Creating New Channels for Outage Reporting. October 19, Esri GeoConX Conference

Transcription

1 Creating New Channels for Outage Reporting October 19, Esri GeoConX Conference

2 Abstract Connexus Energy needed to find a new way to report outages to their Responder OMS beyond traditional IVR. With a combination of web portal, middleware and a Multispeak-based web service, customers can now log into the portal and report outages. This allows Connexus to handle more outage calls by alleviating the restriction on the number of phone lines required, and reduces the time it takes to report an outage.

3 Introductions Hart Gilchrist Connexus Energy GIS Analyst Jeff Mertz SSP Innovations Director of Technology Principal Consultant GIS Integrations

4 About Connexus Energy Approximately 75 years old Minnesota s largest electric distribution cooperative Serving approximately 130,000 customers Service area includes portions of Anoka, Chisago, Hennepin, Isanti, Ramsey, Sherburne, and Washington Counties and totals approximately 1,000 square miles.

5 Introductions Hart Gilchrist Connexus Energy GIS Analyst Jeff Mertz SSP Innovations Director of Technology Principal Consultant GIS Integrations

6 About SSP Innovations Eleven-year old GIS consulting company Back-to-back Esri EPC Award Winner Work exclusively in the U.S. utility/telecom industries 100+ years of combined utility & telecom experience 100% aligned with Esri platform strategy Over 80 clients and growing Industry-leading reputation for quality, successful solutions to requirements

7 Getting to Here 2013 Implement GIS (ArcFM ) 2014 Relaunch GIS (ArcFM a) Internal web map (ArcFM Silverlight) Mobile data for field crews (ArcFM for ArcGIS Engine) External integrations (Locator ticketing system) Internal integrations (SCADA, CIS, WMS) 2015 OMS (Responder) External web map (Outage mapping ArcGIS Online) 2016 Improved access to data (ArGIS Online, Collector, dashboards) Improved customer communications 7

8 What Now? Creation of outage calls into the OMS from customer portal Provide status of outages to customer portal Leverage existing middleware as a platform going forward

9 What We Wanted INCREASING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION THROUGH ENHANCED OUTAGE COMMUNICATIONS. JD Powers study found that major reasons for [improved] customer satisfaction were improvements in billing/payment, price, and customer notifications. Electric utilities that have improved their outage communications before, during, and after an outage have found a direct link to customer satisfaction levels.

10 Requirements Provide a way for customers to report outages to Connexus Energy and get them into the Outage Management system without having to call in. This is particularly useful for people with smart phones that continue working even when the electricity to the customer s premise is out. This gives our customers another channel to provide outage information to Connexus Energy. The scope of the project is to allow ALL customers, not just registered ones, to go on the Customer Portal Page that will be developed for Outage Entry and report an outage.

11 The Solution Connexus Integration Service Built from previous work with SSP and Clevest Connexus Customer Portal will send the message to the Connexus Energy Biztalk Server in a Multispeak version 4.1 format. The Biztalk Server forwards the message to the OMS Integration Service. The OM Integration Service utilizes the Schneider Electric Responder messaging framework to create a customer call, similar to the way calls are created from the IVR system.

12 The Solution Overview MyMeter Member Portal IVR (future) Member Reported Outage (web or app) Connexus Web Service to receive Multispeak V4 OA Member reported outage (voice) Biztalk Web Service to insert Multispeak V4 OA into Responder Meter Reported Outage Advanced Meter Infrastructure (future) Outage details Outage Mgmt. System (Schneider Responder)

13 The Solution SSP Integration Service Built upon previous work for Connexus o Clevest MWFM Messages used MultiSpeak 4.1 standard Windows WCF service Shields business from intricacies of OMS Use of Responder provided messaging framework / API

14 The Solution Integration Service Interface call used ODEventNotification o o o Received from BizTalk server and ingests call into Responder OMS Uses specialized cause codes Customized remarks to indicate call origin

15 The Solution Direct Access from Website

16 The Solution User Interface

17 The Solution User Interface

18 The Solution User Interface

19 The Solution User Interface

20 The Solution System Operations View

21 Benefits Faster call ingestion Improved customer experience through easy to use portal Framework in place for future re-use Additional internal analysis data points

22 What's Next 2016 New IVR system Will reuse Integration Service 2017 AMI installation 2018 Outage input direct from AMI Will reuse Integration Service 22

23 Questions? Thank You!