About Job Defaults

This section explains the use of job defaults, which are facility settings that are applied automatically when features are assigned to a design. Consult these topics for help in creating and modifying job defaults using the Job Default Assistant. This section also explains how to temporarily override job defaults.

A job default is a named group of default settings that determine the attribute values, placement rules, and compatible unit assignments that Bentley OpenUtilities Designer automatically applies to features when you assign them to the work locations of a design. You must select a job default for a design when you create the design, but you can change the job default when you begin working with the design in the Design Assistant (see Selecting a Job Default for a Design).

Job defaults make your design work faster and easier because

they allow you to assign multiple facilities of the same feature type without configuring each one as you place it at a work location; and
they allow you to establish the defaults for an entire group of facilities and reuse these defaults for similar designs.

The example below illustrates how two different job defaults might define the feature type Pole.

Pole Attributes	OH Primary Job Default	OH Secondary Job Default
Life-cycle status	Proposed Install	Proposed Install
Height	45	35
Class	5	3
Material	Wood	Wood

If OH Primary is the active job default for a design, all new poles in the design will be 45-foot, Class 5 wooden poles, with the compatible unit P45-5-AX automatically assigned. If OH Secondary is the active job default, the new poles will be 35-foot, Class 3 wooden poles, with the unit P35-3-JO.

A job default can be set up with for global facility attributes as well as feature attributes. Global attributes are useful when the value is appropriate for most or all of the facilities, as with Life Cycle Status in the example above. Placement rules and default unit assignments can also be saved as part of the job default settings.

Public job defaults are set up when Bentley OpenUtilities Designer is installed and configured. If you need a wider selection of job defaults to support your design work, you can use the Job Default Assistant to create your own private job defaults by copying an existing public job default and then making the necessary modifications (see Creating New Job Defaults).

Feature Attributes

One of the key functions of a job default is to store default attribute values for features in the Features Catalog. The set of attributes used to define each feature and the possible values for each attribute are determined by your company's data model.

Global Attributes

A job default may include values for global facility attributes, such as phase and voltage for electric facilities or nominal pipe size for gas facilities. Global attributes are applied to any assigned feature that uses the attribute in its definition unless a different value has been specified for that attribute in the feature definition.

Global attributes are dependent on the data model. Using the Job Default Assistant, you can make any feature attribute a global attribute for a particular job default. Global attributes are typically defined when the public job defaults are initially configured.