2016 Esri GeoConX Conference

Creating New Channels for Outage Reporting

October 19, 2016

AbstractConnexus 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.

Hart Gilchrist | Connexus Energy• GIS Analyst

Jeff Mertz | SSP Innovations• Director of Technology• Principal Consultant• GIS Integrations

Introductions

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.

Introductions

Hart Gilchrist | Connexus Energy• GIS Analyst

Jeff Mertz | SSP Innovations• Director of Technology• Principal Consultant• GIS Integrations

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

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Getting to Here

2013 Implement GIS (ArcFM 10.0.3) 2014 Relaunch GIS (ArcFM 10.2.1a) 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

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

What We WantedINCREASING 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.

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.

The Solution

• 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.

Connexus Integration Service

The SolutionOverview

Biztalk

Outage Mgmt. System

(Schneider Responder)

IVR (future)

Advanced Meter

Infrastructure(future)

MyMeterMember

Portal

Member Reported

Outage (web or app)

Member reported outage (voice)

Outage details

Meter Reported Outage

Connexus Web Service to receive Multispeak V4 OA

Web Service to insert

Multispeak V4 OA into Responder

The Solution

• Built upon previous work for Connexuso Clevest MWFM

• Messages used MultiSpeak 4.1 standard

• Windows WCF service

• Shields business from intricacies of OMS

• Use of Responder™ provided messaging framework / API

SSP Integration Service

The Solution

Interface call used• ODEventNotification

o Received from BizTalk server and ingests call into Responder™ OMS

o Uses specialized cause codeso Customized remarks to indicate call origin

Integration Service

The SolutionDirect Access from Website

The SolutionUser Interface

The SolutionUser Interface

The SolutionUser Interface

The SolutionUser Interface

The SolutionSystem Operations View

Benefits• Faster call ingestion

• Improved customer experience through easy to use portal

• Framework in place for future re-use

• Additional internal analysis data points

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What's Next

2016 New IVR system

Will reuse Integration Service  

2017 AMI installation

2018 Outage input direct from AMI

Will reuse Integration Service 

Questions?

Thank You!