Customer Care and Billing Related Enhancements

This section outlines customer care and billing-related enhancements introduced in this release of Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter, including:

• Customer Information

• Customer Interactions

• Credit and Collections

• DataConnect

• Device Installation

• Migration Tools

• Payment Processing

• Rating and Billing

• Start/Stop/Transfer Service Request Processing

• User Interface Experience

• Web Services

• User Experience Enhancements

Note: The Steps To Enable, Tips and Considerations, Key Resources, and Role Information sections provide guidelines for enabling each feature, where applicable.

Customer Information

This section describes the new and enhanced customer information features in this release, including:

• Batch Controls to Update Pending Starting and Pending Stop Service Agreements

• Customer 360 Portal – New Financial Details Zone

Batch Controls to Update Pending Starting and Pending Stop Service Agreements

These new application-owned batch controls provide you with the capability to update Pending Start and Pending Stop service agreements separately:

• Activate Pending Start SA (C1-ACTSA)

• Finalize Pending Stopped SA (C1-STPSA)

Steps To Enable

To enable the new batch controls, configure or schedule the C1-ACTSA and C1-STPSA batch controls in your batch schedule to process or update Pending Start and Pending Stop service agreements independently.

Customer 360 Portal – New Financial Details Zone

The following tab views have been converted to individual zones and appear in the new tabbed display Financial Details (C1-FINDTLTD) zone on the Customer 360 portal:

• Usage and Billing (converted to zone C1-FDTUSGB)

• Financial History (converted to zone C1-FDTFNHIST)

• Payment Agreement (converted to zone C1-FDTPAYAGR)

• Credit & Collection (converted to zone C1-FDTCRDCOL)

Previously, these tab views appeared in the Financial Details (C1-FINDTLS) zone, which has been replaced by the new zone.

Steps To Enable

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Customer Interactions

This section describes the new and enhanced customer interaction features in this release, including:

• Customer Contact Portals

• Enhanced Template-Based Notifications

• Generating a URL to Access a Letter/Bill from an External Source

• Notification Event Type

Customer Contact Portals

The Customer Contact pages have been converted to portals, leveraging a more flexible The Customer Contact pages have been converted to portals, leveraging a more flexible and extendable user interface metaphor. Other improvements include:

• Renaming the log entries section to Customer Contact Reminders as this is used to generate To Do Entries for further follow-up action.

• A new Log portal tab to capture log entries making it consistent with other transactional entities.

• Displaying information and Record Actions for a customer contact based on what the customer contact is intended for (for example: sending a letter, recording a template-based outbound notification).

• For template-based outbound notifications, customer contacts can now display additional information including:

• In the new Notification Details section:

• Notification Type

• Customer’s Communication Preference and Contact Information

• Delivery Type (for example, email and SMS)

• Notification Originating System (for example, Oracle Utilities Network Management System)

• Integration Status (for example: Pending, Sent, and more)

• In the new Related Customer Contacts section:

• Customer contact information for other outbound notifications triggered alongside this customer contact for the same notification event (via a Notification Event Type).

The business object defined on a customer contact’s Customer Contact Type controls what is shown for a customer contact. The following new application-owned business objects are defaulted on a Customer Contact Type based on its Contact Action:

• If Contact Action is blank, then the Customer Contact (C1-CustomerContact) business object is defaulted.

• If Contact Action is set to ‘Send Letter’, then the Customer Contact Letters (C1-CustomerContactLetters) business object is defaulted.

• If Contact Action is set to ‘Record Notification’ (new), then the Customer Contact – Notification (C1-CustomerContactNotification) business object is defaulted.

Steps to Enable

To enable this feature, refer to the Setting Up Customer Contact Types section of the Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter Administrative User Guide for more information.

