This section describes new features and functionality included in this release of Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management, including:

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

The following portals now use and display the time in the Service Point or Installation Event time zone:

Previously, Service Order Management did not include a time zone component at the Activity Type level and used the application's default Installation Option time zone, which did not match the time zone of the local service point.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

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

Device Characteristics provide projects or multi-commodity utilities with the capability to define valid and required characteristics, configure the characteristics' defaults, and assign the characteristics to be used on a device. For example, the characteristics for a water meter can vary from an electric meter.

Configure and define characteristics for devices using new Device Characteristics zones to reduce project costs.

Refer to the Characteristic Types and Defining Characteristic Types sections of the Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management Administrative User Guide for more information.

You can configure the characteristics for your projects on the device types.

This section describes the new and enhanced integration and data extract features in this release, including:

With this feature, caching the Consumption Extract Type details and inputs for flagging an Initial Measurement Data for historical extract limits the number of additional processing needed to enable Configurable Consumption Extracts and DataConnect.

This feature improves the efficiency of identifying Initial Measurement Data for historical extract for enabling Configurable Consumption Extract and DataConnect.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

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

The following updates to the Post Conversion Estimation processes prevent the creation of estimations for prior periods and reduce the overall period estimation runtime:

To enable the Measuring component maximum number of days to estimate, complete these steps:

To enable the Measurement Data Options feature configuration, complete these steps:

To use the D1-IMCDT (Initialize Measuring Component Dates) batch control, complete these steps:

Refer to Running Initial Periodic Estimation in the Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management Administrative User Guide for more information.

This section describes the new and enhanced Oracle Field Service Integration features in this release, including:

In this release, multiple service histories (work instructions and questionnaires) for field tasks that are applicable to Meter Data Management/Service Order Management and Operational Device are created for devices that are tracked as assets. Meter Data Management or Service Order Management serves as a conduit for sending a list of service history types configured in the Operational Device region on activity types and asset types to the field work system (for example, Oracle Field Service Cloud) as part of the Field Activity synchronization request. Upon completion of the field work, Meter Data Management or Service Order Management takes the completion information related to service history types and initiates the Operational Device activity completion event that records the service history on the asset.

Multiple service histories is most applicable to scenarios where a shared activity is created directly in Meter Data Management or Service Order Management for a tracked device.

To enable this feature, update field task types that Meter Data Management/Service Order Management and Operational Device share or jointly own to include the enrichment service for Asset System Data Retriever in the Processing Scripts section and set it as X1-AstSysRet.

To enable this feature, update field task types that Meter Data Management/Service Order Management and Operational Device share or jointly own to include the enrichment service for Asset System Data Retriever in the Processing Scripts section and set it as X1-AstSysRet.

The Oracle Field Service Cloud integration enables the passing of device-related field activities like meter test or device inspection to Oracle Field Service Cloud for scheduling, routing, and completion. The integration supports passing of planned service histories or forms for an activity and valid service histories for each asset linked to the activity that the crew can complete on the field.

The Oracle Field Service Cloud integration provides the capability to pass a collection of planned service histories for an activity and pass valid service histories for each asset linked to the activity, which field crews can complete.

To enable this feature, refer to the Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management Integration to Oracle Field Service Cloud Configuration Guide and Oracle Field Service Cloud Configurations Setup Guide for more information.

This section describes the new and enhanced product usability metrics features in this release, including:

The Product Use Metric dashboard provides the ability to calculate meter and channel counts without consideration of usage subscriptions and view master data counts. This allows you to see meter and channel counts in implementations that are not using the usage calculation functionality.

To enable this feature on implementations that require device count independent of Usage Subscription, set the Exclude US Check (Y or N) parameter to "Y" on algorithms with the D1DVCCNTSNP (Create Device Count Snapshot) algorithm type.

To enable this feature on implementation that require channel count independent of Usage Subscription, set the Exclude US Check (Y or N) parameter to "Y" on algorithms with the D1-CHLCNTSNP (Create Channel Count Snapshot D1-CHLCNTSNP) algorithm type.

