importing demands into an existing model from excel data

Hi Travis,

Yes, there is a way to import demands using an excel spreadsheet, which it sounds like you have. It looks like you making the common mistake that most people make by trying to import demands using the junction table. Demands actually need to be imported using the 'Junction,Demand Collection' table.  The wiki technote here describes the process:

communities.bentley.com/.../3100.aspx

I was able to find this article using a google search based on your described the user notification. Here are the search terms I used "cannot import the demands because it is a read only field, WaterCAD".

To answer your other question, yes, there is a way to export a model to shapefiles. The process has to be done one element at a time and it is described in this document:

docs.bentley.com/.../Bentley_WaterGEMS_Help-17-12.html  

I hope this helps out.

Regards,

Mark

A few notes to add:

- There is also a tool you might be able to use to convert your Excel file to a shapefile, for use with Loadbuilder:

communities.bentley.com/.../csv-to-shapefile-a-waterobjects-net-tool.aspx

This may be especially helpful if you don't have a direct link to the model elements by ID (required with the Modelbuilder approach.)

- You can use the Thiessen Polygon tool under the Tools menu to create a service area layer if needed.

- Be sure that you don't double-count the demands by using Loadbuilder. It sounds like you may have already manually entered the demands in your junctions.

- We're currently working on a customer meter element and related tools for working with customer demands in a model. Stay tuned for this exciting enhancement in the next SELECT update.

Thanks Mark,  I did try using the Junction, Demand Collection Table.  The issue I have with using that one, it will not let me specify the x,y cells for the coordinates therefor when it builds the model all the junctions land ontop of one another.  Another issue is that the Label within my excel file must match the node notation within the model which is does not. 

I am trying to utilize the features of Loadbuilder to assign the demands to nearest nodes or pipes but need a representative shapefile to do so.

I think using my method along with the exporting the junction information from the flextables, I may be able to generate a shapefile I can use in LoadBuilder.

Regards

Travis

Thanks Jesse,  I don't believe I have doubled up on the demands.  I used the Junction table type in Modelbuilder so that i could tell it the x,y cells to use for the node locations.  Using this table type I could not load the demands directly from the excel file so I chose to use the demand control center to copy these into the model from excel.

I believe from the above information I can export the junction information into a shape file and import it into loadbuilder to utilize the nearest node/pipe method of assigning these demands to the appropriate nodes within my model.

Ok, if I understand correctly, you imported some orphaned junctions (not attached to any pipes) in order to populate the customer demand locations into the model? (in a future version you may be able to import them as Customers to make this process easier) If you then enter demands in the demand control center for these nodes, you won't be able to directly export them to shapefile using the method that Mark pointed out. This is because as you noticed, the demands are nested within a "collection" (to support multiple demands per node).

Also, if you already have other real junctions in the model, you'll need to filter the junction table first before exporting to shapefile, to ensure only those customer junctions are exported. Make sure to delete them from the model before doing the Loadbuilder run, so they get assigned to the real model nodes.