Fidelity of Spec Data for Integrations

A primary goal of Feeder Services is to feed information into integrated applications, in particular Advanced Distribution Management Systems (ADMS) or Outage Management Systems (OMS). Thus, you need to consider the level of data fidelity required by these integrations and ensure your equipment specifications, or “specs,” can meet that level of fidelity.

• Some ADMS and OMS integrations might not need specs at all. Some ADMS and OMS integrations are possible based solely on the GIS attribute data captured during the subnetwork extract provided by Feeder Services. In this scenario, the content below in this topic would not be applicable.

• Some integrations might require specs, but since the more detailed electrical information is not typically found in the GIS, assumptions and defaults specs are used. In this scenario, a “Non-ADMS” approach described below might be applicable.

• Designer XI, however, is built on a spec model and does have strict requirements around spec mapping. It can support “ADMS” or “Non-ADMS” approaches described below.

  IMPORTANT: This means that Patch Integration with DXI cannot be implemented without some level of spec information and dynamic spec assignment.

What’s a Spec?

In Feeder Services, “spec” is a term that describes the electrical specifications of a component. For example, a transformer spec might look like the following:

Later in the implementation, Schneider Electric assigns a spec ID to attributes that inform the spec. For example, the combination of the six attributes above would receive a spec ID. Here, the decision is how detailed those assignments need to be, or in other words, how many unique combinations of attributes create the catalog of spec IDs.

• Non-ADMS — In this approach, you choose the minimal subset of attributes needed for Feeder Services to function and perform its network analysis calculations.

  The bulk of the attributes in the geodatabase receive a default spec ID (see the topic Configure Dynamic Spec Assignment (Optional) for more information about the default spec ID). The benefits of this approach are a faster implementation and having fewer attributes to maintain. The drawbacks are the data are less accurate, and if in the future a higher fidelity becomes required, those attributes with a default spec ID assignment need to be re-evaluated and most likely updated.

• ADMS — In this approach, a spec ID is assigned to every combination of attributes in every feature class that are edited in Feeder Services.

  This approach also includes creating new feature classes and attributes not already in the equipment catalog. The benefits of this approach include a high fidelity of data, better network calculation results, and more possibilities to push data into an ADMS. The drawbacks are a longer implementation and more attributes to maintain.