To all Excavators and Facility Operators:
This email is to notify you of an IMPORTANT PROCESS CHANGE to the designation of start date and time on web-submitted e-tickets:
Web-submitted notifications of intent to excavate are generally reviewed by Gopher State One Call (GSOC) for quality assurance prior to acceptance of the notification by the notification center, with three exceptions:
1. Reprocess tickets (updates, minor modifications and cancellations)
2. Emergency tickets submitted online by a ticket submitter authorized to do so
3. Other notifications of intent to excavate submitted online by a ticket submitter passing rigorous training criteria established by the notification center.
Beginning December 1, 2020, web-submitted notifications of intent to excavate will be assigned a work start date and time that is either a) requested by the excavator,
or b) assigned by the notification center to comply with the legal minimum required notice when measured from the time of acceptance of the notification after any review by the notification center has been completed.
Which web e-tickets does this apply to?
This process change affects web-submitted excavation notifications where the submitter has requested a start date that would not provide the facility operator the necessary response time, when taking into account time for GSOC to review and process the notification. The process change applies to Meet tickets as well as Normal tickets. It would also apply in principle to non-excavation tickets when the time to review and process a ticket would not provide the necessary response time by the facility operators. This process change does not apply to Emergency tickets.
What does this change mean for my tickets?
This process change applies to Normal web-submitted excavation notifications where
a 48-hour (not including weekends and holidays) start time is requested.
The time it takes for GSOC to review, process and accept the notification must be added on to the requested start date and time. Accordingly, additional time may be added to Meet notification requests, if necessary. It also applies to Boundary Survey ticket requests and other non-excavation type tickets.
During times of peak web-submitted e-ticket volume, when web-submitted
e-ticket requests cannot be reviewed and processed within several minutes by a GSOC customer service representative, the start date and time on a Normal ticket will be adjusted to provide at least 48 hours (not including weekends and holidays) from the date and time that the ticket was reviewed, accepted and released. In most cases, this may be a few hours or less. During times of extremely high ticket volume, this may be more than a few hours.
For example, on a very busy Monday morning in May, assume that the GSOC Notification Center takes 30 minutes to review and process an incoming Normal web e-ticket due to high web e-ticket request volume. If the submitter requested a start date and time of 48 hours from when the request was sent to the notification center, the start date and time will be adjusted by adding 30 minutes to the requested time.
Does this process change apply to called-in tickets?
No, this change does not apply to ticket requests that are called in to the call center unless the call center has to place the ticket on hold while the requester obtains additional information. In that case, the start date and time will be measured from the time the ticket was completed correctly and processed, unless a later start time was requested by the submitter.
GSOC intends to focus more resources to assure timely review of web e-ticket submitted notifications. GSOC reminds excavators to plan ahead when submitting notifications. When able, please provide more than 48 hours for the utility companies to perform the locates. Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.
For additional questions, please contact:
Barbara Cederberg, Chief Operations Officer, GSOC
651-681-7307
barbara.cederberg@gopherstateonecall.org
Kim Boyd, General Manager, GSOC
651-681-5700
kim.boyd@gopherstateonecall.org