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Introduction

This section outlines how to setup WinCan VX projects for HADDMS round-tripping, beginning with shapefiles delivered by the client.  This process assumes that there is already some data on the HADDMS system for this stretch of road, but occasionally there isn’t any so there is nothing to round-trip and all we can do is deliver new data back to the client, and working with this situation is possible as well.

The days of sending an operator to site with a drawing and expecting them to setup the WinCan project themselves and delivering it back to the office are gone.

In this new world, there is an extremely important element of office time to setup the WinCan project before it goes to site with the start of the round-tripping process and preparing the data for site as is described in this section.  Do not skip this section.  With practice, this does not take very long, but getting it right is vitally important.  A small amount of time doing this a few days before going to site (i.e. not trying to do it for the first time at 4:45pm on the afternoon before leaving the office when the crews are going to site tonight!) will pay dividends in case of any issues and give you the time to call WinCan for support if needed.

Importing HADDMS shapefiles into WinCan VX requires using mapping files which tell the application how to transfer the data from the source shapefiles (from HADDMS) into the target database (in the WinCan project), and these are also used to export the data back out again into the shapefiles for delivery to the client.

Understanding how these mapping files work and what can be done with them is not really relevant during initial project setup because we have already taken care of it for you and the files are set inside the software, but there may be a need to understand and modify these or create new ones at later stages in the process, and this is described in the section Importing External Data.

Once projects have been setup, we recommend using WinCan Web for sharing the data between the office and the TV vans and back again at the end of each shift or as work progresses through the shift.

Clean Project with No Shapefiles

To create a WinCan VX HADDMS project, simply create new project in the normal way, and be sure to select the DDMS_CD535 option in the Project Standard drop down list:

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This option will not be available if you do not have either;

• WinCan VX Expert version, or

• the HADDMS license slot on your account.

The Project Name can be whatever you wish.  It is merely your own internal project and folder name for your own records.  What matters most is the Client’s Scheme Reference which is applied against the Job record as described in WinCan VX Job Management.

Move on to the sections on this page Marking Objects as ‘To be Inspected’ and Preparing for Multiple Vans on Site.

Simple Data with One Catchment

So, you have a set of HADDMS shapefiles from the client which have the file and folder structure as described in the section Shapefiles.  The first thing you must do is unzip the shapefiles and save them to a suitable location on your PC.

Next, open WinCan VX and click on the ‘Import from GIS’ button in the ‘Data Exchange’ ribbon:

You will be presented with the ‘WinCan VX Project Creation Wizard’ pop up which looks very similar to the one you get when you create a regular project, except that it does not have a field for entering the Project Name.  All you have to do here is select the ‘DDMS_CD535’ option in the ‘Project Standard’ drop down list and then click the Next button.

Warning – there is no point in carrying on from here if the ‘DDMS_CD535’ option is not available to you in this drop-down list.  You must stop and do not proceed and call WinCan on 01483 762222 for support.

You will now be sent to the next screen where you can use the grey button with three dots at the top-right of the panel to navigate to the unzipped folder where the shapefile is saved, and you just need to select one of the .shp files (point.shp, continuous.shp or region.shp) and click ‘Open’ and now, you will see something like the next image

In here, you will see that the Project Name has been set for you (remember, it was not visible in the last screen).  If you wish to change it, then you can.  Just edit it in the Project Name field, but by default it will take the catchment name of the first shapefile family that it finds, and in this scenario, there is only one set of shapefiles.

You will also see all of the relevant .shp files are loaded and the mapping file are automatically selected and selected for import.  Your results may look different to the ones here maybe if you have a region shapefile in the data or if you have an observation.dbf file in the data, but there is nothing more for you to do here now except click on the green tick to proceed with the import (do not make any edits to the checkboxes or mapping files):

You will now see the progress of the import.  It will not usually take very long, but times can vary based on the number of assets to import and the processing speed of the PC.

At the end of the import process, there may be some errors presented to you, but provided the splash screen says ‘Project created with warnings’ or something more promising than this, then everything is good.  Click the green tick again to proceed.

Now, your project is created but it will not open by default in the application.  You will find it in your project list in WinCan VX and you can click on it to open.

Check out the job information.  Make sure it is correct for you (the contractor) and the client before going any further as described in the section WinCan VX Job Management.

Move on to the sections on this page Marking Objects as ‘To be Inspected’ and Preparing for Multiple Vans on Site.

v13.0 Update - Duplicate SUPP_REFs

From WinCan VX v13.0 there is a new feature that is design to stop data from overwriting itself at the point of import into a project.

The source of this issue is that while in HADDMS data all SUPP_REF’s in the point and continuous shapefiles must be unique, there is nothing stopping there being duplicate SUPP_REFs in different catchments, which then causes problems on import into WinCan VX.