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

Multi-division companies that issue different types of work requests by service type or region are able to configure varying service orders and field tasks by operating division. Examples of these service orders and fields tasks are service order orchestration processes, supporting different work calendars, start/end hours, and crews. Companies can also limit the field task types by division. This is useful for multi-division companies that issue different types of work requests by service type or region.

To enable this feature, complete these steps:

Service Order Management provides the ability to capture the reason for a field activity reschedule of a rebooked appointment or changed service date. In a Customer Cloud Service implementation, the Customer Care and Billing field activity is not exposed and the rescheduling only applies to the Service Order Management field activity. In an implementation where Customer Care and Billing and Meter Solution are separate instances, the reschedule reason of the Customer Care and Billing field activity is automatically synchronized to the corresponding Service Order Management field activity. However, if rescheduling is made directly on the Service Order Management field activity of the Meter Solution instance, the reschedule reason is not automatically synchronized with the Customer Care and Billing field activity.

To enable this feature, set up the Meter Solution extendable lookup values for FA Reschedule Reason. For separate Customer Care and Billing and Meter Solution instances, set up the data value mapping between the two instances for the FA Reschedule Reason. If the two instances share FA Cancel Reason Codes, you can disregard setting up the data value maps.

The system mirrors the reason for canceling a field activity on Meter Solution or Service Order Management to the corresponding Customer Care and Billing field activity. Previously, the system only assigned the cancel reason to the corresponding Customer Care and Billing field activity.

To enable this feature, set up the Meter Solution extendable lookup values for FA Cancel Reason. For separate Customer Care and Billing and Meter Solution instances, set up the data value mapping between the two instances for the FA Cancel Reason. If the two instances share FA Cancel Reason Codes, you can disregard setting up the data value maps.

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

The Dynamic Aggregation Engine now uses the same totalization rules as that of the Billing Determinant Engine. The aggregation process considers the Measuring Component rules and the Usage Subscription-Service Point rules when totaling usage. For example:

To enable this feature on the Measurement from US Service Points and Measurements from US Direct Links data sources, you should set the Apply Usage Subscription Multiplier to "Yes."

The D1-GAGRR (Generate Aggregation Group Run for Re-Aggregation) batch control allows downstream processes to perform multiple dynamic aggregation on the same business day by generating a new aggregation group for each batch control run. You can schedule multiple runs of the batch control, which is helpful for complex customer billing that need to re-aggregate before running the billing processes.

You can schedule a D1-GAGRR batch job at each point of the day that requires re-aggregation. Optionally, you can provide an Aggregation Group Code to limit the re-aggregations into a single aggregation group.

In this release, the D1-DSAEM (Dimension Scanner and Aggregation Monitor) batch control provides multi-threading support, which improves batch job performance and results to faster completion time. This saves time and results in a more efficient process.

No steps are required to enable this feature.

The D1-MQTDS (Measurement Quality and Timeliness Dim Scan) batch control provides the capability to perform dimension scans for timeliness and quality aggregation. With multi-threading enabled on the batch control, you can expect improved performance and reliability, and you have the ability to save the progress of interrupted batch runs. Additionally, the batch control consolidated the handling of explicit references to Usage Groups and dynamic determination of usage groups on Usage Subscriptions. A single Activity and Activity Type is applicable to both Usage Group determination methods. The batch control also simplifies the calculation of an Initial Measurement Data's timeliness by removing the need to plug in the D2-DET-TML (Determine IMD's Timeliness) algorithm to Initial Measurement Data business objects.

If the implementation uses D2-MsrmtQuantityAggScanner (Measurement Quantity Scanner), additional configurations are not required.

If the implementation uses D2-SubMsrmtQDUCAggScanner (Dimension Scanner - Create Aggregators) and D2-MsrmtQDUCAggScanner (Dimension Scanner - Create Sub Scanner), complete the following steps to enable the feature: