Nathan Sturgill

Public Utilities Department GIS Internship

11/04/21

Weeks 8 & 9

– The past two weeks have consisted of progressing through the CityWorks training programs. During the past two weeks, I have gone through the introduction course and the database and environment setup prior to Cityworks installation. The second course of CityWorks taught me how to work through the system using the basic installation method and working through how to mitigate issues involving the setup of the software. The AMS and PLL course also provided me with the information necessary to connect individual users of CityWorks to the system through a SQL server connection. Connecting individual users to the CityWorks system allows them certain access through the system to use its products and functionalities. 

Throughout this semester I have also been going through the CityWorks training programs and being taught by Janelle the ins and outs of the GIS system associated with the Department of Public Utilities. I have been going through the CityWorks training program because I will be an intern for Janelle Valdinger as an affiliate through CityWorks in the spring semester. These past weeks have also consisted of looking for apartments near the CityWorks location of West Bend, Wisconsin and this is because of the upcoming summer internship with the company I am hoping to be a part of. I hope to acquire this position and work with the partners at CityWorks in West Bend, Wisconsin and this has been a desire of mine ever since the presentation CityWorks gave to the students of Ohio Wesleyan University that I attended as well. CityWorks training programs have shown me that with the similarity to ArcGIS software, this would be a very good fit for me in the furthering of my path in GIS systems and knowledge to help me along in my future career. 

Nathan Sturgill

Public Utilities Department Internship

October 22, 2021

Week 6&7

• To start out week 6 I worked more on the initial basemap for the city of Delaware and the attribute audit for the storm and water systems located throughout the city of Delaware. I finished this attribute audit and was able to make clear to Janelle and the rest of the Public Utilities Department about the missing data in the storm and water systems in the GIS folders containing this data. This will help the department mitigate future problems that might occur when looking for data in the water and storm systems. After I finished the attribute audit I was then instructed to sign up for the Trimble company learning program that teaches the basics about CityWorks as a whole. Janelle instructed me to go through the course at my own pace and to work on the course while also learning the city of Delaware GIS ins and outs as well.

I was able to get started on the CityWorks training program and have so far made some progress throughout the program. I learned that the CityWorks system works very similar to that of Arcmap and ArcGIS in general, but it does have some key differences. For example, base maps in CityWorks do not work on the same editing scale that they do in Arcmap. I have been learning the very basics of the system and how to run everything in the system myself such as the process of making work orders for others to see in CityWorks and how to assign different people in the system to different problems that need to be addressed in the system. I expect to continue working on the CityWorks system and become familiar with the tools necessary to operate the system at a high level. I also continue to learn how to handle record drawings in the Department of Public Utilities and how to insert some of these record drawings into Arcmap with the help of Janelle.

Nathan Sturgill

Department of Public Utilities Internship (GIS)

October 8th, 2021

Week 5

To start out week 5 I was instructed to continue my ongoing work from last week, which included making a base map of my own through ArcGIS that I can work out of to help Janelle and the Public Utilities Department mitigate ongoing problems. In the ArcGIS base map, I have been using I have now learned how to properly create a definition query that can be used to find missing data in the City of Delaware GIS data sets. I was guided through this process by Janelle and have begun to create my own definition queries to find missing data and solve these problems with new values. The definition queries I have created and use are to find the missing data such as missing information about water valves, meters, and pipes located across the city of Delaware. This data is vital to maintaining the quality of water and drainage systems in the city of Delaware. I have also used definition queries to identify which record drawings created by engineers have missing values when placed into Delaware’s ArcGIS maps and also which record drawings contain a broken link that can help GIS technicians such as Janelle when identifying the problems associated with missing data in the record drawings.

