Oracle Utilities Network Management System

Release Notes

Release 1.11.0.4

E36991-01

March 2013

Oracle Utilities Network Management System Release Notes

E36991-01

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Preface

These release notes provide an overview of the known issues in Oracle Utilities Network Management System Release 1.11.0.4.

This preface contains these topics:

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Audience

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Related Documents

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Conventions

Audience

Oracle Utilities Network Management System Release Notes is intended for anyone installing or using Oracle Utilities Network Management System Release 1.11.0.4.

Related Documents

For more information, see these Oracle documents:

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Oracle Utilities Network Management System Adapters Guide

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Oracle Utilities Network Management System Configuration Guide

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Oracle Utilities Network Management System Quick Install Guide

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Oracle Utilities Network Management System Installation Guide

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Oracle Utilities Network Management System User’s Guide

Enhancements in Release 1.11.0.4

New and enhanced features in Oracle Utilities Network Management System Release 1.11.0.4.

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MQ Mobile Adapter Enhancements

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Add Support for Automated Vehicle Location (AVL)

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NMS-CSS (Customer Self Service) Integration Enhancements

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Detailed Outage Drilldown from Outage Area Summaries

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Proactive Customer Notifications for Customers Out and Customers Restored

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NMS-SGG (Smart Grid Gateway) Integration

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Support Receipt of Meter Statuses

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Support Pinging of a Set of Meters

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Support Disabling and Enabling of Meter Status Messages

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SCADA Integration Enhancements

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New ICCP SCADA Adapter

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Service Alert Enhancements

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Notifications for Cancellation of Unplanned Outages

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Switching Management Enhancements

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Ability to Add and Remove Devices after a Safety Document is Issued

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Web Workspace Enhancements

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Support a Configurable Set of "Locked" Left-Hand Side Table Columns

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Allow Users to Dynamically Change Font and Icon Size

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Support Manual Reprediction/Grouping of Predicted Momentary Outages

MQ Mobile Adapter Enhancements

Add Support for Automated Vehicle Location (AVL)

A new DML function was added to support sending updated crew coordinates via the Generic MQ Mobile Gateway. This can include the crew’s location, speed, and heading, which would be reflected in NMS similar to the AVL support in the MultiSpeak-based AVL adapter.

NMS-CSS (Customer Self Service) Integration Enhancements

Detailed Outage Drilldown from Outage Area Summaries

Oracle Utilities Customer Self Service (CSS) currently supports an outage map that can display color-coding of spatial areas such as cities or zip codes based on the total number of customers out. The spatial area maps can also be summarized in a tabular listing. This new feature allows a user to drill down from the summary of all outages in an area to see details of individual outages (start time, estimated restore time, etc.).

Proactive Customer Notifications for Customers Out and Customers Restored

An upcoming release of Oracle Utilities Customer Self Service (CSS) is planned to support a Notification Center wherein a customer can select certain types of notifications as well as the delivery mechanism for each notification. For outages, this is planned to initially support a customer option to be notified when an outage begins that is affecting their premise and when that outage is restored. The NMS support for this functionality is available as of this NMS service pack, however, it will require an upcoming release of CSS to actually provide the functionality. Notification delivery options of text message and e-mail are expected to be supported initially.

NMS-SGG (Smart Grid Gateway) Integration

This NMS service pack adds initial support for integrating to the Oracle Utilities Smart Grid Gateway (SGG), which is a separately licensed product that provides standard integrations to major Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) systems. The SGG support for this integration will be available in an upcoming SGG service pack.

Support Receipt of Meter Statuses

NMS will be able to receive meter status messages from SGG such as a meter power-off ("last gasp") and meter power-on (restoration) message, similar to what NMS already supports through its MultiSpeak-based adapter. These messages are used to trigger creation of outage events if outage detection is enabled, or track restoration progress if restoration verification is enabled.

Support Pinging of a Set of Meters

NMS will be able to send a list of meter IDs to SGG as a "ping" to check the current status of those meters (whether or not they have power), similar to what NMS already supports through its MultiSpeak-based adapter. These pings are used to verify service outages and predicted device outage locations outage verification is enabled, or confirm restoration if restoration verification is enabled.

