Our most recent edition of the iFactor Informer is now available. This edition of the Informer focuses on web and Smallworld GIS solutions for the utility industry.
The next iFactor Informer – focusing on web and mobile customer communications solutions for the utility industry – will be available soon!
The Agricultural Irrigation Load Control Service Rider (ILC program) is being offered by a large southern utility to meet the Arkansas Public Service Commission’s new rules for Conservation and Energy Efficiency Programs. Under the ILC program, the utility interrupts electric service to irrigation pumps for three hours a day during peak load hours. This helps reduce ‘peak load’, which is the amount of electricity required to serve all customers during the weekday periods of summer afternoons. 30% in savings in electricity bills will be available to customers who have signed up for this program.
In order to support the program, iFactor’s Notifi product was implemented for the utility. All the customer registration information for both ILC and non-ILC accounts is maintained by iFactor’s Notifi product (including details such as cell phone number for text messages) in addition to the mapping of this information to specific accounts and meters. The first time a customer’s ILC registration information is handed off to Notifi (a customer may have multiple pumps and multiple registrations), Notifi sends a text message to the customer’s handset requesting a confirmation. A customer’s ILC registrations in Notifi remain disabled until the conformation is received, ensuring full opt-in compliance.
Once the registration process is complete, the Notifi platform takes over, receiving the results from the ILC systems that are used to plan and process load control events. Notifi receives this information via web services, and the pending load curtailments are mapped to Notifi events. Each event is used to send alerts regarding pump cycle times and status updates to the right customers. Notifi records all of these customer communications for reporting and analysis, making sure a complete record of these important customer service transactions is kept.
Notifi provides an off the shelf tool to manage the subscription and processing logic for this solution, and interfaces to the backend systems with a set of web services tailored to utility data and systems. While the production system referenced here is only focused on a specific set of load control events, the Notifi system supports complex event processing for many types of transactions such as energy management, outage information, and billing and payment details. Each customer can select the events of interest to them, and can tailor the parameters on those events to ensure the data meets their needs. Notifi allows customers to manage this profile via a web site, the call center, or directly through text messages. When this flexibility is combined with support for multiple channels such as voice, text message, and email, Notifi provides a complete off the shelf solution which lets utilities communicate WHAT their customers want to know and deliver it WHERE their customers want to receive it.
iFactor Consulting recently partnered with Twenty First Century Communications, provider of utility communication solutions, to offer utilities new ways of using technology to connect people to information. Both iFactor and TFCC have demonstrated a reliable understanding of the importance of utility communications, demonstrated by TFCC’s High Volume Call Answering system and iFactor’s Storm Center and Notifi Products. With this new partnership, utilities can use High Volume Call Answering to manage the rush of calls during power outages, while utility customers can use Storm Center to view outages online and Notifi to interact with their utility through email and text messaging.
As other iFactor blog articles have noted, communicating effectively with customers has a profoundly positive impact on customer satisfaction. Jim Kennedy, TFCC chief executive officer, mentions that “Using TFCC technology to communicate with utility customers opens up the mobile communication channel and is a key step in reducing costs. But the biggest benefit for utilities is improved customer service.”
And according to iFactor’s Brad Sileo, vice president of business development, letting utility customers decide how they want to communicate greatly improves customer service and increases customer satisfaction. “iFactor’s outage communications product suite dovetails perfectly with TFCC’s utility communications solution. Combining TFCC’s 20 years of utility experience with iFactor opens up web and mobile channels to utilities.”
TFCC’s Utility Communication Solution handles a wide variety of common outage messages including real-time outage alerts, outage updates, planned events, and unplanned events. Other uses include reminders for billing & payment, service appointments, program enrollment, energy usage and load curtailment.
iFactor Consulting will be demonstrating a number of new solutions and products at the GE Smallworld Users Conference this year in September. Stop by booth 20 to see us in action! Below are just a handful of items we’ll be discussing, and as always, we’re ready to answer any of your questions and provide solutions to all of your problems.
Proactive Outage Communications
iFactor’s Notifi interfaces to PowerOn to provide a complete customer communications solution. See how Notifi can alert customers to predicated and confirmed outages, update them on ETR and restoration information, and even allow customers to report an outage with just a few key strokes using our innovative 2-way texting interface.
Web Maps Connector Features: Weather Information, Parcel Layers, and Route Finder
The Web Maps Connector product has two new datasets in its growing library of basemaps. The first is parcel boundary data from Digital Map Products. With this new layer in WMC, users can view parcel boundaries in Smallworld, and future releases of WMC will enable users to select these parcel boundaries for detailed attributes. The second is Doppler Radar from WeatherBug. With this layer, users can easily see which of their assets are being subject to severe weather events. In addition, the animation feature shows weather data up to three hours back. Finally, WMC also includes the Route Finder. This GUI uses the Bing Routing Web Service to provide directions between multiple waypoints. A user can add waypoints by using the trail or by selecting geometries on the map. The result is a highlighted route on the map that shows the shortest path between each waypoint.
Storm Center Outage Maps
Come check out the industry leading outage maps solution to see the latest developments with this product suite. We’ll be showing the latest integration with weather data, support for reviewing historical information, advanced features to managed ETR information, and iPhone integration for the product.
Cross Phasing in PowerOn
Ever needed to restore an outage with a phase other than the original phase? Core PowerOn doesn’t allow it, but with the Cross-phasing module from iFactor, you can feed a de-energized single-phase with some other single-phase. Customers are properly restored on the new phase. And when the cross-phased situation is removed, everything goes back to normal.
Our team at iFactor Consulting is prepared for another exciting and action-packed GE Smallworld Americas Users Conference. Come visit us in booth 20 to hear about our latest developments, ranging from weather layers in the Web Maps Connector product to cross phasing in PowerOn. We’ll be ready to answer all of your questions and show you demonstrations of our newest solutions and products. Keep an eye on our blog and Twitter page over the next few weeks as we announce some of the demos that will be available during the conference.
Also, don’t forget to enter our iPad giveaway! Stop by the booth for a demo and give us a business card, or simply Tweet about @iFactor or the #swuc! The winners will be announced via our Twitter feed by the closing conference session on Saturday.
iFactor will be sponsoring this year’s opening cocktail reception on Thursday – we look forward to seeing you there!
