Naming waterlines

Question

Currently we do not have names for water segments (I know its not a good thing). We currently have 9k water main segments and I would like to not have to name them all individually. I have made a rule in my utility network to auto-assign a number for my sanitary sewers but those are easy because each segment begins and ends at a manhole.

Now to my real question, is there a way to assign a unique name to waterlines that are between two valves or a coupling? Some of these lines are split because of pressure change but I would like these to be named the same. I attached an example. Between both valves in the attached are all one project and material the only thing that changed was the pressure. For asset management purposes it is one item but for attribute reasons there needs the split. I would like both the selected portion and the unselected portion between the two valves be the same. Can this be done or am I better off just doing a batch appointment of a new name for each segment and implement the naming going forward?

I can edit this post for further details if needed.

Screenshot 2026-07-29 122427.png

KyleMCSE · Answer

I think I have came to the realization that I can symbolize these specific issues and fix them manually, there are not that many. I have been trying today to make and run a batch rule to create this new field unsuccessfully.

KyleMCSE · Answer

* Yes we are using the ArcGIS Utility Network. We just upgraded to this within the last year and I am still getting used to it.
* I am unsure if we are using a specific data model
* We are implementing a new asset management program and we will be starting to attach line breaks and other repairs and information for that asset. The reason for having both the selected and unselected segments the same asset id is to pull up any repair along that part of the water main.
* Naming convention would be nice to follow the road names but I believe we are going to simplify names to be along the lines of W-2 or W-9384 to represent that that asset is a water main without looking to see where it is or looking further into the attributes. We plan on renaming hydrants (H-234), water valves (WV-234), and sewer mains (S-234) to further represent our systems.

I hope this answers your questions. The real challenge would be where projects change because the asset id would also change with the project. These areas I believe are separated with a coupling but I am not sure. There is still a lot of work that we need to do to our network to get it fully up to standard.

MErikReedAugusta · Answer

You might want to consider having two ID fields, given your description of the selected and unselected Assets from the photo.  I would have one ID field that's unique across all GIS segments, and one ID field that's unique across all real-world asset segments. In your image, the unselected and selected segments would have different GIS_ID values and shared Asset_ID values.

I say that because the duplicate IDs in the real-world asset segments could potentially cause you some headaches in certain workflows, and you might find yourself wanting that unique ID that isn't an ObjectID or GlobalID.

As to your point about the asset-segment ID, broadly speaking: I would probably write an Attribute Rule that looks first for valve endpoints touching the lines, just like you used for your sanitary sewer.  And if the AR doesn't find a valve at the end of the GIS segment, it would need to essentially do a trace network style exploration through connected GIS segments until it hits a valve, and then populate all of those features with a shared ID.

I'm pretty sure it can be done, but it might be a little tricky to write, and will probably depend on how you have your data set up, as Ayan was asking.