The alternative solution to the Esri Utility Network migration.

Welcome to today's webcast entitled IQGeo Adaptive Grid, the Utility Network Model Management Alternative that pairs with your traditional GIS. A few housekeeping notes we'd like to mention. We acknowledge that given the higher demands on internet connections where many are working from home, technical issues may be more pronounced. If for any reason we find the need to restart the event, we invite you to click your same link to rejoin us. If you cannot get adequate sound from your computer speakers, you may dial into the audio portion using the telephone number listed in the right-hand panel of your interface, under the audio section. And we invite you to submit your questions at any time using the interface on your screen. I'm happy to turn the floor now over to Adrian McNulty. To kick things off, Adrian, welcome to the event. You have the floor. Adrian McNulty McNulty Thank you PJ and welcome everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you're joining from. and thank you for joining today's webinar. Adaptive grid, a utility network model management alternative that pairs with your traditional GIS. You may be wondering what that means. Well, our industry is in transition at the moment. The rate of change is unprecedented. The needs and expectations of how you manage your network are evolving. The network model is more important than ever before and today's systems and processes are not equipped for what's coming in the future. The traditional thinking has been it's one system or the other, all or nothing. That's not the case. In today's webinar, once we introduce you to what we call a network model-centric approach, introduce you to Adaptive Grid and how it works in conjunction with your GIS. It's an alternative approach that many of you may not be aware of. So the agenda for today, we'll start off with some introductions. We'll introduce you to the team. We'll do a brief introduction to IQgeo. We'll talk about the time for change. Why now? Why change? What's driving change? We'll introduce the network model approach and IQgeo's Adaptive Grid. And the final, we'll talk about how Adaptive Grid fits into your GIS environment. So today's team, I'll start introducing myself. My name's Adrian McNulty. I've been in the utility industry now for just over 25 years. I lead the utility practice of IQgeo. Andy? Thanks, Adrian. Yeah, Andy Gay. I am the utilities director at IQgeo. I am in Denver, Colorado, smoky Denver today. And I have nearly 40 years of experience working with utility IT and OT systems. Troy? Hi, everyone. My name is Troy Friesel-Lewis, and I'm product manager for utilities at IQgeo. I sit in Tampa, Florida. Before joining the team, I started my career within distribution, reliability, and smart grid engineering over at Florida Power & Light. Designed and managed everything from single-phase overhead services, duct banks, manholes, fault designs, high-rises, downtown core networks. And I've also had the opportunity to manage both programs and then later build software for grid reliability initiatives like annual proactive feeder patrols as well as reactive semi and safety response work. When I initially came across IQgeo, I know Adaptive Grid really impressed me. I could see that the product was moving the utility industry in a direction that I felt very strongly about. So really excited to be here today talking with you all and demoing just a few of the awesome things we've been working on. And back to Adrian. Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys. Go to the next slide. So a quick introduction to IQgeo. Our mission and our focus is very simple. We build software to help utilities and telcos build better networks. We build a network model focused solution that really unleashes the power of geospatial data across your enterprise, whether you're a utility or a telco. You know, a software solution that's easy to use, but you can use anywhere on any device and also adapts to the evolving needs of your business. When IQgeo was first founded, the founders saw a gap in the market. Traditional GIS systems with desktop orientated are not easy to take to the field or to give access across the enterprise. So we built a what we call a modern architecture. Sometimes you'll hear us talk to it as a mobile first. So it basically breaks down the barrier between the office and the field. So a seamless interaction no matter where work is performed. Our customers started to ask us, can you manage the network model with an IQgeo? So from there, we build a very flexible approach to network management that we're going to introduce today. We actually started with a telco fiber networks. We saw that as the most complex. If we can solve that problem, we can solve other networks. And then we moved into electric and gas. We're really proud to say that over 500 customers use IQgeo solutions with over 100,000 daily users accessing our systems. Troy, I think it's time to start a poll question. So is your organization considering an upgrade, migration or major extension to your current GIS over the next five years? We'll give it some time for you to select your answer. PJ, do you think that's enough time to see the results? Yep, I think we got it. Let's go ahead and display those. Okay, great. And that's what we thought. It's very consistent, Troy and Andy, that what we see with our customers and in the market. You know, Nova Molbin, yes. And I think it's really about, and that's what we're going to cover today is why the time to change and what you should look out for as you change. So the time to change. Like why now? Why change? What's driving change? Just wanted to spend a couple of minutes to talk about that. I really like this quote. From Nicholas Atkins. He's the former CEO of AEP. Change is not an option. It's a necessity in today's utility landscape. To negate the complexities of the energy transition, we must be agile, adaptive, innovative, by bracing change, exploring new business models and investing in renewable energy, we can build a more sustainable future while ensuring reliable and affordable power for our customers. I think it really holds all of the different changes that we've seen in our industry and why it's so important. And truly is time to change and embrace innovation. We're not alone. Other industries have either gone through or are going through some major changes as well. For example, the automotive industry. There's been some new disruptive market participants. Tesla was one of the first. There's new companies now like Rivian. And they're really driving disruption and causing the traditional OEMs to change what they do. The auto industry is completely retooling at a rapid rate. You know, whether it's from the EVs that bring into market or autonomous driving. And the utility sector is no different. Now, over the next few minutes, I'd like to cover. So what are the market drivers? So I think we're at a really exciting time in the utility sector. I've been in the utility sector to just over 25 years and the consumer behavior, how they consume, where they consume, why they consume. So I'd like to take a minute to look at some of the driving forces and how specifically they impact network model management. So decarbonization, this is a major driver on the energy transition. If you look at the EIA data from 2021, around 32% of CO2 emissions come from the electrical generation sector. So for us to hit our net zero or our zero emissions target, it means significantly more solar, more storage, more wind. So massive investment in renewable energy. Distributed energy resources, DER, this is a significant part of the decarbonization effort. You know, to hit the goals again, we need more residential solar, more residential storage. There'll be more microgrids, essentially changing the structure of the grid into a much more decentralized architecture. Electrification and transportation. To me, this one is really interesting. It's an external influence that is a catalyst to change. It drives more change quicker than some of the internal influences in our industry. Again, looking at the EIA data, around 36% of CO2 emissions come from the transportation sector, whether that's light duty vehicles or commercial vehicles. So what we're starting to see is a number of car manufacturers say that they will no longer create internal combustion engines, ICE, past 2035. We're also seeing states that are mandating similar rules where they will not sell ICEs past 2035. What does that mean? So that means there's going to be a lot more EVs on the road. And to hit the forecasted growth, the experts suggest that we need at least 20 times more electric charges on the network than what we have today. That's a massive number. So basically, these three drivers mean a significant overhaul to the physical system, both the new assets, new connections, new capacity, new transmission lines, new energy storage or sorry, new energy sources behind the meter. And meanwhile, while this is happening, many utilities, many of you are going through some form of digital transformation. You're reviewing all of your processes, your systems, really with the goal of driving efficiency, reliability and improving the customer experience. Tomorrow's systems that operate the grid and that keep the lights on, they're going to rely on a very accurate network model. You know, inaccurate model data or data errors or delays in getting the data as the changes are made in the field into the systems. That's not going to be sufficient for the utility of the future. Let's use ADMS as an example. So I spent a long time in the ADMS world, SCADA, OMS, and then as it evolved into ADMS systems. You know, it's fairly common in those projects that there's a fairly significant amount of data cleanup required. It's not uncommon that there's some level of post-processing to get connectivity first, but also to enable load flow to converge and solve. It's also not uncommon that the data in ADMS does not match necessarily what's in the field. You know, at best, some of the updates are daily, but it's not uncommon to see every couple of days and even every couple of weeks. We actually started to hear from customers and utilities who, because of the masses of changes across the network, they want to start to see, for lack of a better term, near real-time changes inside ADMS. So as a change happens in the field, it gets posted into GIS, into ADMS. This could be hundreds of transactions on a daily basis rather than one batch process that runs nightly or every few days. So it's time to look at an alternative approach, and we believe a network model-centric approach is the right way to go into the future. Let's try poll question two. What is your biggest challenge with network model management? You can click all that apply. Data accuracy, managing the increasing volume of work, modeling new network architectures and assets, or integrating your network model with other operational systems. Okay, we'll give you some time to make a decision, and it may be more than one. Let's, PJ, let's see what type of results we've got. Absolutely. Okay, we've got a bit of a mixed bag, which is what I was expecting. Data accuracy, you know, we touched upon that briefly in the example of the ADMS. Increasing volume of work. We started to hear that more and more. Andy and I were at Utilicy a few weeks ago where they said they expect just a pure volume of work between this year and next year to double. The architecture, exactly. You know, moving from a centralized architecture, the two-way load flows, making sure you've got the right network architecture there. And then more and more we're going to see operational systems, the systems that keep the lights on the systems, optimize the grid. And they're relying on the network model. So, yeah, thank you for answering. I appreciate that input. And now I'm going to hand it over to Andy, and he's going to introduce a network model approach. Hey, thanks, Adrian. So, this is really gratifying to me. Can you back up one slide, please? I joined IQgeo three and a half years ago because I thought the vision and the story of creating a network model, tying it to work processes, achieves a goal that some of the pioneers of utility geospatial had decades ago. Doing the work one time, updating an enterprise system, making the data available to all, so that promise and the growth of technology to enable that was very appealing. So, you know, that's what you'll be seeing from us today. So, some of the things you'll see is we've actually separated some of the geospatial aspects from the network model management aspect. We don't claim to be all things. And when we move a little bit forward, Adrian will give an example, architecture of how that might work. We want to remove constraints, or we have removed the constraints of proprietary technology stacks, which has really enabled us to move quickly and grow quickly. And then providing an accessible model that works with a lot of your GIS investments today. So, one of the characteristics for future success in meeting those challenges that Adrian just talked about, well, first and foremost, is a flexible model, right? This is something that the constraints that I've seen in the past are it's very difficult to update your model as new assets are created or added to the network. As you guys know, the pace of innovation, even with hardware and smart devices, is outpacing the ability for models to keep up with it. So, the ability to make those changes on the fly, the ability to look to the model behind the meter that you'll see in one of the Troy's demos, and then the modeling underground facilities, the vaults, and some of the internal device details. Also, something that are very powerful that we've packed into the adaptive grid network model. And integrated mobility, obviously, we've grown up as a mobility-first company, very focused on usability and user acceptance and providing tools and enabling workflows that don't take a lot of time to learn, and they're also usable by an infrequent user. I can pick up my iPad without – I don't use it every day. I can still pick up my iPad and do my job when I need to. Adaptable digital workflows, and I'll talk a little bit about those on the next slide. But the idea is we don't know, at Adrian's point about the uncertain future, we don't really know what regulations are going to come our way. We don't know what kind of climate changes are going to drive new workflows and new models. So we made those very adaptable and tied that in with our data model. Then, of course, an open and interoperable system. Like I mentioned earlier, we shied away from proprietary technologies. We use a kind of a confederation of open tools that are developed by a number of people and are on the leading edge of technology and enable us to leverage that without having to develop everything on our own. I personally have been involved with at least two, probably more, efforts to create a, quote, standard data model or utility data model. And quite often, in my experience, they've been constrained by legacy models, things that I have to support long term, and also the fact that I may be working with a proprietary technology stack. And it's been gratifying to not be constrained by those things. And what you'll see from Troy today is really the product of a couple years of very hard work, very intense work with our customers and our product development team. And we've been able to come a long way in a relatively short period of time. So, again, what we've done and what we call the adaptive grid is marrying the network model to the digital workflows, the end-to-end work processes. So, we've designed our model to support workflows, like I said, not necessarily maps or polygonal analysis or data analytics or a viewer, although we can do those things. It's very focused on the network model. And taking that with me, I have the – when I'm in the field and I do my work and I change assets, I move assets, I do designs, it's available to everybody. It's available to OT systems. It's available to other users without a data latency issue. And because the work – the updates are being done close to the work point, eliminating a lot of the data accuracy issues that we've seen over the years. So, I think, sum it up, it's a better mousetrap. And we're going to turn this over to Troy now for a demonstration of some of the really cool stuff that our product team has been working on and supports these lofty goals. So, Troy, with that, I'll turn it over. All right. Thanks, Andy. And hello again, everyone. In the next few demos, we're going to – sorry, I had a window pop up here. All right. There we go. And these next few demos – again. We're going to show you how our network model approach provides a common, accurate, digital view across the entire utility. We believe that within all organizations, engineers, designers, and operations teams should have the potential to access the same network information, regardless of location or device, but tailored to their specific roles and needs from a common platform. They should see accurate and up-to-date digital representations of the assets and network, all associated work, the location of field workers, as well as other layered data from the desk to the field to the control room. IQG adaptive grid is the new approach to managing the entire lifecycle of electric grid that realizes this vision. In this first quick demo, we'll take a closer look at how adaptive grid uses an extensible and hierarchical approach to infrastructure to efficiently and effectively model any grid scenario. So, as electric networks continue to advance, the industry is seeing an exponential increase in both the number of total assets being installed, as well as the count of new and unique asset types within the overall supply chain, what we like to call both horizontal and vertical expansion. Legacy data models are quickly losing their ability to present this overwhelming amount of data, though, in ways that are meaningful and usable to downstream workflows, which is beginning to impact the large-scale business operations. Adaptive grid addresses this issue with an extensible and hierarchical approach to feature modeling using configurable network topology and connectivity that is driven through the underlying asset associations. So, I've recorded some demos here. I'm going to play along and talk, and we can look into the software. All right. So, in adaptive grid, auxiliary geometries and tree models, like you're about to see, provide drill-down views, and serve as liaisons between standard geometric models and their new hierarchical representations. This allows features to be stored with respect to their true field locations, eliminating the need for misleading paper map offsets, which contribute to data inaccuracy, and create expensive rework for symbol-related workflows like permitting and structural analysis, not to mention making future automation of these tasks close to impossible. Here you can see a duck bank and how we use integrated cross-sections to better manage and convey what is within and contained in these types of structures. Adaptive grid's hierarchical approach also extends its benefits to the connectivity and tracing model, which are no longer just hidden back-end associations visible to database administrators or developers. Connectivity is now represented visually on the front end using the equipment and wire tree you see here on the left, providing users with greater awareness and control while modeling complex connectivity configurations within your typical radial loop and mesh networks, as well as behind-the-meter assets, which traditionally aren't integrated into legacy data models at all. Here I'm updating connectivity associations from the front end for this switch cabinet, which consists of two normally closed switch compartments, a primary bus, and two fused compartments. So I'm dragging and dropping. I have upstream and downstream access for each piece of equipment. And taking a drill-down look into our offset geometries that were generated upon completion of that update, we can easily understand which devices are protecting which conductors within the as-built network at first glance, and we do not need to break out the record drawings and the highlighters here. Everyone can also now easily understand and retrieve the connectivity data that they need from wherever they're at with our interactive trace tool. So an extensible data model allows utilities to quickly iterate their digital network model without requiring a return to state zero. Whether you're adding new switches, thorough devices, secondary connections, or in this example you'll see next behind-the-meter assets, this network model growth can all be handled continually by network administrators within minutes, not months. All that needs to be done is to add these new feature types to the feature list for the distributed generation class here in this example. So let's do a solar inverter and a battery wall and save that. And I could also use the duplicate function here if I want to modify a more specific feature class altogether with different attribution just as simply. So we're going to go ahead and update the layer to reference our new custom symbology that we've gone ahead and uploaded to the server. Hit OK. We're going to save that. And then finally, we're ready to go back to the adaptive grid environment, update