2015 User Conference Reaches New Heights

34 38

Tools & Tips: Attachments in Server AMS 2013 and 2014

The Cityworks Extension for Geocortex Essentials IO Toolset Helps Municipalities Optimize Infrastructure Asset Management

CORPORATE COMMUNITY Sponsor Events Cityworks 2015 Exemplary User Award Winners!

Cityworks SAMTM Salutes New Employees

TECHNOLOGY Tools & Tips: Common Issues with CCTV Attachments

PRESIDENT’S CORNER

The GIS-centric Platform and Multiservice User Experience

By Brian L. Haslam, President & CEO, Cityworks

I

n 2012, we first published a diagram in Cityworks InPrint describing the GIS-centric Platform. This illustrated a fundamental shift in thinking and would become the road map that would guide the development direction for Cityworks into a new era.

It was during a break at Esri’s Partner Council meeting in 2011 that Jack Dangermond, president of Esri, shared with me his thoughts on the evolving technology landscape. While he encouraged me to learn about platform design and the Cloud, I was most inspired by his observation that software was changing, and in such a way that the viability of commercial, off-the-shelf providers would hang in the balance.

That conversation ignited a passion in me. History points out such moments where a decision to stay the course or move ahead determines the very life of a technology company. For Cityworks, it was carpe diem all over again. Shortly after our diagram was published in my President’s Corner article, Esri followed with a similar view, validating the direction we were taking.

At this year’s Cityworks User Conference, we provided an updated illustration that builds on a more recent Esri diagram and highlights that the blended user experience is not just ArcGIS and Cityworks, but all applications, working together. With this vision, Cityworks with ArcGIS has

become a platform solution for Public Asset Management, allowing for other resources and solutions to reside in the same technology ecosystem.

Cityworks has always been designed to leverage an organization’s investment in Esri GIS. The GIS-centric Platform vision has influenced and guided our development for four years, spawning a new paradigm where no software is an island—connect, leverage, collaborate.

For Cityworks users, the foundation platform services are Cityworks and ArcGIS. Other resources and services can be brought into the GIS-centric Platform for unique or enhanced operational workflow needs. At the Cityworks User Conference this was demonstrated by highlighting that this is no longer just a diagram influencing and guiding development.

Today, it is real. The GIS-centric Platform is a multiservice user experience that combines world-class GIS from Esri, the leading GIS-centric asset management system (Cityworks), and can include other leading systems and apps.

Rather than read more about this, you can watch a recap of my plenary session from the Cityworks User Conference and see it for yourself. Go to http://mycityworks.com and login with your user account. If you do not have a user account, just send us an email at info@cityworks.com and we’ll set you up so you can watch the video.

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6 InPrint | Fall 2015

1. Plenary video

2. Jack Dangermond Welcome

Watch the opening plenary session from the 2015 Cityworks User Conference, led

by Brian Haslam, president and CEO of Cityworks. [28:20]

3. “No software is an island”

Jack Dangermond, president of Esri, welcomes attendees to the 2015 Cityworks User Conference. [01:37]

4. Building bridges to here, there, and everywhere

5. Paving a bridge that connects islands

George Mastakas and Jeff Shaner, Senior Product Manager, at Esri, present a lighthearted demonstration of how the platform works in both directions. [04:51]

George Mastakas, executive vice president of enterprise services, walks attendees through a quick example of how MicroPaver leverages the platform. [01:44]

6. Collector for ArcGIS

7. Virtual inspection tools that empower the platform

Using Esri’s Collector for ArcGIS, James Oliphant shows how these out-of-the-box tools from Esri, together with Cityworks, are used for field inspections. [05:45]

In an in-depth demonstration, Billy Lang, Sales Support, takes us on a tour of CycloMedia’s exciting new product, Street Smart for ArcGIS, which is poised to change the way inspections are done. [05:08]

Brian recounts the story of how Cityworks evolved to become a cloud-based platform technology. At the encouragement of Jack Dangermond, Brian and senior software developer James Oliphant developed a schematic illustrating the Cityworks platform.

That schematic was validated by Esri’s version shortly thereafter. Today, Esri and Cityworks share an environment where all applications work together and where no software is an island—connect, leverage, collaborate.

[02:12]

8. Cityworks’ GIS-centric platform—a community of applications Brian Haslam wraps up the plenary with a sneak peek at our community of partners, who are building bridges that connect, leverage, and extend the Cityworks platform. [02:09]

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USER COMMUNITY

Miami Beach Calls in the Inspector (ArcGIS & Cityworks) to Investigate Sewer Line Breaks

By Adriana Castro, GISP, GIS Analyst, City of Miami Beach, Florida

T

he city of Miami Beach is internationally recognized as a great tourism attraction. Among its points of interest are the seven miles of beaches, multiple restaurants, vibrant night life, and cultural events. In order to maintain this tropical historic community, the City of Miami Beach has objectives and strategic priorities that include having a well-improved infrastructure, which provides safety, health, and well-being for residents and visitors.

The maintenance of the city’s infrastructure is an important factor in the aforementioned priorities. Particularly, the inspection and repair of the sanitary sewer system have been a continuous effort. The system contains 122 miles of gravity mains, which were installed beginning in the 1920s. That means the system is close to 100 years old, which makes it vulnerable to infiltrations and breaks.

This year, the Public Works Department has decided to take the lead in the coordination of the Sanitary Sewer Evaluation Survey (SSES) Phase III, which previously was subcontracted to external companies. This will not only save the City a significant amount of resources, but will result in the update of information directly to the Geographic Information System (GIS) data, which is widely used by the department.

8 InPrint | Fall 2015

The project is coordinated by the Engineering and Operations Divisions. The City contracted an experienced company to do the closed-circuit television (CCTV) inspections. After the data is collected in the field, the City’s engineers use the inspection videos to create necessary revisions to the GIS and recommendations for spot repairs or sewer lining.

The Role of the GIS Division The GIS Division supports the project in different ways. First of all, nine maps were created for the sewer basins identified as having serious infiltration problems in the sanitary sewer collection system. Those maps are used by the EnviroWaste field crew to create the inspections from manhole to manhole. The results of those

Image 1: Inspection in Cityworks during review process.

Challenges the City Faced The main challenge of the project has been in those areas where GIS data is not correct.

When that happens, the crew goes to the field and finds that the manholes are located in places different from what the GIS map shows.

At that time, new manhole numbers are assigned using a reference manhole plus a letter, and the inspection is performed using those identifiers. The steps for that process include gathering the data by the City’s surveyors, updating the GIS using that information, and finally creating the inspections in Cityworks.

When the digital information is received, the inspections are also updated using the new GIS manhole identifiers.

What the City of Miami Beach Learned

Image 2: Example of the reports and map.

inspections are later reported to the City in a document along with a CD that contains the digital information.

The main role of the GIS Division has been to provide support to the city’s engineers during the revision and update process of the sanitary sewer utility system. That task is done in two parts. The first part is through the existing GISbased asset management system, Cityworks.

This application allows the engineers to do internal revisions of the work performed in the field and provide a final resolution. Image 1 displays the inspections in Cityworks during the review of the videos.

After the inspection is completed, automated reports are generated based on the different recommended solutions of each sewer line.

This allows the engineers to keep track of the work and decide what will be the next steps in the process. Also, the map displays the pipes in different colors, corresponding to the next action needed, which gives quick information about the status of the area. Image 2 shows an example of the reports and map.

The other part of the GIS update process is to ensure that all the digital data contained in the CDs is transferred to the GIS system. Each CD has an access database and the CCTV videos related to the inspections of the day. That data is saved in a centralized folder in the network.

Because the inspections related to the gravity mains are identified by the upstream and downstream manholes, the update could not be done using the pipe identifier. The solution

was to create a spatial query with the direction of the line, which allows us to identify the upstream and downstream manholes and the line between them. Other SQL queries were created to identify any errors, fix them, and update the GIS features. After the creation of all of these elements for the updates, the process has been very easy and efficient.

New projects are always a challenge and they leave us with experiences to make the next one better. This is the first time that the City of Miami Beach is coordinating the SSES inspections and repairs, and it has been a success. From before the inspections are started to after they are done and the GIS updates are made, using GIS data throughout the process has made better use of that data and put the City in charge of its information. The use of GIS, Cityworks, and SQL spatial queries has made this an easy process with very transparent and truthful results. For those reasons, Public Works is looking to continue doing SSES projects in the future.

