Category: Reporting Tools

New Scatter Graph Features!

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FlowWorks is happy to publish an update to our already great mapping tools with some frequently requested features from out users. This update includes some great new features, updates, and tools in our Graphing tools set.
New improvements to the Scatter Graph feature:

  • Scatter plots now support 3  data channels:  one on x-axis, two on y-axis.
  • Users can add manual field measurements to scatter graphs.
  • A scatterplot of a time series can now automatically be opened in a separate browser window. This works really well when users have two monitors.
  • A scatter plot now supports the assigning of data channels to either axis in scatter plot under “Appearance –> axis and scaling dialog”
  • Support  has been added for customizing the axis scales in scatter plot mode.
  • User now can select a data point in the scatter graph and the date and time me of a selected data point is displayed. This feature supports multiple values that could occurred at the selected point.
  • Editable Curve fits and Manning’s Curve – users can now easily modify  an existing curve fit
  • We have provided a library of typically used Manning’s Coefficient so  when a user is creating/modifying a Manning’s curve, the user can select coefficients from a  a drop down menu  or enter a user defined value as before.
  • Allowed Custom axis labeling – Under Axis Options, a new option called Axis Labels with text boxes for each axis
  • Improved zooming functions on both scatter and times series modes

We have also implemented the new tree organizer in graphing – so what you see in the map view for stations is now carried over into the graphing view. This brings about a much greater consistency in working with sites in large numbers.

Some of these features were requested via the FlowWorks Community Forums and User Group and FlowWorks is proud to implement user ideas whenever possible. The forums are open to any FlowWorks user, and you can use them to ask questions, start general discussions, requests features, or browse through our ongoing knowledge base articles that are constantly being updated and added to.
This update is just one more way that FlowWorks helps you understand your data, by making it easier, faster, and less complicated to get to the information that you want to know.

Welcome to the Custom Summary Report Writer

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FlowWorks reporting tools have always been great: download as an spreadsheet, copy/paste directly into a report or Excel worksheet, export to PDF, etc. But you were always limited to the defined FlowWorks report formats. Well, that has all changed. Welcome to the Custom Summary Report Writer!

FlowWorks has been hard at work creating a Custom Summary Report Writer, and it has now been unleashed on users. The customized reports available with this tool are almost endless.

Found under Reporting > Custom Summary Reports, you can now generate the report you really need. The Custom Summary Report tool can be used to create your own reports to summarize your data. Get the answers you’re looking for by combining multiple sites and channels, choosing from a variety of statistical methods, and grouping your data across various periods. Summaries, channel based averages, roll-ups, hourly/daily/monthly/yearly stats, peak levels; the options are all there. Think of this as our existing Summary Reports, but with a bunch of extra buttons to push and nobs to turn. It’s one of those tools that I could ramble on and on about everything you can do with it, or you can just hop in and start messing around. So what are you waiting for?!

This feature is new to us as well, and we’d like your feedback! Let us know below in the comments how you’re using the tool to help you with your data and day-to-day reporting needs. Hey, maybe you’ll help someone else!

Rainfall Isohyetal Mapping Tool

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FlowWorks is continually working to bring you tools to make your job easier. Many users have requested the ability to generate dynamic, high-quality rainfall isohyetal maps. FlowWorks is proud to show off this new feature.

Isohyetal maps, also known as contour maps, are a way of showing values spread over a geographic area. Contour lines are also used to show elevation changes in topographical maps, and a number of other data maps. For this tool, we are using contour lines to illustrate rainfall over a city. Red bands are given to indicate areas of greater rainfall, 170mm in this instance, and green bands for areas of lighter precipitation.

The Rainfall Isohyetal Mapping Tool allows users to specify the time period of interest, and specify all or any specific rainfall stations to quickly generate the corresponding rainfall surface with contours. The tool uses custom ArcGIS Server Geoprocessing Tools to create both the rainfall surface and rainfall contours, giving you a clear picture of what is going on in your area. It is the first result from what will soon become a full integration between FlowWorks and ArcGIS.  Please contact FlowWorks for more information.

FlowWorks Creates Big Buzz at WEFTEC 2011

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WEFTEC 2011, Los Angeles

Attendees at the 2011 Water Environment Federation’s Annual Technical Exhibition and Conference, WEFTEC, repeatedly asked a key question as they stopped by the FlowWorks booth: How do I sign up?

