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 pipes ) and the icons (used to represent assets 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 assets without taking authority using the Authority tool (see Taking Authority for Control Zones).

The Viewer's message area displays asset aliases, pressure zone names, and lift station 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 an asset position, including future conditions for that device. Measures and conditions may be moved.

Depending on the asset type, the following options may be displayed when you select an asset 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:

Asset Details provides information about assets selected in the Viewer. Asset Details is enabled by clicking the Asset Details button () in the Viewer's toolbar or by right-clicking an asset and selecting Asset Details... from the context menu.

When Asset Details is enabled, selecting an asset will automatically launch a balloon-style callout window attached to the asset in the Viewer. Selecting a different asset will close the first window and open a window for the newly selected asset. 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 (). Asset Details windows may be dragged to a different location in the Viewer or resized.

The Asset 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 Asset Details tabs provide the following information:

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

You can access attribute information related to an asset using the Viewer. Asset attributes include physical and reference information about an asset, such as location and rating.

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

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

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

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

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 major assets 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 asset 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 schematic view, the first Focus action will display the object in the diagram view. Each successive click will cycle the Viewer through alternate views, if available, until it cycles back to the geographic view.

 

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 asset and focus the drawing area on it.

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

 

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, and big symbols 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.

Box selection is used to select an asset from an area containing multiple assets. 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 an Assetwindow opens and is populated with all assets within the selection area. Select any asset in the list to highlight it in the Viewer; highlighting changes the asset symbology to the selection color, but the asset is not selected until a selection action is initiated.

Select an Asset 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 an Asset window will appear listing all assets 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 an asset (for example, valves, pumps, and so on) are reflected by changes in symbology.

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

Condition symbols display in specific areas around an asset or object. The following table provides examples of where condition symbols display in relation to the asset they are attached to. The following figure displays the Viewer with probable asset 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.

Pipe symbology changes color, dash patterns, and thickness for different types of pipes and topology states.

 

For systems with SCADA Extensions, the Viewer provides many visual cues about SCADA assets and their statuses. For details on SCADA symbology, see Hide Measurement in Viewer: Hides a measurement in the Viewer.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 Assets option, which is selected by default, will hide all conditions when their associated assets are hidden, either due to other Hide/Display options or decluttering. When not checked, the conditions will always display, even when their assets do not.

 

Device Conditions and measurements can be moved to tidy the Viewer display. Operations users can temporarily move a condition for the current session; Administrators can adjust condition display system wide. 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.

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

The trace feature allows you to display the path from a selected asset to other assets based on specific criteria. The trace path is displayed on the Viewer by changing all pipes 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 Asset Details section displays the following asset 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 Commissioning Tool allows you to commission an asset that is currently in construction or decommission assets 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 Asset 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 assets displayed in the Commissioning Tool window:

To commission or decommission sets of assets, perform the following steps:

Notes:

When you select an asset in the Viewer that is pending construction or decommission, the asset is listed in one of the panes in the Commissioning Tool. To select multiple objects, shift-click and drag until the selection box surrounds the objects.

 

The Viewer displays the following commissioning-related conditions:

The Commissioning Tool will generate switching steps for each commissioning/decommissioning assets action when Web Switching Management is licensed. Commissioning/decommissioning actions will always be recorded in Real-Time mode. The actions will either go into the Miscellaneous Log, Event Details Steps tab, or a switching sheet recording Real-Time operations. The tool recording the commissioning change will be indicated at the top of the Commissioning Tool.

Non-complete Commissioning and Decommissioning steps can be executed over and over again in Study mode within the switching sheet they were recorded into. In Real Time, the steps can only be Instructed and Completed one time which will initiate the action against the Real Time model. Completing the step in study mode will only cause the action to be completed in the user's study session.

For performance purposes, Commissioning and Decommissioning steps should be completed in groups by highlighting multiple steps during step execution operations. This will force the requests to be packaged and processed as a batch request. The batch processing will only work if the Commissioning and Decommissioning steps are contiguous in the steps list without any other type of step mixed in. You can still highlight a larger group of steps containing a mixture of step actions and execute them, but each contiguous group of Commissioning and Decommissioning steps will be processed as a batch request.

An error will be generated when completing a commissioning/decommissioning step where the asset has not been setup for commissioning or decommissioning. This error will cause the step to not complete and will halt step execution.

A warning scenario will be generated when completing a commissioning/decommissioning step where the resulting action has already been applied to the asset in question. The user will have the option of ignoring the warning, which will cause step execution to continue. If the warning is not ignored, then step execution will be stopped.

The Assessment Tool allows you to mark conductors as assessed and clear the assessment mark on conductors that should not be marked as assessed.

To open the Assessment Tool, select Assessment Tool... from the Viewer's Tools menu.

The Assessment Tool displays two panes that provide the status of selected conductors:

To mark conductors as assessed, perform the following steps:

To undo the assessment status, select one or more conductors in the Assessed list and click the Undo button (). The conductors are moved to the To Assess list and their highlight color is removed.

To remove one or more conductors from either the To Assess or the Assessed lists, select the conductors in the list and click the Remove button ().

A study session ‘Save Case' is the collection of changes made during a study session. The Save Case Management tool displays a table with rows for any existing save cases. The tool allows you to create a new save case containing the changes made during a current study session or, like resetting your study session to Real-Time or Nominal mode, you may set your study session based on an existing save cases.

If you are creating a new save case, you would perform asset operations prior to opening the Save Case Management tool. Conversely, if you want to start a study session based on an existing save case, you would not want to perform any asset operations because the model will be reset to the topology as it existed when the save case was created.

To open the Save Case Management tool, do the following:

 

 

 

The Save Case Management tool's table contains the following information:

The Save Case Name field displays the name of the save case.

To create a new save case, you will first perform operations in study mode and then open the Save Case Management tool.

The Save Case Details dialog box contains fields, buttons, and a data table listing the operations performed in a study session.

The Save Case Details dialog box contains the following fields and buttons:

The current study session's operations are listed in the Save Case Changes table. The Save Case Changes table contains the following information:

When you click the Save Case Details... button () or double-click in a row in the Save Case Management tool table, the Save Case Details dialog box is displayed in viewing mode.

The save case details are displayed, along with a Reset to Save Case and a Delete button. The Reset to Save Case button resets the current study session to the displayed save case. The Delete... button deletes the displayed save case.

Event History offers a table summary of events for the currently selected asset and optionally, all downstream assets. The events are chronologically ordered by start date with the most recent event being first, but can be sorted by any of the other columns by clicking on the column header. You can access Asset Event History by selecting Asset Event History... from the Viewer's right click context menu.

This pane allows you to define both how many and what kinds of events are displayed, either by filtering the events to be fetched and/or by limiting the number of events fetched.

If you select a row in the table, the context menu allows you to focus the Viewer on the event location or open Event Details.

The Operations Event Note field displays notes entered regarding the selected event. These notes may include crew remarks and resolution issues.