The Automator

The AutomatorJeff DeWittGeorgia Power Community & Economic Development

About Us

Jeff DeWitt – The AutomatorGIS AdministratorGeorgia Power Community & Economic Development

FME is a fantastic tool to automate

everyday tasks

Examples• Location

Comparisons• Site Analysis• Site Update Emails

Location ComparisonsBefore - text files, spreadsheets

Location ComparisonsKey Transformers• RegEx Tester – used to isolate

specific lines of data in text files, i.e. ^([A-Z])(.+)

• StringReplacer – removed unwanted text/characters

• FeatureMerger – appended data to a feature (table row)

• AttributeValueMapper – used for field mapping to get features from different sources to match

Created 17 different workspaces, one for each source

Location Comparisons

After – Access DB, Report

Location Comparisons

Summary• Converted many non-spatial files into Access database• Standardized names, data• Rolled up data by MSA• Automated entire process of creating location comparisons

saving hours of work compiling data and ensuring data accuracy

Site Analysis

Before – county parcels

Site AnalysisKey Transformers• NeighborFinder – used to find

nearest facilities/utilities• Clipper – calculated usable acres

(parcel minus wetlands/floods)• SpatialRelator – determined if

features intersected each other • FeatureAdder – great way to add

only features that need to be evaluated (streams, wetlands, floods)

Site Analysis

After – parcel score layer, Access DB

Site AnalysisSummary• Largely a spatial analysis program• A final score for each parcel was calculated using many

criteria including distance to transportation, usable acres, and availability of utilities

• Automated process of evaluating potential economic development sites in an objective, fast, and accurate manner saving hours of work compiling data and ensuring data accuracy

Site Update EmailsBefore – economic development

sites with outdated data, manually send emails to update site data

Site Update EmailsKey Transformers• DateDifferenceCalculator –

used to find sites that have not been updated in last year

• XMLTemplater – formatted email using HTML

• HTMLPythonEmailer – sends all sites for each contact in site database with customized greeting and content

Site Update Emails

After – customized email with site information and

aerial image

Site Update EmailsSummary• Reads feature class from SDE Oracle database and sends

filtered records via email in a format the site representative can easily update and return

• Automated process of contacting each site representative saving tedious process of compiling data and sending many emails

• Process has resulted in a higher percentage of sites updated within the past year

Thank you!Jeff DeWittGeorgia PowerCommunity & Economic Developmentjldewitt@southernco.com404-506-4054