Bill Guide
The Bill Guide is a unified dashboard of billing insights that helps customers better understand their most recent bill and upcoming bill. It includes a Most Recent Bill section, which displays a bill breakdown, weather insight, neighbor comparison, top end-use categories, and an energy efficiency tip. It also includes an Upcoming Bill section, which displays a forecast, an energy efficiency tip, and an insight about the weather in the bill period so far, as well as an insight about the remainder of the bill period.
On this page:
Requirements
Utility Requirements
Customer Requirements
Billing data is required for most Bill Guide features. Other data requirements apply depending on the feature and whether the new or legacy data transfer specification is used. See the links to individual feature descriptions under User Experience below for more information.
Limitations
- US English Only: The Bill Guide is currently available in US English only.
- Non-Supported Billing Frequencies: The Bill Guide only supports customers on monthly bills. Bimonthly and quarterly bills are not currently supported.
- Non-Supported Customer Types: The following customer types are not currently supported:
- Budget billing customers
- Non-AMI customers
- Small and Medium Business (SMB) / Commercial and Industrial (C&I) customers
- Solar customers
- Water and wastewater customers
User Experience
The user experience is organized into two major tabs—Most Recent Bill and Upcoming Bill—each of which contains different types of data and insights. The level of detail displayed in each tab depends on a variety of factors, such as the customer's available data and whether rates have been modeled for the utility.
Most Recent Bill
The Most Recent Bill section presents information and insights about the last bill a customer received.
Bill Breakdown: A detailed look at the components of the customer's most recent energy bill, including the date range, specific charges, total amount due, and a link to a copy of the bill.
Neighbor Comparison: A brief insight showing how a customer's energy use from their most recent bill compares to that of their neighbors.
Weather Insight: A display of the number of extreme weather days that occurred in the most recent bill period.
Bill Trends: An overview of a customer's bills over time.
Usage Breakdown: A more granular view into the categories where a customer spent the most energy.
Top End-Use Tip: An energy efficiency tip based on the customer's highest end-use category from the most recent bill period.
Upcoming Bill
The Upcoming Bill section presents insights about the next bill customers will receive so they can take preventive action.
Upcoming Bill: A summary of the customer's current usage or cost, their projected usage or cost, and how that compares to their typical usage or cost.
Upcoming Bill Tip: An energy efficiency tip to help customers take action before the current bill period is over.
Weather Insight: A display of how many unusually hot or cold days have already occurred in the customer's bill period, and a forecast of how many more extreme weather days may occur.
User Experience Variations
The Bill Guide user experience varies based on multiple factors such as the customer's available data, which Oracle Utilities Opower data transfer specifications the utility is using, and whether rates have been modeled. Two feature-wide user experience variations are summarized below. See individual widget descriptions for more information about how the user experience can change.
New Versus Legacy Data Transfer
Several features in the Bill Guide show variations in the user experience depending on whether the latest billing data transfer specification or legacy billing data transfer specification is in use. The latest billing data transfer specification can support more data and features than the legacy data transfer specification. These variations are described in more detail in the individual widget descriptions, such as the Bill Breakdown. Contact your Delivery Team if you have questions.
Multiple Premises
If there are multiple addresses or premises associated with a customer's web account, a selector appears in the title bar of the Bill Guide. This selector can appear when either the Most Recent Bill and Upcoming Bill tab is selected. The selector is hidden if there is only one address associated with the account.