InPrint | Fall 2015

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USER COMMUNITY

Storeroom Investment

PAYS OFF BIG FOR WEATHERFORD

By Blake Mize, Account Manager, and Brad Johnson, Industry Practices Manager | Cityworks Contributors: Pat Berry, Warehouse Manager, and Austin Nichols, GIS Analyst, City of Weatherford, Texas

T

he city of Weatherford, Texas, is one of the foremost Storeroom users of the Cityworks community. Before Cityworks was in play, Weatherford was utilizing a home-grown system housed on old hardware that was due for retirement. Their inventory was located in a SQL database and viewed in Microsoft Access on the front end. The work order section did not speak to the warehouse section, and they housed over 210,000 work orders and more than 2,000 materials in legacy systems.

The database was managed by the IT Department, but there was really no one managing the front end. Consequently, the data had become outdated and provided a poor representation of materials and how they were being issued, tracked, and so on. To sum up, there was a severe lack of functionality.

to Storeroom and provides open lines of communication between field crews, the GIS, and the warehouse. As a digital solution, it has improved workflow and allowed the City’s assets to be more adequately maintained.

After a full year of using Cityworks, the annual inventory had its best variance in eight years—more than six divisions within the City can actively communicate and contribute on all phases of asset management. The variance in the stock on hand went from +0.17 annually to -0.00164 annually.

Cityworks Storeroom is a one-stop solution to combine asset management and warehousing. Because it’s based in a web application, upgrading and distribution are much easier. It’s more efficient for maintaining controls and permissions via the warehouse staff, and ultimately provides an easy line of communication for a given asset and its management.

Purchasing

Materials are organized in the yard so that they are easily located.

Preparation Before beginning their upgrade, Weatherford employed NewEdge Services LLC to do an extensive system review to clean up the historical database. The stock was narrowed down to what had been purchased in the last three years. Weatherford used this as a master list to check each item, stock code, cost, stock on hand, and so forth. This allowed them to map each field to the corresponding Cityworks Storeroom table and move the data from the legacy systems into Cityworks.

The City then performed a second review to evaluate both current workflows and their workflow wish list, along with potential workflows that would directly impact the warehouse. Once all these items were addressed, there were more than 200,000 historical work orders that were pushed into the new system.

Once Cityworks Server AMS was configured, Storeroom was set up alongside the old warehouse system for one month. This allowed the warehouse supervisor to compare the systems side by side for accuracy, and also allowed workflows to be improved and for any kinks to be worked out. This test phase was extremely significant and provided the time needed to work through the entire warehouse process, purchase items, and place them in the field.

Current Use and Benefits From the beginning, Cityworks Storeroom has provided a single, central solution for the entire City. It allows the work order system to connect

10 InPrint | Fall 2015

Weatherford uses a Crystal report from Server AMS called “Materials Below Minimum” to show what materials need to be restocked. The City then issues a requisition (built in Storeroom and printed in Server AMS) and emails vendors to request bids. Once bids are received, city staff chooses the desired materials and issues a purchase order (PO) to that vendor. The PO is also created using a Crystal report in Server AMS. When the materials arrive, they are entered into Storeroom using the Requisition feature. The City uses this feature instead of “Receive” because each requisition may include POs for several vendors. This also allows the City to receive partial shipments. Once POs are completed, they are sent to the Finance Department for payment. Weatherford uses weighted averages on all purchases, which is calculated by dividing all the costs for the material by the number of units on hand.

Preparing Material Once the material arrives, it is ready to be used. A work order is created in Server AMS by either a dispatcher or a field crew member and the status is set to “Materials Needed.” It is then emailed to warehouse personnel so that they can locate the material and get it ready to be picked up. Work crews can also issue to work orders from the field using Freeance, which automates almost the entire function.

Warehouse personnel use an iPad to transfer the material from “Estimated” to “Actual” on the work order. They then send an email notification to the warehouse office, where the work order status is changed to “Materials Complete” and materials are removed from “Estimated.”

For larger orders, warehouse personnel usually print the work order and work from a hard copy because there are new items added almost daily, and it is easier to track in printed form. If new items are added while they are in the process of pulling material, the employee transfers the material from “Estimated” to “Actual.”

Future plans for Storeroom In the next year, Weatherford wants to set up cycle counts throughout Storeroom so that each item is counted throughout the year. They are

currently doing weekly cycle counts by manually choosing the material to count. Integrating automatic cycle counts will help automate the process and ensure all items are counted prior to physical inventory and hopefully reduce variances.

Weatherford also wants to upgrade to Storeroom 2014 in the next fiscal year, and provide more training for warehouse staff.

Since they are comfortable with the day-to-day

operations of their current Storeroom deployment, they want to branch out and learn how much more they can accomplish in Storeroom.

They want to link Storeroom and GIS tables in order to better track assets throughout their life cycle. This will enable city officials to easily access information about assets from the time they are delivered to the warehouse to the day they are retired and disposed of.

About Weatherford, Texas Weatherford, Texas is located 35–40 miles west of the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area and has a population of approximately 30,000 citizens. The city encompasses about two square miles and serves more than 36,000 water, wastewater, and electric customers. It also maintains 450 miles of water and wastewater lines, along with 525 miles of electric distribution lines—including primary and secondary lines both above and below ground.

The City’s warehouse services three Cityworks users and may have up to 2,000 different items at any given time, which includes both new construction and maintenance materials. This equates to a $3.5–$4 million inventory managed by Cityworks Storeroom.

A work order status of “Materials Needed.”

InPrint | Fall 2015

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USER COMMUNITY

Leaks Spring up in Herriman & Saratoga Springs How Cityworks Employees Dealt with Them Using CitySourced

By Camille Olsen, Marketing Assistant, Cityworks

F

rom time to time, homeowners find it necessary to contact their City to report problems or issues they have encountered. Such was the case for Cityworks employee Matt Harman, northwest regional sales manager, who noticed a leak in the irrigation meter valve while installing a sprinkling system at his new home in Saratoga Springs, Utah. This provided him with the perfect opportunity to experience the Saratoga Springs City Mobile app by CitySourced, which is integrated with Cityworks, to report the problem.

After noticing the leak on Friday, Harman was able to use his iPhone to send a service request through the app. A few minutes later, he received an email stating his service request had been received and was logged into Cityworks. Behind the scenes, as Harman continued to install his sprinkling system, a work order was created in Cityworks and sent to the city’s maintenance crew. The crew fixed the leak and closed the work order, at which point an email was sent to Harman showing the leak had been fixed by Monday afternoon. Without Cityworks and the City’s mobile app, Harman would have had to wait all weekend

to submit his service request because the city offices in Saratoga Springs are not open on Fridays.

Using the mobile app proved to be much more efficient and time saving than trying to call the City directly to get the issue fixed. “As a resident of Saratoga Springs, the mobile app was easy to use and the communication between the app and Cityworks was very efficient. I’m glad to see governments leveraging technology to increase the level of service they provide to the community,” said Harman.

The City implemented Server AMS/PLL in 2014 and worked with CitySourced to launch their Saratoga Springs City Mobile app in early 2015. Owen Jackson, public relations and economic development director for Saratoga Springs, said, “The City of Saratoga Springs has implemented both the CitySourced and Cityworks systems over the past year. The ability for our residents to directly input service requests via the CitySourced app has given staff the ability to quickly respond to residents’ needs. The interface between the programs has been smooth and accessible for city staff and their customer service is exceptional. Saratoga

Springs is continually looking for methods to improve efficiency and provide a high level of service to our residents and we feel that both programs have helped meet this criteria.”

The use of the Cityworks service request API coupled with the CitySourced integration provides a convenient service for citizens to report issues, allowing for faster turnaround and open communication between citizens and their City.

With continued growth in the area, the app will become an even more valuable asset to the City and its citizens.

City of Herriman – Wayne’s Story On another Friday evening, in another city along the Wasatch Front, Wayne Hill, vice president of client relations at Cityworks, noticed three broken sprinkler heads at a nearby park while out for a walk with his wife. He took a picture of the issue and submitted it via the Herriman City app, which is also created by CitySourced and integrated with Cityworks. By Monday afternoon, he received an email showing the sprinklers were fixed and the request was closed.

