Since different types of field data are often collected independently of other types, the sections of a roadway over which data is collected will vary from one type to another. This presents a challenge because you need to be able to view attribute data of multiple types along a particular section of roadway. The solution to this challenge is to combine the sections so each section has a specific set of attribute values from the different source section sets.
A Finest Partition report shows the result of this "re-segmenting" operation where two or more tables with data that is tied to a particular location are combined. The combination of the tables results in a new set of road sections where the boundary of any road section in the report is the boundary in one of the input tables. The report further shows the data attributes for each new section, with the data attributes being user-configurable.
You display the Finest Partition Reports Configuration dialog box by right-clicking a Finest Partition Report title to display a shortcut menu and selecting Setup/Show Report. The dialog box allows you to select the tables with location data that are to be combined. It also allows you to select the columns that contain the data attributes that you want to show for the new road sections that result from combining the tables. This dialog box contains the following panes:
The dialog box also provides the following command buttons:
- Cancel: This command button discards any changes you made in the configuration dialog box and closes the dialog box.
- Create Copy: This command button creates a copy of the Finest Partition Report and closes the dialog box.
- Generate Report: This command button causes the system to combine the selected tables to create the new set of road sections. Once this is accomplished, the Show Report button becomes available so you may display the new road sections with the selected data.
Note: When modifying an existing report, the report itself is not modified by this command button. The new set of road sections is stored internally and only applied to the report when you click the Show Report button. This allows you to abort the modification of the report by clicking the Cancel button before clicking the Show Report button.
- OK: This command button is only available to the User ID of the person who created the report. When available, it saves any changes you made in the dialog box and then closes the dialog box.
- Show Report: After generating the new set of road sections with the Generate Report button, this command button causes the system to apply the selected data attributes to the new set of road sections and display the result as a tabular report.
For those applications that have tables set to be temporal, the top of the window provides the As Of Date check box and a calendar field. The window also provides a drop-down list to designate whether the selected as-of date is the system date or the effective date (which is only utilized if the application includes Network Manager). Once you select this check box and enter a system or effective date, then only data with a time-stamp equal to or after the entered date will be used in the finest partition process.
