Functions

Product catalogue for the competitive market

Flexible product catalogue easily created and managed by your product specialist. Our solution enables to create new products and product variants on your own and even create product bundles from existing products.

Other product catalogue features:

  • Energy products for large customers (wholesale):
    • Internal billing engine
    • External Billing Sources
    • Manual Billing – guided
  • Set individual prices or discounts to customers.
  • Create and bill sales effects (ToP, cumulative discounts) on a level higher than PoD.
  • Use different prices for different daytime (TOU billing, for AMI).
  • Piloting new products without extra IT-costs.
    • Mark new products or product variants as „piloted“ in product catalogue
    • Determine effectiveness of two variants of the same product (A / B testing)
    • Successful pilots quickly converted to full-scale products in product catalogue.
    • Unsuccessful pilots easily closed in product catalogue but left in billing systems
    • Product and campaign analyzing and reporting for fast and qualified decisions on pilots

Convergent billing and invoicing

Empirica Stream Convergent Billing and Invoicing System is a high capacity billing data management system enabling:

  • Flexible management of billing sources
  • Multiple billing sources, external bills or external rating systems
  • Multiple commodities and services
  • Flexible management of billing sources:
    • Item is billed internally – product catalogue
    • Item is billed externally and included to invoice
    • Item is billed internally or externally – decided in runtime according to current status of customer, installation and data exchange

Invoice grouping

Our solution supports any combination and even change of invoice grouping without customization.

Real time data

AMI (Smart Metering)

As smart meters are available for more and more customers, you can use Empirica Stream in order to:

  • Create and use dynamic billing products (TOU)
  • Create bill estimates on a daily basis
  • Use real-time (event based) billing
  • Implement pre-payment models through a centralized model
  • Give (mandatory) periodical consumption feedback digitally or in printed form
  • Bill customers with solar panels and wind energy production
  • Interfacing to the digital experience of the customers on local energy production

Real time billing

Empirica Stream allows you to create bills immediately, as soon as inputs are available and also traditionally, as batch cycle billing. Real time billing enables:

  • Better load distribution for machine time as well as workforce management
  • Create intermediate bill estimates and improve:
    • Forecasts – trading, closing operations
    • Customer engagement – customers can check consumption as well as intermediate bill
  • Create warnings on overconsumption in the digital experience of the customers in the pre-pay scenario
  • Create feedback on consumption in relation to the billing plan to the customers and trigger the update billing plan functions (digitally).

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SEPROM (Energy Data Management)

Its objective is to store and manage energy data, and provide these data for billing engine. SEPROM component enables to:

  • Store energy data provided by DSO, Meter company and from smart metering devices.
  • Allocate consumption using non-linear weighting keys
  • Execute energy conversions (specific for gas billing based on altitude, temperature, caloric value, etc.)

The design of SEPROM component makes it flexible to handle changes in legislation, or country specific requirements for energy management. Energy profile for every PoD contains multiple curves. These curves are customized, as well as formulas that trigger curves calculation. Variables used in formulas can be stored at multiple levels – customer, PoD, DSO entity, regional structures, etc.

Process driven market communication

BPM (Business Process Management)

We use the Empirica Stream BPM engine along with the data exchange component (MCT) to manage the market communication as well as all the other processes inside the utility company.
Modify delivered processes and create new ones using predefined Java interfaces, user tasks or script tasks and delivered Web Services.
Business Process Management Engine enables design of company processes using BPMN notation and manage these processes in a workflow manner. Central point of BPME is User Tasklist that is accessible directly from the Workplace.

It is possible to change existing processes or create new processes via visual process editor (any tool supporting BPMN 2.0). Than you can use existing process tasks or implement your own process tasks using Empirica Stream API.
From the most complex (e.g., customer switch) to the simplest ones, all processes are designed as BPMN 2.0 diagrams and are loaded into the system. BPM engine manages execution of the process tasks and using ESB enables components outside Empirica Stream to be integrated into the system.

Download sample process definition

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MCT (Market Communication Tool)

MCT component handles market communication based on EDIFACT standard (messages UTILMD, MSCONS, INVOIC, etc.). Together with BPM component fully covers data exchange with DSOs and other energy market participants. Customization and configuration enables to adapt to country specific requirements.

Mass processing

Mass processing techniques are built into Empirica basis components and used widely in billing, invoicing and receivables management. Using visual tools, admins can schedule multithread jobs, create job chains and maintain restricted job concurrence.
Empirica core is ready to handle hundreds of concurrent internal users, as well as millions of external requests per day.

Our case study

Advanced Metering Management

Advanced Metering Management - ES component provides device management and meter reading management. The functions of this component can be divided into three areas:

Devices
point of delivery - synchronised with contract objects in CORE component of ES
- connection point
- device - meter reader
- meter/register (one meter reader can have more meters = 1-n relationship between device and meter)

As part of device management, the AMM component implements all business cases that occur in the device life cycle, such as creation, installation, disassembly, replacement, restocking, updating of certification data and the like.

Meter Readings
- Meter reading unit - an object that contains a set of data that ensures the correct timing of the implementation of the meter reading activity and at the same time carries information about the reading path - tracing. Some data of unit are synchronised with the CORE module in order to ensure the time consistency between the meter reading and the settlement.
- Order for meter reading - represents an object which is used to submit the request for the implementation of the meter reading to the person performing readings and subsequently to record the result of that activity deduction back into the EC system. Object is designed for seamless integration with 3rd parties products used for meter reading activities as well.
- The reading - the result of the reading itself - contains administrative data, results from individual registers of the device and information about the status of the reading in its life cycle.
- Unreliable readings - Tools and functions to check unreliable meter readings.

Tasks
The task represents an object that is created in the AMM module for the purpose of ensuring the implementation of the activity. These are activities that are directly related to the devices or delivery points, usually events performed in the field. Typical examples of such tasks include:
- Meter installation
- Disassembly
- To perform the disconnection of the delivery point
The job has a reference to the delivery point and / or the device. The tasks support the selection of the implementer and have a very simple state diagram.