The Saratoga Springs City Mobile app allows residents to easily report issues and keeps them up to date on the status.

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About Saratoga Springs, Utah Located on the northwest shores of Utah Lake in the center of Utah’s Wasatch Front metropolitan area, the city of Saratoga Springs, Utah, is one of the fastest growing communities in northern Utah. Incorporated in December of 1997, the city’s population is estimated at around 18,000 residents—a suburban population who work along the Wasatch Front, but desire a quiet, suburban area in which to live.

Saratoga Springs is only partially developed and it is expected that the build-out population of the city will be over 100,000 residents.

About Herriman, Utah Nestled in the southwest corner of the Salt Lake Valley, Herriman, classified in 2000 as a town, was upgraded to a city after the 2010 census. The city is dedicated to providing courteous and efficient service to the public, preserving community identity, and promoting a high quality of life.

Broken sprinkler head in Herriman and the Herriman City app Wayne used to report the problem.

SIMPLIFYING CIVIC ENGAGEMENT www.citysourced.com

sales@citysourced.com InPrint | Fall 2015

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USER COMMUNITY

This park looks parched. We need to get serious about its care!

Stop with dry humor!

More Than Just a Fun Place: Cityworks Empowers Cities to Get Serious About Parks and Recreation!

By Camille Olsen, Marketing Assistant, Cityworks

W

hen discussing a public asset management system, thoughts normally move to street, water/wastewater, or sewer management. But some Cityworks users have tuned into the benefit of using Cityworks in their parks and recreation departments to manage tree maintenance, pesticide administration, park maintenance, and more.

Cityworks asked some users to share how they have implemented and used Cityworks within their parks and recreation departments.

Auburn, Alabama Comments by Christopher P. Graff, GIS Manager The City of Auburn’s Parks and Recreation Department has an urban forestry unit that maintains vegetation on city property and within the public right of way. When in the right of way, the urban forestry unit monitors and recommends actions to the Environment Services Department.

Auburn’s Cityworks implementation solution stems from the International Society of Arboriculture’s Guide for Plant Appraisal.

This document outlines quantitative means to measure plant health, risk, and value. We

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wanted to stick with these recognized methods as a defensible means of managing our tree assets.

In 2005, Auburn contracted with a developer to write an ArcMap extension to execute the guide’s methods. By 2013, that third-party solution was no longer viable. It poorly leveraged our GIS investment even though it was an ArcGIS extension.

It only stored the most recent inspection and had no capacity to manage maintenance activities.

At the same time, we’d been successfully using Cityworks in our water utility. What we found was that our Cityworks solution effectively addressed shortcomings in our old tree solution; namely it was completely GIS-centric, it allowed for a robust asset history, and it was a fully-capable asset management solution.

Developing maintenance routines in Cityworks was straightforward. What was more complex was building the International Society of Arboriculture’s methodology into custom Cityworks inspections. Luckily, the formulas are well documented and, with the help of Cityworks support, we were able to navigate the intricacies of custom inspections and condition scores. In the end, we had exactly recreated the tree inspection standard in a more intuitive user interface. GIS editing was enabled for the Cityworks map and for inspection attributes to efficiently maintain the GIS asset inventory.

Finally, a custom SQL report was built in conjunction with a custom tree appraisal inspection.

With these tools in place, productivity increased dramatically. In the first year of use, the City completed more inspections than in the previous 14 years combined. Having a comprehensive and intuitive solution has greatly increased the quality of data produced. This has ensured the standard has been followed and a defensible maintenance plan implemented. Also, by utilizing an enterprise asset management solution, our ability to address work management has moved from paper and phone calls across two locations and departments to a single reliable and accountable solution—meaning communication has greatly increased, and both execution and quality of service have improved.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina Comments by Amy Rockwell, Sr. Business Analyst Landscape Management is a division within our Engineering and Property Management Department. The division comprises right of way (ROW) mowing management;

landscape beautification; and tree maintenance, management, and planting. Within ROW mowing management, we use GIS to identify vacant parcels, handrails, guardrails, and medians that need to be maintained, mowed, sprayed for bugs, etc. Citizens will typically call in issues, such as obstructed road signs, bees in a median, and so on.

These requests are entered into Cityworks and a work order is created. Once the job is completed, an additional work order for a later date might be created to go back to that location and prune or spray for bugs again.

Landscape and Beautification is using Cityworks to track their labor, material, and equipment costs for each of their work locations.

First, all the locations are identified in GIS and entered in Cityworks. Second, a reoccurring annual work order is set at each location. At the end of every week, the field crew chief enters the number of hours spent working on each location. This was great during the 2012 Democratic National Convention, when we were asked to build a park. We only had 45 days to build it and could use only inside labor and no contractors.

They were able to set up one work order for the entire location and track all of their ELM. When it was all done, we had a total cost for building the park.

Tree maintenance has really seen the largest benefits of using Cityworks. These workers prune, remove, and inspect every tree, as well as perform all other tree maintenance. They use the work order API and custom Silverlight tools to simplify their work process. We create tools that allow the user to modify attribute data directly in the feature class using jQuery and HTML. In order to create some work orders, we built a custom GIS Search query page. Creating our own search allowed us to show only fields that the user would query and filter the features returned. In addition to creating a work order from this page, it also exports the list of trees into Excel, which can then be handed off to a contractor. The contractor goes into the field and bands these trees. While they’re out there, contractors can make notes on the list—such as missing, defective, or damaged trees—so that we can go back later and inspect it. Contractors can also mark the tree off when their work is completed.

In our old work management system, work orders were tied to addresses and not actual assets, which made finding work history on a tree difficult if there were multiple trees at one address. Users would have to ask around and rely on people’s memories. Now, when we have a problem with a tree, we select the tree on the map, request the work history, and it’s all right there.

Willamalane, Oregon Comments by Chelsea Archer, Administrative Analyst, and Ben Grieger, GIS Analyst Willamalane Parks and Recreation District is a small park district in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, situated mostly within the urban growth boundary of the City of Springfield (the real home of the Simpsons!).

Our parks are utilized by Springfield’s 59,000 residents, along with the 156,000 residents of the City of Eugene, located just west of Springfield and separated by the Middle Fork of the Willamette River.

Willamalane uses Cityworks to maintain and operate five recreation facilities and 44 parks and natural areas totaling nearly 1,500 acres.

Running Cityworks Server AMS on an Amazon cloud server, Willamalane has one centralized Cityworks database allowing full Cityworks functionality over the Internet. Willamalane has more than 30 users that can access Cityworks on smartphones, laptops, desktops, and tablet devices, either in the office or in the field.

Work orders are created and tracked for both reactive and preventive maintenance performed in Willamalane’s parks. Over the past six years, Willamalane’s dedicated GIS team has grown our GIS database to include everything from park boundaries and walking trails, to individual trees, bushes, and shrubs. This provides us with the unique ability to assign work orders directly to an individual asset, regardless of the scope of the project.

Using the flexibility of the Cityworks Server user interface, the district has made many modifications that have helped tailor the system to meet its needs. The login page has been modified to include a service request button that links patrons or employees to a custom mapping application that allows them to enter service requests simply and quickly. Just tap on the map where work is needed, upload a photo (if desired), and a service request is automatically sent to Cityworks. All updates are immediately reflected in the geodatabase, which means all maps displaying data from the geodatabase— whether connected to Cityworks or not—are automatically updated as well.

Since implementing Cityworks, Willamalane has moved from paper-based work orders to a nearly 100% digital work management process.

The City can now track work order costs down to the asset level, and this information is used for reporting, capital improvement planning, and tracking work order cost by project.

The newest goal at Willamalane for improving efficiency is to place crew locations on the Cityworks map using Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) so that users can not only see

where work needs to be done, but also which crews are closest for better coordination and more efficient deployment.

Why Cityworks? As our park services director likes to say, parks are really the same as a small public works department. We all maintain trees, our concrete and asphalt paths are akin to your roads, we have sanitary and storm lines to maintain, irrigation and domestic water to manage, and so it goes. Each individual task and service is different, but one thing does remain the same: our goal of bringing clean, safe public areas to our communities.