Tips and Considerations

1. The following application services were added and therefore you should review and determine which user groups, if any, should be granted access to these application services:

• Customer Contact Query (C1CUCOQ)

• Customer Contact (C1CUCO)

2. Note that any existing bookmarks for the Customer Contact page will take the user to the previous version of the page. You need to take the following actions to move the bookmark to the new portal:

• Click the bookmark. Take note of the Customer Contact ID.

• Navigate to the Customer Contact Query portal.

• Search and select the Customer Contact from your bookmark. This takes you to the new page.

• Delete the existing bookmark from the Bookmark dashboard zone.

• Click the Bookmark button to add a shortcut to this record on the new portal.

3. This feature has introduced the following new business objects (as mentioned above) and algorithms for the CUST CONTACT (Customer Contact) maintenance object:

• Business Objects:

• Customer Contact (C1-CreateCustomerContact)

• Customer Contact - Letters (C1-CustomerContactLetters)

• Customer Contact - Notification (C1-CustomerContactNotification)

These business objects also include the user interface behavior for the new Customer Contact portal.

• Determine BO Algorithm:

• Determine Customer Contact BO (C1CUCNTDETBO) linked to the maintenance object.

If your implementation has introduced your own implementation-specific (or custom) business object(s) and Determine BO Algorithm for the CUST CONTACT (Customer Contact) maintenance object, you should review your business object's configuration and merge it into the applicable application-owned business objects and leverage the application-owned Determine BO Algorithm.

Enhanced Template-Based Notifications

The application-owned Create Template-Based Notification (C1CRETMPLNTF) algorithm type has been enhanced to include the following information on customer contacts that are created for specific types of template-based outbound notifications:

• Person Contact Identifier

• Notification Preference Identifier

• Notification Originating System (for example: Network Management System, Customer Care and Billing)

• Notification Type

• Delivery Type (for example: Email, Fax, IVR, SMS)

• Contact Information

• Customer Contact Status to Pending

• Notification Event Type (for example: Budget Monitor, Budget Review Page)

• Log Entry

Steps to Enable

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Generating a URL to Access a Letter/Bill from an External Source

The following application-owned algorithm types enable you to generate a dynamic URL and directly access a letter or bill stored at an external source (for example, a server) from the Customer Contact or Bill page:

• Generate Online Bill URL (C1GENBILLURL) for Installation – Online Bill Display plug-in spot

• Generate Online Letter URL (C1GENLTTRURL) for Installation – Online Letter Display plug-in spot

Steps to Enable

To enable this feature, refer to the Technical Implementation of Online Letter Display and Technical Implementation of Online Bill Display sections in the Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter Business User Guide for more information.

Notification Event Type

The Notification Event Type administration object allows you to specify the type(s) of outbound communication to initiate for a specific triggered action or system event. You may configure the following options:

• Notification Method to define how communication is to be sent

• Send Digital & Letter

• Send Letter if No Preference Found

• Send Digital Only

• Send Letter Only

• Notification Type to define the type of notification to be used for a digital communication.

• Customer Contact Class and Customer Contact Type to define the type of customer contact to create to send a letter.

• Characteristics for the notification event type.

Steps to Enable

To enable this feature, refer to the Setting Up Notification Preference Options section of the Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter Administrative User Guide for more information.

Tips and Considerations

The following application services were added and therefore you should review and determine which user groups, if any, should be granted access to these application services:

• Notification Event Type MO (C1-NTFEVTTYPE)

• Notification Event Type BO (C1-NTFEVTTYPEBOAS)

• Notification Event Type (C1NTEVTY)

Credit and Collections

This section describes the new and enhanced credit and collections features in this release, including:

• Extended Life Support Severance Determination

Extended Life Support Severance Determination

The SA Type - Severance Criteria algorithm type, SV CRIT LS, can now also check if life support requirements exist on any premise records linked to a service agreement's service points. The algorithm type's description and detailed description have been updated accordingly.

