In collaboration with utility specialists.

John Evans, Good morning or good afternoon and welcome to today's webinar event, Grid Modernization Depends on Geospatial Mobility. My name is John Evans from K&A, Krishnan & Associates, the producer of this event and I will be moderating today's webinar. K&A is a provider of specialized energy industry marketing services focusing on a large range of energy transition technologies. In serving our clients, we routinely prepare technical market reports, white papers and industry reports. In today's webinar, we're going to start by discussing the findings of a recent industry report prepared by K&A on grid modernization and the role of geospatial mobility in advancing the energy transition. We will then have a demonstration session by experts from IQGeo, a leading provider and developer of field mobility software used by electric utility operators around the world to support the lifecycle of their grids. Before I introduce our four speakers, a couple of housekeeping items. You can download a copy of the research report that I mentioned by clicking on the event resources tab on your screen. During the presentation by K&A and IQGeo, feel free to pose questions by simply writing them into the Q&A box on your screen. We will address as many questions as time permits at the conclusion of the presentation and provide email responses to any questions that we can't get to. Now, allow me to introduce our speakers. Ravi Krishnan, Managing Director of Krishnan & Associates K&A, brings over 25 years of experience in the energy industry and has served more than 500 global clients on technologies related to electricity generation, transmission and distribution. Dr. Bob Peltier, Dr. Bob Peltier, is a senior consultant with the K&A team and brings over 35 years of experience in the energy industry, including a stint at Power Magazine as its editor in chief. Steve Tongish is the Chief Marketing Officer for IQGeo, bringing over 30 years of international marketing, business development and product management experience in software and hardware solutions. Roy Freisel Lewis is product manager for workflows and utilities at IQGeo, where he applies his extensive experience in distribution, reliability and smart grid engineering. Steve Tongish, Managing Director of Krishnan, Managing Director of K&A, and the first questions we have are for the K&A team, wherein we'll ask the authors to elaborate on some of the findings of the report. First question we have for them is, your research paper focused on field mobility and identified five key capabilities essential to success. Can you explain the significance of these areas? John, thanks. Thanks for the introduction. So basically we conducted a fairly in-depth survey and analysis among electric distribution companies. And our research included examining a lot of recent literature on data-driven decision-making in field service applications and utilities that have recently adopted field mobility solutions. So we went after a fairly, you know, a diverse but targeted group of end-use distribution companies. As many of you know, data-driven decision-making has emerged as a critical approach to meet these demands. In other words, leveraging vast amounts of data to enhance operational performance and strategic planning. One of the things we observed was that mobile applications play quite a pivotal role in this transformation by facilitating the collection and analysis of real-time field data. So, therefore, by integrating advanced data analytics, utilities can gain valuable insights, identify trends, and also make some informed decisions that drive efficiency, reduce costs, and also improve service delivery. Thanks, Ravi. Thanks, Ravi. Yes, our research did identify five key capabilities that were essential to success of field mobility in the utility sector. Let's look at those. The first one was real-time communication. You know, real-time communication enabled by mobile applications ensures that field crews and headquarters remain in constant contact. This capability is crucial for coordinating responses to emergencies, such as power outages or equipment failures, and for streamlining planned operational tasks. Instant updates on task status, schedule changes, for example, and new work orders ensure that field crews have the latest information, can improve efficiency, and reduce their downtime. The second item we observed was streamlined workflows. Mobile applications digitize traditionally paper-based processes. They consolidate work orders and maps and customer details and equipment manuals, even, into one accessible platform. And this digital work execution approach minimizes administrative tasks and manual data entry. It reduces errors and delays. So, by centralizing information and automating routine tasks, mobile apps enable field crews to complete tasks more completely and accurately, and thereby enhancing overall productivity and reduce frustration for the field crews. The third item that we noted was improved data accuracy. Mobile applications enhance data accuracy by allowing field crews to directly enter information in digital forms and databases while in the field. This eliminates errors associated with handwritten notes and manual transcription of notes. Validation checks and data validation rules ensure that only accurate and relevant information is recorded. And so, by maintaining reliable records, it supports better decision-making and then also compliance with regulatory requirements. And altogether, that reduces operational issues arising from inaccurate data. Yeah, that's true, Bob. And, in fact, a couple of additional takeaways or key capabilities that we identified were our research also found the need for enhanced safety measures. As many of you know, safety is a key KPI in all aspects of the energy business. And it's a paramount, you know, concern for utility field crews and mobile applications incorporate features that basically enhance their safety. So, real-time location tracking allows, you know, real-time location tracking allows a lot of the supervisors to monitor field personnel, ensure their safety, especially when they're in hazardous or remote locations, access to environmental and weather data, safety protocols, emergency contact information. All these help crews respond effectively to unexpected incidents. And, therefore, you know, when you prioritize safety through mobile technology, this mitigates the risk and also