ArcFM Solution: The Director's Cut

Process Manager: A Real Time Jobs Dashboard

Whether you are running Session Manager in ArcFM or Workflow Manager in Designer, you can benefit from Process Manager. An out of the box executable provided with the core ArcFM Solution install, Process Manager is a standalone application that allows users to monitor the real time status of all jobs across the enterprise. With a simple interface resembling that of Session Manager and Workflow Manager, this application permits a multitude of actions with any given Session or Design, be it examination of job progress, creation and/or reallocation of work, review of historical job details, etc..

Even with this significant range of functionality, Process Manager does not consume an ArcFM Solution license. This key benefit permits use across the organization by a host of supervisors, managers, and executives without concern for exceeding a fixed license allotment.

The ProcessManager.exe resides in the ArcFM Solution install directory under \Program Files\Miner and Miner\ArcFM Solution\Bin

A Tip for Pre-Posting in Designer

For many Designer sites "pre-posting", the process of reconciling and posting a completed design job to the master SDE.DEFAULT database version prior to final construction in the field, is a common practice. Pre-posting can offer many benefits: enterprise wide access for visualizing completed jobs, network tracing across new and existing facilities, layout reference for multistage design jobs with facility dependencies, etc..

Designer sites who currently employ pre-posting may benefit from an advanced configuration setting in the Process Framework titled WMSUsePostWhereClause. This setting automatically directs the Verify Design subtask embedded in the standard Design Post task to intelligently limit deletion of a design's features based on the unique Design ID value of the current design (coupled of course with the feature's specific Work Function value). Limiting this delete behavior as such permits a user to reconcile their job to SDE.DEFAULT over its lifetime without fear of mistakenly deleting facilities during a final post that were never part of their specific job.

An administrator can apply this setting (a value of 1 indicating "on") via the Configuration tab within the Process Framework Administration Tool. Refer to the ProcessFrameworkAdminHelp.chm Help file for more detail on this setting as well as a variety of other advanced configurations options.    

What Can LicenseRegistrar.exe Do for You?

Often overlooked, LicenseRegistrar.exe is a powerful diagnostic tool providing access to critical information regarding license and license server details for the ArcFM Solution. Administrators can launch this utility via a simple command prompt to determine and monitor both the status of the ArcFM Solution license server as well as key specifics surrounding valid ArcFM Solution licenses (e.g. license server status, available and in-use license counts, user, machine name, and check-out times for individual products and extensions, pending license expiration dates, etc.)

To access this helpful utility, simply open a Windows command prompt, navigate to the local ArcFM Solution install directory \Program Files\Miner and Miner\ArcFM Solution\LicenseServer, enter LicenseRegistrar.exe followed by a space and the license server machine name, then press [Enter] on the keyboard. Here's an example based on a local C: drive install of the ArcFM Solution and a license server machine named "sundown".

C:\Program Files\Miner and Miner\ArcFM Solution\LicenseServer>LicenseRegistrar.exe sundown

A well organized, color coded report is displayed detailing this important information in a dashboard style layout.  So, "What Can License Registrar.exe Do for You?" Well, quite a bit actually.

Changing the Database Connection Without Restarting ArcMap

If you are juggling multiple geodatabases - test, production, and development instances, personal and file geodatabases containing extracted data, etc. - then you know the importance of connecting to the right geodatabase before making any changes. When you start ArcMap, the ArcFM login screen is the first thing that appears, allowing you to specify which geodatabase you are connecting to, in order for that geodatabase's unique configuration of functionality and rules to be in effect as you work. 

After you begin working in ArcMap, if you later need to login to a different geodatabase you can reopen the ArcFM login screen without restarting ArcMap. On the ArcFM toolbar, click the Login to ArcFM button. When the Login to ArcFM dialog appears, browse to the desired geodatabase. 

Because the layers currently in your map still point to data in the previous geodatabase, it is usually wise to apply a Stored Display immediately after logging into a different ArcFM geodatabase. The Stored Items lists will always show Stored Displays, Page Templates, and ArcFM Documents from the geodatabase you are currently logged into, not from any previous connection.

You can login to a different ArcFM geodatabase as often as you want and at any time, as long as you are not editing.