City of Topeka, Kansas Comments by Brandon Bayless, Cityworks Analyst for Technical Support Group Division The City of Topeka processes roughly 750 service requests and more than 900 work orders every year. The Forestry Division’s staff members take advantage of the Cityworks map capabilities to help process these requests, and Topeka is currently working on a plan to add mobile devices to the division’s workflows to process service requests and work orders more efficiently.

By viewing the parcel and aerial layer, they are able to gather homeowner information and measure to determine whether tree and vegetation issues are public or private responsibilities.

Through this process, Cityworks enables the Forestry Division to work in collaboration with Topeka’s other divisions and departments to complete projects, which has greatly contributed to a synergistic environment.

Cityworks has also given the City of Topeka a more accurate tracking of forestry requests for citywide statistics and analytics. Consequently, Topeka city administrators and council members have a more realistic view and scope of what requests are handled by the Forestry Division.

By tracking labor, equipment, and materials for this division in Cityworks, budgetary costs and expenses are much easier to analyze and adjust throughout the fiscal year. This can be extremely valuable when trying to forecast and justify staffing and equipment needs.

The City of Topeka has seen a monumental increase in organization and efficiency because of Cityworks’ geocentric capabilities. Not only can crews tackle more issues in the field, but administrative staff is also able to track and process the work completed in the office much faster. One major cost savings Topeka has realized indirectly from tracking forestry’s work in Cityworks is from claims filed against the City.

The City of Topeka is able to track the history of where crews were in the field, thereby nullifying any false claims against the Forestry Division and its staff members.

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PARTNER COMMUNITY

Upgrading Civic Tree Triage

Washington, D.C., Uses ArcGIS Platform to Improve Urban Forestry Management

By Matthew DeMeritt, Esri Writer, Esri

T

he trees that populate roadsides and homes endure a surprising onslaught of natural and moral evil. Ice storms topple them, beetles infect them with disease, and troubled youth vandalize them. Heck, even some homeowners go Paul Bunyan on them without getting the proper permissions. The perpetual assault on trees requires taking a detailed inventory of urban forests to ensure they thrive.

Between 2006 and 2013, the Washington, D.C., Department of Transportation’s Urban Forestry Administration (UFA) used a typical PDAbased field collection method. A team of 18 arborists at the administration inventoried D.C.’s street trees using clunky handhelds. Back at the office, information from their units had to be uploaded and manually merged in the street tree database, inviting error creep that defied the very purpose of the collection. In 2014, the administration decided to use ArcGIS Online and the Collector for ArcGIS mobile app to monitor the condition of D.C.’s

urban forest in real time and automatically merge individual worker’s collected data. Esri also enabled UFA to share information internally and externally and discover the true extent of illegal tree removal in the city.

Taking Inventory Like many public works and transportation departments, UFA uses Cityworks, a map-based asset management system. Cityworks accesses maps and layers from the ArcGIS Online universe and allows UFA staff to select the data capture method most suitable to their specific jobs.

Consuming the same geospatial services in all the administration’s mapping applications, arborists can immediately make modifications to the city’s tree assets. As those changes automatically merge in a common map, users can view fresh street tree inventory data on any device and perform tasks accordingly.

Lidar imagery in ArcGIS Pro shows height of trees before deforestation.

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“For example, on a block with trees that haven’t been updated for many years, a visiting arborist with an iOS or Android device might select Collector for ArcGIS to update the inventory then and there,” says Earl Eutsler, deputy associate director at UFA. “With an accurate inventory, the same arborist can use Cityworks to schedule tree maintenance.”

Working in a real-time environment improved UFA’s response times, particularly during severe storms when fallen branches and toppled trees must be promptly removed.

Disease and Chainsaws Street trees are far more vulnerable to human beings and the environment than right-of-way assets, such as street signs and fire hydrants.

If not responded to quickly, trees can succumb to pests and disease.

Knowing the location of an American elm tree infected with Dutch elm disease is fundamental to containing the hazard.

D.C.’s tree protection laws require obtaining a permit to remove mature trees, but that doesn’t stop some property owners from revving up their chainsaws without filling out the proper paperwork. Not knowing the size of the trees removed, the UFA couldn’t properly assess fines on impatient lumberjacks (penalties are based on the felled tree’s actual size).

“Accurate fine enforcement required that UFA determine the size of the trunk at 4.5 feet above the ground,” says Eutsler. “Using lidar imagery in ArcGIS Pro, we can now derive an accurate measurement of the tree’s trunk even without the stem.”

Lidar visualization in ArcGIS introduced a new fiscal benefit to the city, ultimately uncovering $100,000 worth of unissued fines for illegal felling. The city ultimately settled for $50,000 and used the funds to plant new trees.

Practicing Best Science From inventorying to investigating to harnessing the outreach power of ArcGIS, the UFA modernized its civic tree monitoring and maintenance workflow, saving time and money.

“We measure success based on doing more in less time,” says Eutsler. “The Esri platform helped us manage our urban forest and better enforce its protection in a sensible way.”

Reprinted with the permission of Esri from https://medium.com/@Esri/ upgrading-civic-tree-triage-3038b426d5c6

Lidar in ArcGIS Pro identifies the trees removed and calculates their pre-fallen size.

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17

PARTNER COMMUNITY

Optimizing Work at City of Sugar Land’s New Surface Water Treatment Plant

By Kathryn Benson, PE, CRMP, Project Manager, CH2M

T

he City of Sugar Land, Texas, constructed a new, 22 million-gallon-a-day surface water treatment plant to meet growing demands and comply with local groundwater reduction mandates. This was the first water treatment plant under the City’s ownership, and they recognized the need for a computerized maintenance management system to manage the $69 million facility. CH2M facilitated a collaborative selection process, through which Cityworks was identified as the tool best able to meet both the immediate needs for the treatment plant and the long-term needs of other citywide functions.

The goal for the Cityworks implementation was to optimize the operations and maintenance of this new facility, while avoiding information overload for city staff through a user-friendly interface. By following CH2M’s step-wise process, staff were guided through establishing an asset hierarchy, defining what constitutes an asset, developing a preventive maintenance program, and developing standard procedures and business practices. The water treatment plant

served as the pilot for citywide implementation, so it was critical to simplify the configuration as much as possible to make it easier for other departments to adopt.

The first major challenge was to break down the facility into individual assets, while maintaining the hierarchical relationship needed to “roll-up” asset data for reporting and trending purposes. Through a series of interactive workshops, city staff identified the required relationships between the processes, sub-processes, asset types, and assets to achieve desired reporting outcomes. In order to optimize the user experience and illustrate these relationships, CH2M developed a visual, four-level asset hierarchy. In the map view shown in Figure 1, the individual polygons represent a sub-process, with similar colors correlating at the process level. Showing related assets allows you to select individual assets, categorized by asset type. This allows city staff to use a combination of maps and asset search functions when selecting an asset to work on.

CH2M then developed the asset inventory using construction documents as the launching point after defining all the asset types and associated attribute information—filling in any gaps in the inventory by collecting data in the field.

Figure 1: Powerful visualization of a four-level asset hierarchy.

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The City reviewed the inventory and provided valuable feedback on dynamic information such as vendor representatives, contact information, and warranty information. Establishing a way to track an asset’s warranty status was critical for the City. Capitalizing on the extensive information already available significantly streamlined and simplified the field asset data collection.

Based on the City’s inventory and hierarchy, more than 900 water treatment plant assets requiring preventative maintenance were loaded into Cityworks. CH2M reviewed more than 50 vendor-provided Operations & Maintenance (O&M) manuals and worked with city staff to develop more than 500 Preventive Maintenance (PM) work orders with varying tasks, trades required, frequency intervals, etc., based on asset type. To ensure sustainability, CH2M completed a PM leveling analysis prior to loading the work orders into Cityworks (Figure 2). This effort optimized the timing and frequency of work orders by trade, and identified whether additional resources were required. Performing this analysis in a manner that is easy to understand is critical to eliminating any major influx of work and maintaining the sustainability of the system.

An easy user experience is essential to ensure long-term use of Cityworks. At Sugar Land, Cityworks was designed as the central information repository for the water treatment plant, and contains linkages to SCADA as well as digital copies of O&M manuals (Figures 3 and 4). CH2M ensured the Cityworks interface presented complex and extensive information in an intuitive manner. With only basic initial training and function-based training reference sheets, city operations and maintenance staff were able to utilize this powerful tool from day one. The project demonstrated success by establishing a formal functional-needs-requirement document, selecting the right software, and helping staff and experienced consultants to work together.

