3 Delivery

High Bill Alert AMI messages are not regularly-scheduled communications. They are triggered based on specific criteria. For example, an alert is triggered when a customer reaches a certain percentage of usage above their typical baseline. The messages must be delivered within a particular delivery window. The rules that govern alert delivery follow.

Waking Hours: High Bill Alert AMI messages must be delivered during waking hours (between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.) in a utility-specific delivery window. You cannot choose the specific time to send.

Days of the Week: High Bill Alert AMI messages can be delivered on weekdays or weekends during waking hours.

Non-Delivery Window: High Bill Alert AMI messages cannot be delivered during the configured non-delivery window, which is during the specified number of days after bill period starts and before a bill period ends. The purpose of the non-delivery window is to ensure customers do not receive an alert too soon after their bill period starts, or too late in the bill period to be useful.

The default non-delivery window settings specify that alerts should not be delivered within seven days after a new bill period starts or within seven days before the bill period ends. These settings are configurable as part of the voice channel configuration, but apply to all channels used for High Bill Alert AMI communications.

For example, suppose a customer is billed on the third day of every month. For the July 3rd bill, using the default delivery settings, Oracle Utilities could send an alert anytime between June 10th (seven days after the bill period starts) and June 26th (seven days before the bill period ends).

Delivery Frequency: High Bill Alert AMI messages are limited to being sent once per billing period per service point to avoid excessive alerting.

Delivery Tools: Oracle Utilities uses third-party tools to send High Bill Alert AMI messages. Most of these tools provide Oracle Utilities with information on bounces, opens, opt-outs, and click-throughs.

Emails and Attachments: For email alerts, the email content is delivered directly in the email message with no attachments. This makes it more convenient for customers to quickly view the information, and it makes the emails less likely to be blocked by spam filters.