and add these features with their new symbology, and we can even place offset geometries for a nice clean finish. So I've updated this generic distributed generation feature. Now I'm going to be a solar inverter. See the symbology switch there. If I click on my secondary meter, it gives me the option to add additional distributed generation equipment. I'm going to go ahead and add a battery wall. You can see here how I move the offset. Save. And we're all set. It already gets that downstream association to the customer's meter and connects to the greater network. So with adaptive grid, overwhelming network representations can now be broken down into manageable visualizations, which empowers users to quickly derive the essential information that they need for their workflows while reserving unnecessary details for drill down functionality only when necessary. Again, this was extensible and hierarchical network model management within adaptive grid, and this is actually the core competency that fuels all downstream workflows and data streams. All right. So next up is digital design from the office to the field. With IQ.js mobile first foundation workflows, you typically associate with performing in the office can now be performed with identical form and functionality from the field as well. Adaptive grid empowers your design teams to work flexibly, either from the office on a computer, for example, onsite using an iPad and now even a blend of both dramatically enhances productivity by minimizing time consuming repetitive field checks throughout a design's lifespan so that you can finally clean up your backlog. Plus it's going to foster greater customer collaboration by bringing the proverbial desk to the customer's doorstep, right? Inviting valuable feedback for unmatched design quality. Later, I'm even going to show you how easy it is to pick up on one device where you left off on another to suit your specific situation and needs in the moment. But what I'd like to get across here is that with adaptive grid desktop is no longer king. The user is the king. So in this next demo, I'm going to show you how adaptive grids interacted point and span wizard, which you may hear me abbreviate throughout to PNS wizard just for brevity. How it can make previously time intensive designs like this URD loop I'm about to build both quick to create and mistake proof on the front end with the help of our pre-configured assembly pallets and data validation guardrails. Go ahead and start this video. So we received the service request for this new residential community that you'll see shortly. While I opened my design that I've already created in the adaptive grid environment in my browser, high level engineering plan here is to install an underground loop, which will be fused from these two vaults when I zoom in and made up of four transformers with one being a normal open point. Just want to put it out. Obviously, this is just an example. You'll later see that the work has already been performed in the field, but let's play along and see what a typical design progression might look like. So from my toolbar, I'm able to activate my pallet as well as the point and span wizard. You'll notice that the point and span wizard does have both overhead and underground modes. You will be taking advantage of underground mode for this loop design. So once you've launched the point and span wizard dialog box, the crosshairs are already activated and you can snap to your existing network like I just clicked on this vaults where we'll be taking off from. And each time you see me click here on the map, a point is placed and a subsequent span is then generated in between the points in sequential order. In parallel, you'll see the point and span dialog box grows along with your placements on the map, adding new individual rows for each point and each span. Now, the tool always is going to assume that you're designing from upstream to downstream, and it's going to inherit properties such as phasing, connectivity, circuit association. There's a lot of really cool things that you can set up with calculated fields here. If I realize I need to extend the route or add more points after I've already freed up my cursor, like you see me doing here, I can simply click the midpoint to add another point in span and adjust accordingly on the fly. Some of these distances are getting long. So in theory, I could add intermediate hand holes in after the fact as well. Just an example. But since we're in the underground mode here, only the start structure and the ending structures are going to be mandatory fields, which are denoted by the red asterisk you're going to see in the dialog box, whereas the grayed out rows are going to be optional so we can dictate the curvature of our trench. So I've added my first primary definition. Go ahead and save that. You can see the properties right in the window. Now, I can always hover my mouse to see which point in span I'm affecting on the map as well. You'll see the individual points and spans on the map highlight in halo. And the tool also has the concept of default properties built in. So I only defined that first primary, and I can go ahead and leave the rest of the span options blank because it's going to inherit that default value throughout without having to redefine it each time. I use the plus sign there to add a transformer to my piece of structure that I've already created. So at each structure, you do have the ability to add equipment. And as I'm filling these out here, I want to point out that you can either have these as blank features going one by one or use macro assemblies like you see in the palette on the right side there. But these macros can be tailored to corresponding compatible units for a design user like you see here, or this can also be set up in a way to accommodate what a GIS tech, for example, might see when they're as built in data. So once I have everything good to go there for the first side of my loop, I'll click save, and I'm already done with that first half. So while I'm clicking on the save button here, there is some stuff running in the background. We're doing some validation checks to make sure that no rules were broken upon entry, and it's going to quickly generate my new structures, the routes in between my structures, and then the equipment and conductor along the way within the hierarchical model in adaptive grid. Now, if I go ahead and navigate over to this transformer here, do a quick upstream trace that verifies my connectivity back to the source at the substation, which would be the circuit breaker, should all be connected and ready to go. Just to point out, when you see it traced here, the blue polygon on the right is my substation footprint. There is a circuit breaker halo within there, if you can see that. And next, we're ready to build a high side of the loop by taking off from the fuse that is in this other vault here. Not sure if you can see my pointer or not. So I open the point and span wizard in underground mode again. When I click the vault, the wizard picks up immediately that I'm connecting to this fuse 9403, and actually would provide me a drop-down