Customer Meter Element Associated Element

Hello,

Generally speaking, if you are using the Nearest Pipe method to assign the associated element, the customer meter element should be assigned to the closest junction to the closest pipe. Consider a case with a pipe P-1, with two junctions (J-1 and J-2). The customer meter is near P-1 and the location of the customer meter is closest to J-2. J-2 will be assigned as the associated element.

In the screenshot you provided, it appears that the pipes you have may have hydrants as one or more end nodes. If you choose the Nearest Pipe method and then assign it to the junction layer, it will assign the customer meter to the nearest *junction*, not the nearest node. The scale of the screenshot above makes it difficult to confirm this, that they may be what is happening in this case. In other words, the customer meter might be close to a pipe, but that pipe may not have junctions attached to it or only attached to one end. Loadbuilder would then look for the nearest pipe with a junction as the end node.

The following support solution has information on customer meter elements: communities.bentley.com/.../19455.customer-meter-elements-and-the-external-customer-meter-data-manager

Please let us know if you have questions.

Regards,
Scott

I have read the information at the link you provided many times Scott.

Is there a way to force Loadbuilder to select the nearest Junction or Hydrant without manually having to go back thru each customer element? I have over 13,000 to deal with.

Currently LoadBuilder doesn't have a way to assign to Junctions and Hydrants at the same time - it's either Junctions OR Hydrants. This is a limitation that we plan to address. In the meantime here is a workaround:

1. In a backup copy of your model, open the a Hydrant FlexTable (the table really only needs to include the label field) and export them all to a Shapefile.
2. Do the same for the Pipes (the table should include the Pipe label and the Start Node and Stop Node fields).
3. Select all hydrants and delete them (remember to do this in a backup version of the model!). Some pipes will be deleted too.
4. Use ModelBuilder to add the Hydrants back as Junctions, and also add the Pipes back.
5. Run LoadBuilder to assign the Customers to the nearest pipe.
6. Open a Customer Meter FlexTable (the table only needs the Label and Associated Element fields) and export to a Shapefile.
7. Back in your original model, use ModelBuilder to assign the Customer Meter to the correct Associated Element.

There are a few steps here, but it doesn't take too long once you understand what to do. (I have assumed though, that you are familiar with ModelBuilder, LoadBuilder, etc., but if you need more detailed instructions please let us know).

Regards,

Mal

Thanks Mal, The steps were easy to follow. Would have never conceived this solution myself. It was very helpful!