protects the employee's well-being. And, finally, you know, some of the most advanced utilities are optimizing their asset management practices as well. Mobile applications provide comprehensive asset information, you know, including equipment specifications, maintenance schedules, historical performance data. This information often helps field crews make some informed decisions about, you know, equipment repair, replacement, maintenance, optimizing, asset performance, their longevity, etc. And the apps also facilitate, the mobile apps also facilitate asset tracking, inventory management, allowing utilities to monitor the status and location of critical assets in real time. So, basically, so basically protective asset management minimizes downtime, reduces costs, and maximizes the reliability of the infrastructure. All these are critical KPIs both at an individual level and also at a corporate level. So, I think, you know, those were some of the key capabilities that we were able to identify, John. Very good. Thank you for the detailed response. Question two for the K&A team. In the research paper, you interviewed three North American electric utilities about the role of field mobility in the transformational process. What did they tell you about the importance of field mobility? Good question, John. In our research paper, we interviewed several North American electric utilities that are pursuing field mobility solutions in their transformation into data-driven decision-making, particularly in field service management. And these utilities, however, request that we not use their names in the report so that they could speak freely. But based upon our interviews, the first utility, for example, we interviewed was a large utility located in the Northwest. And this utility emphasized the critical role of mobile solutions in managing their electric distribution system operations. And they pointed out that field mobility has really revolutionized the speed and accuracy of their construction documentation. So they equipped field crews with IQ.geo software on iPads. And that enabled them to do real-time updates to as-built drawings directly on site. And that significantly enhanced their operational efficiency. And this improvement really ensures that data remains current and synchronized across the entire organization real-time. Therefore, it supports dynamic management of changes, reduces delays that sometimes took previously three weeks to six months to get as-built drawings done. Right, Bob. And this was also echoed by some other utilities we spoke to. You know, the second North American utility that I'd like to bring up is located in the northeastern part of the U.S. This utility highlighted field mobility as basically a cornerstone of its renewable energy goals. You know, field crews used mobile computers for automated or manual inspections and logging their data into the GIS systems. You know, transitioning from Toughbook computers to iPads, they basically adopted mobile applications for various tasks, including automated mapping and work order management. So, the utility's focus on integrating mobile solutions really underscored its commitment to operational efficiency and safety. The other point was that, you know, the real-time data access and updates through mobile applications have been quite pivotal in enhancing the utility's ability to handle the increased electrification and also the integration of DERs or distributed energy resources. Another interesting respondent was a city utility located in north-central California. This utility initiative to enhance, you know, field operations through mobile GIS technology reflected the broader trend of leveraging mobile solutions for, for improved efficiency and accuracy. In fact, the implementation plan included enabling real-time updates, synchronization of GIS data, and also GPS-enabled routing for field personnel. So, what we learned was that the strategy focused on establishing a robust and capable framework to support diverse operational needs while promoting data accuracy and efficiency. This initiative, you know, basically aims to significantly boost field operations efficiency, enhance decision-making processes, and also improve emergency response capabilities. John. John. Very good. To that question, let's go to the third question, which is, in your conversations, have you seen any compelling field mobility use cases or best practices that you can share? Yes, John. In our research paper, we highlight several compelling field mobility use cases and identify best practices from these interviews with these utilities and the case studies. And let me give you some examples here. First, in this Northwest U.S. utility, they improved their efficiency and accuracy of construction documentation by equipping field crews with IQ.geo software on iPads, as we mentioned. And this allowed for real-time updates to as-built drawings directly on site. And that enhanced their efficiency of their field crews. And more importantly, it ensured that data was synchronized across the entire organization. So, this approach significantly reduced the time required for finalizing as-built drawings down to immediate updates before the crews even left the job site. So, one best practice this utility noticed was utilizing a geospatial digital twin to provide field users with a complete view of the grid model. And that enabled immediate access to asset information and design updates. And as you know, a geospatial digital twin is a virtual representation of real-world assets or systems that incorporated geographic and spatial data to mirror their physical counterparts accurately. The second was the Northeast Utility. And they employed mobile computers for automated and manual inspections of its distribution systems. As we mentioned, they transitioned from Toughbooks to iPads. And they used the mobile applications for mapping, work order management, and inspections. And this strategy supports their renewable energy goals by enabling the efficient integration of DERs and electric vehicle charging infrastructure, for example. And they reported one best practice they highlighted as integrating mobile applications to perform this real-time data collection, including photographs of material condition, which are also logged into their GIS systems to maintain accurate records of underground infrastructure. Yeah. And likewise, for the city utility in California that we discussed earlier, they enhanced