The Viewer presents a graphical representation of the distribution system, with additional symbology for conditions such as outages, crew locations, notes, tags, and so on. The Viewer dynamically updates with condition and distribution changes.

This section includes the following topics:

To open a Viewer, select the Viewer 1... option on the Web Workspace Tools menu. To start a second Viewer, select Viewer 2... After you have opened the Viewer, selecting the menu option will change the focus to that Viewer.

 

The Viewer's drawing area displays dynamic maps that reflect the status of the system. The lines (used to represent conductors) and the icons (used to represent devices and conditions) are called symbols; the conventions that govern symbols are referred to as symbology.

Certain condition symbols, such as event type or note indicator, provide tooltips indicating the symbol's meaning. For example, as shown in the illustration above, the Note symbol's hover text is Operator Note.

If configured, the Viewer will dim the parts of the model that are outside of the user's authority. In those sections, the user will not be able to operate or otherwise modify those devices without taking authority using the Authority tool (see Taking Authority for Control Zones).

The Viewer's message area displays device aliases, feeder names, and substation names.

The Viewer's menus and toolbars provide access to common functions.

 

The Navigate menu lists the Viewer's navigation keyboard shortcuts and allows you to select whether the Viewer's Pan and Zoom Control is displayed in the Viewer Drawing Area. Navigation keyboard shortcuts use the keyboard arrow keys and the numeric keypad plus (+) and minus (-) keys (not the keyboard's number row).

 

 

The following toolbar options do not have corresponding menu options:

When you have adjusted the Viewer options to render symbols, text, and window information as desired, you may select Save Preferences from the Web Workspace User menu's Manage Preferences submenu to save the options for subsequent sessions.

When you hover over a crew, an event, a device, or a condition, a tooltip will appear. This tooltip displays characteristics of the crew, event, device, or condition, such as the crew name, type, event number, etc. Move your mouse over the tooltip to keep it visible. Otherwise, it will disappear after a few seconds.

When you select certain objects in the Viewer and right-click, a context menu will display a list of options available for the object.

The following options are displayed when you right-click a crew symbol in the Viewer window; these options are only available for crews with AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) systems.

The following options are displayed when you select an event symbol and right-click to open the context menu:

Condition sizing and locations can be adjusted by an administrator; non-administrators can move conditions temporarily during their session. For conditions, moving a condition affects any conditions at a device position, including future conditions for that device. Measures and conditions may be moved.

Depending on the device type, the following options may be displayed when you select a device and right-click to open the context menu:

There are two types of Viewers available in the Web Workspace. The first is the legacy Viewer that provides full functionality of the system; the second Viewer is a newer Common Network Viewer (CNV), which is also used by Flex Operations and Operations Mobile application.

To switch between the Viewers, select Use CNV from the Viewer's Options menu. You can toggle between the two on different Viewers independently.

The CNV currently supports most of the Legacy Viewer's functionality, but there are a few limitations. The following functional items are not currently available on the CNV:

Device Details provides information about devices selected in the Viewer. In the legacy viewer, Device Details is enabled by clicking the Device Details button () in the Viewer's toolbar or by right-clicking a device and selecting Device Details... from the context menu.

In CNV mode, you can show the device details by selecting it, then clicking the Device Details button () in the Viewer's toolbar or by right clicking a device and selecting Device Details... from the context menu.

You can also enter the legacy Viewer mode where every time you click a device, its details are shown, by choosing Show Balloons from the Options menu's Selection Mode sub-menu.

When Device Details is enabled, selecting a device will automatically launch a balloon-style callout window attached to the device in the Viewer. Selecting a different device will close the first window and open a window for the newly selected device. To keep a window open, you may pin it by clicking the pin button (). You may unpin the window by clicking the unpin button () or close it by clicking the close button (). Device Details windows may be dragged to a different location in the Viewer or resized.

The Device Details tabbed data views provide relevant information based on the object selected. Data is refreshed whenever you select a different tab, but you may manually refresh the data by clicking the refresh button (). Click the Help button () to display help for the active tab.

The Device Details tabs provide the following information:

Device Info: The information contained in the Device Info tab varies depending on the type of device and its current condition, but may include the following types of information:

You can access attribute information related to a device using the Viewer. Device attributes include physical and reference information about a device, such as location and rating.

To view device attributes from the Viewer, complete these steps:

The Attributes window is tabular and allows standard sorting and filtering.