box to choose from if there was other equipment in that vault. And here, we just have that one fuse, so it looks like we're building off ePhase. All looks good. And I add my primary there. I'm going to continue throughout here using my macro units to minimize clicks, since the phasing is inherited, and the rest of the attributes and compatible units are already going to be linked and come over for me by using those. With the hierarchical model, each piece of equipment is related to a structure for its primary geometry. So, for example, the transformer I'm about to add here, I first have my surface structure, which is the pad. I click plus. I get the option for equipment. And then I can go ahead and add a transformer. Now, that's just a blank feature. So if I save it, I want to show how the data validation kicked in there when I try to save that. So if I click on the pencil, I get an editing option. Instead, let's just go and use one of our macro units again where everything's defined. I can verify that in the tool. Phasing looks correct. And I'm going to click save again. So now that we have both the high side and the low side of the loop defined, next I'm going to switch to more of like a one feature at a time design workflow to give you an alternative perspective of how that would work without the point and span. So I can still take advantage of my design palette here, even without using the PNS wizard, or I can add blank features as well with the pencil add object up in the toolbar if I need to add something more specific that hasn't been saved into my palette yet. Each linear feature within the hierarchical model does require a route. So I'll add that quickly to create the path between my two transformers. Now, next up, I have two ways of extending my primary conductor here to finish out the loop. I could either add a brand new conductor feature in my new route by dragging and dropping a new feature in, or I can update the definition of my previously defined conductor now that I've extended my route network appropriately. So let's try out the latter. I click back on my primary conductor that I defined here on the high side of the loop. So I redefine where the path is. I can preview what it's going to drop it into. It can find the route from one spot to another as long as it's within the route network. And upon save, it's going to go ahead and update my geometry and length of my conductor now to go all the way to the normal open transformer. So both conductors are now connected to what will serve as the normal open transformer. Next, let's go up here and click on that transformer again so that we can formally designate it as the normal open. So I just need to make a few drag and drop connectivity updates to define the high and low side of the loop along with some elbow attributes. So drop this one in here. You can see it becomes the high side. And this one here becomes the low side. And then we do have some attributes that will turn into read-only once we save that are going to influence this trace so that it appropriately traces back to the network source. Update those. Click save. And I'm going to zoom back out here. Open the trace tool. Verify that everything looks good. It should be going around to the north and around, which is my connected side. Awesome. And we're good to go. So within the tracing tool, I do want to point out that there is also an electric as-operated trace, which takes each operable device's current switch and elbow positions into account, which are reflected by these read-only attributes that I referenced earlier. Now, this can be fed into Adaptive Grid in real time through proper integration with that data. And then based on these attributes, you're able to then take your entire network and hook it up with the as-operated real-time trace. This is awesome because it actually brings the power of as -operated situational awareness to all of your field users. All right. So with my lateral underground residential distribution loop ready to go now, let's pick up where we left off from my iPad and head out to the field to connect our first new construction customer. Adaptive Grid can be loaded from our Anywhere iOS app or directly... Let me start it over there. There we go. Sorry about that. So Adaptive Grid can be loaded from our Anywhere iOS app or directly in the mobile browser. And a built-in QR code facilitates a seamless transition to pick up right where I left off on my design on the computer on my iPad now. So you may find it customary while this loads to design your secondary networks in conjunction with the primary facilities. And I don't disagree with you. But in my experience, I've had multiple developers lose steam mid-development, get bought out by another company who changes the lot layouts, building plans. Everything's different. So let's see what a house-at-a-time approach might look like. So now I'm using an external mouse on my iPad so that I can take advantage of Apple's pointer halo in my screen reporting so you can see where I'm at. But I'd like to point out that everything I'm doing here on the iPad with the pointer can be done just as easily by tapping with your finger on the screen. So I'm going to complete another quick design here with my underground point and span wizard to install underground triplex secondary. I'll probably add a hand hole. And then I'm going to add a new premise with a 200-amp meter to serve this customer. So I've drawn my new underground route from the secondary transformer to the property. I'm going to go ahead and define the secondary span. This will default to the rest of them if I don't change it. And click the edit pencil. You'll see that the editor does look a little bit different on the iPad. It's more of a pop-up window that you can move around. It inherited my B-phase transformer already. I don't have to do anything with the connectivity. And all looks good there, so I will go ahead and save. So next, remember I said I might want to add a hand hole. So at this point, let's go ahead and add an underground structure so that we're ready to connect the customer to the north. Next time we come back, everything's there. I can just come straight out of the hand hole rather than going all the way back to the transformer. Make it a 24-inch hand hole, standard loading. I could assign CUs here. I'll show you that in a little bit. And finally, I'm going to add the new premise. I have the saved as a macro. And then I'll go ahead and add the new metering equipment. So when I click save, notice that data validation just kicked in again because I've left an address field blank. So I'm going to click the edit button. Go ahead and put a placeholder address here on Sinclair Ave, I believe it is. And I can also go back and use the macro. I think I had it as the meter before. So there we'll go ahead and update the address. Yeah, so here I can assign a CU. So you can click assign CUs on any feature throughout your design. And as you add those, we can bring those over. If you have a general CU catalog, we can have that all integrated, save it, and then that will be factored in. I'll show you what the output of that might look like later