their field operations by implementing mobile GIS technology to provide real-time access to geospatial data and enable direct updates from the field. So the initiatives aimed to improve data collection, management, and decision-making processes across various city departments. They also pointed to developing a robust and scalable framework for mobile GIS applications, often prioritizing data synchronization, GPS-enabled routing that we talked about before, and user-friendly mobile interfaces to facilitate efficient field operations as a best practice. And finally, I think we should take note of the TEPCO, that is the Tokyo Electric Power Company disaster relief response. As most of you know, TEPCO is Japan's largest utility. And they used the IQGO mobile application to enhance disaster response capabilities during Typhoon Farsi in late 2019. The platform integrated location and asset information, basically providing a robust visualization tool to identify damaged locations accurately and also expedite collaboration with key decision makers. In fact, TEPCO conducted a proof of concept to trial functionality across various use cases, highlighting the platform's potential to improve disaster response and communication during severe events. This incidentally led to the platform's expansion to other businesses, business processes within Tokyo Electric Power Company. So, John, that kind of gives you some best practices that we came across. Interesting, indeed. Well, to sum up, what are your key takeaways from the research and interviews that you conducted? John, that's an excellent question to bring it all together. The first capability reported by these utilities was improved efficiency and accuracy. You know, field mobility solutions have significantly enhanced the efficiency and accuracy of construction documentation and other field operations. By enabling real-time updates and data synchronization, utilities have, you know, streamlined their workflows and reduced the time required for critical tasks. For instance, in the earlier example of the Northwest U.S. utilities that Bob was talking about, they reported that real-time updates to as-built drawings directly revolutionized on-site operational efficiency and data accuracy, reducing drawing turnaround time to days instead of weeks or months. The second observation was enhanced operational coordination and communication. Mobile applications, you know, facilitate real-time communication between, you know, field crews and headquarters, improving task coordination and response time. So, this capability is essential for both planned and emergency operations. And it also ensures that field crews have the most current information and can provide immediate status updates. This seamless communication often enhances, you know, overall organization efficiency and collaboration. And in my view, you know, the third takeaway, as we talked about earlier, was improved safety and situational awareness. You know, field mobility applications include features that enhance safety of utility field crews. Real-time location tracking, access to environmental data, and safety protocols are integrated into mobile applications. This often enables, you know, field personnel to respond effectively to emergencies and unexpected incidents. So, this focus on safety really mitigates risk and also protects employees. That's right, Ravi. And we also noted three additional takeaways in our report. The fourth item on the list is optimized asset management. One advantage of mobile applications is they provide really a comprehensive access to asset information in the field, including specifications, maintenance schedules, historical performance data. Those are some examples. And this allows field crews to make informed decisions regarding equipment repair and replacement and maintenance. And that optimizes asset performance and reduces downtime. And so, tracking assets in real time also supports better inventory management and overall optimizes resource utilization. The next thing we noticed also was an essential capability for utilities these days is support for renewable energy integration. You know, field mobility solutions are critical in supporting integration of DERs and EV charging infrastructure. All these behind-the-meter applications. Utilities highlighted the importance of mobile applications and managing increased electrification and bidirectional power flow associated with DERs. And these solutions help utilities achieve renewable energy targets by facilitating efficient interconnection processes with grid modernization. And finally, our report included some various case studies and best practices, as we've noted above. The report highlights several compelling case studies. The utilities that have successfully implemented field mobility solutions. And perhaps one that is most visible is TEPCO's use of IQgeo's mobile application during a disaster response. And that led to faster electricity restoration, improved situational awareness as they repaired immense destruction from that typhoon. Another case study from a city in north central California showcased the implementation of mobile GIS technology to improve the efficiency and accuracy of field operations across all of their departments, across the whole utility. Yeah. Thanks, Bob. Thanks for the additional takeaway points. And so I hope you found the survey findings quite relevant. We did try to have a comprehensive perspective from the utility sector. We look forward to your questions and comments. Do download the report that has a lot more detail. We also do, you know, download it from the resources section. I want to turn it back to John Evans, our moderator, to advance it to the next segment. John, over to you. Okay. Excellent. This does conclude the K&A portion of our presentation. We'll now turn it over to IQgeo, where Steve and Troy will walk us through some demos and end-use cases, illustrating how their mobile capabilities are applied to network lifecycle management. With that, we'll turn it over to Steve and Troy, gentlemen. Thank you, John. And thank you, Robbie and Bob. It's been a real pleasure to work with the K&A team on sponsoring this report. Our experience has shown that mobility is really an underpinning technology to the challenge that utility networks have and that they're facing right now. But it was really helpful to get the insights from an independent analysis that K&A provided for us. And so, really want to