I have begun working on an attribute audit for the different record drawings representing the different sections making up the city of Delaware. As of now the attribute audit only concerns the water and storm systems located throughout the city of Delaware and this missing data is the primary goal of the attribute audit. While creating the attribute audit I use a definition query to see what missing data lies in the attribute table for each water system and storm system. Creating this attribute audit has been a difficult task because all of the variables involved along with creating a definition query that is specific to finding a certain type of missing data and this can be very time-consuming. For the coming week, I will continue to work on this attribute audit that will help Janelle and others work within the department. I will also soon be instructed how the City Works GIS system is used by the city of Delaware by Janelle.

Nathan Sturgill

Delaware Public Utilities Department GIS internship

October 1, 2021

Weeks 3 & 4

      For week three I went over more ESRI tutorials and learned how to get started with LIDAR imagery used in remote sensing. This can be a very useful skill for the future and will help me stand out amongst my peers. I also reviewed the basics of ArcGIS to prepare me for week 4 and this included becoming familiar with all the basics again and learning to use ArcOnline more efficiently for the internship. 

     Week 4 has been the most informative week of the semester thus far. I have learned more about the city of Delawares GIS system and what goes into creating their base maps in ArcGIS that aid workers in placing work orders and mitigating problems across the city of Delaware. I am also learning to create my own base map as an intern and plan to help aid Janelle in creating solutions using GIS technology. I have learned to create a map of storm drainage pipelines located beneath soon-to-be-developed land within the city of Delaware and during this process, I have learned to distinguish between manholes, inlets, and outlets that are connected to the larger storm drainage system in place. A project like this can help engineers when planning and constructing the soon-to-be-developed land. Adding things in from Arc Catalog has taken some time because of the amount of data that the city of Delaware contains in their ArcGIS inventory. With all of this said I am excited to start another week for the internship and I look forward to working with more fieldwork/data in the future. Next week I will also continue the progress on creating my base map for the internship and will learn to create a definition query that can help solve problems related to the functionality of the system. On the agenda as well will be to work with different record drawings that show the layout of certain areas of the city and working on the details of these drawings to translate them into ArcGIS. 

I think what caught my attention the most while looking through the articles and website is how many aspects cityworks can be involved with at the city government level. It almost reminds me of vertical integration, where all assets and everything a city would need to be managed is all in one place whether it be pavement analysis, bills, permits, response and so much more. This is extremely important in marketing to new clients because they won’t have to worry about other external programs. Cityworks is truly convenient in the fact that everything can be managed on one site and cuts down on excess time for government employees.

Another thing that I enjoyed was the approach of going paperless with reports and work orders. I watched the video on Augusta, Georgia and it was clear that going paperless and integrating cityworks increases efficiency and productivity while also benefiting the environment. Lastly, I picked up that while cityworks serves many communities and has multiple aspects to its service, they never fail to help find what works for each individual city or airport. While cityworks has set services, they work with communities to find what works best for each client. It’s clear that cityworks can work for any city or airport in finding the right solutions to build a more efficient community.

When asked to find what industries that use Cityworks that utilize asset management, I think the more pertinent question to ask is “What industry doesn’t utilize asset management?” I’m being 100% legit, is there no industry here that looks at asset management and goes “Meh I’m good?” Nah. They all want a bit of that asset management pie, and to be quite frank, who can blame em? Just from looking over the power of the tools, from things like easy mapping tools to risk assessment, Cityworks provides many a service for those who need to streamline and modernize their work. I do have to say I am quite interested in the Transportation aspect of all this. One of the biggest complaints about public transport is that it’s not well maintained, so to be able to use Cityworks asset management to restore faith in public transit, that’s a win in my book.

With all the tools utilized by Cityworks, I do have to say I am impressed with how much of it was able accessed via cell phone. Normally one would have to lug around a laptop everywhere they go in order to make inputs into the system, but by being able to use a smart device not only do you not have to worry about that, it also makes the tools much more accessible to the average person, and it can be done quickly. Good thing too, my laptop is heavy. Although if I were to take full advantage of Cityworks and GIS via phone I may need a better SD card. Thing is constantly filling up for some reason, even though I barely have anything downloaded. That being said I do wonder how much space it does take up on a phone? If it turns out to be quite the space taker perhaps a new project could be to make a light version. How that would work, I do not know, I am not an app designer. Food for thought though.

