The Power of One Call Ticket Management: Staging
First and foremost, Staging is a unique technology exclusive to Dig-Smart, LLC. The concept of staging was developed by Dig-Smart, LLC developers back in early 2007 to address one major workflow issue: how to manage disparate or separate utility groups under one umbrella. Staging was and is the only answer. The scenario goes something like this.
For Public Utilities:
Let’s just say you are a city-managed utility group run by a commissioner of public works. Inside of the municipal structure, 4 groups have underground assets: water, wastewater, electric and fiber. Now even though these 4 departments are under one umbrella, they don’t work together nor communicate on their locating activities. In essence, they are separate entities. However, all of the geospatial data and other enterprise databases (i.e. SAP, Oracle, etc) are managed by a sole IT department which reports to the mayor’s office. It is the job of IT to centralize as much as possible to reduce operational overhead expenses. Therefore, instead of deploying 4 separate and independent databases for the 4 departments, they want to keep one database for ticket management. The workflow nightmare this potentially creates is having to duplicate the ticket load 4 times in order to generate enough records for the locating staff to respond. Furthermore, if your utility requires positive response notices (i.e. DE, FL, MN, etc) how can the software possibly send 1 notice to the state call center when all 4 utility groups check in a different times? Furthermore, what if 3 of the 4 departments say “all-clear” and the last department actually marked the site? How can you possibly centralize all of this under one database? Dig-Smart, LLC has the only answer. Staging. Staging keeps everything inside of one instance with no need for redundancy. Staging allows for the flexible distribution of tickets across multiple departments.
For Private Utilities:
Let’s say that you are a privately held oil company who is responsible for managing transmission lines in 4 US states and the onus of IT is to keep everything under one database in a centralized storage location. Each of the 4 US states have different protocols, workflows, email accounts, methods, displays and rules to follow specific to their one call center directives. Everything is done at different times and no one ever talks to the other. But the organizational management of the situation requires that all ticket records reside on a single database. Again, staging is the answer. By using staging the database can be configured to manage each of the states independently while not interfering with workflow requirements.
Summary:
Staging is truly a unique solution developed by Dig-Smart, LLC to help utilities who have strict requirements for database management and integrity. If you think staging can assist in your situation, please contact us and we will be happy to analyze your situation and develop the correct staging method for your workflows.
