Guest User Access

The Guest User Access feature allows primary utility business account holders to invite guest users to have access to energy insights from their Business Customer Engagement Digital Self Service - Energy Management billing account. This is particularly helpful for staff at large businesses who oversee multiple business locations and who want other users to have access to their energy use trends, insights, and tips on how to save energy.

Note: Guest users primarily have read-only access to energy use information, billing history information, and energy savings tips. They cannot pay bills or start or stop service, and the ability to make account changes is limited. See Guest User Portal below for details.

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Requirements

Utility Requirements

Same as listed in the product-wide requirements. Additional implementation requirements include:

  • Utilities must coordinate with their Oracle Utilities Delivery Team to set up and configure relevant aspects of the Oracle Identity Cloud Service and Oracle Identity and Access Management.
  • Utilities that wish to configure the email address received by guest users must work with their Delivery Team to follow steps at Configuring Email Authentication Settings for SPF and DKIM.
  • The standard domain name of the Guest User Portal is http://bce-utilitycode-opower.com, where utilitycode is a three- or four-letter code defined during the setup and launch process to represent the name of the utility. Utilities that wish to set up their own domain must set up a DNS redirect to the domain that they own.
  • Utilities that already have customers on a guest user access solution can work with their Delivery Team to create a plan to migrate these customers.

Customer Requirements

The display of the Guest User Access feature is not dependent on customer data or attributes. The main requirement is that guest users must accept the invitation sent to them and activate their account before they can log in to the Guest User Portal.

Limitations

No more than 25 guest users can be invited and assigned to a business account.

User Experience

The Guest User Access feature consists of several interrelated components: a widget to manage authorized account viewers, an email invitation and supporting email communications, and a Guest User Portal.

Manage Authorized Account Viewers Widget

Primary business utility account holders can go to their account settings and use the Manage Authorized Account Viewers widget to invite guest users.

This screenshot shows an example of the Manage Authorized Account Viewers widget, which includes three sections: a section to add account viewers, a section to list pending accounts, and a section to list active accounts.

Add Account Viewers: This section allows guest users to be invited and have access to their account. When an invitation is sent, the guest users' information appears in the Pending Accounts section.

Pending Accounts: This section lists information about the guest users who have been invited but who have not yet activated their guest account. Primary account holders can revoke access or resend an invitation from this section if necessary.

Active Accounts: This section lists information about the guest users whose accounts have been activated. Business customers can revoke access from this section if necessary.

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Email Invitation and Supporting Communications

When guest users are added to a business account, they receive an email invitation with a link prompting them to set a password for their guest account.

The default expiration period of email invitations is seven days. Guest users must create passwords according to standard security rules:

  • A minimum of 12 characters and a maximum of 40 characters
  • At least one uppercase and lowercase character, and at least one numeric character
  • The new password must be entered twice to confirm both entries match

After the password is set, the guest account is activated. Guest users can then sign in and view the energy information for their account.

Guest users may receive other emails necessary for guest user access, such as password recovery or reset emails.

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Guest User Portal

Guest users who activate their guest account can log in to a Guest User Portal, a standalone website that contains the same widgets and data as that of the primary account holder who invited them. Guest users are able to perform a variety of actions in the portal, such as:

  • View energy information for a specific business account.
  • Browse and explore energy use trends, insights, and energy savings tips.
  • Use Green Button - Download My Data to export billing data to CSV and XML formats.
  • View the Business Profile and make updates to the profile information.
  • Update their guest user name and password in the account preferences section.
  • If the guest user has access to multiple billing accounts, then the guest user can switch between each billing account and view related energy information. See Billing Account Selector for details.

Guest users who log out of the portal and forget their password can request a new password. If any guest users have their access later revoked by the owner or administrator of the business account, they will still be able to log in to the portal, but no data will be displayed in the widgets.

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