The information in the Device Information is view-only. Once the device attribute window is open, selecting another device in the Viewer will update the information for the selected device.

When the Viewer is launched, the network model is displayed with Feeder coloring where all conductors fed from a feeder are displayed in the same color. Conditions affecting the network are displayed with highlight coloring, which overlays a glow on the affected network component.

When the Viewer is launched, the network model is displayed in Feeder view where all conductors fed by a feeder are displayed with the same color.

To change to a different view, select the view from the Viewer's Options menu (see Options Menu for details on the different view options). For example, to change to the Phase coloring mode, select View Phases from the Viewer Options menu.

To see the color legend for the view, select Color Legend... from the Viewer Help menu.

To see the highlight legend for the view, select Color Legend... from the Viewer Help menu.

The Viewer Search functionality allows you to quickly focus the Viewer on an area or object.

 

To locate a particular area or object in the Viewer, complete these steps:

Once you have located an area or object using the Search dialog box, you can navigate to an adjacent area where the maps are not yet loaded. From here, you can load all the maps that should appear in the drawing area.

To load maps, do one of the following:

To unload all maps (not just those in the visible drawing area), do one of the following:

There are a number of ways to navigate (pan and zoom) in the Viewer drawing area:

There are various mouse controls you can use to navigate within the Viewer. The following table shows the Viewer's mouse commands.

To make the symbols for disconnects, breakers, and conditions prominent while zoomed out, select Symbols Bigger () from the Viewer's Actions menu. The symbols remain large even as you zoom out, but will still disappear at standard Declutter levels. Conversely, you may make the symbols smaller by selecting Symbols Smaller ().

To make text annotations, such as device ID, phase indicator, and so on, larger, select Text Bigger () from the Viewer's Actions menu. To make text smaller, select Smaller Text ().

To reset symbols and text to their standard sizes, select Reset Size () from the Viewer's Actions menu.

To view the coordinates of a point in the Viewer, click and select Pointer Coordinates... from the Viewer's Actions menu. The Pointer Coordinates dialog box will open with the following information:

The Viewer's Focus option is context aware and will function according to your selection.

If you select an object in a geographic view in the Viewer and click the Focus button, the Viewer will center the object and zoom in/out as necessary. If the object is part of a substation or internal diagram view, the first Focus action will display the object in the substation or internal diagram view. Each successive click will cycle the Viewer through alternate views, if available, until it cycles back to the geographic view.

If one line feeder schematics or normal schematics are configured, the Viewer Focus button () will not include these in the set of maps it focuses on, you will need to click the Feeder One Line button () or Schematic Diagram button () to navigate to that view.

 

 

 

 

To return to the geographic view, click the Focus button ().

When you make a selection of an event in another window (for example, the Work Agenda) and click the Viewer Focus button, the Viewer will find the device and focus the drawing area on it.

The Viewer's Feeder Focus feature traces from a selected device back to its feeder breaker and to all downstream devices on the same feeder.

To use the Feeder Focus feature, complete these steps:

Unlike tracing, no other electrical devices are shown except those on the selected feeder. The Feeder Focus will not include de-energized downstream devices. Feeder Focus displays background layers that have been enabled with the Hide/Display dialog box. While in Feeder Focus, you can use Hide/Display, Declutter, and Big Symbols.

To view the feeders adjacent to a feeder in Feeder Focus, select Change Focus Feeders... from the Viewer's Actions menu. The Select Feeders to Display dialog box will open allowing with the list of the feeder in focus and all adjacent feeders.

From the list, you may:

 

The dialog box will remain open allowing you to change the feeders in focus until you either click OK or Cancel or remove the Viewer from Feeder Focus mode.

This panel can be collapsed to save space, and has the following functionality:

The Viewer's Feeder One Line feature allows you to see one line feeder schematics views.

The Viewer's Lens functionality allows you to start a "mini-Viewer" window that is focused and zoomed in on a selected device. To start a Lens window, select a device in the Viewer and select Show Lens from the Viewer's Actions menu. The Lens window will open zoomed in on the device.

The area displayed in the Lens window is indicated by a red rectangle in the Viewer's Drawing Area. The red rectangle may be moved directly in the Viewer by clicking and dragging. As the rectangle moves, the Lens window will update to show the area inside the rectangle. Likewise, panning and zooming in the Lens window will be reflected by position and size of the rectangle in the Viewer.