Cultural change through effective communication and training were also keys to success. The project was effective because the end was kept in mind from the beginning.

Figure 2: Converting O&M manuals into an optimized PM program based on industry best practices.

Figure 3: Linking SCADA and Cityworks optimizes the user experience.

About CH2M CH2M is a global engineering and project delivery company partnering with public and private clients to tackle the world’s most complex infrastructure and natural resource challenges. The firm’s work is concentrated on water, transportation, energy, environment, and industrial markets. CH2M helps our clients improve their infrastructure management practices by leveraging information technology products and services. Services related to Cityworks are performed under our Strategic Consulting Platform that focuses on strategic planning, financial management, asset management, and O&M optimization. Visit us at ch2m.com, www.ch2mhillblogs.com/water, twitter.com/ch2m, and facebook.com/ch2m. Search for jobs at ch2m.jobs.

Figure 4: Easy access to O&M manual allows Cityworks to serve as the central data repository for the plant.

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PARTNER COMMUNITY

An Award–Winning Solution for the City of Auburn, Alabama

By Christopher Graff, GIS Manager, City of Auburn; and Ron Butcher, Asset Management Practice Leader, Timmons Group

T

he City of Auburn, Alabama, dubbed by American poet Oliver and its clear database structure and robust APIs made it a true enterprise Goldsmith as “The Loveliest Village on the Plains,” is home to solution that will integrate fully with other city business systems.

54,000 residents and Auburn University. Founded in 1839, Since implementing Cityworks, the City has seen massive improveAuburn offers thriving and diverse communities throughout the city. ments in reporting and communication—having well-defined workflows With its continued growth, the city offers a valuable settlement for resi- and documentation has allowed the City to maintain high levels of service. dents and business owners.

Now within the city’s organization, work activities can be documented, To keep up with this expanding community, the City’s GIS department tracked, and passed throughout departments, and solutions can be valifelt the need to upgrade its management solutions to a more compre- dated and appropriately resolved all within one environment. Authoritative hensive, digital system. Traditionally, city departdata is readily available for analysis and reporting, “Cityworks has been an ments (water, sewer, and public works) maintained allowing city staff to understand their business and home-grown Excel and email workflows, Access make responsive and informed decisions. invaluable tool in managing archives, and paper log books to fill any gaps.

After only two years of using this solution, the GIS. Cityworks extends the The obvious challenges of their existing solutions City of Auburn received the Cityworks Exemplary value of our GIS investment, made asset and utility management very cumberUser Award at the recent Cityworks User but it also improves the some—requiring manual ticket counting and Conference in May 2015. The annual Exemplary quality of our data.” compiling of incident reports, having little to no User Award is bestowed to a handful of organizacapacity to search or report on activities once the tions that use the software “well beyond the typical work was complete, and the lacking any extensibility throughout use, leveraging the Cityworks platform for their constituents and all departments. their communities.” The City of Auburn truly illustrates an organizaAfter realizing their need for new methods, the City, with the tion that has leveraged Cityworks to achieve new heights. Seeing help of Timmons Group, implemented their Cityworks solution in increased productivity in workflows and staff (due to system ef2013. They chose Cityworks for several reasons: it offers a simple ficiency and a decrease in manual reporting and logging), the City and seamless integration with GIS, its customizable configuration has been able to communicate, track, report, and perform daily could be extended to benefit all facets of the city’s organization, tasks in a more efficient manner.

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workflows across the enterprise.

Partner Network

About Timmons Group Timmons Group is a leading provider of geospatial information, Services Provided architecture, and engineering services focusing on developing intuitive, • Asset Management RoadMap enterprise geospatial web applications; highly-usable, cross-device mo• AMS and PLL Configurations bile applications; and integrated, geospatially-enabled enterprise solutions. Timmons Group is both a Cityworks® Platinum Implementation • Custom Mobile Solutions Partner and a Strategic Development Partner. Timmons Group develops • Enterpise Integrations solutions across multiple platforms, including JavaScript, HTML5, and • Customer andsystems.

Financial Integrations native mobileBilling operating For more information about Timmons Group’s geospatial products and services, contact Ron Butcher at ron. butcher@timmons.com visitservice www.timmonsgis.com.

To learn more about or our offerings or to check out

our upcoming webinars, visit www.timmonsgis.com.

Implementation Made Easy!

Using Cityworks® Server, our experienced team of implementers provide innovative solutions and customized user training to maximize your software investment. This includes the use of custom mobile computing to bring the office to the field, utilization of Cityworks® Server PLL for Planning, Permitting and Engineering projects, and the integration of third-party systems to create seamless workflows across the enterprise.

Partner Network

Services Provided • • • • •

Asset Management RoadMap AMS and PLL Configurations Custom Mobile Solutions Enterpise Integrations Customer Billing and Financial Integrations

To learn more about our service offerings or to check out our upcoming webinars, visit www.timmonsgis.com.

InPrint | Fall 2015

21

PARTNER COMMUNITY

Destin Water Users, Inc. Optimizes Water System Operations and Enhances Workflow Efficiency

By Monica Autrey, PE, Operations Manager, and Lockwood Wernet, General Manager, Destin Water Users, Inc.; Mark Nelson, PE, GISP, Vice President, Bill Millinor, GISP, GIS Department Manager, and Anne Davis, PE, Engineer, Jones Edmunds & Associates, Inc.

A

n old adage says that “knowledge is power,” and Destin Water Users, Inc. (DWU) in Florida has taken that to heart with the implementation of their asset management system (AMS). Keeping the utility’s infrastructure in top working order has always been a high priority for DWU. Developing and implementing their AMS has helped them do just that. In addition to helping them keep track of their utility assets, their AMS has a unique, custom-built, web-based purchase order (PO) application that interfaces directly with Cityworks Storeroom.

Their Story Destin Water Users, Inc. is a member-owned utility cooperative that serves all of incorporated Destin, and portions of unincorporated Okaloosa County. DWU provides utilities services to more than 15,000 people in winter months and more than 45,000 people in summer months. DWU handles the operations and maintenance of all water, wastewater, and reclaimed water infrastructure for the area, which includes a 6.2 MGD water treatment plant, a 6.0 MGD wastewater treatment plant, 79 lift stations, 678 fire hydrants, and more than 2,000 water valves. In 1985, DWU added reclaimed water capabilities, allowing them to process all effluent as reclaimed water for public access, with its first customer being the Indian Bayou Golf Course. The beneficial reuse of reclaimed water in public access areas made DWU’s system one of the first in Florida and, as such, is now one of the most mature systems in the state.

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As it serves a largely coastal community, DWU’s team works hard to keep their utilities infrastructure running smoothly and is proactive in minimizing impacts to the system that may arise during emergency situations, such as hurricanes and other natural disasters. “We have been doing asset management throughout the years with our preventative maintenance program and the tracking of issues and concerns we have with our equipment and infrastructure, but we thought that we could do more,” said Lockwood Wernet, DWU general manager.

To that end, DWU decided to update its AMS in a way that integrated all facets of its utility, including data, personnel, and workflows across multiple departments. “Integrating all of our departments really helped improve communications and provide seamless, real-time access to data,” said Monica Autrey, PE, DWU operations manager.

DWU implemented Cityworks to help take them to the next level in asset management.

“Cityworks was the next step in helping us collect more data, and making the data more easily accessible between departments, as well as more manageable. The program links directly with our GIS mapping system, and the information is easily accessible to our office and field employees,” said Wernet. “We use this information to help us better manage our assets, predict when maintenance is required, and make decisions as to what and when we need to replace things.”

A Phased Approach To accomplish the task of updating their AMS, DWU called upon Jones Edmunds, a Cityworks

Implementation Partner since 2002 and environmental and infrastructure consulting firm, to help. Working together with DWU’s staff, Jones Edmunds developed a phased Cityworks Server AMS implementation for DWU: • Phase I – Lift Stations Department and Warehouse (used for inventory and purchase orders) • Phase II – Safety Group and Backflow Department • Phase III – Finance Group and Field Operations (Customer Service and Field Crew) • Phase IV – Water and Wastewater Operations and Electricians A project like this can entail big changes to existing work and data flows. “By staging the project, we help reduce some of the pressure of changing an entire organization at once, and the early successful groups help increase momentum for the project within DWU. It also allows for smaller training sessions and later groups enjoy the benefit of increased internal understanding and participation,” said Bill Millinor, Jones Edmunds project manager.