Support Disabling and Enabling of Meter Status Messages

There are times when it is not desirable to receive status messages from a meter because the status is deemed unreliable. This can be the case when there is planned work (maintenance or testing) of the meter, or if the meter is simply malfunctioning and needs to be replaced. NMS now allows a user to select one or more rows from the AMI Customers table view in the Trouble Info window and then disable that set of meters. While there is no direct impact on the meters, it means that NMS will no longer attempt to ping the meters for outage or restoration verification, and SGG will not send any status messages for those meters. The user can then likewise select one or more rows from the AMI Customers table to enable the meters once again. This is new functionality that was not previously available in conjunction with the MultiSpeak-based adapter.

SCADA Integration Enhancements

New ICCP SCADA Adapter

A new ICCP SCADA Adapter is available that provides an alternative to the existing LiveData-based ICCP SCADA Adapter. The LiveData ICCP SCADA Adapter requires licensing of the LiveData Server, which then must be installed on a Windows server. The new ICCP SCADA Adapter is developed by Oracle using Triangle MicroWorks libraries and can communicate to a SCADA system that supports ICCP. The libraries are embedded and require no additional 3 rd-party licensing such as LiveData, and there is no additional server component that needs to run on Windows. It runs on the Unix/Linux server with the rest of the NMS services.

Service Alert Enhancements

Notifications for Cancellation of Unplanned Outages

Initially Service Alert only supported configuring a notification for outage cancellation of a planned outage, for example when a switch plan needed to be rescheduled and therefore a planned outage may change after customer communications had been prepared. However, there was no ability to select the option for a cancellation notification for unplanned outages, such as a mistaken report by a customer who had tripped an internal circuit breaker. The user can now configure notifications for cancellation of unplanned outages as well.

Switching Management Enhancements

Ability to Add and Remove Devices after a Safety Document is Issued

Previously Web Switching Management provided no ability to change the list of devices once a safety document had been issued. With this service pack, the safety document can be released, the list of devices changed, and then the document issued again. This will allow the zone of coverage to be adjusted (for example, decreased after a partial restoration or increased if a crew arrives onsite and needs to include additional devices) without having to create a different safety document. The tracking of changes to the list of devices is not visible to the user. This functionality is expected to be improved in a later NMS major release.

Web Workspace Enhancements

Support a Configurable Set of "Locked" Left-Hand Side Table Columns

Much like in spreadsheets, there are times when you want to "lock" or "freeze" a set of columns so they do not scroll out of view when horizontally scrolling a spreadsheet. This feature allows any table to have a user-adjustable set of locked columns on the left side. A predefined set of locked columns can be configured and then the user can rearrange and lock a different set of columns and save it as part of their user preferences. This is similar to functionality that was supported in the Motif-based Operator’s Workspace, but now is modifiable by end users.

Allow Users to Dynamically Change Font and Icon Size

Users interact with Web Workspace at control stations with multiple monitors and on laptops, with varying screen resolutions. In some cases, it may be difficult for a user to view the text in a table or the icons on a toolbar. This new feature allows an end user to increase or decrease the font size of all text and icons within Web Workspace at once or revert it to the default size, similar to using Ctrl+ and Ctrl- in web browsers. This change impacts labels, menus, toolbars, tables, text fields, etc. Table column widths will be adjusted as font size is adjusted to keep the same proportion, which in turn will affect how much of a table is visible before scrolling. Changed font and icon size can be saved as part of user preferences.

Support Manual Reprediction/Grouping of Predicted Momentary Outages

A new configuration rule has been added that supports manual grouping of Predicted Momentary Outages (PMOs). If this is enabled, then the user has two options for grouping or moving a PMO. The user can use the "Group Events" option from the Work Agenda to group the PMO into an eligible outage event (PSO, PDO, RO). Also, the user can use a new Control Tool option "Repredict PMO to Here" to move the PMO to another device.