“Hundreds of people stopped by the booth,” said FlowWorks President Timothy Hicks. “People are definitely getting the message that FlowWorks is the better way to manage data.”

Held October 15-19 at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California, WEFTEC is the largest meeting of its kind in North America, bringing together thousands of water quality professionals from around the world to share and explore the best water quality education and training available.

FlowWorks booth was a highlight. Representatives from the nation’s biggest engineering companies, a dozen major west cost municipalities, most of the world’s flow metering firms, as well as the members of the media and investment bankers, were among those who crowded around the booth’s two demonstration screens.

“FACE and the new graphic editor were extremely well received,” Hicks noted. “I think folks were so receptive because they’re starting to understand that a platform like FlowWorks can truly bring data and people together.  After two years of speaking and educating, they are seeing a way to keep their data secure, and access and work with it at the same time.  Fortunately, they’re thinking of us.”

In other words, people are finally understanding how to deal with the vast amount of environmental monitoring data that’s piling up, and that FlowWorks offers a management approach that is far more cost-effective, efficient, and comprehensive than traditional SCADA.

The new tools have been a smash hit so far:

  • Graphic Editing QA/QC Tools—Users can now edit any and all data, on a single, secure web platform, from anywhere.
  • FlowWorks Advanced Calculation Engine (FACE)—A major upgrade to the FlowWorks data platform places Excel-quality calculation tools for real-time data directly into user’s hands.

The updates vastly expand FlowWorks data management, analysis and reporting capabilities.

The message for flow monitoring professionals of the world: FlowWorks has arrived—and 2012 looks like it is going to be a very busy year.

For more information on FlowWorks, including the new Graphic Editing QA/QC Tools or FACE, please click the links.

Compliance with Consent Decrees Made Easier by FlowWorks

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The FlowWorks web platform is giving water utilities, municipalities, consultants and industrial clients a powerful, flexible tool for integrating and presenting all their operational data. FlowWorks makes compliance with a consent decree faster, more accurate and more comprehensive than conventional systems by securely delivering a wealth of online data, monitoring, analyses, and near-real-time reporting to all interested users. Facility management is more efficient, and compliance is enhanced.

The FlowWorks data management and reporting platform addresses a number of issues critical to consent decree compliance:

  •  Accurate Reporting of Operational Status. The FlowWorks system gathers functional data from all hardware platforms, integrates and analyzes the cumulative data, and creates a broad range of graphical reports for an accurate picture of the total system operations.
  •  Event Analysis and Response. FlowWorks provides the means to establish alarms in the event of system non-compliance. When such an alarm is triggered, the system generates an analysis of the event, and provides facility managers with the information to correct the condition and improve overall facility performance and compliance.
  • Communication with All Users. Consent decrees often involve the participation of a range of user groups: governmental, environmental, judiciary, public and private audiences. FlowWorks enables facility managers to communicate across multiple platforms with a range of graphical reporting tools, ensuring that verifiable consent decree compliance is accurately communicated to all interested parties.

“We needed to manage problems and track their resolution in a way that can share information instantly,” says the CSO monitoring team leader for a major west-coast utility. “These problems are quite complex and require a lot of interaction. One of the big benefits of the FlowWorks platform is that when analysts are screening data from our temporary or permanent rain gauge sites and identify a problem that they would like to address, we can immediately refer that problem to the contractor and track the resolution.”

You can read more about using FlowWorks with to manage compliance with a consent decree here.

New Features Added to Map View and Graphing Tool!

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The programmers have been really busy the last couple of weeks, and we have some very cool new features to share with you!

Quicklinks to Graphing Templates

Let’s say you are navigating around on the map view page, and you click on site.  Now when the context box opens, if there are saved graphing templates that go with that site you can now select them directly from a new dropdown box!  This allows you to quickly navigate to a pre-saved graph using the map view.


Global Graphing Templates
So you have just made a nice new graphing template, and you want to share it with other users that are allowed to see the site(s) that the template shows.  Now, when you save the graph template there is a checkbox that let’s you do that!


If you check the “Share this graph with other authorized users?” box, anyone else that can see this site will also have access to the graph template you’ve created.