The entire project was completed within 18 months. Updates were also made to the GIS database as each department prepared to come on line. “Jones Edmunds worked hard to get our departments up and running,” said Autrey.

Training was also provided to DWU staff as part of the implementation process. “It was really important for us to get everyone well trained and familiar with all of the features and functions that are accessible to us in the system. We have worked hard to make sure that we are maximizing its use to help simplify our workflows, and it

has really helped to make our lives easier, particularly in meeting our planning and reporting needs,” said Autrey.

The PO Application Cityworks does not contain a PO application, but due to its open framework, Jones Edmunds was able to develop a web-based purchase order application that communicates directly with Cityworks Storeroom and SQL Reporting Services. The purchase order system is an ASP.NET web application that was built into the Cityworks framework. DWU has two types of purchase orders: one for materials that are tracked through inventory or Storeroom, and a second that is used for general non-inventory purchases. The purchase order application allows users to: • Create general purchase orders • Edit inventory purchase orders • View all POs with options to filter the table view • Batch export PO forms to PDF • View/export a purchase order form (all approved purchase orders are digitally signed with manager’s signature) • Allow Accounting to view all purchase orders and run an Outstanding Purchase Orders report. The Outstanding Purchase Orders report lists all purchases that have not been completed (all items having been received) by cost account To create an inventory purchase order, Storeroom managers are able to create a requisition within Cityworks Storeroom. This initiates a SQL trigger that writes the requisition and supplier information to the purchase order

database. The trigger obtains a new purchase order number and then writes that PO number to the Cityworks requisition table. The new inventory PO then becomes visible within the purchase order system.

Whenever updates are made to a requisition (status, account, date, etc.), another SQL trigger is sent out that updates the PO information.

“When receiving requisitioned materials within Storeroom, a SQL trigger writes the received material cost to the supplier-material table—this saves the manager time by not having to update prices in two locations,” said Autrey.

Results and Benefits From enhanced communications and response times, to better transparency and accountability, Cityworks is helping improve DWU’s ability to manage their assets and resources.

For example, DWU staff are using Cityworks to

track their backflow prevention inspections— capturing a potential multi-step pass or fail inspection process and all the associated pertinent information. “It is extremely important for us to track the backflow prevention inspection process, from both a regulatory and accountability perspective,” said Autrey. “We now have an inspection process that is built on our business logic and is transparent to all parties.” The knowledge they are accumulating through their AMS helps DWU make more informed decisions on how to manage their assets.

Additionally, their unique, custom-built, web-based purchase order application provides added value, helping to extend and integrate Cityworks with more of their financial workflows. The results of these powerful improvements help DWU complete its daily operations more efficiently and in turn, better serve its customers.

DWU has streamlined their purchase order proces with Cityworks.

InPrint | Fall 2015

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PARTNER COMMUNITY

Collect Data from a

Mobile Entity with LiGO®

By Elizabeth Marshall CEO MarshallGIS

T

he emergence of machine-to-machine (M2M) technology has created some exciting ways to monitor and improve operations.

Your GIS and Cityworks platforms can receive a constant stream of information from the field via sensors and telematic devices—giving you information about operations that you never had before.

A simple, effective form of this technology is to capture crew or vehicle locations in the field and automatically feed the locations into your Cityworks operations map. This allows you to see the locations of your crews on the ground in relation to the locations of the GIS assets and work to be done. You can see who is closest to an emergency work order, and use this information for dispatch. Now this can be done using LiGO®, Cityworks, and the Esri GeoEvent processor tool, as shown.

But the ability to track field operations can go much further. For this Cityworks application, LiGO is bringing certain key data into the Cityworks operational map: vehicle type, driver ID, direction, speed, and status.

Think of the vehicle as a mobile entity from which all sorts of data can be collected and reported, such as: • Events, Exceptions, and Triggers: Managers manage by measuring events and exceptions.

Two common measurements of events in LiGO are whether or not a crew visited a location (asset or job) and how much time the crew spent at that location. Additionally, you can set triggers to report on exceptions to defined business rules such as harsh driving

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(cornering, braking, and acceleration); idling; speeding; after-hours usage of vehicles; etc.

• Change of Condition: Condition changes of assets can be captured and measured. You can capture linear data from LiGO and change the condition of a roadway feature, for example from “unswept” to “swept”.

• Work Order Completion: You can automatically create and close work order data for ad hoc or transient work—like graffiti abatement—using stops in the service area as a way to record number and duration of the work.

• Track Work from Onboard Systems: You can track location and statistics about where sweepers, boom trucks, etc., are doing work—you can record and transmit data, such as brush up/down, plow up/ down, etc., to GIS and Cityworks tables and populate work orders with this information.

Customers are coming up with innovative ways to use sensors on or near vehicles to populate their mission-critical business systems, like Cityworks and Esri GIS—adding even more value to these systems. The ability to utilize Verizon’s network and M2M data plans (which are bundled with LiGO) keeps the communication costs down and the channels open with your field workers. LiGO allows operations managers to be more aware of the status of their operations, and better equipped to handle emergencies as they occur.

PARTNER COMMUNITY

The Cityworks Extension for Geocortex Essentials

By Cam Barnard, Product Manager, Business Partner Channel, Latitude Geographics Group Ltd.

O

rganizations have an increasing need for straightforward mapping applications that have the ability to streamline business processes. The Cityworks Extension for Geocortex Essentials allows organizations to create simple, targeted applications that reflect unique business processes and are faster, more affordable, and maintainable over the long term.

The Cityworks Extension represents a collection of commonly requested workflows and supporting resources developed by Latitude Geographics in conjunction with Cityworks. More than 200 Cityworks, Esri, and Geocortex workflow activities can be combined to automate, simplify, and accelerate day-to-day tasks.

Cityworks has been a Geocortex technology partner since 2014, and John Austin, business partner manager at Latitude Geographics, is very happy with the partnership. “We’ve been delighted with the response from Geocortex and Cityworks customers to the Cityworks Extension.

Customers have already produced some great solutions and this extension has become our best performer,” explains Austin.

The Cityworks Extension for Geocortex Essentials has helped York County, South Carolina, build a dedicated building maintenance application. The application allows employees to view existing work requests and to create work requests for new issues with their buildings. Bryan Townsend, GIS administrator for York County, observed that they, “saved substantial development time using the Cityworks Extension for Geocortex Essentials, and the information sharing and visibility of requests between departments is already creating efficiencies and improving response times.”

The objective of the Cityworks Extension for Geocortex Essentials is to expand an organization’s audience of users by minimizing unnecessary complexity and providing simplified, step-by-step interactions that boost productivity.

About Latitude Geographics Latitude Geographics Group Ltd. is a software company based in Victoria, B.C., Canada. Our primary focus is the design and development of Geocortex software. Through Geocortex and related services, we help organizations maximize the potential of their investment in Esri web mapping technology so that employees, citizens, and other stakeholders can get things done like never before.

Cityworks Extension for Geocortex Essentials Leverage the combined power of Geocortex web mapping and Cityworks asset management solutions. www.geocortex.com/extensions

InPrint | Fall 2015

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PARTNER COMMUNITY

IO Toolset Helps Municipalities Optimize Infrastructure Asset Management

By Jill Kelley, Writer | Marketing Communications, Woolpert Inc.; and Ryen Tarbet, Asset Management Practice Lead, Cityworks

T

he Infrastructure Optimization (IO) toolset was first developed

by Woolpert Inc. in 2010. Today it provides municipalities with a structured approach to asset management decision making, which reflects best practices as defined in ISO 55000 and PAS 55.

The product grew out of client need, according to Kirk McClurkin, vice president of geospatial and technology disciplines at Woolpert. “We had a GIS and Cityworks client we were doing work for, and in the course of the projects they wanted to know how long their assets would last—would they perform for 25 years, 50 years, or longer?” McClurkin said. “I told them there are industry methodologies out there that will give some idea of asset life expectancies and associated risk, but they told me they needed someone to do that for them. So, we did. Woolpert developed a solution that would show which assets would wear out first, which would last longest, and quite a bit more.”