You can use the following new algorithms, based on the above algorithm type, to determine if a severance process should be created for a customer that has overdue debt and has not responded to a collection process:

• Check If Person Has Life Support (C1-SVCRIT-LS)

• Check If Premise Has Life Support (C1PREMLSSL)

• Check If Person Or Premise Has Life Support (C1BOTHLSSL)

Steps To Enable

To enable this feature, update SA Types with the applicable severance criteria algorithm(s) where required.

DataConnect

This section describes the new and enhanced DataConnect features in this release, including:

• Additional Person and Service Agreement Information in Customer Data Extract

• Customer- and Meter-Related Service Point Identifiers

Additional Person and Service Agreement Information in Customer Data Extract

The Customer Data-related extract enables you to obtain critical customer-related information from Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter and accelerate data distribution to other applications, cloud solutions, and third-party vendors. The extract now includes:

• Additional Person-related information

• Person Type

• Business Name

• Additional Service Agreement-related information

• SA Type Code and Description

• Special Role Flag and Description

• CIS Division

• Business Class Code (Standard Industry Code (SIC))

Steps To Enable

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Customer- and Meter-Related Service Point Identifiers

The following DataConnect extracts include the customer-related and meter-related Service Point identifiers:

• Customer data and SA/SP data related extracts for account data transfer

• SP/Meter Data related extracts for premise data transfer

• Interval related extracts for interval data transfer

Previously, these extracts only provided one Service Point identifier.

Steps To Enable

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Tips and Considerations

Consider modifying your data mapping or ingest capabilities if your implementation uses these extracts to integrate to other solutions or applications and take into account the new data.

Device Installation

This section describes the new and enhanced device installation features in this release, including:

• Cross Installed Meter Request Processing

Cross Installed Meter Request Processing

The application-owned Cross Installed Meter (X1-CROSSEDMETER) Process Flow Type, and its associated Cross Installed Meter Request Type (X1-CrossedMeterRequestType), Cross Installed Meter Request (Cross Installed Meter Request), and Cross Installed Meter Action Method (X1-CrossedMeterActionMethod) business objects, provide the means to correct installed meters deployed at incorrect service points.

A process flow efficiently guides you, step by step, through the common steps and actions to handle incorrectly deployed cross installed meters. The supporting capabilities include:

• Locating meter records associated with a cross installed meters scenario.

• Field work integration support

• Creating field activities to investigate incorrectly installed meters.

• Updating meter installation details, device configurations, and measuring components with the correct information.

• Optional rebilling of affected bill segments using the Off Cycle Bill Generator or creating adjustment(s) for the total rebill amount(s).

• Optional creation of customer contacts to initiate letters to be sent to impacted customers.

A process flow could also be created from a completion event as a result of information received from the field. The application-owned Create Cross Installed Meter Process Completion Event (X1-CreateCrossedMeterProcess) business object may be used to create a process flow when triggered from a field activity’s Field Activity Remark.

Steps to Enable

To enable this feature, refer to the Configuring Cross Installed Meter Processing section of the Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter Administrative User Guide for more information.

Tips and Considerations

The following application services were added and therefore you should review and determine which user groups, if any, should be granted access to these application services:

• Cross Installed Meter Bill Correction BO (X1CIMBCBOAS)

• Cross Installed Meter - Action Method BO (X1-CIMACTNMETHDBOAS)

• Cross Installed Meter - Action Processing (X1-CIMACTNPRC)

• Cross Installed Meter - Process Menu (X1-CIMPROMENU)

• Cross Installed Meter - Request BO (X1-CIMRBOAS)

• Cross Installed Meter - Request Type Mgmt (X1-CIMRTMGT)

Migration Tools

This section describes the new and enhanced migration tool features in this release, including:

• Additional Batch Processes for Migrating Customer Care and Billing Transactional Data

• Expanded Legacy Data Conversion Batch Processes

Additional Batch Processes for Migrating Customer Care and Billing Transactional Data

In this release, additional data migration-related batch processes enable you to migrate the following Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing data to specific Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter objects:

• Applicable Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing Field Activities, that are either linked to Service Agreements (via Service Agreement / Service Point relationship) or Severance Events, to Activities using the new Migrate Field Activity (X1-MIGFA) batch control.

• Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing Interval Register Data Sets, with a status of ‘Complete’, and associated Interval Register Data to Measurements using the new Migrate Register Data Set (X1-MIGRD) batch control.

• Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing Interval Data Profiles to Measuring Components using the new Migrate Interval Profile (X1-MIGIP) batch control.

• Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing Interval Profile Data Sets (with a status of 'Complete') and Related Interval Data to Measurements using the new Migrate Interval Profile Data Set (X1-MIGID) batch control.

The following batch processes have been enhanced to support the above:

• Migrate Admin Data (X1-MIGAD) - Interval Profile Types to Measuring Component Types

• Migrate Service Agreement (X1-MIGSA) - Service Agreement's Interval Profile-related Information to Usage Subscription's Measuring Components

Additionally, the CCB/MDM/ODM Data Migration (X1-AdminDataMigMasterConfig) master configuration provides options for migrating interval profile-related data.

Steps to Enable

To enable this feature, refer to the Transactional Data Conversion section of the Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter Administrative User Guide for more information.

Expanded Legacy Data Conversion Batch Processes

Batch processes based on Oracle Utilities Application Framework-owned algorithms allow you to perform the following data conversion-related tasks:

• Validate data in staging tables

• Assign random, clustered keys to rows in the staging tables

• Resolve legacy keys mapped to an XML storage field with new values assigned during the key assignment task

• Insert rows into production tables from data contained in staging tables

• Validate data in production tables

The following customer-specific maintenance objects are now supported for this release:

• Account (ACCOUNT)

• Adjustment (ADJUSTMENT)

• Bill (BILL)

• Billable Charge (BILL CHARGE)

• Bill Factor TOU Value (BF TOU VAL)

• Bill Factor Value (BF VALUE)

• Bill Review Schedule (C1-BLLRVWSCH)

• Bill Segment (BILL SEG)

• Collection Agency Referral (COLL AGY REF)

• Collection Process (COLL PROC)

• Contract Option (CONTRACT OPT)

• Contract Option Event (COP EVENT)

• Customer Contact (CUST CONTACT)

• Declaration (DECLARATION)

• Device Test (DEVICE TEST)

• Field Activity (FA)

• Field Order (FIELD ORDER)

• Financial Transaction (FT)

• Interval Data Set (INT DATA SET)

• Interval Profile (INT PROFILE)

• Interval Register Data Set (INT REG DS)

• Interval Value (INT VALUE)

• Item (ITEM)

• Landlord Agreement (LANDLORD)

• Market Charge (C1-MKTCHG)

• Market Usage (C1-MKTUSG)

• Market Payment (C1-MKTPMT)

• Meter (METER)

• Meter Configuration (MTR CONFIG)

• Meter Read (METER READ)

• Non-billed Budget SA (NBB SA)

• Payment (PAYMENT)

• Payment Event (PAY EVENT)

• Person (PERSON)

• Premise (PREMISE)

• Service Agreement (SA)

• SA Relationship (SA REL)

• Service Credit Event (SC EVENT)

• Service Credit Membership (SCM)

• Service Point – CCB (SP)

• Severance Process (SEV PROC)

• SP/Item History (SP/ITEM HIST)

• SP/Meter History (SP/MTR HIST)

• Time of Use Map Classic (TOU MAP)

• TOU Data Set (TOU DATASET)

• Usage Trend Table (TREND)

• WF Process (WF PROCESS)

• WO Process (WO PROC)

Steps to Enable

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Payment Processing

This section describes the new and enhanced payment processing features in this release, including:

• New Account Search Criteria in Payment Event and Payment Quick Add

• One-Time Payment Processing Enhancements

New Account Search Criteria in Payment Event and Payment Quick Add

You can now use Bill IDs to retrieve Account IDs, to record payment details against, when adding payment(s) for multiple bills. This feature improves the efficiency in capturing payment details on both the Payment Event and Payment Quick Add transactions.