When the Lens is started, its text size, symbol size, attribute size, coloring rule, big symbols, and power flow arrow settings are all synchronized with the Viewer; thereafter, the Lens settings are independent. If you want to resynchronize the Lens settings with the Viewer settings, close and reopen the Lens. Note that real-time/study mode and tracing are always synchronized between the Viewer and the Lens.

NMS applications start in real-time mode, where every action you perform is applied to the real-time model and displayed to all users. Certain windows (the Viewer and the Control Tool) allow you to change to study mode, where your actions are reflected in your study session on your workstation, but not recorded in the real-time model. Study mode is especially useful in "what if" studies, when you need to evaluate the effects of an action before you record it in real-time.

When in real-time mode, the Viewer displays status, topology, and condition information based on real-time operations information. All changes to these items made by any user in real-time mode are reflected on all real-time Viewers in the system.

When in study mode, the Viewer displays only status and topology changes you make on your workstation. Changes made in your study session are not reflected in the real-time model, and likewise changes made in real-time are not reflected in your study session. When in study mode, the Viewer displays information about the study session in the upper left corner of the drawing area and there is a green glow inside the window frame.

A study session is created for a specific workstation the first time you put the Viewer into study mode. The study session is initially created as a copy of the current real-time model. From that point on, changes in the study session and real-time are independent of each other. You can reset the study session to current real-time by using the Study Session Control tool. In addition, some Web Switching Management actions can also cause study session resets. Please refer to the Web Switching Management chapter for more information.

To toggle the Viewer to study mode, do one of the following:

To toggle the Viewer back to real-time mode, do one of the following:

The Viewer window borders and dialog boxes change color back to red.

To select a single device in the Viewer, click the device symbol. If you are selecting a Viewer area that has multiple objects, it will find the object that is on top using the configured draw order.

Box selection is used to select a device from an area containing multiple devices. To perform a box selection, Shift-click and drag in the Viewer drawing area to create a rectangular selection box. When you release the mouse, the Select a Device window opens and is populated with all devices within the selection area. Select any device in the list to highlight it in the Viewer; highlighting changes the device symbology to the selection color, but the device is not selected until a selection action is initiated.

Select a Device provides the following actions:

Polygon selection is an advanced form of box selection. To begin a polygon selection, press the Alt key and click the Viewer drawing area to place the first anchor point; continue to press Alt and click to add additional vertices. To complete the polygon, press Alt and right-click to connect the last vertex to the first vertex. Once the selection polygon is complete, the Select a Device window will appear listing all devices that were inside the area.

If you are in Supply Points mode, you can use Box Selection or Polygon Selection to select multiple supply points. To add a supply point to your selection press the Control key and click the supply point; likewise, to remove a supply point from your selection, press the Control key and click a selected supply point. You may also add multiple supply points to your selection by pressing the Control key while performing a box selection.

Changes in the status of a device (for example, switches, fuses, breakers, and so on) are reflected by changes in symbology. For example, a closed switch is a different color and shape than an open switch.

 

Dynamic conditions on a device (for example, "predicted service outage," "crew on-site," "notes," and so on) are indicated with specific symbols attached to the device to which the conditions apply.

Condition symbols display in specific areas around a device or object. The following table provides examples of where condition symbols display in relation to the device they are attached to. The following figure displays the Viewer with probable device outage, crew on-site, note and tag conditions.

 

 

When you select a condition symbol for an event, such as a predicted service outage symbol, the corresponding row in the Work Agenda will be highlighted and the Work Agenda table will scroll to display the row, if necessary. If the event is not in the Work Agenda filtered view, the Work Agenda will not change to a filter that would show the event and the selection will be cleared; for example, if the Work Agenda is set to show completed events, selecting an active event symbol will not change the Work Agenda to the "To Do" view to show the event.

Conductor symbology changes color, dash patterns, and thickness for different types of conductors and topology states.

 

Objects in the electrical model that are in warning or violation states have a yellow or red glow, respectively.

 

The table below illustrates how symbology identifies devices in off-nominal (abnormal) states.

 

For systems with SCADA Extensions, the Viewer provides many visual cues about SCADA devices and their statuses. For details on SCADA symbology, see Understanding SCADA Information in the Viewer .

