An area filter allows you to determine whether a work request falls within a zone that has particular equipment requirements. For example, if a work request falls within a fire zone, the engineer may want to use steel poles that won't easily go up in flames. This filter takes into account the zone in which the work request falls and presents a list of CUs that are appropriate for that zone.

Area Filter

An area filter looks at any polygon features (or areas) that intersect the work request polygon (in yellow in the image below) associated with the current design and presents any area filters that are relevant. The example in this section assumes an administrator has already created these filters (discussed below).

For example, a work request may intersect a polygon feature that indicates a fire zone. When the Designer clicks the Area button in the CU Filter, the tool presents him only with the fire zone filter. The fire zone filter shows those CUs that are appropriate for that area (as determined by an administrator).

If the work request polygon is lucky enough to intersect both the fire zone and a high wind area (as shown in the image below), then the Designer will see the fire zone and high wind filters. He can check/uncheck these area filters to view different sets of CUs.

The filters presented (e.g., high wind, fire zone) offer a list of compatible units that are appropriate for that particular area type, or all area types if multiple are selected. For example, the fire zone filter may offer only steel and/or cement power poles and no wood power poles since they don't fare well in an inferno.

In the image below, there are no CUs that are appropriate in an area that includes both wind (blue) and fire (red). Probably not a good place to live anyhow. Should the Designer uncheck one of these filters, however, the CUs for the remaining checked filter will be visible.

Figure 1, Area filter in Designer (ArcMap). Work request polygon is shown in yellow.

Area Filters and Polygon Features

Area filters make use of polygon features that indicate a specific area type (e.g., fire zone, marsh, high wind area, etc.). Each area polygon feature must have a field that uses a domain to indicate its type. For example, I created three polygon features: Fire, Marsh, HighWind. Each class has a field with the Yes/No Indicator field that defaults to Yes.

Figure 2, Domain field for area filter

Create Area Filter

Follow the steps outlined below to create an Area filter.

Open the CU Administration tool and select the Manage Filters tab.
Click Area.
In the New Filter field, provide a name for your filter and click Create.
On the next screen, the first column (Select Feature Class) provides a list of all polygon feature classes in the geodatabase. Select the feature class that represents the area you wish to filter (e.g., FireZone).

Figure 3, Create area filter

When you select a feature, the Select Field column is populated. This is a list of fields that use domains. Select the field you want to use as a criteria (e.g., the Fire field; see Area Filters and Polygon Features section above). The Tag Items column displays the values for the domain assigned to the selected field. You do not need to select a domain value.
Click Next.

The next screen displays the name of the filter and the domain it uses in the first column. The second column shows the feature class that must be selected to enable the area filter. It also displays other feature classes that use the same domain. You can add these feature classes to the Assigned Feature Class Attributes field.

If you want to add another feature class to this area filter, click the green plus symbol next to it in the Available Feature Class Attributes field. It will be moved to the Assigned Feature Class Attributes field.

Click the red X next to a feature class in the Assigned Feature Class Attributes field to remove it from the filter.

Click Save.

Figure 4, Create area filter

Next, you'll use the Assign Tags tab to assign tags for your area filter to the CUs that fit the criteria. For example, all CUs that are safe for a fire zone should be assigned the Yes tag on the Fire Zone filter. If you don't assign tags to CUs for the area filter, it will return no CUs when the user selects it in Designer. See Assign Tags page.

Figure 5, Assign tags