This issue is only seen when importing more than one catchment into a VX project.

With the new update, WinCan now checks for duplicates across the different catchments in the point shapefile when the user clicks the go button for export. This feature is not optional and is independent of the data validation user option. If duplicates are detected, we get a message box like this:

The table lists the shapefile where the duplicates have been detected, the SUPP_REF of the duplicate objects and the catchment IDs where the duplicates exist.

From here, the user can export this list to a spreadsheet or they can click next. After clicking next, there is a message, like this:

Please consider carefully what you would like to do next, because there are two options:

• Green tick - this will fix the duplicates for you.

  • It will leave the first duplicate object it finds untouched.

  • It will add ‘_1’, ‘_2’ etc to each of the other duplicate items in the VX project.

  • It will modify the shapefiles and update the point.dbf.SUPP_REF, continuous.dbf.SUPP_REFDN, continuous.dbf.SUP_REFUP, observation.dbf.SUPP_REF and LINKDATA.DBF.SUPP_REF values with the same updates as in the VX project.

• Red cross - this will close the process and will not import any data. If you have taken a spreadsheet export file from the previous step. then you may wish to edit the shapefiles yourself to remove the duplicates using the spreadsheet to help you, but be very diligent when doing this:

  • If you modify the SUPP_REF of an item in the point shapefile, then you must also check for and modify the same for all instances of:

    • the SUPP_REFUP in the continuous shapefile, and

    • the SUPP_REFDN in the continuous shapefile, and

    • the SUPP_REF in the observation.dbf file, and

    • the SUPP_REF in the LINKDATA.DBF file.

  • If you edit a SUPP_REF in the continuous shapefile, then you must also check for and modify the same for all instances of:

    • the SUPP_CON in the point shapefile, and

    • the SUPP_REF in the observation.dbf file, and

    • the SUPP_REF in the LINKDATA.DBF file.

After all of these edits are made correctly, you can try and import the data again into WinCan VX.

Joining Segmented Pipes

There are occasions in the HADDMS data online where the geometric data that is exported into the shapefiles was originally created from ‘as built’ CAD drawings. When this happens, it is common to see continuous items that are split up into sub-pipes at the connector nodes.

Have a look at this example:

What we are seeing here is a continuous item which fundamentally goes from CP1 (catchpit 1) on the left to CP2 (catchpit 2) on the right, but along the way it passes through a number of connector nodes (CN1 - CN4) where maybe gullies connect into the pipe.

Look at the blue lines - this is the visual giveaway. When continuous items are rendered in WinCan Map, we only draw 1 arrow on each line, and as you can see here, there are 5 arrows which means that there are 5 separate pipes.

Why is this a problem?

From a general CCTV inspection perspective, it is not really possible to inspect the pipes from CN1 to CN2, CN2 to CN3 and CN3 to CN4, and in a CCTV van we would would simply inspect the whole pipe from CP1 to CP2.

If we look in the WinCan VX data section table, it looks like this:

The data in WinCan VX reflects what we are seeing in WinCan Map as expected and the items are continuous, so the first pipe is connected to the second pipe is connected to the third pipe etc.

The process described here joins all of the segmented pipes into a single pipe from CP1 to CP2 while retaining the geometry of the component parts and does not remove the connector nodes in the middle as point items.

This is a manual process that needs to be completed in WinCan Map while it is connected to the WinCan project. There is no automated tool for this at the time of writing this, but it is being considered, so unfortunately, it is a case of working through the geometric data in Map and looking for obvious instances of this problem by seeking out multiple arrowed pipes between connector nodes.

When you find instances like this, carry out the following process in WinCan Map:

1. Select the WinCan Sections layer.

2. Click on the Select Point tool in the ribbon bar.

3. Click on the first pipe that needs to be joined.

4. Hold down the shift key on the keyboard and select each of the other pipes that need to be joined.

   1. Alternatively, you can use the select rectangle, polygon or circle tools to make the combined selection, but be sure that you don't accidentally select objects that you don't want to join.

5. Right click anywhere in the work area and select the option to ‘Join Sections’.

6. That’s it, the process will work in the background and will be done in a few seconds.

The results look like this in WinCan Map:

As you can see, there is only 1 arrow on the continuous item now which means that the previous 5 items are now 1 merged item.

The results in WinCan VX now look like this:

See now that there is only 1 section from CP1 to CP2 and it has the full length and geometry of all the segmented parts that were used to create it.

Important Note on the Data:

Before we started this, there were 5 individual continuous items and they all had their own attributes, supp refs and HADDMS refs etc, but now there is only 1 item, so what has happened to the data?

All of the attribute data from the first upstream item has been retained and all of the other data has been deleted.

This means that the HADDMS ref is still valid and will be updated with the new asset geometry and attributes on upload to the HADDMS system, and the other 4 items will be deleted, so the data on HADDMS has been cleaned significantly by this process.

