Legacy Billing Data File Name Conventions

All billing data files transferred to Oracle Utilities must follow a standard naming convention. The convention to use depends on whether you are sending your data in a single file or two separate files. Your Delivery Team will work with you to determine which convention to use.

File name components enclosed in angle brackets (<>) must be populated. File name components enclosed in square brackets ([]) are optional and can be included or left out. Any components without brackets must be part of the file name and should not be changed.

opwr_<utility>_res_<specification version number>_full_<yyyyMMddHHmmss>.<gz or zip>

opwr_<utility>_res_<specification version number>_customer_<yyyyMMddHHmmss>.<gz or zip>

opwr_<utility>_res_<specification version number>_usage_<yyyyMMddHHmmss>.<gz or zip>

This naming convention is made up of the following components:

  • Prefix: The opwr prefix, which is the standard abbreviation for Oracle Utilities Opower.
  • Utility Identifier: A three- or four-character code that identifies the utility sending the file. Your Delivery Team will work with you to choose the utility code early in the implementation process. The code needs to be a unique identifier for the utility in the Oracle Utilities Opower system. For example, “The Great Energy Company” might have an identifier of gec.
  • Population Token: An abbreviation that indicates whether the data is applicable to residential (res) or non-residential (nonres) customer populations. For the non-residential category, there are additional segmentations available to designate Small and Medium Business populations (nonres-smb) or Large Commercial Industrial populations (nonres-lci). Consult your Service Delivery Manager to determine which is the most appropriate population token if you need to use additional segmentations.
  • Specification Version Number: A three-digit version number of the data transfer specification. Each digit must be separated by a hyphen (-) and not a period or an underscore. This must match the latest number shown in the Specification Version Number column in Legacy Billing Data Version History.
  • Data Type: If you are sending data in a single file, then the filename must include the word full to indicate that all recipient and usage information headers are in the same file. If you are sending two files, the filename must contain the word customer or usage. The Service Point data file should include the word customer. The file that contains the Usage data should include the word usage.
  • Date: The date that the file was generated, in the format yyyyMMddHHmmss.
  • File Extension: All files should be gzipped and should end with .gz, or be zipped and end with .zip. If you choose to PGP encrypt your files, then the .pgp extension should be used. In the case of PGP encryption, compression is not required since the encryption process includes file compression. Files can be up to one gigabyte compressed, or up to four gigabytes uncompressed.

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File Name Examples

Suppose the specification version number of the document is v1-0-0 and your utility is named "The Great Energy Company.” An example of your utility’s file name would be as follows:

opwr_gec_res_v1-0-0_full_20210316131415.gz

opwr_gec_res_v1-0-0_customer_20210316131415.gz

opwr_gec_res_v1-0-0_usage_20210316131415.gz

Suppose your utility is using PGP-encrypted files. An example of your utility’s file name would be as follows:

opwr_gec_res_v1-0-0_full_20210316131415.pgp

opwr_gec_res_v1-0-0_customer_20210316131415.pgp

opwr_gec_res_v1-0-0_usage_20210316131415.pgp

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Additional Notes

The filename must not exceed 183 characters and must not contain a period (.) unless the period comes right before the file extension. The Oracle Utilities Opower file reception system considers the first period in the file name to be the beginning of a file extension. For example, the following file name is invalid and cannot be processed:

opwr.gec.res.v1.0.0.full.20210316131415.gz

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