Steps To Enable

No steps are required to enable this feature.

One-Time Payment Processing Enhancements

The Add One-Time Payment window allows you to create a one-time payment event by using a customer's existing payment option(s) and/or entering new payment details. You can open this dialog box from the Add Payment Event menu item of the Main menu or Account context menu, and from the Take a Payment action on the Customer dashboard zone.

Existing payment options are retrieved from a customer’s auto pay arrangement on their account and their person self-service payment options. If applicable, you have the option to save new payment details as self-service payment options for future one-time payments. If the bank account captured for new payment details is being used for the first time, web debit account validation will be performed prior to creating the payment event. If you have enabled the web debt account validation functionality, the validation process is managed by a service task governed by the following application-owned business objects:

• C1-OneTimePayTask (One-Time Payment Task)

• C1-OneTimePayTaskType (One-Time Payment Task Type)

Steps to Enable

To enable this feature, complete these steps:

1. Add a Financial Transaction Options configuration (if not existing) using Feature Configuration.

2. Set the Enable Add On-Time Payment UI value to Y.

3. If the application-owned Add One-Time Payment Navigation (C1OTPayAddNv) script does not meet your requirements, configure the Override Script for Add One-Time Pmt UI feature configuration option with an implementation-specific script.

Tips and Considerations

This feature does not capture payment card information for one-time payments. Use a third-party payment processing service provider like Paymentus to process one-time credit card payments.

You can use the Add One-Time BPA Payment (C1OTPayAddMn) BPA script to open the Add One-time Payment window from implementation-specific zones, contextual insights, process flow panels, and other locations.

Rating and Billing

This section describes the new and enhanced rate and billing features in this release, including:

• Automated Budget Review/Approval and Customer Notification

• Usage Request - Multi Time Zone Support

Automated Budget Review/Approval and Customer Notification

The following batch control, algorithm type, portal, algorithm, and other described changes allow you to optionally automate the budget review and approval process for applicable customer accounts.

Enhanced Monitor Budgets Batch Control

The Monitor Budgets (BUDMON) batch control has been enhanced to be plug-in driven to make it more consistent with other recently released batch controls. This batch control monitors customer accounts with a budget plan by calling the Monitor Algorithm on an account’s Budget Plan. You can also select or filter customer accounts to be monitored using the following new optional batch parameters:

• CIS Division

• Customer Class

• Budget Plan

The batch control may also undertake additional processing if indicated by a Budget Plan’s Monitor Algorithm (for example, automatically update an account’s budget details) and optionally initiate an outbound communication to send to the customer. Outbound communication is enabled by configuring a Budget Monitor Notification Event Type.

New Budget Plan – Budget Monitor Algorithm Type

The application-owned Budget Plan – Budget Monitor algorithm type, Monitor with Automated Update Option (C1BUDMNAUO), can be used to compare an account’s current budget with its recommended budget. An algorithm, based on this algorithm type, is called by the Monitor Budgets (BUDMON) batch control if defined on an account’s Budget Plan and determines whether:

• The account’s budget details should be automatically updated.

• The account is highlighted for manual review by a Budget Review entry on the Budget Review portal.

• No action is required.

The determination of which action to perform is based on whether the recommended budget for an account falls within or outside specific tolerances when compared to the account’s current budget.

Budget Review Portal

The Budget Review page has been converted to a portal, leveraging a more flexible and extendable user interface metaphor. You can now locate customer accounts to review using the following filters:

• Account ID

• Budget Plan

• CIS Division

• Customer Class

• On or Before Review Date

The following information is displayed for each applicable Budget Review entry:

• Account information

• Account ID

• Budget Plan description

• Review Date

• Next Bill Date

• Current Budget (renamed from Total Budget Amount)

• Recommended Budget (renamed from Suggested Budget Amount)

If, after review, you determine the budget details do not need to be updated for an account or group of accounts, you can select the applicable rows and click the Worked button.