Complex Data with Multiple Catchments

When there are multiple catchment families of shapefiles involved in the project, the import process is essentially the same as described in section on this page Simple Data with One Catchment but there are some key differences and a bit of preparation goes a long way.

The recommended way to import multiple catchments into a single project is using the ‘Include Subfolders’ option in the import wizard.

This tool looks for additional DDMS shapefiles in no more than one sub directory of the parent data set, so you must have a folder with catchment 1 unzipped and inside, and then you can have any number of sub folders inside with additional catchments, but not folders inside folders.

See that the import machine has found the 2nd level of folders and the shapefiles inside with no other edits of data required:

From this point, the process is the same as described in the previous section Simple Data with One Catchment on this page.  WinCan will load all of the shapefiles and all of the mapping files automatically when you select just one .shp file at the folder navigation step, and then during the data import, it will automatically create one job for each family of shapefiles in the WinCan VX project.

Update in WinCan VX v11.0

It is no longer necessary to rename all of the shapefiles as decribed above. The ‘Import from GIS’ tool now has some new features:

1. The first checkbox for ‘Validate Data Before Import’ is on by default but can be turned off if needed. When active, it validates the shapefiles inside the WinCan Map HADDMS shape data validator before importing it, and if there are any critical erros, then the import is refused. Non-critical checks are not tested.

2. The second checkbox for 'Convert Data Values' is also on by default and this tool modifies old historical data in many fields during the import process. There are many examples of these, but the most commonly seen ones are the field value HE for asset ownership and PVC for pipe material. These codes are in the HADDMS database and will be in your import data, but they are not valid anymore, so we convert them to HA and PV respectively which in turn means that you will not see a whole bunch of validation errors in your data further down the line. There are many other fields that have a similar problem.

3. This is described in the section above.

Marking Objects as ‘To be Inspected’

When we load one or more HADDMS catchment shapefiles into WinCan VX, it is unlikely that the scope of work from the client will match perfectly with the catchment extents, so to help the teams on site, it is a good idea to mark the sections, laterals and nodes in the VX project (regardless of which jobs they are attached to) as ‘To be Inspected’

When this is done, it only takes one mouse click for the site teams to filter out the work to be completed and they can ignore all the other assets in the data.

In this section, we will start to use the filtering tools available in WinCan VX, and the more time you spend working with HADDMS data, the more you will come to rely on these tools because of the large datasets that usually accompany HADDMS projects:

The first thing to keep your eyes open for is to quickly identify when a filter of some description is currently applied to your data, like this:

In this example, it is clear to the user that a filter of some description is applied (in this example, only Asset Type = Pipework are showing in the list) because the list of assets has a yellow background (it’s normally white), and one of the buttons in the Quick Filter panel or the User Filter panel is orange.

To remove the filter, all you need to do is click once on the orange button in the ribbon bar again, and the filter will be removed.

Using filters is explained in the section Using Filters in WinCan VX in a lot more detail and these are very powerful tools in WinCan VX.  For now, all you need to be able to do is clear any filters that might be applied during this procedure for marking objects as ‘To be Inspected’.

So, you now have a WinCan VX HADDMS project loaded with some catchment data from the client.  Now, click on the ‘WinCan Map VX’ launcher button (the green W) in the lower-left corner of the WinCan VX window and your project will be loaded in Map and connected to the WinCan VX project database.

Note – if you have created your own stand-alone launcher shortcut for WinCan Map VX on your PC as described in the section Shapefiles, then you can use this also, but after launching, Map will not automatically be connected to the WinCan project database.  To make the connection, click on the ‘Connect WinCan VX’ button in the Tools ribbon of WinCan Map VX:

This button will remain orange as long as there is a connection to the WinCan project.

When you are connected to a project in WinCan VX, you will always see these layers in the Layers panel on the left-hand side in WinCan Map VX which is another visual clue that Map is connected to VX:

• WinCan Manhole Parts

• WinCan Observations

• WinCan Inspections

• WinCan Manhole Observations

• WinCan Manhole Inspections

• WinCan Manholes

• WinCan Sections

When we were working previously with just shapefiles and no connected WinCan VX project, these layers were not there.

Because the connected project is a HADDMS database, WinCan Map VX will also load a pre-made theme on all layers that is included in the software:

Notice the symbology of the nodes and the line types which are the recommended ones for HADDMS drawings.  The legend of these can be expanded by clicking on the small + icon to the left of the layer in the Layers panel where it exists.

