Rate Attributes File

The rate attributes file contains a series of key value pairs that provide all the account-specific attributes for a customer. When collected together, these attributes can be used to associate an account with the appropriate rate plan and rate options used when calculating the costs for each customer’s bill. The rate attributes file can also be used to identify customers who have solar. This data is required and must be sent on an ongoing basis as customers are introduced into the system or as customer data changes. The data must be provided in a single file that follows a specific naming convention. See Rates Data File Name Conventions for more information.

Note:

The rate attributes file cannot be loaded into the system until after the utility account has been created by your Delivery Team. Utilities should not send the file until the Delivery Team has received the utility account information in the customer/billing file as defined in Legacy Billing Data File Specifications. The common data element that must match across the datasets is the account_id. The account_id is a common value for applying rate attributes to a particular customer’s account.

Field	Description
account_id	Customer account identifier. The account entity should be established following the rules and requirements in Legacy Billing Data File Specifications. Type: VARCHAR Can Be Empty?: No.
key	Key identifying the attribute. See Examples of Rate Attribute Keys below for common use cases, such as for rate plans, solar customers, and low-income customers. Type: VARCHAR Can Be Empty?: No.
value	Value for the attribute. See Examples of Rate Attribute Keys below for common use cases. Type: VARCHAR Can Be Empty?: No.
start_date	Effective start date of the specified attribute value. See Start and End Dates for more guidance. Type: DATE(YYYYMMDD) Can Be Empty?: No.
end_date	Date on which the specified attribute value is no longer effective. This day is not part of the period covered by the rate attribute. This field may be left NULL if the value is effective indefinitely. Type: DATE(YYYYMMDD) Can Be Empty?: No.
is_utility_account_attribute_deletion	Deletion flag for the rate attribute. Supported values include true and false. The default value is false. Note: The rate attribute deletion feature is disabled by default to ensure that rate attributes are not erroneously deleted. If you want to allow deletions, make a request to your Delivery Team. Note that deleting a rate attribute entry results in the deletion of all future values for the account_id and key columns associated with that rate attribute. Type: STRING Can Be Empty?: Yes.

Examples of Rate Attribute Keys

Key	Sample Value	Description
rate_plan_code	Rate-1	Rate plan identifier (for example, B-1, A-1). All customers should have at least one rate_plan_code key value pair.
critical_peak_option	CPP	Set to the code specifying the critical peak option selected (for example, ‘CPP’).
low_income_discount	FERA	Indicates that an account has a low income discount.
budget_billing	1	Use a value of 1 to indicate budget billing and 0 to indicate no budget billing.
SOLAR_TRUE_UP	1	Use a value of 1 to indicate that a customer is using solar technology and should therefore receive insights related to solar power. Note that the attribute name (SOLAR_TRUE_UP) is case sensitive, and that 1 is the only supported value. The solar true up indicates the dates (usually annual) on which a customer's net energy metering billing has an anniversary. The anniversary may be when an annual true-up occurs and balances are paid off or reset. Oracle Utilities Opower expects a new row in the data file for each year that a customer has solar. This data can then be used to calculate monthly and yearly net energy metering billing balances, and to send time-based insights to the customer about their solar usage. See the SOLAR_TRUE_UP examples in the Rate Attributes Sample Data section below for an idea of how the data could look. Note: Oracle Utilities Opower will exclude any customer bill periods that fall outside of the true-up period's start and end date. For example, any bills that are partially within the true up period will be excluded. To be included, a start date of a bill period must begin after the true-up period's start_date, and the end date of a bill period must fall within the true-up period's end_date.

Rate Attributes Sample Data

account_id	key	value	start_date	end_date	is_utility_account_attribute_ deletion
123	rate_plan_code	Rate-1	20080501		false
123	low_income_discount	FERA	20080501		false
123	critical_peak_option	CPP	20080501		false
456	rate_plan_code	Rate-1	20090701		false
456	critical_peak_option	CPP	20090701		false
789	SOLAR_TRUE_UP	1	20161011	20171011	false
789	SOLAR_TRUE_UP	1	20171011	20181011	false

Rate Attribute Data File Assumptions

Any key listed in the file should be unique over a given period of time. For example, a customer cannot have more than one rate plan code active over the same time period.