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811 One Call Locate tracking

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11-22-2023 06:42 AM
AlexisGieseker1
New Contributor

Anyone found a solution to track, monitor, etc the 811 locate tickets they have called in for a construction job? 

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ZhongmingAn
Occasional Contributor

I actually had something set up for 811 the past summer. I don't really think it is a good solution but it kind of got us through the summer.

I get the request via emails so I set up a simple python script to parse the emails and port the info from the emails to a polygon feature service from AGOL. Each time an 811 email comes in, the script creates a rectangle using the lats and longs of the bounding box provided at the end of the email, and all the important information such as the contact info, description will be added to the polygon as well. We are using Microsoft outlook so fortunately I was able to set up a trigger to move all my 811 emails to a new folder that I created within outlook. I have 2 python scripts, one trigger which acts every time a new item is added to the 811 locate folder, the other parsing the email and creating a new feature in AGOL. I also set up a field for our field crew to edit in field maps recording if they have done the request or not. A filter was also applied so that when the crew is done with a request, that rectangle will disappear from their end.

I am not really good at programing so it was a lot of research and copy and paste. There are still a lot of problems, but I think the major one is that the bounding box is usually either too large or not where they are supposed to be. I did notice that if you submit an 811 online, you get to draw a polygon in the map on the website, but we did a test and it seemed that the polygon does not really affect the coordinates that come with the emails. I tried contacting 811 about that to see if we can get the polygon submitted from the users, maybe I was not asking the right question, but it only got me more confused so I just gave up...

The only thing that I have to do right now is just to remove any requests that are not our concerns and occasional technical support for our field crew. I am working in South Dakota so I don't really know what other states do for the 811 locates, but I hope this helps.

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2 Replies
ZhongmingAn
Occasional Contributor

I actually had something set up for 811 the past summer. I don't really think it is a good solution but it kind of got us through the summer.

I get the request via emails so I set up a simple python script to parse the emails and port the info from the emails to a polygon feature service from AGOL. Each time an 811 email comes in, the script creates a rectangle using the lats and longs of the bounding box provided at the end of the email, and all the important information such as the contact info, description will be added to the polygon as well. We are using Microsoft outlook so fortunately I was able to set up a trigger to move all my 811 emails to a new folder that I created within outlook. I have 2 python scripts, one trigger which acts every time a new item is added to the 811 locate folder, the other parsing the email and creating a new feature in AGOL. I also set up a field for our field crew to edit in field maps recording if they have done the request or not. A filter was also applied so that when the crew is done with a request, that rectangle will disappear from their end.

I am not really good at programing so it was a lot of research and copy and paste. There are still a lot of problems, but I think the major one is that the bounding box is usually either too large or not where they are supposed to be. I did notice that if you submit an 811 online, you get to draw a polygon in the map on the website, but we did a test and it seemed that the polygon does not really affect the coordinates that come with the emails. I tried contacting 811 about that to see if we can get the polygon submitted from the users, maybe I was not asking the right question, but it only got me more confused so I just gave up...

The only thing that I have to do right now is just to remove any requests that are not our concerns and occasional technical support for our field crew. I am working in South Dakota so I don't really know what other states do for the 811 locates, but I hope this helps.

DarylRobinson
New Contributor

Or you could use Uexcavate.com which is built to do this exact thing

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