The Viewer's Hide/Display tool allows you to display only those map elements (for example, layers, objects, crew types) that are of interest to you. To change visibility of components displayed in the Viewer, complete these steps:

The Viewer automatically hides objects based on predefined declutter zoom levels. This allows you to only see high-level information at higher zoom levels, removing small text and other items that are no longer readable at that zoom level. When an object is decluttered, any associated conditions and text will also be decluttered. The declutter option in enabled by default, but you can turn it off by unchecking the Declutter (On/Off) option in the Hide/Display dialog box.

The Hide Conditions with Devices option, which is selected by default, will hide all conditions when their associated devices are hidden, either due to other Hide/Display options or decluttering. When not checked, the conditions will always display, even when their devices do not.

Unchecking the SCADA Disconnects and Other Electrical layers causes the Viewer to hide the devices; unchecking the Confirmed De-energized hides the black highlighting; unchecking the Hide Conditions with Devices option causes the Outage symbol remain visible when the associated device is hidden.

Device Conditions and measurements can be moved to tidy the Viewer display. Operations users can temporarily move a condition that takes effect only for them and only for their current session. Administrators can move conditions and further adjust condition display; the Administrator changes affect all users system wide and persist thereafter. If you have permission to move conditions, the Move option will be available through the right‑click context menu when selecting the condition symbol.

Move: Allows moving a condition for the device to a new location. This changes the placement for conditions that appear at a certain location.

For example, if the condition is in the lower left position, any conditions that are in the lower left will display at the new location.

The following additional right-click options are only available for the Administration user type:

If a measurement is right‑clicked, the following additional options are available:

The trace feature allows you to display the path from a selected device to other devices based on specific criteria. The trace path is displayed on the Viewer by changing all conductors that are part of the path to a thick light blue.

This section includes the following topics:

For a description of the fields and buttons on the Trace dialog box, see Using the Trace Dialog Box.

The following table describes the various types of traces.

 

To display the Trace dialog box, click the Trace button on the Viewer toolbar and select an object. The Trace dialog box displays the following fields and buttons:

Click the Advanced (Expand) button in the bottom-right corner of the Trace dialog box to display additional information about the selected object, including detailed topology. You can also inspect direct connections and navigate to connected objects.

When you click the Advanced button, the Trace dialog box expands to display the following information.

The Device Details section displays the following device information:

The Symbol Details section displays the following symbol information:

The Connectivity Details section displays the following connection information:

The Connections section displays a list of connected nodes for the selected object. You can expand the list of connections for each node and focus the Viewer on an object in the list. For more information, see Inspecting Direct Connections and Navigating to Connected Objects.

To execute a trace, complete these steps:

 

When you select to see trace results in a table (any selection other than No Table), the Trace Results dialog box will be displayed once you click the Trace button ().

If you double‑click a table row, the table will focus the Viewer on the row's device.

If you right‑click a table row, you can choose from the following context menu options, if applicable:

 

Click OK to close the Trace Results dialog box.

Use the advanced fields on the Trace dialog box to inspect direct connections and navigate to connected objects.

The Upstream Impedance Report allows you to quickly view the impedances between a selected device and the associated equivalent source object. The types of devices shown in the report are configurable; by default, conductor, power transformer, and equivalent source impedances are displayed.

You may view impedances in a trace path without needing to navigate to each individual object or query the data from the NMS database. This will aid in diagnosing data issues while implementing DMS applications such as Power Flow, Feeder Load Management, Fault Location Analysis, and so on.

To access the Upstream Impedance Report, do the following:

The Upstream Device Impedances table lists the devices contributing impedance to the network between the selected object and the equivalent source. The devices listed will be ordered with the most upstream device first. However, if the trace encounters a parallel area, the devices in parallel may be listed in any order. Devices in a parallel state are denoted with a check mark in the Parallel column and with magenta coloring in the Order column.

To see a listed device in the Viewer, right-click the row and select View... from the context menu. The Viewer will focus on the device.

The Commissioning Tool allows you to commission a device that is currently in construction or decommission devices currently marked for removal.

To open the Commissioning Tool, select Commissioning Tool... from the Viewer's Actions menu. The Commissioning Tool displays two panes:

The tables may be sorted by either the Device or Status column and may be filtered using the filter fields at the top of the table columns. The status bar at the bottom of the Commissioning Tool window indicates the current real-time or study mode status.

You can perform the following actions on the devices displayed in the Commissioning Tool window: