This chapter describes new and enhanced features in Oracle Utilities Network Management System Release 2.6.0.2.0, including:

This feature adds an option for Oracle Utilities Network Management System to potentially update an outage start time to be later for certain outage types, based on AMI last gasps received for the outage. It behaves similar to an existing option to be able to adjust outage restore times to be earlier based on AMI restoration power-up messages. For this new feature, sometimes a utility will "pre-create" an outage event where a crew is going to disconnect power, so that any calls or AMI will group to the existing event with the already-assigned crew rather than create a new event that might get assigned a different crew. Since the actual outage interruption may begin later than the event creation, this feature adjusts the start time to be later, when meters start to report the actual loss of power.

Several new features are added that:

This feature adds additional support for events that either automatically generate stages to support the event objective or allow users the ability to manually create their own stages. It also allows a user to change an automatic event to a manual event type, prevents parameters from being edited or the type from being changed after the event is Submitted, and allows saving an event as a new strategy..

This feature provides a new 7-day forecast option that will run alongside the current 24-hour Feeder Load Management forecast option and will be used by default when the FLM forecast is not available. This longer-term forecast is based on the kVA model for generating the forecast.

This feature provides the ability to monitor and display details on the current connection status of devices under each Head End System (HES)/Aggregator. Users can view the latest information from each HES/Aggregator to get an understanding on the current capabilities of each HES/Aggregator should an event need to be called.

This feature provides an alerting mechanism to users that highlights potential communication or other types of failures. The alerting has warning and alert levels and will, where appropriate, manage the resending of communication messages to ensure they reach the end system.

This feature allows users to prioritize the event types configured in the system. As events with higher or lower priorities are created, users will be made aware of any overlapping events and warned that lower priority events will be removed to support the new higher priority event.

This feature adds the ability to define and calculate the expected reduction or increase to be applied during an event for a pre-defined group of devices within Oracle Utilities Edge DERMS natively. The ability to import the impact from an external system will continue to be supported.

Nominally, this data will be uploaded annually and will support defining the data through several variables such as device groupings, temperature, control levels and non-responsive device values (NRD). Devices will then be assigned to these groups via the enrollment or update process.

As events are created, these values will then be used to calculate the impact of the selected devices in the pre, during and post phases.

This feature adds the capability to calculate whether a device could be used within any upcoming events based on its previous usage and program rules. The ability to import the device capability from an external system will continue to be supported.

Defining the availability will include the importing and defining of several Program Rules which will define information such as:

These values will then be used to identify if a device can be part of an event or not. In addition, to support emergency type events, some of these rules can be overridden by the user to ensure the target of the event can be met.

This feature adds a Feeder Load Management tool in Flex Operations that includes graphs, alerts and forecast accuracy to improve the user experience for the Edge DERMS user.

This feature includes a new optimization engine that extends the capabilities of Grid DERMS to pre-authorize 3rd‑party DER day-ahead generation schedules.

The optimization engine is capable of generating optimized near-real-time and day-ahead schedules for utility-managed DER such as Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) and electric vehicles (EVs) charging stations, taking into consideration the forecasted grid conditions and the 3rd‑party schedules.

This feature also includes a new user interface to follow up the DER schedules' execution.

This feature extends the existing model for BESS in Oracle Utilities Network Management System to include new parameters and technical attributes that provide the DERMS optimization engine with more real-time and static data that can be used for the optimization of BESS units.

This feature extends the existing model for EVSE and EV charging stations. In turn, this extends the DERMS optimization engine's capability to optimize EVSE and charging stations based on technical specs and applicable smart charging mode.

This feature adds the ability of Oracle Utilities Network Management System to load and store generation and load forecasts from alternate sources. Oracle Utilities Network Management System can be configured to use alternate forecasts for a certain period and then use the normal scheme for the remainder of the Power Flow forecasts.

This feature includes several screen enhancements that allow the authorized user to select which type of forecast they want to use for different applications in study mode: Power Flow, Suggested Switching, Optimization and Feeder Load Management.

This feature adds the Abnormal Device Summary tabular display to Flex Operations. It shows devices with one or more phases in an off-nominal status, indicates the current and nominal statuses of the phases and when the device was operated to be abnormal.

This feature adds the Outages Summary portion of the Trouble Summary to Flex Operations. It shows the tree table of the control zone hierarchy with columns for key details such as customers served, customers out, number of calls, number of service outages, and so on. In addition, trend graphs are available to show key trends such as number of calls, number of outage events, and # of customers out.

This feature adds most of the Web Call Entry functionality to the Flex Operations client, both as an option for full Flex Operations users and for a new Flex Call Taker user type. It supports searching for a customer via different characteristics (name, address, account number, and so on), entering in a trouble call with clue drop‑down lists and comments, scheduling an appointment, requesting callbacks, and viewing call or event history for that customer.

In addition, this feature adds an indicator if the customer has been disconnected, for example due to non-payment, and that disconnect status has been sent to Oracle Utilities Network Management System as part of a CIS update and stored in the Oracle Utilities Network Management System database. This would allow the call-taker to avoid submitting a power out call if a disconnected customer calls to complain about loss of power, and instead inform the customer about the disconnect.

This feature supports being able to select one or more events in the Flex Operations Event List and then print or email a PDF of all associated calls for the events. It includes a summary of the event as a header and then the details for each call associated to the event.

This feature allows a user to select a customer from a tabular list such as the Event Details Calls or Customers lists, the Switching Impacted Customers list, and so on, and then view the event history or call history for that customer based on what is in the Oracle Utilities Network Management System database. This is similar to the event and call history available from Flex Call Entry.

This feature adds a modernized and optimized version of the Feeder Load Management dashboard to Flex Operations. This dashboard presents the data of the original Feeder Load Management dashboard in a more graphical and easier-to-use way.

Oracle Utilities Network Management System V2.6.0.2.0 provides many significant enhancements around SCADA. The main enhancements are described below.

This feature allows attachments to be added to the alarm configuration that are then available to the user to view when the alarm is generated and available to view in any of the Alarm Displays. The attachments are limited to those types currently supported by Oracle Utilities Network Management System and allowed via project configuration. Users are also allowed to add notes to an alarm which can be viewed and updated at a later date.

This feature adds support for the following two protocols:

This includes protocol-specific configuration for each protocol. Users are able to define, as well as import and export, devices that use these protocols within Flex SCADA.

There are two features that add additional functionality to the commissioning process.

This feature adds the ability to define which users will have access to limited SCADA-related functionality without requiring either the SCADA Maintenance or SCADA Commissioning user roles. Initially, this gives access for privileged users to view and control Front End Processors (FEPs) and Remote Terminal Units (RTUs)/Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) directly from the Network Display.

This feature allows privileged users access to the Flex SCADA Calculation Engine. The Calculation Engine is a highly-performant feature that allows calculation to be defined and calculated in a real-time manner, reflecting actual changes as they happen. The engine supports various Logical, Algebraic, and other functions, as well as access to device attributes, to build simple or complex calculations and store them within measurements on devices.

This feature allows the limits applied to measurements to be calculated dynamically based on user-defined calculations. Calculations are based on simple logical or numerical functions, and include the ability to use device attributes.

A further feature allows users the ability to view any limits higher than normal to be displayed on the network display for information.

This feature extends the existing trend features to add more capabilities to the displayed trends. This includes:

This feature increases user efficiency by providing one-click access from a tag in the Common Network Viewer to the step or action in the associated safety document, switching sheet, event Steps tab, or Miscellaneous Log that caused the tag to be placed.

Previously, unless AVL was being used to display actual crew locations, crews were only able to be shown in the Common Network Viewer once they were en route or onsite at the event device. This feature adds an option to toggle on display of assigned crew locations as well, so a crew symbol is shown at all device locations where that crew has an active assignment. The assigned crew symbol is distinct to easily distinguish it from the standard crew symbols. Additionally, the crew status is added to the mouse‑over text for a crew so that it is easier to determine if the crew is still en route or is onsite.

This feature blocks the user if they attempted to remove certain tag types or other conditions while there is any safety document associated to the device. This benefits utilities who create a separate safety document for each crew rather than listing multiple crews in a safety document, and therefore rather than requiring every crew to have a "clear" status in a safety document before removing tags, it would require that each safety document that references a tag be released before the tag or tags could be removed. Previously a tag could only be associated to a single safety document and that one document being issued would prevent tag removal, but this conceptually allows multiple safety documents to each prevent the removal of the tag.

This feature allows one or more operators to do actions on switching steps (crew ready, instruct, complete, etc.) while another user has the sheet in Edit mode and is creating/editing steps. This execute-only mode allows a Web Switching user do similar functions to what an Operations Mobile Application user can already do with their assigned switching steps. The benefit of this is that a supervisor can be building out the complete switching sheet of steps to perform while an operator is executing the initial steps with the crews.

This feature improves the audit log for a switching sheet. Previously it mainly tracked sheet status changes (for example, New ' Requested ' Prepared ' Reviewed…). Now it also tracks changes to the Request tab such as dates, description, or other fields, changes to individual steps, and several other changes.

This feature prompts the user to enter a restore time when moving one or more selected events to the Incomplete status. It defaults to the current time, which matches the previous behavior of always using the current time, but it provides the flexibility to back-date the restore time.

Previously, it was possible to release all crews from an event with a single action, but a crew could only be released from one of its assigned or active events at a time. This new feature allows releasing the crew from all associated events (assigned, en route, or onsite) with a single action. This can be helpful at the end of the crew's shift.

This feature allows a user to select a customer from a tabular list such as the Event Details Calls or Customers lists, Switching Impacted Customers list, and so on, and bring up the event history or call history for that customer based on what is in the Oracle Utilities Network Management System database. This is similar to the event and call history available from Web Call Entry.

This feature allows a user to select from clue code drop‑down list options in the Create Event window. The resulting event would then be created with the appropriate clues based on the drop‑down selections. This allows the created event to be able to be sorted or filtered based oaefn those clues.