FME & Esri ArcGIS Utility Network Tutorial Series

Introduction 

Welcome to the FME (Feature Manipulation Engine) tutorial series on Esri ArcGIS Utility Network, designed to help you harness the power of FME for Esri ArcGIS Utility Network (UN) workflows. In these tutorials, you will learn how to leverage FME's robust capabilities to streamline and optimize your UN processes.

By leveraging FME's capabilities, you can significantly reduce manual effort, minimize errors, and streamline your UN workflows. FME's reusable workspaces allow you to create standardized processes that can be easily shared and adapted across your organization, promoting collaboration and best practices.

This tutorial series focuses on File Geodatabases and ArcGIS Portal Feature Services in the context of Utility Networks. While this series does not explicitly cover ArcSDE configurations, it demonstrates principles and techniques that are applicable to ArcSDE with some parameter adjustments. ArcSDE and Portal Feature Services share many similarities, particularly in their schema definitions, overall data structures, and FME parameter configurations. These similarities make the techniques demonstrated here applicable across these platforms.

Whether you are new to FME or an experienced user looking to expand your skills, these tutorials will provide you with the knowledge and practical examples necessary to unleash the full potential of FME for your Utility Network projects. Let's dive in and explore how FME can revolutionize your UN workflows!

Why Use FME to Process Utility Network

You might use FME to process Utility Network data because you need to:

• Automate data integration and transformation tasks
• Handle complex data structures and relationships
• Streamline synchronization processes and data migration
• Leverage powerful spatial ETL capabilities

Disclaimer

This tutorial series provides step-by-step instructions on working with Esri Utility Network using FME. Throughout the tutorials, Esri Naperville Water Distribution Utility Network data is used to demonstrate the capabilities of FME with Utility Network. The Esri Naperville Water Distribution Utility Network data used in this tutorial series is sourced from the ArcGIS Solutions gallery. This dataset is used for illustrative purposes only, and will not be provided as part of the tutorial materials. You do not have to follow the tutorial exactly and can choose to follow it generally with your own desired layers, rather than using as many layers as seen in the tutorial.

Please note that for your own projects, you will need to obtain the appropriate Utility Network dataset(s) for your specific domain (e.g., Water, Gas, Electric) from your organization's ArcGIS Pro or ArcGIS Enterprise environment. Ensure that you have the necessary permissions and licenses to work with this data. The actual data you work with may differ in structure, content, and complexity based on your specific Utility Network implementation.

Background of Utility Data (Esri)

Geometric Networks and Utility Networks are two data models used in ArcGIS to represent and analyze network systems. While both store feature classes within a feature dataset in a geodatabase, they differ in terms of their capabilities and complexity.

The Utility Network, a modern data model in ArcGIS, represents complex utility systems like electric, gas, and water networks. It consists of a set of standardized feature classes (e.g., ElectricAssembly, ElectricDevice, ElectricJunction, ElectricLine) stored within a feature dataset in a geodatabase. These feature classes model real-world utility assets and their relationships.

Compared to the legacy geometric network, the Utility Network significantly reduces the number of feature classes required to model a utility network. It achieves this through the use of Asset Groups and Asset Types. Asset Groups categorize components at a high level (e.g., transformers, switches), while Asset Types provide a finer classification (e.g., service transformers, step transformers).

Before You Start 

Prerequisites

• Understanding ArcGIS Pro Utility Networks
  • Quick Tour of Utility Network
  • Optional but recommended: Getting Started with Utility Network
• Familiarity with Versioning and Branch Versioning
  • Overview of Versioning
  • Branch Version Scenarios
• Basic Understanding of FME and geodatabases
  • Converting from Geodatabase Format 
  • Converting to Geodatabase Format
• Familiarization with FME and ArcGIS Portal 
  • Getting Started with ArcGIS Online and Portal

Requirements

• FME Form Workbench installed and licensed.
• Esri ArcGIS Pro or ArcGIS Enterprise installed and licensed.
• Basic understanding of Utility Network data structure and dataset, FME transformers, and FME and geodatabase.
• Utility Network-configured ArcGIS Portal Feature Service item.
• Familiarity with Versioning and/or Branch Versioning.

Articles 

• Reading Utility Network Data from ArcGIS Portal Feature Service and Writing to ArcGIS Portal Feature Service
• Reading Utility Network Data from ArcGIS Portal Feature Service and Writing to File Geodatabase
• Retrieving Updated/ Inserted/ Deleted Features in ArcGIS Utility Network Data
• Updating/ Inserting/ Deleting Features in ArcGIS Utility Network Data
• ArcGIS Utility Network Data Generating HTML Report 
• Synchronizing ArcGIS Utility Network Data

Data Attribution

Water Distribution Utility Network Foundation data is copyright 2024 Esri. Licensed under Apache-2.0. Source: ArcGIS Solutions.