Use Cases

The following use cases describe how you can use various Oracle Utilities Opower API endpoints in your customer-facing and Customer Service Representative-facing (CSR) applications. These use case examples do not represent the limits of what you can do with the API endpoints.

Contact Oracle Utilities if you have any questions about these examples.

Adding Insights for Customers

Energy efficiency insights can be displayed on a utility's customer portal. This gives a utility more flexibility to decide where and how insights are displayed, which can include a utility's mobile-optimized customer web portal or mobile application. When these insights contain prompts for customers to view additional insights or tips, the insights also drive traffic to the web portal, where that additional information is contained. These insights may increase the amount of time that customers spend on the utility's website as well as increase the level of customer engagement.

Note:

Utility servers must implement security policies to avoid unauthorized access by mobile applications. Oracle Utilities assigns credentials that authorize an API called to access any data belonging to the utility through the API. In customer-facing web or mobile interfaces, the utility is responsible for implementing security policies that restrict access to authorized users. For example, customers can only view their specific neighbor comparison and update their specific report settings.

Unifying Preferences and Settings for Customers

Utilities can improve their customer experience by using APIs to centralize preference and settings management in a customer's utility web portal. For example, email report settings can be located with other utility-specific account email settings.

Adding Insights for CSRs

Oracle Utilities Opower insights can be displayed on a utility's support application. This improves a CSR's ability to act as an energy advisor by displaying insights and advice in context with other customer information. For example, a CSR can view a customer's bill comparison to help explain why their most recent bill is higher than the previous bill.