thank them for pulling together the report and getting these interesting findings. For those of you who don't know IQgeo, we are a geospatial software company that provides network management capabilities. So, we like to talk about supporting the entire lifecycle of the network from design through to build and operate and respond. We have customers all over the world. And some of the customers that Robbie and his team interviewed in the report, some of the companies that they interviewed are IQgeo customers, but some are not. And so, it was great to get that, you know, really independent perspective on what's going on. And I mean, I think they did a great job of summarizing the challenge that we all face in the industry today. The aging infrastructure, the extreme climate change, and the impact that that has on disaster response. And, of course, a lot of organizations are being pressured now to move towards net zero carbon emissions. So, that's really important as well. So, huge challenge. And this is why we asked the question about mobility in the report, or we wanted K&A to analyze that. Because where do you begin with these challenges? And it was great to see that a good place to start is with mobility. So, I really liked the five areas that they identified. And what we're going to do in this next bit, Troy and I are going to do, is we've got some demos. So, we talked about mobility, but let's show you what it looks like. So, you get an idea of when we talk about easy to use, or we talk about how do you capture field data corrections. We'll actually show you what that looks like. You get a chance to see. So, the first one is about really what we thought we'd do is give you a tour of our mobile interface. So, you can get an idea of what mobility can look like from an operator, from an engineer in the field. And the ability to have a simple user interface is really important because it does affect all of these areas that the K&A report identified. It's got to be real time. You've got to have clear workflows. It has a huge impact on improving data accuracy. Everything leads to better safety and, of course, managing assets. Troy, before we run the little demo, do you have some additional insights that you want to add? Because you were just out in the field with some of our customers just a couple weeks ago doing some field mobility applications. Yeah, thanks, Steve. I think the main point I would just reemphasize is the ease of use when it comes to a mobile solution. You know, in the field, talking with customers, as you just alluded to, if it's not as simple as the paper they're used to, they just simply probably won't use it, right? So we need to make solutions that meet the crews and the field workers where they're at. But also, you know, you'll see hopefully here in this short demonstration as you get familiar with the IQ Geo product, just how important it can also be to have a familiar interface on a mobile device as well. It shouldn't be a complete relearning experience from what you're used to, maybe in an office environment. So in this next demonstration, I'm glad to show you what the IQ Geo experience can look and feel like and just get a brief feel for the mobile experience. Okay, so this is a really quick little four-minute demonstration of what the mobile interface looks like. So let's take a... Welcome to IQ Geo's map-centric environment for utility operators, which gives you access to lots of helpful layers and tools right here on your mobile device in the field. There's a lot we can accomplish here, so let's dive in. Here you can see a utility network. And at the top, you'll find the one-box search. This allows you to search your network for features and addresses, build queries, and quickly find previous searches just like you would in your favorite search engine. You'll get detailed asset information for every feature in the system, like this poll, for example. Clicking on the feature record expands the attributes list into full screen on the mobile device, where you can view it, edit it, or go back into a map-centric view. Switching over to an iPad now, you can interact with the map more easily on this larger mobile form factor. Notice the tab on the left, which embodies details, layers, and help. There's lots of different layers that can be configured with the IQ Geo system, whether they be the underlying features in IQ Geo, or other systems external, whether they be work systems, traffic, fires, or other land-based data. It's very easy to turn these on and off one by one. You're also able to change the base maps and configure which base map services that you'd like to configure with the application. Using the one-box search again, we can search for a specific street here, which will take us there on the map. Zooming in will give us additional context, as you can set zoom layers for different features to show up at different levels. And there's also an embedded street view here, which is very nice to be able to see assets overlaid from the network into street view. And users love how easy it is to find network features in the field using this functionality. In the left details tab here, you can see a list of different attributes that are returned from a search or a selection. And we have a lot of capabilities here of what we can do with a feature once we have it selected. Something as simple as viewing the details in the field. You can get driving directions to the feature. You can use these hyperlinks to link to other associated features and records. And easily use the back and forth buttons to navigate back and forth. Even drilling down to associated records, such as the customers associated to a transformer, in the list view that you saw at the bottom. It's really easy as well to export these types of records to different formats for external consumption. You can set things like favorites and bookmarks. You can share the map either with a QR code or a link. And by turning on your location, you also enable the application to follow your device, which can be used for other various applications and use cases in the field. With IQgeo, the power of desktop tools are now available in the palm of your hands. The ability to not only access this digital network data, but also make changes directly from the field while you're at the location is a game changer for the utility industry. In the next examples, we'll cover how this can extend to use cases like digital as-building and digital design directly