on. So everything looks good. I'm going to go ahead and click save. And basically how the tool is working here, so it's adding your structures. And then from your structures, it's going to add the route in between. It's going to add your equipment. It's going to drop your conductor in. And then you'll see it here in a second. When I click, it's also added an automatic offset geometry that you can use to drill down if you have multiple conductors in this structure-to-structure network, for example. All right, so let's just click on the meter, do an upstream trace, verify that we have connectivity back to the source. And that looks good. So now that we're done there, I'm going to demonstrate how we can progress the state of the design as it moves through the various design lifespan stages with configurable approval steps as needed all the way through completion. Or I can then merge all my design deltas to the as built network. So I just moved it over to complete. If I close out of the design, I can see how the system will now look to other users such as an engineer or field tech out investigating potential issues maybe or future customer requests. So this is going to be the as built network here. Sorry, I am actually uploading, I'm merging the design. So those 41 changes have now been applied to the as built network. And again, I'm still on the iPad. So close out of the design here and I can drop my little Street View man. So with our built in Street View layer and AR plugin, Adaptive Grid blends the network model and the real world into one so that users are presented with an intuitive visual that they can easily understand and act on. We actually had tons of awesome feedback from customers on this feature. It's invaluable on trouble tickets during like night hours when they're out working in the dark trying to find manholes and other pad mounted equipment. So very powerful example of how this can be used in the field very intuitively. All right. I know what you're thinking. What about overhead installations? Well, the PNS wizard also works in overhead mode, making it just as easy to extend an overhead line as an underground one. So I just opened this design here and I initiate the point and span wizard again, this time in overhead mode. And you'll notice that each point is going to be required now with a red asterisk, which makes sense because you can't exactly pivot conductor in the air without the help of a structure like you can underground with the curvature of a trench. Similar to my pre-configured underground macros, I will just as easily be able to set this up for an overhead workflow. So now I'm going to be referencing overhead macros and those are completely configurable. So those can be set up any way you'd like in the back end to match your CUs or your preferences for your workflow. So I'm going to go ahead and add the pole here. That's going to come off my primary. I think this is an A phase lateral. Once I have the pole, I've added a transformer. These are not fixed. Once I drop them over as a macro, they're just starting points. So I could change the height to 45 feet, for example. And go ahead and add some secondary overhead conductor. It does have the links for the span, so that can be applied to the CU. And then I'm going to go ahead and add a service pole here. So just to show you what happened. I'm sorry. You can use the macros. They don't have to be like for like. So I could drop a service pole in. I could change it. I could go back to a standard feature like a wood distribution pole defined in the data model, change the height, fill this all out from scratch. I think that's what I do here. I'm going to put a wood distribution pole and give it a height of 35. Make it a class three. And then I can give it a material void. So all of these attributes that I'm showing here, either stored or calculated, can be completely configured by a system administrator. And we'll add the customer premise here. Add a macro for the service. And then just to show you what happens when you make a critical input error, like changing the phasing correctly on this transformer, let's try making some mistakes and seeing how that gets caught by the system. So first, the field address needs to be updated here. And you'll see that it says fail to create features. Phases do not match. So great catch. We're going to go back, fix that, put it back to a phase as it should be and go ahead and save. And then we should be able to save the wizard now and generate this overhead design. Okay. So everything looks like it generated and came through properly. I have my secondary meter. Again, could do a quick trace to verify. First, I'm going to go ahead. If you remember in the earlier video, I did add a distributed generation. So I'm going to go add a solar inverter to show you how that would look to add it behind the meter here. Give it a capacity. I think we are getting progressed on time. So I am going to go ahead and click through this a little bit. But you can see there that it connected through. If I did a trace, it's going to go and connect into my a-phase lateral. And if I had other of these in the system as well, I can very easily use my one bar search or my query builder to search the system and see where others of these exist in my network. It's a really cool feature. So you'll see one was found there. But if I zoom out, I can find three others very easily. It highlights and halos them. And last thing I want to tell you on design is the ability to close out the final steps of your design. So I showed you how it just does the merging of the features earlier. But what's actually happening behind the scenes, and I can do it as a separate workflow here, is I can check my design. So it's running a design conflict checked. And this is a really good overview of what the data model looks like as well. Your routes, conduits, conductors, segments, equipment, connections, circuits. So as this runs, it looks like we're getting check marks. So everything is looking good so far. I don't check for circuits or compatible units here. I didn't have it quite configured yet for this example. All that looks good. So this would then allow me to merge that. I did also click the Bill of Materials button right before I launched the design validation checks. All those CEUs I've been filling in and automatically associating to the CEUs and MUs as I was designing there for the features. It does give you that output view and allow you to print that and use it to put in your work packet, for example, or give the crew so that they can see everything that they need as well as doing costing estimates, for example, for the design job. I also just ran a system report there. So for this user that made this design, I can see everything that they changed and edited. If I close out, I'll see the proposed network again in orange, which is a configurable setting. All right. So that was adapted design from the office to the field. We quickly built both sides of a URD loop using the point and span wizard and then connected it with some of the streamlined capabilities offered inherently within the hierarchical model. We also showed the handoff