Woolpert’s solution evolved into what is now known as the IO toolset. It is a proven product designed to help municipalities assess the condition, risk, and replacement costs of their infrastructure assets over varying time horizons. IO allows the user to create scenarios with different rehabilitation schemes and budget constraints, and uses risk assessment to prioritize assets. “The Infrastructure Optimization toolset provides a full analysis of all the major assets,” said Michael Lunn, environmental services manager for Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Coordination between departments will be simpler and more complete.”

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The IO toolset calculates an asset’s probability of failure, consequence of failure, and redundancy factor/risk mitigation measures to identify and assess Business Risk Exposure (BRE). City leaders, operators, planners, and engineers then take that BRE measure and use it to make sound financial decisions about the maintenance or renewal of individual assets, facilities, structures, equipment, etc.

In Grand Rapids, the employment of the IO toolset began with the development of an asset management plan for its stormwater system.

“The basic approach to maintenance on the system had been reactive, and there was a need to evaluate the system and develop a long-term management plan,” Lunn said. “[Our] Capital Planning Group reviewed the IO toolset and the work it accomplished, and decided to leverage it to consolidate all assets to improve capital planning.”

Lunn said he found the cost of IO was reasonable when compared to other software, and that he expects it to yield future savings. “We anticipate it will save us time budgeting and allow us to determine when and how to maximize limited funding,” he said. “Just the ability to consolidate all the departments’ CIP plans and improve coordination between them will be a significant benefit.”

Woolpert’s IO toolset was designed as a high-efficiency, low-cost alternative to other risk and CIP planning products on the market, and accomplishes this objective in several ways. The toolset can be specifically configured to a community’s assets and makes use of existing GIS data

and Cityworks software. This allows each city to do more with the data it already has, leveraging that information to extend the functionality of its current work and asset management efforts. As an add-on to Esri ArcGIS, the IO toolset does not require additional software and can leverage other data sets such as hydraulic modeling, CCTV, and pavement management solutions. This also means IO is compatible with Cityworks for work management and Cityworks’ Asset Analytics tools.

In continuing to be a market leader, Cityworks recently purchased the intellectual property rights to IO from Woolpert. Cityworks is expanding its web-based GIS-centric work and asset management platform with more asset management tools and GIS visualization. This acquisition allows Cityworks to leverage elements of the proven desktop-based IO. Ryen Tarbet, asset management practice lead at Cityworks, said the acquisition is part of an expansion of the company’s Asset Analytics framework. “IO is built around accepted and well-defined asset management principles. The Cityworks Asset Analytics framework will grow to include features that reflect these principles,” said Tarbet. “We will build a framework that will help align annual operations and maintenance with longer-term planning scenarios, giving customers a true line-of-sight between the realities of annual operations and long-term asset performance and life cycle costs. Because we are a platform, our Asset Analytics framework will also use life cycle planning data from other third-party systems such as existing IO customers. We have created a truly unique position in the industry.”

McClurkin said Woolpert agreed to sell the intellectual property rights because Cityworks is well-equipped to extend the product—bringing more advanced asset management into Cityworks’ public asset management platform. He said he was pleased Cityworks recognized the value this toolset could bring to Cityworks and to future clients.

Lunn agreed that the toolset would benefit other municipalities.

“Since all the costs are in the system, we can easily accommodate ad hoc

as well as future project budgets. Depending on their specific requirements and the quality of their GIS data, I would recommend this toolset to other municipalities.”

For more information about Woolpert, visit Woolpert.com. For more information about Cityworks, visit Cityworks.com.

About Woolpert Woolpert is a national architecture, engineering, and geospatial (AEG) firm that delivers value to clients by strategically blending engineering excellence with leading-edge technology and geospatial applications. With a dynamic R&D department, Woolpert works with inventive business partners like Google; operates a fleet of planes, sensors, and unmanned aerial systems (UAS); and continually pushes industry boundaries by working with advanced water technologies, asset management, Building Information Modeling (BIM), and sustainable design. Woolpert’s mission is to help its clients progress—and become more progressive. For over 100 years and with more than 25 offices across the United States, Woolpert serves the needs of federal, state, and local governments; private and public companies and universities; energy and transportation departments; and the United States Armed Forces. For more information, visit woolpert.com or call 937-531-1258.

InPrint | Fall 2015

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CORPORATE COMMUNITY

2015

User Conference Recap

28 InPrint | Fall 2015

Cityworks 2015 User Conference Reaches New Heights

M

ore than 800 people from around the globe gathered at the Salt Palace Convention Center in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, for the Cityworks 2015 User Conference. Preconference training and activities began Monday, May 18, followed by the User Conference from Wednesday, May 20, to Friday, May 22. Cityworks’ community of users, partners, and staff collectively shared experiences and exchanged knowledge in a variety of workshops and technical sessions while also enjoying networking opportunities.

“I was very impressed with not only the organization of the conference, but also the extent of what it offers to attendees,” said Timothy Pearson, GISP, GIS coordinator, General Mitchell International Airport, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “The entire event was top notch—from the preconference training, to configuration workshops, to discussions on how others are making use of Cityworks. I have never attended a conference where I was given the opportunity to actually sit down and talk with the company’s designers, programmers, and executives.”

Nestled in the heart of Salt Lake City, the conference began Wednesday morning with the plenary session, where president and CEO, Brian Haslam, presented growth and future trends that affect Cityworks users. Presentations from the Cityworks staff followed, featuring exciting enhancements in Cityworks’ platform functionality, mobile advancements, and new technology.

Informative breakout sessions, which began Wednesday afternoon and concluded Friday morning, included presentations by business partners, users, and Cityworks staff.

Attendees were also treated to a Cityworks Expo Reception Wednesday night, which provided guests with the opportunity to network with one another and Cityworks staff while enjoying music, food, and even line dancing.

“Congratulations on another successful Cityworks User Conference,” said Matthew Reddington, president and CEO, Freeance (TDC Group). “This year’s event was nicely streamlined, and the plenary session was particularly interesting and well presented.”

The Cityworks Expo Hall was the central hub of the event. There, Cityworks users, exhibitors, business partners, and staff could gather daily to share knowledge and experience, and discuss new developments and ideas. Business partners showcased their services and solutions in the exhibit hall within the Cityworks Expo Hall and were ready to answer questions and discuss solutions with attendees. Nearly one hundred Cityworks staff members were present at the conference—hosting and attending sessions, answering questions, running demo stations, and meeting with partners and clients.

Planning is already underway for the next Cityworks User Conference, December 6–8, 2016 at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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CORPORATE COMMUNITY

SPONSOR EVENTS Dirty Ninja Mud Run West Bend, Wisconsin Once again the Dirty Ninja Mud Run was a great success with over 1,300 participants ranging from ages 4–15.

West Bend Softball Team Sponsorship

GLMR and Huntsman 140 Bike Rides

You’ve read about Cityworks in print and now you can see Cityworks in action.

CityworksTV is now

YouTube.com/user/AztecaCityworks 30 InPrint | Fall 2015

OTHER SPONSOR EVENTS

Thanks for stopping by our booth at

EsriUC15

Esri donated the book Cartographica Extraordinaire, signed by Jack Dangermond, for the Cityworks UC15 silent auction. J. Kimura, from the City of Woodland, bid on the book and won. He then presented it to Daniel “Danny� Hewitt as a gift. At the Esri UC, Danny was able to meet Jack and pose with the book.

Best wishes to Ron Smith, City of Gulfport, Mississippi, on your retirement! We thank you for your dedicated support of Cityworks.

Sorry we missed you last issue!

Mike Sheehan, WebMapSolutions, represents Cityworks in the Salt Lake City Half Marathon held in April, 2015.

Milwaukee County, Michigan General Mitchell International Airport

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31

Congratulations Cityworks 2015 Exemplary User Award Winners!

City of Auburn, Alabama

City of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio

City of Topeka, Kansas

City of Woodland, California

York County Government, South Carolina

32 InPrint | Fall 2015

CORPORATE COMMUNITY

Cityworks SAM

TM

Salutes New Employees!

