This is a companion blog for a plenary demonstration from the 2025 Esri Developer & Technology Summit plenary.
Identifying and repairing outages within a utility networks is an essential business function for utility providers. The process of auditing and triaging outage reports consists of numerous moving parts, all crucial for restoring service to customers. ArcGIS offers various automation tools and integrates easily with other business systems that provide additional automation solutions to help maintain critical business workflows.
In his demonstration, Shreyas highlights how an electric company seamlessly integrates automation into its workflows using ArcGIS Utility Network, ArcGIS Notebooks, and ServiceNow.
End-to-end automation
Shreyas first explains how the company leverages end-to-end automation to efficiently triage outages.
ArcGIS automation solutions
Because the company utilizes both ArcGIS Enterprise and ArcGIS Pro, they can use ArcGIS Utility Network to manage and model the components of their utility networks.
The company also maintains a customer-facing application that customers use to report any outages they experience. When a customer reports an outage, a new feature layer that contains the date and customer ID is added to an outage feature service. This feature service powers a map that displays all reported outages.
The company has implemented a service webhook that triggers whenever the service updates. Once activated, the webhook updates an outage management notebook designed to perform several functions automatically. Specifically, these functions include auditing the reported outages, identifying potential network components that may be causing the outage, and creating a case and work order for the outage after it has been audited.
Third-party automation tools
ServiceNow automatically assigns the new work order to field agents closest to the reported outage location. Field workers are notified of their assigned work order and begin to head out to make the needed repairs. Field workers use a field application that shows them the location of the outage and allows them to make updates to the utility network service once repairs are finished. Once the repairs are finished, and the utility network is updated, another notebook is triggered. This new notebook validates the repairs against the reported outage before updating the outage’s status.
Automation in action
Now that Shreyas has explained how the company uses automation, he is ready to demonstrate that automation in action.
First, Shreyas submits an outage report. No sooner had Shreyas submitted the outage than the feature layer with his outage information is added to the feature service. As soon as the feature service updates, the service webhook triggers, which in turn runs the outage management notebook. The notebook then performs the following tasks:
- Compile recently submitted outages to identify service points in the utility network within 50 feet of the reported outage locations
- Run an upstream trace network using the service points to determine if any common pieces of the network may be causing the outage
- Create a ServiceNow case and work order that targets the identified location
- Run a downstream trace to identify affected customers and send them a notification email
Shreyas now moves on to show the company’s ServiceNow dispatcher workspace. A new case was just created that contains the new work order and work order task. ServiceNow has automatically qualified the work order and assigned it to the closest field agents. Included in that work order is a link to the application field workers will use to update the utility network service.
Once field workers have finished with their repairs, they use the field app to make a corresponding update to the utility network service. The utility network service updating triggers the second notebooks. The notebook reads the incoming changes made to the service and compares them to the outage information. The notebook validates that the repairs and outage match up and updates the outages record with the resolution details.
Conclusion
Shreyas shows how companies can leverage ArcGIS and various automation tools to keep their business workflows running smoothly. View our documentation for more information on ArcGIS Utility Network, ArcGIS Notebooks, or automation using ArcGIS:
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