Here’s a quick trick for updating your Stored Displays.  If you have one or more symbolized layers in one Stored Display that you would like to include in a different Stored Display, you can just select the layer(s), right-click and choose Copy,

then open the destination Stored Display, right-click at the data frame level and choose Paste Layer(s).

Now, all you have to do is save your updated Stored Display.  All of the existing symbology, labeling and layer visibility settings will be retained for the pasted layers.  This copy and paste method is faster than saving and adding a layer file.

It’s been said before and it’s worth saying again: at Telvent, we work for our customers.  To do this, we have to understand what you need to make your job more successful.  Part of making this happen is through our UserVoice forums where folks like you can post an idea you have for our software and then the user community can vote on the ideas they like the best.  The premise being that we’ll start working on the idea’s with the most votes.

The user community has done a fantastic job of posting ideas and voting on them.  And for certain products, like Responder, you’ve seen those go from good ideas to actual software that you can use.  I’ll admit, however, that we haven’t given some of the forums as much attention as we want and that’s not what you expected.  So we are making a change.   Our commitment to you is to check ALL user voice forums bi-weekly and commenting on each and every one of your ideas.  This way you’ll know that we are observing each and every idea.  You can also send us comments under each idea or even ask a question and we’ll send you a response.  The end goal is to show you we’re listening and connect with you about your needs.

And if you haven’t seen UserVoice, you should check it out here: http://telvent.uservoice.com.

At Telvent, we work for our customers.  And working for our customers means understanding how we can improve your GIS experience.  It also means making sure we are creating the right tools and products so our customers can be successful.  This is where you come in.  We need to connect with folks in our user community (like you) to make sure we’ve got it right, even while we are in the middle of development.  To do this we have created Product Advisory Groups (PAGs) for each major product suite, like ArcFM, Responder, and Designer.

For each PAG we will provide a series of live webcasts to demonstrate the most recent development of our tools and functionality, before it’s even released.  This way you can actually see what our development team has accomplished in the last 2 – 4 weeks and get a sense of our progress and trajectory.  PAGs are also a great forum to ask questions and provide feedback; tell us what you like and what isn’t quite right.  It’s a great opportunity to connect you with the current development of our software.

Telvent’s product development team is currently offering the following webcasts for the follow PAGs:

• ArcFM Solution: Feeder Manager 2.0
• Fiber Manager: Self Healing Circuits
• Designer: Overhead Design Analysis
• Responder: Phase Swapping
• ArcFM Cloud Services: Azure
• ArcFM Server: Silverlight enhancements

So how do you join a PAG?  And when is the next webcast?  We get that question a lot and my first recommendation is to go here:  http://www.telvent-gis.com/PAGS It’s a new webpage that will provide basic information about joining a PAG and when the next webcast is.  When in doubt, email your account manager and they’ll be able to redirect you to the right resource.

We are also offering a new forum space under our support forums to give you the opportunity to connect with others in the user community and discuss new functionality.  Here is a link to the forum http://www.telvent-gis.com/support/forums/.  You’ll see a category called Telvent Product Advisory Groups and a forum for each major product suite.

Just a reminder for those Designer users out there, the next PAG will be held March 21st at 11am (MST).

For those of you new to the Designer Product Advisory Group, this is a series of live webcasts dedicated to Telvent’s upcoming Overhead Design Analysis tool.  In each webcast, I demonstrate the latest in new functionality and discuss what’s in store for the upcoming month.  This is also a great forum to ask questions and provide feedback on ways we can improve the Overhead Design Analysis tools to better suit your organization.

If you’re interested in joining the PAG and are either a Designer user or Telvent Utility customer,  just email me directly (matt.zimmerman at Telvent.com) or contact your Account Manager for more information.

Symbolization has never been easier with Feeder Manager 2.0! Now you can simply symbolize and label features by the energized phase without a computer programming degree!

Join myself and Shawn Kendrot in a short 8 min video as we walk you though the dramatic usability improvements that have been made in terms of symbolization and labeling with Feeder Manager 2.0. This will give you an overview of the current state of the product and outline some of the differences with the new version of Feeder Manager.

Please continue to give us feedback or thoughts on this subject or any other area of Feeder Manager 2.0. Contact us through UserVoice, ArcFM Buzz or email. Continue to watch for additional blog posts on FM2.0!

Matthew Crooks
Product Owner
Matthew.Crooks@telvent.com