Orchestrating Utility Network Editing Workflows with ArcGIS Workflow Manager and ArcGIS Web Editor

Utilities make edits in their system of record on a daily basis. Some edits are part of planned work that could take days, weeks, or years to complete. Other edits are simple data corrections that could be completed in a much shorter time span. Regardless of the duration, being able to track the work from start to finish and knowing who “has the baton” is important information for the utility.

For Utility and Infrastructure organizations, the integrity of geospatial data isn’t just nice to have, it’s an operational requirement. Whether managing electric, water, or telecommunications assets, utilities depend on accurate, up-to-date GIS data to drive field operations, regulatory compliance, and long-term capital planning. Yet coordinating those data corrections across teams, tools, and enterprise systems has historically been a fragmented, error-prone process. ArcGIS Workflow Manager provides a centralized orchestration system to define, assign, execute, and track every step of a GIS workflow – from the moment an edit is identified to the point it is reconciled and posted to the authoritative database. By using configurable job templates, automated step execution, and integration with the broader ArcGIS ecosystem as well as with third party systems, Workflow Manager standardizes your workflows to ensure that no edit falls through the cracks, every task is accountable, and the full life cycle of a data correction is documented along the way. The workflow detailed in this blog demonstrates exactly that – a streamlined, repeatable process where Workflow Manager orchestrates the tools, manages the versions, and guides editors from start to finish.

Utility users can edit their utility networks (UN) using ArcGIS Web Editor, a lightweight web-based application designed for editing GIS data in ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise. This app provides a focused editing experience, for both experienced UN editors who want a streamlined toolset to make utility network updates and for users that may only occasionally update utility network data and don’t want the overhead of training in desktop software. ArcGIS Web Editor follows organizational rules, including UN settings such as connectivity, associations, and QA rules, to help ensure that data capture and edits are accurate. Coupled with ArcGIS Workflow Manager, ArcGIS Web Editor can be a key component of an end-to-end workflow for utility network editing, including the need to work within a branch version with reconciling and posting of edits to the default version. This blog walks through an example configuration of Workflow Manager with Web Editor to provide UN editors with a simplified UN editing experience, while ensuring that UN rules are enforced and QA processes are followed.

Scenario

Orchestrating editing efforts to keep the system of record authoritative sounds like a great idea in theory, but what does that look like at a more granular level?

To help contextualize this information, let’s imagine that we are a GIS Manager at a mid-sized utility. It’s our responsibility to keep the facility assets up to date and reflective of the real world. On any given day, we can expect asks for assets to be updated, created, or edited from multiple employees within the utility. This can be cumbersome, especially without an authoritative way to track requests, who is making them, and who is editing the underlying data.

To address this issue, the GIS department began using job templates in ArcGIS Workflow Manager to document, assign and track a job throughout its lifecycle. The job template provides a diagram of the steps needed to complete the work. ArcGIS Web Editor was also provided to give asset owners an easy-to-use app so they can complete their work without needing significant GIS training.

Additionally, to give the requesters insight into their jobs, an ArcGIS Dashboard was created. Now stakeholders can review request statuses from any device, providing a view into the current status and overview of a project.

Workflows can be as simple or as complex as needed based on our business needs. In this example, we see a simple workflow to perform data corrections against facility assets.

1. Log into Workflow Manager via your ArcGIS Enterprise portal

2. Work Tab: Create a new Job using a template

• • A job template is a predefined collection of properties that serve as the starting point for the different types of jobs that can be performed in Workflow Manager

3. Manual Step: Set the Job’s Description

• • Having a meaningful description helps understand the intent of job

4. Automated Step: Create Version

• • Upon setting the job’s description a named version is automatically created using a configurable naming convention. The out of the box naming convention is <OWNER>.JOB<#>. This enables a consistent naming convention across all jobs created in Workflow Manager.

5. Manual Step: Open Web Editor

• • Workflow Manager will open Web Editor application. Via configuration, this step will open a specific web map and change to the named version associated with this job.

• • To learn more about the editing capabilities, review ArcGIS Blog: Edit a utility network with ArcGIS Web Editor

• • Once you are done editing, save your edits and click the finish button to complete this step

6. Manual Step: Are you done editing?

• • This step gives you the option to make additional edits in the Web Editor

7. Automated Step: Reconcile and Post

• • Once all edits are completed, the job needs to go through the Reconcile and Post process

• • If no conflicts are detected, Workflow Manager will post the edits to Default, delete the named version, and mark the job as complete

8. Automated Step: Conflicts Detected

• • If conflicts are detected, the job will be reassigned, and ArcGIS Pro will be used to resolve the conflicts

9. Manual Step: Assign to QA/QC Team

• • Conflict resolution may be handled either by the original editor or a different group in your organization

10. Manual Step: Open ArcGIS Pro

• • Workflow Manager can launch ArcGIS Pro, open a Pro Project that is saved in your portal and then switch to the named version

11. Manual Step: Resolve conflicts and post the named version

• • Use ArcGIS Pro tools to resolve the conflicts and post the named version

12. Visualize Status with a Dashboard

Conclusion

In this blog, we explored how a mid-sized utility utilized ArcGIS Workflow Manager and ArcGIS Web Editor to orchestrate a standard editing workflow, helping to ensure the accuracy and tracking of branched edits and the ease-of-use for editors. From job creation to managing the active step to opening the appropriate application to perform the edits. As you manage the complexities of maintaining an accurate system of record at your utility, hopefully this blog provided you with some ideas and insights into how products can be paired together to help streamline this work, reduce errors, and make it easier to keep your utility network authoritative.