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Environmental & Risk Management / Energy Management / Business Process Owner Utilities

Managing Background Data: Business Process Owner – Utilities

Using the Background Data task, the Business Process Owner for Utilities can define the following data used by the Energy Management application:

  1. Define Bill Types
  2. Define Bill Units

Note: You are free to use different bill types for tracking various utilities and may define new bill types and enter bill data accordingly. However, for weather model calculations, the bill's bill type and the building’s (bl table record) heating or cooling utility type must be “ELECTRIC”, “GAS – NATURAL”, or “UTILITY - PROPANE.” These are the only utility types recognized by the out-of the-box code. If you add other bill types be aware that you would need to modify the code to perform weather model calculations.

Step 1: Define Bill Types

The Define Bill Types task enables you to define each specific type of utility bill that will be entered into ARCHIBUS.

To add or edit a bill type:

  1. In the Process Navigator, select Environmental & Risk Management/Energy Management/ Business Process Owner – Utilities/Define Bill Types.

    The Define Bill Types form appears. All existing Bill Types appear in the Left panel.

  2. Click Add New to add a new bill type.
  3. Enter the following data:

    Bill Type: Enter a unique identifier for this type of bill.

    Cost Category: Select a utility cost category for the bill.

  4. Click Save.

Step 2: Define Bill Units

The Define Bill Units task enables you to define each specific type of unit that will be tracked on a utility bill. The Bill Units are a critical part of the Energy Management application as they require a user to define how each unit rolls up to the following reporting categories:

Procedure: Add or Edit a Bill Unit

To add or edit a Bill Unit:

  1. In the Process Navigator, select Environmental & Risk Management /Energy Management/Business Process Owner – Utilities/Define Bill Units.

    The Define Bill Units form appears. All existing Bill Units appear in the left panel.

  2. From the Bill Types list, select the type of bill you want to add a unit for.

    Any bill units defined for that bill type appear in the Bill Units panel.

  3. Click Add New to add a new Bill Unit.
  4. Enter the following data:

    Bill Type: The list shows the bill type you selected, but, if needed, you can select a different bill type from the list.

    Bill Unit: Enter the unit to be tracked for this bill.

    Rollup Type:Select how this unit rolls up for reporting.

    Conversion Factor to Storage Unit: The numeric value used to convert the bill unit to its rollup category.

    Note: It is critical to enter the Rollup Type and Conversion Factor to Storage Unit. For example, kWh is a Bill Unit that rolls up to Energy / Consumption which is reported in MMBTU. You must enter the numeric value to convert kWh to MMBTU in the field titled “Conversion Factor to Storage Unit”. For this example, the factor to convert kWh to MMBTU is 0.003412. If needed, there are sources on the Web to obtain Energy Units and their conversion factors.

    Default?: Select “Yes” to indicate that this is the units in which you wish to display your results. Only one unit per bill type can be specified as the default. If you select “Yes” for the currently displayed unit, any other unit that was specified as the default will automatically be set to “No”. In addition, you must designate one unit as the default or the system will not correctly display your results.

    Note: If the default unit is different from the storage rollup units for a bill type, you may see small differences between the displayed unit value and the entered value. For example, in an energy bill where the rollup units are MMBTU and the default units are set to KWH, if you enter consumption information in increments less than 0.5 kWh for the bill line quantity, the displayed value in kWh may be off by 1/10,000 kWh due to the rounding that occurs when the entered value is converted to the rollup units (MMBTU), and the rollup units are converted back to the display units (KWH).

    Description: Enter a description that helps to identify this bill unit.

  5. Click Save.
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