Note: By default, only Budget Review entries that are marked as not worked are displayed. However, you can use the Include Worked checkbox to display a worked Budget Review entry for a specific account.

You can also initiate updating the budget details for an account from the Budget Review portal. By clicking the Edit icon, the Update Account Budget screen is launched displaying the following:

• Account information

• Budget Plan description

• New date for recommended budget (may be manually updated)

• Current budget for the account

• Total recommended budget for the account (based on recommended budget amounts for applicable service agreements)

• For each applicable service agreement:

• Service agreement information

• Last budget changed date

• Current budget

• Recommended budget (may be manually updated)

After clicking the Save button, the account’s budget details are updated and an outbound communication initiated to send to the customer (optional).

• If changes to an account’s budget are successfully made, the Budget Review entry will be marked as Worked.

• Outbound communication is enabled by configuring a Budget Review Page Notification Event Type (optional).

New Notification Type – Template Data Algorithm

The application-owned Notification Type – Template Data algorithm, Budget Notification Template Data (C1BUDNFTMPD), can be used on applicable template-based Notification Types to build outbound notifications to notify customers of changes to their account’s budget details.

Account – Budget Tab Label Updates

The following labels have been renamed to more accurately reflect what they are used for:

• Total Budget Amount to Current Account Budget

• Total New Budget to Recommended Account Budget

• Budget Amount to Current Budget

• New Budget to Recommended Budget

Steps to Enable

To enable this feature, complete these steps:

1. Configure, if required, template-based Notification Type(s) for notifying customers of changes to their account budget details. You can also leverage the application-owned Budget Notification Template Data (C1BUDNFTMPD) Notification Type – Template Data algorithm if it meets your implementation-specific requirements.

2. Configure, if required, Customer Contact Class(es) and / or Customer Contact Type(s) for customer contacts to be created to generate letters to notify customers of changes to their account budget details.

3. Configure or update, if required, Characteristic Types to be defined on Notification Event Types.

4. Configure, if required, Notification Event Types for Budget Monitor and/or Budget Review Page initiated budget updates for notifying customers of changes to their account budget details.

5. Configure or update applicable Budget Plans with Monitor Algorithms based on the application-owned Budget Monitor with Automated Update Option (C1BUDMNAUO) algorithm type if it meets your implementation-specific requirements.

6. Configure or schedule the Monitor Budgets (BUDMON) batch control to be run at implementation-specific defined intervals in your batch schedule.

Tips and Considerations

1. The following application service was added and therefore you should review and determine which user groups, if any, should be granted access to this application service:

• Budget Review (C1BUDRVW)

2. Update implementation-specific or custom Java Budget Plan – Budget Monitor algorithm type(s) to include the API for the new Budget Monitor Action output of the Budget Plan - Budget Monitor algorithm plug-in spot.

3. Your implementation can define custom actions related to monitoring budgets by:

• Adding implementation-specific values to the Budget Monitor Action Flag (BUDGET_MON_ACTION_FLG) Lookup.

• Configuring implementation-specific Budget Plan – Budget Monitor algorithm type(s) / algorithm(s) to compare an account’s current budget with its recommended budget and determine the custom action(s) to be taken.

• Configure or update applicable Budget Plans with your implementation-specific monitor algorithm(s).

• Configuring implementation-specific Batch Control – Process Record algorithm type / algorithm to process each customer account with a budget plan incorporating your custom actions.

• Duplicate the Monitor Budgets (BUDMON) batch control and replace the existing application-owned Batch Control – Process Record algorithm with your implementation-specific Batch Control – Process Record algorithm.

• Configure or schedule your implementation-specific Monitor Budgets batch control to be run at implementation-specific defined intervals in your batch schedule.

4. You can reference the Update Account Budget screen throughout the application, for example as an action for contextual insights.