To make a selection of some assets to be inspected, we must use the tools available in the ‘Select’ panel of the Home ribbon in WinCan Map VX.  Also, as described in section Shapefiles, we should always work in a clockwise motion around the screen, starting by selecting the layer that we wish to work with:

1. In WinCan VX, select the Sections tab and ensure that there are no filters applied.

2. In WinCan Map, click on the ‘WinCan Sections’ layer in the Layers panel on the left.

3. In the Home ribbon, click on ‘Select Rectangle’ (i.e. ‘Rectangle’ in the ‘Select’ panel) or any other selection tool option that you prefer.

4. In the workspace, drag a rectangle over the assets that you wish to inspect.

The result will look something like this:

Notice the objects that have been selected in this process are all those that are;

• in the current layer (i.e. WinCan Sections), and

• wholly inside the selected area, or

• partially inside the selected area.

The area selection tools always work this way in WinCan Map VX.

Now click on the button ‘Filter in WinCan’ and go back to WinCan VX:

You will see that the filter has been applied for you in WinCan VX and the ‘Apply Filter’ button is orange.  The next step is to click on the ‘Search and Replace’ button:

Here you can set the field ‘Inspection Status’ from the first drop-down list and select the option ‘To be Inspected’ from the last drop-down list.  The options in the middle like ‘Replace always’ and ‘Current value’ make no difference at this stage.  You can ignore them for now until you would like to do some more advanced replacements.

Click on ‘Replace’ and then exit this tool.

Clear all filters and notice now that the selected items are marked as ‘To be Inspected’ in the asset list:

Now select the ‘Laterals’ tab and repeat this ‘Select objects in Map and then Bulk Update in VX’ process, and then again for Nodes.

Note – in WinCan Map VX, laterals are all included in the ‘WinCan Sections’ layer.

The reason why we have done this will now become clear, and this now makes the data really user friendly for the CCTV crews on site, and the following steps are described again in the section CCTV Site Work.

The site team now only need open the WinCan VX project, launch and connect WinCan Map, and choose ‘To be Inspected’ from the funnel option on the top of the ‘Status’ column:

Then, go to WinCan Map VX and click on the ‘Filter from WinCan’ button in the Home ribbon to display only the assets that need to be inspected on this job, like this:

You may have noticed in these examples that there are pale blue lines and dark blue lines included in this filtered data, and the pale blue lines are surface assets like ditched and kerbs, so these might not be suitable for inspection by a CCTV crew.  So, try to further extend and qualify the filters and the objects that are marked as ‘To be Inspected’ by using the User Filter:

From here you can deselect the surface items and remove them from the ‘To be Inspected’ list, so now your filter in WinCan Map looks like this and is showing only the below ground pipes that the CCTV team will inspect:

However, this does not mean that the surface assets are exempt from being inspected.  Under normal HADDMS deliverables rules, all drainage assets must be inspected and by the end of the project, we will have all of the data for all of the assets inside the WinCan project, not just the pipe CCTV surveys, so make considered decisions about what you want to mark as inspected and where not to do it.

Using the filters in both WinCan VX and WinCan Map VX will be explained in more detail in the section Using Filters in WinCan VX.

Preparing for Multiple Vans on Site

In the earlier v7 version of WinCan, it was possible to rename a project by simply renaming the database .mdb file in the project folder.  This was simple, and it worked, but this does not work in WinCan VX.

If you take a WinCan VX project folder and copy it to a new folder directory, and then rename the database files and the parent folder to a new name, then you will not be able to load both of these projects in WinCan VX at the same time.  You will never see both projects in the project list on the left-hand side of the user interface because the name of the file does not define the existence of the file.

This is true of all WinCan VX projects, not just HADDMS projects.  If you try to do this, then when you load the copied version of the project, it will replace the original version in your project list.

Why does this happen?  The reason is because inside the application, the identity of the project is not defined by its file or folder name.  It is defined by an internal key code (known as a GUID) which is hidden inside the database and you have no access to it.  Then of course, when you copied and pasted the folder and renamed the files, you did not change the internal key, so WinCan VX sees both projects as the same project.

So, the next process helps you to manage this project safely and share it with multiple vans or users.

1. In the WinCan VX Data Exchange ribbon, click on the ‘Copy’ button.

2. This tool will make a duplicate copy of your project with a new name and a new internal key, so now it can be distributed to a van.

3. Next you will see a pop up where you can set some options like the new project name and what is to be copied.  These are the recommended settings:

4. Use sensible project names like maybe:

   1. My ‘Master Project’ is called ‘My HADDMS Project’.

   2. My sub projects are called:

      1. ‘My HADDMS Project Van 1’

      2. ‘My HADDMS Project Van 2’

      3. Etc.

Now, you can share these projects with the vans with no fear of walking into project merging problems further down the road.

If you already have some projects that have already been to site and have some inspection data which are suffering this problem where WinCan VX will not allow you to merge them because it thinks it is merging a project to itself, then you can use this tool on at least one of the problem projects to make a full copy of it with a new GUID.

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