If you have data for hundreds or thousands of water supplies in some other system, you can import data from a spreadsheet directly into Blazemark. (See below for how to get good GPS data.)
Start by going to the Admin | Import Water Supplies menu (you can also see the import button from the Water Supplies map view):
NOTE: Download the worksheet template for adding your data: Water Supply Worksheet.
The worksheet has a TAB with instructions/description of the fields.
And there is a tab with sample data that you should replace with your data
For the impatient among us who want to jump in and try the import, here is a short video:
Importing
You can import only the data properties that Blazemark recognizes and shows you in the Water Supply form. The minimal required data for each hydrant is simply the following:
Unique Identifier (typically the "ID" from the underlying water supply database system assigned to each record in the database)
A street address OR the latitude and longitude (GPS lat/lon).
Beyond that, you can add flow rate, notes, diameter, etc. If your water supply database has such info available to you.
So the basic process is to figure out how to get your existing data exported into a proper spreadsheet (Excel or any comma separated values -- CSV) file. Then you likely will need to massage the data to match our import worksheet template. And finally, copy and paste into Blazemark, and that's it!
Hydrant Name
If you do not have meaningful names for your hydrants (for example, you have H12, H13, H42), Blazemark can use the street address as the name.
Simply enter AUTONAME and Import will use the street address as the name!
I Have My Spreadsheet, Now What?
Once you have a prepared spreadsheet with your available hydrant data properly organized to match the columns below, you can copy the cells from your worksheet and paste them into the table that is shown in Blazemark.
DO THIS! --> We recommend trying a single row to start to ensure you have the tabular data set up correctly.
After importing, check if the import worked to your satisfaction via the "Browse Water Supplies" menu choice
If it looks good (water supply properties, map location, etc.), continue on with a few more
If it looks incorrect, you can delete, adjust your spreadsheet, and re-try importing that one data point
Once you have a few importing correctly, go ahead and try to import a hundred or so... Repeat as needed :-)
NOTE 1: The table will magically GROW to accommodate the number of rows you paste. You need not add blank rows ahead of time!
NOTE 2: Copy and paste a 200-500 at a time. That seems to be easiest.
It is SAFE to re-import!
Hydrant data matching the Unique ID will be re-imported over top of the existing data.
This is by design so that you can maintain a sync between your external system and hydrants that have already been imported years from now.
Visually Checking Hydrant Coverage
In your organization settings, you can increase the number of water supplies shown on the full list view to show all of your hydrants.
This can be helpful to spot "holes" in your data in case there are some problems with your import data.
How do I get Hydrant Data?
Many municipalities have water supply databases. The key is to ask for the right type of data to be exported in a "usable" format -- typically Excel or Comma-Separated Value (CSV). Be sure to give your contact our sample spreadsheet and template guidelines so they know what columns we are expecting. They may or may not have all of the properties stored in their internal system. Get what you can :-)
Street address works. Lat/Lon is best if it is in decimal format ( 41.059400, -81.479354). Otherwise, see the following "Special GPS Handling" section :-p.
Special GPS Handling
If you cannot get lat/lon decimal data and can only get NAD coordinates or Degrees-Minutes-Seconds, or some other coordinate system, contact us. We can work some magic to convert the data over.
NOTE: If this is too technical, we can work with you or your data folks to make it easy to import your Water Supply data.