and interoperability between designing from a computer in the office and from an iPad on site in the field. We got to see the tracing engine, which can be both as built or as operated in nature. And we also looked at the overhead point and span wizard and how that differs from the underground implementation. And then finally, I showed you the final steps of the design running things like design validation, generating a bill of materials and other user reports. So we have one last demo here. I know we're running out of time, so I might just click through this one very quickly. But what I do want to get across is that with IQ Geo and having your network model in adaptive grid, you're really set up nicely for any possible configurable digital workflow that you might need into the future. Both ones that are on your radar right now and the other ones that your team may have not even uncovered yet. So I'll click through this video very quickly before I turn it over to Adrian. This is just a quick example of an ad hoc inspection. So I have adaptive grid up. I'm just viewing an as built mode. What I'm going to do here is a quick little poll inspection on this poll here. So you are able to configure something like an ad hoc inspection object. If I click my add object button here, scroll down and click add inspection. So these are completely configurable with our smart smart form technology. You're able to do things like nested conditionals. You can expand. You can add things like calendars. You can upload pictures. You can do markups. But this is completely configurable and you can build these to suit any workflow that you could possibly dream up. So here I am entering some information. You can see how the form is expanding based off my inputs. It might want additional information. I can reference it to objects. I can reference it to adjacent objects. I can go ahead and add pictures. So let's say we were on our iPad. We took a picture out in the fields of this pull repair. And I can even create a canvas and do a little design markup if I'd like. So this is really nice. This will essentially live with the feature into the future. So multiple of these can be done. And it's a great way for the entire utility to have visibility into these different types of inspections. Now this was just a super basic example. We also have more formal ticketing type engines that can run your outreach management and different things to that nature. But definitely reach out. Let's set up a demo if you're interested to see more opportunities where we can help you out with your different workflows. So again, that was simple ad hoc inspection within Adaptive Grid. Happy to show you more. Please reach out. With that, I'm going to turn it back over to Adrian McNulty. And we're going to talk about how Adaptive Grid fits into your GIS environment. Adrian? Yeah, thanks, Troy. Yeah, so thanks for the administration, Troy. Really good. Now it's time to have a look at how Adaptive Grid fits into your GIS environment. Go to the next slide. Okay, so here's an example reference architecture with Adaptive Grid as the application to manage the network model. So with the Active Grid's modern open architecture and the new service-orientated architecture with ArcGIS, it's easier than ever to exchange the network model between the systems and really build an ecosystem that has the IQG at the center of network model management. This architecture reduces the IT overhead, allows you to consolidate different systems, one example could be it's not unusual that we see lots of different mobility solutions for different use cases. They can all be consolidated under the Adaptive Grid with the integrated mobility. This may seem like a new concept, but it's not. The telco industry went through a major transition a few years ago and is still going through that transition with a fiber to the home rollout. And they realize that they have to take a different approach to managing the network model. We've been working with some of the largest telcos in North America with a network model-centric approach, working in conjunction with their current GIS. Go to the next slide, Troy. So with this approach, the work and functions that are related to managing the network model will reside in Adaptive Grid. Whereas in today's world, network model management and GIS functions are typically combined to do that together in a single system. So for example, managing your network model, building a design, taking design to a field like Troy showed. Even digital workflows that Troy showed at the end of the last demonstration, integration to other operational systems and view visibility across the system, across your enterprise, whereas as it relates to the network model, all reside within Adaptive Grid. Whether you're printing your maps, spatial analysis, managing your land base, your polygons, spatial reports, these all can stay inside your GIS. And if you've got complex designs such as a multi-year project, you can still use CAD and bring those designs into Adaptive Grid, building a different ecosystem of how everything works together. Here's a quote from Elon Musk. You know, whether you like him or not, there's no question that his companies, they drive innovation and disruption. Look at Tesla, start off with EVs, they moved into storage, they're doing some demand response in the utility space right now. So I'd like, in closing, I'd like to ask you all a question. Can we help you prepare for the future? And are you ready to take a different approach to how you manage your network model? If you are, and you'd like to see your data inside Adaptive Grid, here's an example of a screenshot of Adaptive Grid, similar to what Troy just showed you, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out and we'll discuss how we can get your data and show it inside Adaptive Grid. Here's the email addresses so you can reach out to myself, Adrian, to Troy or to Andy. Also visit us at iqgeo.com or on LinkedIn at iqgeo or on YouTube or Twitter. With that, we're going to open it up to Q&A and thank you very much for listening. All right, Adrian, can you hear me all right? Yes, I can. We've received quite a few questions and we want to be conscious of everyone's time, but we're going to try that. So we're going to dive right in and we may have to respond individually to a few of these. So one that came in kind of early in the presentation is this. What are the main advantages of this product? Is it creating a new network model or is it maintaining the legacy network data efficiently? Yeah, can I take a stab at that one, Crawford? So that's a really interesting question. So my first thought was, well, it's both. And, you know, ET, you know, transforming data is something we're really good at. And I may ask Troy to pipe up because I know we have a data migration product on the telecommunications side, which of course is extremely sophisticated model. And we've got one under development on the electric side as well. But to me, the key point that I didn't want to gloss over is this is not a my way or the highway kind of thing. That's not how we work. What we've presented is an alternative that merits