from the field. Yeah. Great. Are we back to the slides? Can everybody hear me? I think we're good, Steve. Okay. Super. Super. So that was the first one. Thank you, Troy, for preparing that little overview of what an interface looks like. So we picked a couple other use cases just to illustrate how it actually works. So with this one, it's about data correction, which is a common issue. So people are out in the field. The engineers are out in the field. They find something that isn't right. And so this quick one goes through and shows you how you can do data capture and correct that information, correct the network model and actually instantly feed that back to the people in the office so they know what's going on. That comes back to that real time communication that that Robbie and Bob were talking about earlier. Before we kick this off, Troy, do you want to want to introduce it a little bit more? Yeah, in this video, you'll you'll just see how easy it can be to capture as built corrections from a mobile device in the field. From experience, this is a huge issue at the utility level with respect to data accuracy. Unfortunately, as powerful as some of the tools are in the office to make these types of updates, it's in the field where you're collecting this data and making the realizations that things are not as they say, potentially in the system of record or in the GIS. So by bringing this out to the distributed assets in the field and bringing the power of updating to the hands of the field workers, that's really where the power comes in. So in this next example, we'll just show you how quickly and easily different records and features can be updated, whether it be in a blacklining scenario where you're actually editing the underlying features themselves, or just a simple redlining scenario where a crew leaves brief notes that quickly get routed back through the system to the GIS department that can then make the updates in a timely manner. Super. Let's again, this is about a four minute quick overview. So let's look at that now. In this video, we'll take a look at making some data changes or corrections and captures from the field with IQgeo. On my mobile device, I've got an internet connection, but this will work great if I don't have one as well. I'll switch my backdrop here so I can kind of see what we're looking at. There's different ways to capture issues that I might have with this particular piece of data when I'm standing out here in the field looking at it, and the map is following me around with the GPS of the device. The simplest approach is to just use a data correction form. This will initiate some instructions back into the office to say, hey, some change needs to be made. And you basically capture everything you want to know in the comments with a linkage out to the feature that has the issue with it. You could capture anything else in this configurable smart form as well. Of course, if you enable your field users to edit the data a little bit more directly, that's okay as well. So basically, I've enabled that here, and I get this little edit button. I can see everything about the meter. Then if I edit this here, I can basically make some changes to this. I can capture this or different information, change around the location by dragging and dropping this little red square, or anything else associated with this particular meter feature. We can also make changes down here to the equipment and wiretree. So we've got a data model that exposes all the different things associated with this meter. In this case, it might have more information about what the customer has on the other side of the meter, maybe customer-owned facilities like DERs and things like that. So the idea is that then if you want to capture even more information in the field beyond that simple attribute type of change, you could open up a new version within iQgeo. In this case, I've called this new version a redline package. You can call it whatever you want, whether it be as built, package, or design, for example. So I'm going to say that this is a redline here by default and give it a name. And then this is also all configurable to decide what you want to capture on here. I could also draw this and say, hey, it's going to be around this particular area over here that I'm going to do my work and populate that boundary however I want. So I hit save, and once we open that up, we get some tools that are available to us. And the first tool that we'll look at is our markup palette. We can move this wherever we want. It lets us capture points, photos, polygons, as well as different types of lines. We could add arrows, change the color, and control all of these details. We also have these linkages back to the feature that might be changing as well. Here we've got a photo feature and a text field as well. So if I want to enter in some new text into the system, I can basically enter that in all the information that I might want to talk about here, like meter over here, add in a meter leader line. I could have something selected to it, and I could draw the point to the map to see where that text is going to go, and then give it a leader line, and I can move that around, rotate it, anything else that I would like to do with the markup here as well. For this particular work that I'm doing, maybe I want to do even more. Maybe I want to have what we would think of as a black line or a more intelligent data entry. So if I click on my palettes over here, I can see some templated features according to my preferences as well as operational and organizational preferences from this list. I could select my favorite thing from the map and make a new one, or I could just pick up one of these from here and say, well, this is my favorite pole. I'm going to reuse it. It's got all the asset information saved already. I can change that in here. If I say, well, no, it's not going to be a 25-foot pole. It's actually going to be a 30-foot pole. Different classes, materials, et cetera, all the way down the list. So this lets us enter in that data and all these different options that I showed here have a workflow associated with them so you can decide how they need to go back into your GIS or to get published up to a higher level with an IQ Geo using the functionality on this toolbar right here. So that is digital as-building from the fields. And in the next example, we're going to take this a step farther to show what a full digital design could look like from the field. Excellent. Thank you very much for that one too, Troy. I think, yeah, it was a good example of how to improve data quality and create what we sometimes talk about, a virtuous circle of improving data quality with field operations. In this final example, we're getting a little more sophisticated because we're sort of adding the workflow, which is really important to field people as well, so that if you have a task to perform, there's a very clear set of operational steps that they can take in order to perform that task thoroughly and accurately. So in this one, we're going to do a field design example. Troy? Yeah, thanks, Steve. And this is really close to home for me coming from the distribution side of the house for a large IOU. It was always my dream to be able to actually go out and design effectively and efficiently in the field on site while laying eyes on the different assets that I was working on. You lose a lot in translation between taking a bunch of sporadic pictures while you're on site and measurements, and then going to five other sites, and then by the time you get to the office, having to sort it out in your camera roll and remembering where you were. So it was always the dream to be able to do this from a mobile device in the field. So excited to show you the next demo that just gives a high-level overview about the possibilities of what we call digital field design. And we're really just scratching the surface here in terms of what is possible. So this is some stuff that we've been working on recently and excited to show it next. Thanks, Trent. Here we go. In this example, we're going to perform a digital design from the field in IQgeo. You can see here we have on the map a new subdivision lateral that we're going to build. We're on site here with our location turned on, and I am in an active version, which we're calling here a design, which I've labeled new subdivision lateral extension. I'm going to open the staking wizard, which operates in overhead or underground mode, to go out and stake the new line extension that is being proposed. You can see here I can either tap on the map and get new rows within the staking wizard, each row being a feature that I can add to the design. And then I'm able to define other features at that location as well, such as the fuse bank. You can see my location is active now, and in the field I'm going to begin walking into the construction site. And you can see that the system follows me here with a dotted line and gives me a distance calculation from my takeoff point. As I approach my location, I have the target button here on the staking wizard that allows me to drop another point based off my user location rather than a tap on the map. I can then define the linear feature here, which is going to be my overhead primary conductor, which I'll give it phase designation of A. and call it an overhead lateral. That is proposed installation. Now you can see there was lots of other attributes which are all configurable that I could define here. At this point, I'll call this a wood pole. And I'm also going to install a guy wire at this location. And once I'm happy with that location, I can continue on walking to the next point within my design. Notice that I'm designing from upstream to downstream. The system will build connectivity as I go. Notice also that after my second point here, the system will also calculate a angle. So I'm at 27 .64 approximately degrees off of the previous point that was defined. We'll add another wood pole here. These are based off the palette, which was shown in the previous example. So I can use these predefined features with all of the attributes filled out already. These could also have CUs pre-associated to them. And I'll add another guy anchor here as well. Let's go ahead and add a transformer. I'm going to use another palette item here. I have an A phase transformer ready to go, which I'll save. There is data validation built in. So this is marked mandatory here for type, but you can mark anything, either mandatory or not mandatory, and the system will check that. Once I'm happy with my new lateral extension, I'll go ahead and hit save. And you can see that it has digitized it here for me automatically. So not only has it built the new lateral, but also it has calculated the bisects for these new guy wires. It's added my transformer. And it has filled out the connectivity tree here so that it is a live connected network. And I can do an upstream trace back to my fuse, for example, or beyond to the greater network. This is a way to easily and quickly design on-site while in the field using precise locations of your device. This can also be configured with things like GNSS receivers for high accuracy and precision. And now that I've completed this design, I can also export this to different file formats. I can also create and export automatically a bill of materials based on the associated features and compatible units and create a high-level construction overview print that can be used to instruct the crew on what needs to be done in the field when they go out to build this job. The other really nice feature in IQ Geo is the ability to route to a specific feature in the field. Whether I want to route to a pole or a guy anchor, for example, I'm able to use this route to feature to set that structure or point feature in the dialog box here. And then click route. You can see the dotted line reappears similar to what you saw on the staking wizard with a given footage that I am away from the target location. And as I walk in the field towards this feature, it's going to give me some feedback of how I'm doing along that route. So this is really helpful for staking applications, specifically a lot of construction sites. Things get moved around. Things get maybe run over by different equipment. So stakes can be there one day and not the next. This feature allows you to quickly and easily restake a job based on a given design. Again, this can be used in partnership with a GNSS hardware connection via Bluetooth, which the data is then brought in and you get high accuracy with your GPS location. And as I approach here, you'll notice the visualization of my approach is going to change. We'll get some pulsing to let us know that we are within a given radius, which will even increase further beyond that as we really get close to the target location. So it'll go from red to green, which means we're within a configurable tolerance. This can