Usage Request - Multi Time Zone Support

The multi-time zone support for usage requests ensures that you bill your customer correctly when their premise is located in a time zone that is different from the time zone defined on the Main tab of the Installation Options - Framework portal. Additionally, multi-time zone sensitive date and time values of a usage request (for example, interval processing period and scalar read period) appear in the premise's time zone.

Steps To Enable

To enable this feature, complete these steps:

1. Click Admin, General, and Feature Configuration.

2. Add a System Configuration feature configuration if one does not exist.

3. Configure the Customer Multi Time Zone Support option to Y.

4. Configure the Multi Time Zone Support - MDM option to D1YS.

Start/Stop/Transfer Service Request Processing

This section describes the new and enhanced start, stop, and transfer service request features in this release, including:

• Agent-Assisted Appointment Scheduling for Start/Stop Service

Agent-Assisted Appointment Scheduling for Start/Stop Service

Process flows for managing start, stop, and transfer service requests, based on the application-owned Process Flow Types, now display an insight on the Review and Submit panel to highlight when a customer requires one or more appointments for field work for starting or stopping services at a premise. You can click the Schedule button on the insight to open the Account Appointment portal and easily book appointments.

The Account Appointment portal provides the following zones:

• Account Activities - Displays field work activities related to the customer's account.

• Appointment Booking Results - Displays the available slots as returned by the field work system for a selected field work activity (for example, Oracle Field Service Cloud) and allows you to book a specific appointment slot.

• Activity Summary - Displays field work activity details.

The following can highlight when an account requires appointments and navigate you to the Account Appointment portal:

• Insight Type

• Highlight Field Activities Requiring Appointment – List (C1-FAREQAPT-LIST) - Displays the appropriate insight in the Customer Insights zone on the Customer 360 portal.

• Installation - Control Central Alert Algorithm

• Highlight Field Activities Requiring Appointment (C1FAREQAALRT) - Displays a message in the Alerts zone.

Steps to Enable

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Tips and Considerations

Optional. If you use the Alerts zone, plug in the Highlight Field Activities Requiring Appointment (C1FAREQAALRT) algorithm into the Control Central Alert System Event on Installation Options - Framework.

Optional. If you use the Customer 360 portal, configure the Highlight Field Activities Requiring Appointment – List (C1-FAREQAPT-LIST) insight type on the Insight Group related to the Insight Class of Customer Insights.

User Interface Experience

This section describes the new and enhanced user interface experience features in this release, including:

• Service Order Management Information Zone - Additional Hyperlinks

Service Order Management Information Zone - Additional Hyperlinks

The Service Order Management Information (C1-FA-SRINFO) zone now provides a link for the following that may appear in the tree:

• Non-orchestrator related activities

• Completion events

• Outbound communications

• Inbound communications

In previous releases, a link was only provided for the orchestrator activity (for example, enable service).

Steps to Enable

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Web Services

This section describes the new and enhanced web services features in this release, including:

• Additional and Enhanced REST APIs for the Integration Suite Web and/or Customer Experience Web Service Categories

• Additional REST APIs for Other Web Service Categories

Additional and Enhanced REST APIs for the Integration Suite Web and/or Customer Experience Web Service Categories

These new REST API Inbound Web Services expose various customer-related entities and data, and provide the capability to create, manage, and view that data:

• C1-AccountData (Account Financial Data) - Shows how an account's current and payoff balance has changed over time, by returning the financial transactions for the account. This also retrieves various summary calculations and provides statistical data per billing account or multiple accounts for a given date range.

• C1-BillingContext (Billing Context) - Represents a billing context for various types of queries or searches (for example, accounts associated with a specific person record).

• C1-BilledUsageData (Usage Data from Bills) - Retrieves summarized billed usage and specific bill segment-related details for a given date range.

• C1-BusinessSearch (Business Search) - Supports business record queries by various criteria.

• C1-PersonSearch (Person Search) - Supports person record queries by various criteria.