What caught my attention most in the required videos and texts is how much work GIS can do to build a better community and help others. Being from St. Louis, whenever I hear or read about GIS it’s usually in the context of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and defense mapping so hearing about the positive side of helping people and communities is very assuring. Especially in the stories of Hurricane Irma and Harvey, it’s great to learn how planning and mapping resources can help mitigate and alleviate the pressures of natural disasters. Cities like Houston, Texas, and Miami Beach, Florida were allowed the upper hand in conducting relief responses with Cityworks software on their side. This shows how much of a positive impact GIS and Cityworks can have on populations. 

Another subject I found interesting was how GIS trickles down and affects everyone, as seen in the story of the Chicago Rockford Airport in Illinois. There, a transfer took place from paper to Cityworks regarding airport maintenance logs and FAA safety logs. The airport significantly cut back on delays and approved its overall efficiency, which impacted the travelers at the airport positively. In so many cases like this, the customer receives the positive result but does not always realize the effect GIS systems and Cityworks had on that positive result. GIS is connected to our everyday lives as society becomes more technologically advanced and it’s important to realize that impact as it will make us more efficient and cost-effective.

My perusal through the given material on Cityworks, ESRI, and ArcGIS has been insightful to say the least. First and foremost: Jack Dangermond. That’s just a sick name. If I had to write an action movie and had to come up with a moniker for the main character, Dangermond would very much be at the top of my list. On a more serious note, Dangermond made some very good points in his speech, the most noticeable being that all of these seemingly disparate areas and problems can benefit from proper geographic insights and planning. Not only that, but how more interconnected these many different fields are through smart planning and cloud computing so that all data can be taken into account when making important decisions, all with the intent of trying to improve society and tackle the problems that it faces.

On another note, I do like that one of the highlighted points made throughout the videos and articles was the inter-connectivity between professionals who use these tools and the general populace. It’s important to me, personally, that there is a layer of transparency and translatability between those two groups. It’s akin to scientific writing: while it is easy to read for those in the field, others might have a hard time understanding the content, making it seemingly unrelatable to them. It is on the role of the professional to make it so their work can be understood by the vast majority of people, so that input can be received on such studies. I am happy that ESRI and Cityworks seem to be on the same page as I when it comes to this, and look forward to seeing where this internship goes.

[pdf-embedder url=”https://sites.owu.edu/esgginternships/wp-content/uploads/sites/147/2020/09/fall_2020_cityworks_internship.pdf”]

My final week as a City of Delaware Public Utilities Employee, I can not believe its already over, it truly doesn’t seem real! Monday was my last day and Janelle had my spend it putting the finishing touches on my final paper. In order to do this Janelle got the chance to teach me one more awesome feature of GIS. She helped me to use the program to create my final maps that will be reflected as a part of my  final paper. I created a total of 5 maps that depicted two of the locations I worked on in GIS over the course of the semester. The two locations I choose to include in my paper were the Ravines at Olentangy as well as the Communities at GlenRoss. I choose these two because I felt the were a good representation of the major skills I learned over the course my internship. Each location included a before map, indicating what the GIS map looked like before I added any of the utility infrastructure to it as well as an after map, which illustrated all of the things I added, edited, or moved. Like all of my previous maps, the Ravines at the Olentany included the addition of the storm, sewer, and water infrastructure. The communities at GlenRoss only included the water infrastructure because that is all I had time to work on, however I wanted to include it because it was by far the most complex map I created. It was a great feeling seeing these maps finished, and in my opinion they turned out beautiful. They included a title, a legend, a north arrow, and of course all the work I put into them. It was great getting to see these as a part of a finished project and it was an even better feeling turning in the final paper. Although I am said my internship has come to an end, I am so thankful for the experience, the lessons I learned, and most importantly the people I meant. I owe Janelle a huge thank you, she was the best supervisor anyone could ask for and I am forever in debited to her for all she did for me!