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Work with utility networks (Map Viewer)

A utility network is the main component users work with when managing utility and telecom networks in ArcGIS, providing a comprehensive framework of functionality for modeling utility systems such as electric, gas, water, storm water, wastewater, and telecommunications. It is designed to model all of the components that make up your system—such as wires, pipes, valves, zones, devices, and circuits—and allows you to build real-world behavior into the network features you model.

You can create utility networks in ArcGIS Pro and publish them as feature services to your portal's federated ArcGIS Server site that is registered with an enterprise geodatabase. Publishing creates a service with feature access, version management, utility network, and network diagram capabilities enabled on the federated server. Map image layer and feature layer items are created in the portal. Additionally, you can add named trace configurations to utility networks in ArcGIS Pro and share them to your portal through web maps.

Once shared with your portal, you can use utility network web maps and feature layers in Map Viewer to access utility networks, add dirty areas, view associations between network features, and run traces to understand how network assets are connected and operate in the field.

Add utility networks to maps

To add a utility network to a map, complete the following steps:

  1. Confirm that you are signed in and, if you want to save your changes, that you have privileges to create content.
  2. In Map Viewer, open a web map containing a utility network or add a feature layer containing a utility network to a new map.
  3. On the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Map properties Map properties.
  4. In the Utility networks section of the Map properties pane, click the plus button Add to add the utility network to the map.

    Note:
    The utility network does not appear as a layer in the Layers pane in Map Viewer.

  5. To remove the utility network from the map, click the ellipsis Options next to the utility network and choose Remove.

When the utility network is added to the map, you can add dirty areas and view associations.

Add dirty areas

Dirty areas serve as visual markers to track the location of network modifications that are not reflected in the network topology. They can be accessed as a sublayer of the utility network and symbolized in the same way as any other layer.

To add dirty areas to a map, complete the following steps:

  1. Follow the first four steps of the Add utility networks to maps workflow.
  2. In the Utility networks section of the Map properties pane, locate the utility network.
  3. Click the ellipsis Options next to the utility network and choose Add dirty areas.

When this workflow is complete, the dirty areas layer of the utility network is added as a layer to the map. Now, anytime you make modifications to the network, a visual marker is added to the extent of the dirty area. You can validate the network topology in ArcGIS Pro to remove the dirty areas and update the network topology.

View associations

You can view connectivity and structural attachment associations between utility network features using the Utility network associations widget in Map Viewer.

To view associations, complete the following steps:

  1. Follow the first four steps of the Add utility networks to maps workflow.
  2. On the Settings (light) toolbar, click Utility network associations.

    The Associations window appears on the map.

  3. Turn on the View associations toggle button and pan and zoom the map to view associations.

    Note:
    If the map extent contains associations that exceed the maximum allowable associations limit, the Associations window will show a warning prompting you to zoom into a smaller extent.

  4. Click Expand Expand to reveal the two association options: Connectivity associations and Structural attachment associations.

    Both association options are turned on by default when you first turn on the View associations toggle button.

  5. Optionally, turn on or off each association option individually.

Trace utility networks

You can use the Utility network trace widget in Map Viewer to run traces on web maps published with a utility network and named trace configurations. Traces can be run based on connectivity or traversability from set input flags, and results are returned as a selection, graphics, or both.

Configure traces

Web maps published with utility networks can include several named trace configurations in their map definition. Before you can run traces, you need to configure the trace options that will be available in the Utility network trace widget.

To configure traces, complete the following steps:

  1. In Map Viewer, open a web map containing a utility network and named trace configurations.
  2. On the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Map properties Map properties.
  3. In the Utility networks section of the Map properties pane, click the plus button Add to add the utility network to the map.

    Note:
    The utility network does not appear as a layer in the Layers pane in Map Viewer.

  4. Click the ellipsis Options next to the utility network and choose Configure traces.
  5. From the list of named trace configurations, select which configurations to include as trace options when running traces. Optionally, do any of the following to help you find configurations:
    • Type search terms in the search box.
    • Click Sort to sort the list as desired, such as by name or description.
    • Click Info next to a configuration to see its details.

Run traces

Once you've configured traces for a utility network, you can use the Utility network trace widget to run one or more traces concurrently.

To run a trace, complete the following steps:

  1. On the Settings (light) toolbar, click Utility network trace.

    A trace window appears on the map.

  2. In the Inputs tab, click the Trace types dropdown and choose from the named trace configurations you included in the previous section. You can choose multiple named trace configurations.
  3. In the Starting points section, click the plus button Add and select a feature on the map to add as a starting point for the trace. You can add multiple starting points.
  4. If a feature you selected as a starting point has several terminals, click Expand Expand next to the feature name and use the Select terminals dropdown to choose one or more terminals.
  5. Optionally, in the Barriers section, click the plus button Add and select a feature on the map to set the location where the trace will stop. You can add multiple barriers.
  6. Click Run.

When a trace has been run successfully, its results are displayed in the Results tab. The type of result that appears depends on the Result Types parameter specified when adding a named trace configuration to your utility network in ArcGIS Pro.