• C1-SAData (SA Data) - Retrieves a list of unit of measures and some financial-related information (for example, current balance, last billed date, and last billed amount) for a service agreement.

The following updated REST API Inbound Web Services also expose various customer-related entities and data, and allow you to manage that data:

• C1-Adjustment (Adjustment) - Retrieves adjustment summary information.

• C1-Bill (Bill) - Returns a set of bills for an account with summary details for each bill.

• C1-BillSegment (Bill Segment) - Retrieves pertinent details for a single bill segment (for example, calculation lines) but excludes meter reading and financial transaction-related information. Updated search operation by adding capability to find bill segments by premise address, rate, or bill segment amount.

• C1-Case (Case) - GET search method updated to the POST method.

• C1-NotificationPreferencesForAccounts (Notification Preferences for Accounts) - Sends additional notification-related information including time zone and appending a default country calling code to a customer's retrieved phone number. Standardizes element names to maintain consistency with other inbound web services.

• C1-Payment (Payment) - Retrieves payment summary information.

• C1-ServiceAgreement (Service Agreement) - Searches and retrieves service agreement information under a billing account along with its associated premise information.

The following REST API Inbound Web Services no longer support the POST method:

• C1-Adjustment (Adjustment)

• C1-CollectionProcess (Collection Process)

• C1-SeveranceProcess (Severance Process)

• C1-WriteOffProcess (Write Off Process)

• C1-CutProcess (Cut Process)

• C1-OverdueProcess (Overdue Process)

The following REST API Inbound Web Services no longer supports the PUT method:

• C1-Adjustment (Adjustment)

• C1-Bill (Bill)

• C1-BillSegment (Bill Segment)

• C1-PaymentTender (Payment Tender)

• C1-Payment (Payment)

• C1-PaymentEvent (Payment Event)

• C1-PayPlan (Pay Plan)

The following REST API Inbound Web Service enables the retrieval of child collections from the parent record:

• C1-Payment - Separate GET method to retrieve payment segments

The following REST API Inbound Web Services provide standardized PATCH method for updating the status of related transactional records:

• C1-Adjustment (Adjustment)

• C1-Bill (Bill)

• C1-BillSegment (Bill Segment)

• C1-Case (Case)

• C1-Payment (Payment)

• C1-PaymentEvent (Payment Event)

• C1-PaymentTender (Payment Tender)

Steps to Enable

To enable this feature, refer to the Oracle Utilities REST API for Metering and Customer Information documentation.

Additional REST APIs for Other Web Service Categories

The following new REST API Inbound Web Services expose various customer-related entities and data, and provide the capability to create, manage, and view that data:

• C1-CustomerContactNotification (Create / Update Customer Contact) - Creates or updates a customer contact record.

• C1-TemplateBasedNotifTypes (Template Based Notification Types) - Retrieves subscription information and individual push template-based notification types.

• C1-UnsubscribeNotifications (Unsubscribe Notifications) - Retrieves and deactivates notification communication preference(s).

• C1-UpdateServiceCallCommunication (Update Service Call Communication) - Updates service call communication.

Steps to Enable

To enable this feature, refer to the Oracle Utilities REST API for Metering and Customer Information documentation.

User Experience Enhancements

This section describes the new and enhanced user experience features in this release, including:

• Menu and Menu Item Security

• Pagination, Sort Order, and Data Export

Menu and Menu Item Security

In this release, the asset-related application services and access modes used by BPA scripts to determine or grant permissions on objects now applies to menu items. Users without the appropriate permissions will no longer encounter errors or inaction after clicking a menu item.

This provides a better user experience by displaying only the menu items to which the user has access to the underlying BPA action.

Steps to Enable

No steps are required to enable this feature.

Pagination, Sort Order, and Data Export

In this release, the following portals support pagination, selectable sort order, and data export to Excel:

• Asset

• Asset Location

These features provide a better search experience, which allow you to quickly find work- and asset-related information.

Steps to Enable

No steps are required to enable this feature.