When do you use an Assembly instead of a device?

[Joshua-Young]

I am curious what the different intentions are between things that are in both devices and assemblies. There is Blow Off in Devices, but there is also Blow Off Assembly in Water Assembly. Another example is hydrants.

They are both points, but capture slightly different data.

[VenkataKondepati · Accepted solution]

Hi @Joshua-Young,

This is an interesting question. Assembly is a container of assets and Device is an operational asset.

The link below provides vocabulary: Utility network vocabulary | ArcGIS Pro documentation

It is the same for Hydrant and Hydrant Assembly.

I hope this helps. Let me know.

Regards,
Venkat

[TSmith]

To my knowledge, it is mainly down to personal preference. I think Assemblies were mainly used in the electric model, and the ones in the water model were artifacts from that. 

I have never seen a use case for hydrant assembly, unless there is a desire for the end user to model the hydrant itself as a simple point that can contain the individual fittings/components on a hydrant. Usually in Water Distribution GIS, we don't go to this level of detail. 

One exception is perhaps a force main blowoff assembly. These are unique to certain sewer systems and involve quite a few piping/valving components; however the end user may want to see them modelled as just a point. 

The electric model is where it makes the most sense, as the sheer complexity of assets in an electric network; particularly within a substation or generation facility, would quickly clutter up any map or app without scale dependencies/filtering. 

Hope this helps!