of thought and some consideration. But we're not saying that you have to use adaptive grid to manage your legacy map. There will always be people using a number of tools to do that. So I wanted to make that clear is this is not kind of something you have to do. It's an alternative that is available that has got some nice features. So I don't know. You guys have anything you want to add to that? Some of the feedback I hear quite often, Andy, is the ease of use in the adoption rates. You know, once there's on software projects, it's really important that you get quick adoption across the enterprise. And that's one of the feedbacks we get very often and the flexibility of designing the application for the user in mind. So that's one of the key advantages we hear as well. And then not forgetting where they came from, just the ability and the flexibility of how you use adaptive grid, whether you use it behind your desk, whether you use it on your iPad or your phone. It's a very similar user experience. Thanks. Thanks, Crawford. Yeah, absolutely. So the next one is an integration question. And it's what systems do you have experience integrating with and what mechanisms do you use for that? I can take a quick stab at that, Andy, Troy, if you want. So it's very common that we have integrations with multiple systems at any one customer. Starting off with GIS, we've got integrations both one way and two way with Esri, with Small World, with Hexagon. Moving into EAMs, we've got integrations with very common with Maximo, with SAP, even Open Grid. We also have integrations with Salesforce from a CRM perspective and also different workforce management systems. The ones I think of right now to mind are Clevest, also Service Suite from, I guess they call it Attachee now. And typically we're using REST APIs, but we're very flexible. Our open architecture, it's quite easy for us to integrate to other systems. Some of our customers have done some interesting integrations where they bring in data from other operational systems. For example, bringing in data from MDM as an overlay layer that they can turn on and off. And also integration with, Troy touched on it earlier, the ability to show the ads operating network. And also integration with OMS systems to work through operational outage tickets. So hopefully that answers the question. Very flexible, very common that we see multiple integration points. Great, thanks. So Troy, I believe these next two came in early during your demos. The first one is, what are your capabilities for network tracing? Yeah, great question. So network tracing, I think I did a lot of little traces there that you could probably see throughout the demos. But as I mentioned, we do have the ability to set you up for as built tracing. So tracing the as built network as well as the as operated network if you do have those attributes integrated in. But basically what that allows you to do is go upstream or downstream from any piece of equipment. And then we can also differentiate by phase. You can trace a phase only, B phase only, ABC, any which way you'd like. So we do have a lot of great tracing capabilities. The other thing I'll mention is that we do have the ability to ingest or design within transmission and substation modeling as well. So if you're tracing in the distribution network, for example, it doesn't just have to stop at the upstream circuit breaker. We can trace right on up through the substation one line and then out through the transmission grid. So really cool stuff there. Great. Thanks. Yeah. Sorry. I want just to add to that, you know, the key thing that never traced out here all the time is can you trace online and offline? And that again is one of our, I probably should have mentioned the key advantages. It's the same level of tracing that you do online. You can do in an offline mode as well. Perfect. And the next one came while you were showing the point and span wizard. So when you're using the point and span wizard, can I build any intelligence into my CU selection? And the example given is if I'm extending a single phase overhead line, is it possible for the systems to only show me a list of relevant single phase pull top assemblies? Yes. So when we built the point and span wizard, we also built in some backend configurations. So as a system administrator, you're essentially able to log into, you know, the proper window and each feature that you have within the system, you are able to then correlate to a overhead or underground definition. So I can tweak it so that if I'm a designer, right, you sit me down and I'm here supposed to be designing these overhead line extensions. I'm only interacting with overhead to use. I'm only interacting with overhead features. So it's really kind of heads down guardrails up. And it really is great for the data accuracy and validation on the front end, rather than having to build all these crazy QA, QC rules on the backend to catch up with. Okay. And I think we have time for one more. We're getting close to the hour. So one final question. If I select an existing object on the map, what network information is available to review? And some of the examples this person was asking about are phase, voltage, feeder ID, parent substation. Yeah, I can take that one as well. The answer is whatever you want to see, right? So out of the box, you're going to see the basics. And I'd be happy to give anyone on this call a demo and dive into our out of the box data model. But with the configurability of the IQ geo platform and adaptive grid, you can really come up with any, any, any stored field you can dream of per se can be attached and associated when you click on an object. And we also have a lot of power through our ability to use calculated fields as well, which are also configurable in the backend. But you can build in things like phasing. I can do a network association. I can associate it to multiple feeders, for example, if it's a normal open switch. You really have a lot of power to pick and choose what you want your users to be seeing. And you can tailor it and tweak it as well for different users. Yeah. And Troy, I could just, you know, the, you touched upon the configurability, like what's out of the box, what you can extend and configure. Because, you know, really one size doesn't fit all. There's going to be different needs and different utilities. And that's one of the beauties about adaptive grid is you can adapt to that. And also you can start at different points. So just add it to that, Troy. All right. Thanks, guys. We apologize if we couldn't get to your questions, but we will follow up individually. We're also happy to share this presentation if anyone would like to request it at the contact information Adrian shared there. So with that, we'll turn it back over to PJ. Thank you, Crawford. And thank you, panel. Fantastic presentation for our audience. We hope you've enjoyed today's discussion. As you log off, please take a moment to complete our survey and give us your feedback so we can continue to provide you with quality content. Thank you for attending. This concludes today's presentation. Thank you, everyone. Thanks, PJ.