be changed in the backend. I think it's set to about a meter here, but that could be tightened even more, especially with a GNSS device. And notice that I can then also mark it as staked, which updates an attribute on the feature in the data model. Okay. That concludes our three short demos. So thanks again, Troy, for preparing those so people can get a chance to see what we mean when we talk about mobility and how the different use cases can be applied and how you use the software in the field. So again, like we said at the beginning of the session, we just feel that mobility is really key to helping to manage the whole life cycle of a complex network and an increasingly complex network. So if you're out shopping around for mobility tools or for an overall network management tool, I mean, the kind of four cornerstones that we always recommend people to look for is make sure that that solution has a very flexible utility model, a utility-focused model. Make sure you can use it anywhere. We didn't actually mention this, I don't think, Troy, but the software that we have can be used online or offline. So when you're in remote locations that don't have cell phone service, you can continue to use the product with the model built in. Make sure that you can integrate a whole different kinds of data sources and be a bit leery of solutions where they're big pushes and you have to do very long development cycles. We think it makes much more sense to do short, sharp development cycles to constantly make sure you're innovating and updating your solutions and getting return on those solutions. So at this stage, what we'll do is turn this back over to John and team because I think we have questions that we want to answer. And hopefully, Robbie and Bob will turn this out as well. Okay, very good. This does conclude the formal presentation. What we have left, there's some questions that came in from the audience and we'll address them as time permits and the time we have remaining. First question has to do with hybrid workforces. Any case studies usage with a hybrid workforce, external crews, internal crews, contractors, foreign crew, et cetera, best practices for managing access to the app and a BYOD for externals? Can you comment on that, please? Yeah. Maybe I'll start it off and you can jump in. I mean, this is really common because obviously, there's a lot of contractors used. There's a lot of mutual assistance teams that are used in the case of disasters or disaster response. with respect to our solutions, we have what we call burst licensing. So when we sell access to our mobility solution, a customer will have, pick a number, they'll have 300 licenses, but they can also contract to get burst licenses. So in the case of a storm, that can then flex up to many more licenses so that mutual assistance crews that are coming in from outside, bringing their own devices, can very quickly get up to speed. And our software runs on a lot of different devices, so it's easy for them to download and get access to the apps and get connected into the customer system or into that particular operator system. So it is quite easy to, well, it's very possible and easy to make sure that people have access to the application from a range of different contractors or suppliers. Troy, do you want to improve upon that answer? Yes, Steve. I would say that's a great response. And to add a bit, it's very important to understand BYOD capabilities when looking at potential mobile GIS solutions. Some strategies we've seen in customers we've either worked with or consulted with is them just having a set of essentially storm iPads or storm devices, if you will, that they try to keep updated and prepared to hand out from an internal perspective to contractors when they're coming in for mutual assistance. And it's a tricky approach to do it that way. So it's becoming ever more important with growing storm responses and requirements to have a solution that can handle BYOD. IQgeo specifically is available on the public app store for Android and iOS, and it does support BYOD for contractors. This is a key use case we've been working on across multiple utility customers. And the mobile outage management use case is one that clearly can roll into the concept of needing to support storm response. So we've worked extensively understanding these types of requirements for BYOD and contractor enablement across different utilities, and it's definitely been a key area of development that we've incorporated into the base product that can be handled out of the box in partnership with the customer's configuration and authentication engines and things like that. But great question and definitely an important topic to make sure that you have answers on with respect to BYOD. If I may add, also, as our research paper, the Northwest utility that we interviewed, they told us that they keep about 40 field crews working, plus they employ another 30 to 40 external field crews to keep up with their workload, and so they're all using iPads. It's a very good... flexible... You need a very flexible solution for those changing... those changing workforce requirements. Okay, very good. We'll shift gears a little bit and ask you, what is the biggest mistake you should avoid when deploying mobility software field engineers? Well, I mean, Troy, I think you've got a lot of experience here. where I've seen it work really well is making sure that those field teams are really involved in the process early on, as early as possible, to make sure they're really vested in it and understand how it works and contribute to the evolution of it. But what do you think? Yeah, I would definitely agree with you on that, Steve, and say that not involving key stakeholders from all sides of the business. So clearly, the end users that are going to be taking this to the field are, I would argue, most important for buy-in and having them involved in the process as well as getting familiar with the product and the platform from an early stage. If you're not doing that, that would be a potential big headwinds that you might be facing down the line when it goes to rollout. I know, for example, as we work with different customers on implementation projects, we make sure that those types of stakeholders as well as the IT stakeholders, the office and business related stakeholders all come in a room together to map out their processes, understand things that they may all just kind of take for granted as well and put