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Importing Customer Meter Info into WaterGEM for ArcGIS - How to import data with Property ID?

This is a Water Distribution Model  for a city of 1,800 population.  I'm in the process of building a new model for the City.  

We decided to use Customer Meter Info to allocated demands.  Instead of X, Y-coordinates for each customer, the data provided contains Property ID (PID) for each customer so that each customer demand can be allocated to a parcel in the map.  

What is the best way to marge this data into the model?

I am not familiar with ArcGIS, so I searched if there is a way to convert PID into x, y coordinates - I have not found anything yet.

Do I need to import the data into ArcGIS and somehow find the x, y coordinates first before importing the customer meter info into WaterGEM? Or, is there an easier way around? The PID consists of thirteen numbers such as 2511722220007.

I'd appreciate your comments and advice on this. Thank you.

Yoko

  • The process to import data for customers requires knowledge of the x-y coordinates. You can use process called georeferencing to get this information.

    If this is too challenging, there are other methods to allocate demands. What information in contained in the PID? Is it just a number or does it refer to a census tract, pressure zone, etc.?
  • Each parcel in ArcGIS map has PID that is consist of 13 numbers. The data are in Excel format and each customer's address is also shown in other column (no zip code). There is only one pressure zone and the number does not refer to pressure zone.
  • Yoko,

    Based on this information and the information from your first post it sounds like what you might have to use a process in ArcMap called geocoding, so that you can create a point for each customer address and then perhaps add a column to that point shapefile that contains the demands for each customer. There should be plenty of information on the web for how to geocode your address data into a point shapefile.

    In this case what I think might help is to think about what you need to do with the customer meter element. Inputting the demands are probably the easy part of that because I'm guessing that each customer meter has the exact demand associated with it. The more difficult part is probably going to be figuring out how you are going to link the customer meter elements to the nodes in your system and which nodes you should link them to. I believe determining that can vary with how you created your network and how your junctions and/or hydrants are laid out. Are the customer meter elements going to linked on a one to one basis with your junctions and/or hydrants or are they going to be linked on many to one basis (i.e. one customer meter element is linked to it's own junction or many customer meter elements are going to be linked to one junction). Once you figure that out you can enter another field into your point shapefile for the customer meter elements called something like "CAD_Label", which will be the label name for the element the customer meter is going to be associated to in WaterCAD. With that information you can then use modelbuilder to add the customer meter elements to your model and use the field mapping step (step 5) to match the CAD_Label field to the customer meter elements property called "Associated element" to automate the entire process of linking the customer meter elements to the proper junctions. I know that might be a little confusing, so if you have any more questions please feel free to ask.

    If you're not familiar with how to use modelbuilder you can have a look at this wiki entry:

    https://communities.bentley.com/Products/Hydraulics___Hydrology/w/Hydraulics_and_Hydrology__Wiki/building-a-model-using-model-builder

    Regards,
    Mark

    Mark

    Answer Verified By: Sushma Choure 

  • Mark,

    Thank you so much for providing step-by-step info to follow. I've just finished adding x and y coordinates using geocode in ArcGIS.
    I will try importing the data using Model Builder. I'm sure I'll have more questions. I wanted to thank you first.

    Regards,
    Yoko
  • Regarding assigning of the customer elements to junctions - there's also a new option in Loadbuilder (Tools > Loadbuilder) for assigning them based on spatial proximity. This is done after the customer meter nodes are imported into the model.

    You can allocate based on nearest node, nearest pipe, or aggregate based on service area polygons (which you can generate using the Thiessen Polygon tool):

    If you haven't done so already, I recommend watching this free webinar on Customer Element workflow.


    Regards,

    Jesse Dringoli
    Technical Support Manager, OpenFlows
    Bentley Communities Site Administrator
    Bentley Systems, Inc.