DANE CARLSON Dane is the newest developer in the Development Department. He is currently pursuing a degree in computer science and will graduate in December, 2016.

He and his wife recently welcomed their first child. They live in Orem, Utah, but plan to move closer to Cityworks headquarters soon. Dane and his wife love The Office and comparing their lives to the show.

JENNIFER FURY Jennifer is a technical writer in the Documentation Department. She graduated with a BS degree in professional and technical writing from Utah State University.

She enjoys reading and playing with her chihuahua. Jennifer previously worked as a technical writer for Code Corp and SirsiDynix.

JAMIE PYNE Jamie is a technical trainer in the Training Department. He graduated from Brigham Young University with a BA degree in geography and an emphasis in GIS. Jamie previously worked as an assistant IT manager for Emergency Essentials. He and his wife welcomed a son named Maverick in April.

SEAN REID Sean is a Help Desk representative in Customer Support.

Sean earned a BS in geography from the University of Utah, with a minor in Arabic and certificates in GIS, remote sensing, and geospatial intelligence.

Before coming to Cityworks, Sean worked for the University of Utah’s Emergency Management Department where he used GIS to model how campus infrastructure and assets would react during an earthquake. Sean lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his girlfriend, Amanda, and their cat Ginger.

ROB DOBBINS Rob is a manual tester in the Development Department. He has an AA degree in business from BYU-Idaho, a BA in marketing from Washington State University, a Master of public administration degree from BYU-Provo, and a certificate of completion in GIS from Salt Lake Community College. Prior to joining Cityworks, he worked for the Administrative Office of the Courts for the State of Utah for seven years as a management analyst. Rob lives in Sandy, Utah, with his wife of three years, a two-year-old daughter, and an eighteenyear-old step-daughter. He also has five more step-children residing with their father.

AMY BURNETT Amy works as a technical writer in the Documentation Department. She recently earned her BA in English from the University of Utah. She previously worked on campus at the University of Utah in the Writing Center to help students with their writing. Amy was recently married and is still enjoying the bliss of being a newlywed.

BRETT JOHNSON Brett is a new technical trainer in the Training Department. He recently earned a degree in GIS from Brigham Young University and has completed internships with the City of West Jordan, the City and County of Honolulu, and the Utah Department of Transportation.

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33

Tools & Tips:

Attachments in Server AMS 2013 and 2014

By Bryan Chadwick, GISP, System Architect, Cityworks

F

ollowing is a quick synopsis of the attachment functionality available in Server AMS 2013 and 2014.

What is the attachments service we’ve heard about in Server AMS 2013 and 2014?

The attachments service is a tool that allows users to add, delete, and search attachments associated to service requests, work orders, and inspections. It works with both unsecured and secured GIS services. For more information about configuring attachments, see Knowledge Base article 10630: Configuring Server Attachments on mycityworks.com.

Figure 1: The new attachments service.

What about the file path field defined in Designer?

The Designer File Path setting is a way to provide Server AMS enough information to download a file or image based on a location that is stored as a string in the geodatabase field.

Figure 2: The File Path check box is found under Asset Form Configuration in Designer.

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TECHNOLOGY

What does the Attachments tool do in the Silverlight map?

There is an Attachments tool in the Silverlight map that allows users to interact with geodatabase attachments. However, there is no Cityworks configuration for this tool; it is all Esri configuration introduced with 10.x that

utilizes the geodatabase logic built into Feature Services. Users have to enable geodatabase attachments in ArcCatalog, then publish the map service with the option enabled. The Feature Service then handles all operations through Esri. The Silverlight Attachments tool will not work if the option is not enabled.

1. Open ArcCatalog and right-click the feature class or table you want to add attachments to.

2. Select Manage and then Create Attachments.

3. Follow the instructions provided in the tool precisely for the selection of assets.

Figure 3: Users must enable geodatabase attachments in ArcCatalog.

The Attachments tool is now enabled. Refresh the map, open the Attachments tool, and you will be able to select assets on the map and add attachments to them.

Figure 4: An attachment has been added to a sewer manhole, which is highlighted on the map.

Continued...

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TECHNOLOGY

Please note the following: • If you enable attachments for a feature class that is already published as part of a map or feature service in an underlying map, make sure you restart the map or feature service so the attachments may be read.

• The Attachments tool only works with feature-to-object class relationships. Other class relationships, such as object-to-object or feature-to-feature, are not currently supported

by Esri.

• Make sure that the Cityworks user belongs to a domain group that has at least Geometry (Server Only) editing rights (see Figure 5).

Figure 5: The GISRight property is set at 2, meaning the user has geometry editing rights. This information can be found by clicking the blue About button on the map.

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Get actionable intelligence from all your inspections.

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ITpipes is powered by Infrastructure Technologies

itpipes.com | 1.877.itpipes

36 InPrint | Fall 2015

UC16 SAVE-THE-DATE

DECEMBER

6-8 | 2016 PRECONFERENCE TRAINING – DECEMBER 4 & 5, 2016

InPrint | Fall 2015

37

TECHNOLOGY

Tools & Tips:

Common Issues with CCTV Attachments

By Bryan Chadwick, GISP, System Architect, Cityworks

H

aving issues with your CCTV attachments? There are three common issues that users, when utilizing Server AMS and CCTV together tend to run into. First, the Attachment Mapping records are wrong or no longer relevant. Second, the impersonate user is missing permissions on the file directories involved. And third, the location of where the CCTV archive and copy folders are found in regards to where your file share directory is located (in Preferences and Attachment Mappings).

a few cases where the impersonate user no longer existed on the server where the CCTV directories and data were stored. If the impersonate user is a local user, the same username and password that exists on the application server(s) must exist on the server where the CCTV directories and data are stored. This process can be simplified by employing a domain user as the impersonate user for Server AMS.

Incorrect Attachment Mapping Records

Take a look at the Cityworks_CCTV_Data folder(s) and carefully analyze the records in the STVINSPECTION table and VIDEOLOCATION field. Make sure that the records reference a directory that is mapped in Designer.

Move them to a defined directory or define multiple directories so that the file size will be read and the videos can be viewed. If the path cannot be resolved, users will see a file size of 0.00 KB. If users attempt to open the file, the header (which is text) is the only thing remaining in the file. A text editor software will attempt to open the file because the MIME type being read in IIS tells files like this to open with a text editor.

If the file size is large (about one GB or more) and is being successfully read but you cannot view it, you may need to modify the mode in CityworksAppPool.

The Attachment Mapping records are wrong or are no longer relevant because they refer to a server or server location that is no longer being used. That server contained a folder that existed for the Cityworks attachments—it is defined as the file share directory under Preferences in Designer. Make sure the Attachment Mapping records refer to the current server where the CCTV directories reside.

Missing Permissions Double-check the permissions. Sometimes permissions (at least Read rights) have not been granted to the impersonate user; there are even

Directory Location

The attachment on the left is unresolved, while the attachment on the right is resolved.

38 InPrint | Fall 2015

It is fairly common for videos generated for televised lines to be near or exceed one GB. Therefore, you may need to open the CityworksAppPool in IIS Manager and

switch the Managed Pipeline Mode from Integrated to Classic.

Switching the mode to Classic allows for exceptions generated with larger ViewState

sessions by preventing IIS from closing the file access attempt and not letting IIS think that the process has failed or timed out.

Workforce Management and Vehicle Telematics at Your Fingertips

EMPOWERING YOU TO MEET YOUR SAFETY, EFFICIENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY GOALS

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800-787-0651 InPrint | Fall 2015

39

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What do Cityworks U ser Conferences & Regional U ser Groups have in common?

U

Get many of the Cityworks User Conference beneďŹ ts in a location close to YOU.

NOV 17, 2015 NOV 18, 2015 FEB 10, 2016 FEB 11, 2016 APR 27, 2016 APR 28, 2016 MAY 18, 2016 MAY 19, 2016 JUNE 15, 2016 JUNE 22, 2016 JULY 19, 2016 JULY 20, 2016

Northern California User Group Southern California User Group Florida User Group Georgia/Tennessee User Group Texas/Arkansas/Oklahoma User Group Mississippi/Louisiana User Group Virginia/Maryland User Group N Carolina/S Carolina User Group Washington/Oregon User Group Utah/Idaho User Group Missouri/Kansas User Group Colorado User Group

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