those down into paper so that everyone can see the joint vision of how an incoming product can handle all the situations that they need it to. But the more hands-on, I think, from an early stage you can get even in just a proof of concept to encourage stakeholder buy-in is essential because these technology changes can definitely feel overwhelming. I know the utility market specifically can be slow to adopt change and there's many paper processes that are near and dear to the hearts of everyone that uses them. But I think with a product like IQ.Geo specifically, we try to emulate the search engines and the GIS experiences that they might be used to already in their daily lives just using things like Google Maps and Waze and other applications for routing and navigation and we try to embed those feelings and principles into our mobile products so that it's not quite as big of a change management and lift to get used to the new technology. Yeah. Dr. Okay. Question on manpower. Basically, how much training is needed by the field teams to use mobile applications? Well, I think Troy kind of hit on that already, didn't you, Troy? I mean, the software has to be designed in a way that virtually no training is required. So, it should be easy to use, natural to use and with things like workflows like you saw in the field design use case, it should be quite straightforward how to use it, what to do next, what information to capture. Troy? Yeah. I think that obviously, I probably got into that a bit with my last response, but I think it depends on use case as well. So, there's a lot of different conversations that could be had here with respect to, you know, is this just a mobile viewer, right? Are the crews just using it in the field to see that they have a, you know, a feeder line or a lateral or a fuse or a transformer, right? What is near me? What is the information at this asset and can I click on it and understand it? That's like the most kind of simple and, you know, low risk in terms of change management use case that you could probably go about as opposed to, you know, implementing a new outage management system or maybe some type of tracing capability or the ability to do, like, inspections and surveys in the field and capture that type of data. So, I think it's going to be very use case dependent in terms of the list in knowledge transfer and training. But we do, again, hope that the intuitiveness that we embody with the IQGO product that we try to strive for helps in those scenarios and, you know, in the kind of planning phases of any projects that we do, emphasizing the need to make sure that the end user has buy-in and the proper training and knowledge to be successful with the new product. Okay. Excellent. Another question, there are many different ways that field mobility software can be deployed. Which applications are a good place to start? So, I think that's definitely a try question. Yeah, sure. And, again, I kind of beat you to the punch there, but I would say general field mobility is always what we try to start with, just getting a useful field viewer. Many times we walk into different utilities and they might have three or four or 10 or 20 even, different ways of pulling a map up, either on a desktop or a mobile device that's all these siloed use cases that have made their way into their own GIS's and representations over the year. But I think a common single pane of glass, if you will, mobile viewer that can bring all utility spatial assets into one environment is the kind of quickest win that we've seen. But the other really big use cases that we've seen gaining traction very quickly is around the concepts of mobile outage management as well as inspection and survey. These kind of really revolve around the operations and maintenance cycle, but clearly with the key themes that the white paper discussed with K&A as well as the high level overview of the network lifecycle that Steve mentioned, the disaster resilience and the decarbonization are really ramping up the conversation around effective restoration and being able to respond to outages, whether they be blue sky outages or gray sky outages in a more serious kind of response level. The ability to manage outages effectively from a common system while also giving field crews that real time situational awareness to what's around them, what the status of the network is, upstream and downstream protective traces and things of that nature. This has been an encompassing use case that really shows the power of something like the IQ Geo products to be effective and enable field users in ways they've never had access to data and intelligence in the field before. As we continue down the path of technology, expanding into our everyday lives, there's not really a room for power being out anymore. Consumers and customers for utilities expect almost perfect reliability and that expectation gets even more expanded every day. The quicker and more enabled that we can make and help utilities be able to respond to outages in whatever form factor they may be, the better. That's been a really exciting use case that we've really dug into as a second step and follow up to general field mobility. Just to expand beyond that, we offer solutions across the entire network lifecycle, whether it be the planning and building phase, the construction, operations, and maintenance, and response. We do have mobile solutions for every aspect of that lifecycle. We have reached a hard stop and we're going to have to conclude at this time. I'd like to thank all our panelists for today's presentation. We had an excellent turnout. I'd also like to thank all of you attendees for spending some time with us today. This presentation has been produced and marketed by Krishnan and Associates. Please keep an eye out for future events from us, bringing you more information on advanced products and services within the energy sector. We're finding that today, more than ever, webinars present the ideal forum for communicating technologies, products, processes, and services to widely dispersed audiences. If you have an interest in learning more about our webinars, or if you have subjects of interest for future webinars, feel free to contact Ravi Krishnan, our first presenter, at 1-203-257-9232, or by email, rk.krishnaninc.com. You can also access our previously held webinars that are available on demand by contacting Luke Ratho, our producer, luke at webcastexperts.com. Thank you, and have a good day.