Smart Metering
Long-cycle programs where regulation, capital, and grid reliability define the pace.
This interactive experience is the shipped product itself — the same application code customers run in production, mounted read-only in your browser over a real sample journey. Not a video, not a mockup: because the demo and the product are one codebase, it can never drift from the real thing.
Inside this journey
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Outcome Discovery
Align on regulatory drivers, operational constraints, stakeholder roles, and measurable success criteria for a broad AMI deployment.
Discovery Questions
Quick orientation — let's get on the same page
- To start, how many metered endpoints does your organization plan to include in this AMI program?
- When is the regulatory or operational trigger that is driving this program, for example a TOU order or equipment end-of-life?
- Who on your leadership team will make the final decision to move from pilot to full rollout?
- Which internal group will own day‑to‑day program management once deployment begins?
- Please upload or describe any existing AMI studies, cost-benefit filings, or recent regulatory filings you want us to review.
Where the current setup actually fails you
- If your current meter fleet cannot meet the TOU filing or fails across 30 percent of endpoints, what are the financial or compliance consequences you would face in the next 12 months?
- How many manual truck rolls per month does your metering organization currently perform for reads, service connects, and outage checks?
- Describe the last time meter read accuracy or latency caused a customer or regulator complaint, and what downstream systems had to be fixed as a result.
- Estimate your current annual cost of estimated billing and associated adjustments that a full AMI deployment would reduce.
- What single technical or program failure during a rollout would make you stop the project immediately?
Where connectivity actually breaks down
- How confident are you that a new communications network can reach a representative 95 percent of your endpoints in the most challenging service areas?
- Which terrain or urban conditions in your service territory create the biggest connectivity risk, for example dense canopy, steep elevation, or multi‑unit buildings?
- Tell me about any prior connectivity pilots or small deployments you've run, including where they were, the sample size, and the measured reach rate.
- What percentage endpoint connectivity during a field pilot would convince you the network design is viable for scaling?
- If a pilot delivered 88 percent reach in one geography but 97 percent in another, what would you require before approving a full rollout?
Where systems and data need to meet in the middle
- Which integration failure — billing, MDM, head-end, or outage management — would cost you most in regulatory exposure or customer harm?
- List the key systems this AMI must integrate with and indicate whether APIs or batch interfaces exist for each.
- Who owns each integration inside your organization, and will they be available to engage in sprint-style integration work during pilot months?
- How large are the expected hourly or daily interval data volumes at scale, and do your current systems have documented performance baselines for those volumes?
- Which data mapping or timezone/consumption transformation error would cause the largest reconciliation exposure for a regulatory filing?
Designing a pilot that actually proves the unknowns
- If a six-month pilot could validate meter accuracy, communications reach, and end-to-end billing integration, what obstacles would still keep you from greenlighting it?
- How many endpoints and which customer types do you think are necessary in a pilot to be statistically meaningful for your regulator?
- What specific acceptance criteria should a pilot meet on meter accuracy, connectivity, and integration before you consider it successful?
- Who in your regulatory or legal team must review pilot results before you can use them in a cost-benefit filing?
- If the pilot meets the technical targets, how quickly could procurement and contracting sign off to move to rollout?
Operational readiness — the practical gates that stop or start work
- What critical internal dependency, if missing, would prevent the project from starting on schedule?
- Which of these infrastructure prerequisites are already in place: site access agreements, GIS parcel data, meter inventory with serials, or API credentials to billing?
- Estimate the available FTEs your organization can assign to integration testing and field support during pilot months.
- Who is the named owner for data governance and will they be authorized to sign data sharing agreements needed for pilot data flows?
- Are there regulatory approvals, local permits, or municipal agreements that could gate timeline for meter installations or network radios?
The other options you are seriously weighing
- Who are the main alternatives you are evaluating right now, including incumbents and internal builds?
- What would have to be true about your current approach for you to decide to keep it instead of changing vendors or platforms?
- Has anyone proposed solving this internally without an outside vendor, and if so, who would lead that effort and what timeline were they proposing?
- Which vendor capability is most important in your evaluation — network resilience, meter lifespan, MDM scalability, or integration support?
- If the incumbent proposed a phased upgrade that avoided re-platforming, what evidence would you need to accept that route?
Stakeholders, risks, and what can stop approval
- Which single stakeholder or governance gate in your organization could stop the program, and what would it take to address their concern?
- Describe any anticipated customer objections to mass meter replacement, for example health concerns, opt-outs, or access refusals, and how you expect to mitigate them.
- How large a contingency budget do you require for network remediation or rework if a pilot exposes connectivity gaps?
- Are there union or workforce transition agreements that will affect installation staffing or timing?
- Is there a non-negotiable regulatory filing date or program milestone that, if missed, ends the project?
Acceptance criteria and the deal accelerators
- If the pilot proves the technical and integration targets we agree, what commercial or procurement milestones would allow you to sign within the same quarter?
- Which performance metric would be sufficient on its own to accelerate your decision to award the rollout contract?
- What commercial terms are non-starters for you, for example unacceptable indemnity, warranty length, or performance SLAs?
- How soon after pilot success must commercial terms be agreed to keep the program on your target rollout timeline?
- If pilot metrics match your acceptance thresholds, who can sign the contract and what approvals would they still need?
Practical next steps and immediate asks
- Which three documents or artifacts would you be comfortable sharing to accelerate scoping — meter inventory, recent outage maps, pilot site list, or a cost-benefit filing?
- Who should attend a technical kickoff to define pilot scope and integrations, and what are their contact roles?
- Realistically, when could your team commit to a two-day onsite discovery workshop to finalize pilot locations and acceptance criteria?
- Before we finish, what single unresolved question in your leadership team could stop this project from moving forward?
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Pilot & Field Evaluation
Design and run a pilot to validate meter accuracy, communications reach in the buyer's geography, head-end and MDM integration, and acceptance criteria for network performance.
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- success_criteria
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Solution Scope
Define the full solution: meter counts and types, network architecture, head-end/MDM modules, integrations, rollout phases, and responsibilities.
Scope Configuration
- Meter Hardware Provisioning and Staging
- Mesh Network Infrastructure Deployment
- Field Gateway and Collector Installation
- Meter Endpoint Installation and Commissioning
- Over-the-Air Firmware Updates and Management
- Head-End System Deployment and Configuration
- Meter Data Management Platform Deployment
- Integrate MDM with Billing/CIS/OMS
- Remote Connect/Disconnect Activation
- Outage Detection and Automated Alerts Setup
- Voltage and Power Quality Monitoring Enablement
- Network RF Tuning and Performance Optimization
- Field Technician Training and Certification
- Meter Exchange, Recycling, and Disposal Logistics
- Financing and Incentive Qualification
Scope Questions
Meter Hardware Provisioning and Staging
- How many metering endpoints do you plan to procure by physical form factor (residential single-phase, three-phase commercial, CT/VT metering)?
- Which meter accuracy class and calibration certificates must be supplied (for example ANSI C12.20 0.5 or better)?
- Where will batch staging and warehouse acceptance testing occur and what physical security controls (access logs, CCTV) are required for staged meter inventories?
- Do you require serialized asset tagging linked to your asset management system (barcode, RFID) and which asset ID field maps to your CIS account record?
- Define the acceptance criteria for delivered meter batches (examples: correct firmware version, calibration certificate present, visual inspection, sample functional test pass rate).
Mesh Network Infrastructure Deployment
- Which deployment terrain profile applies to the target area for mesh planning (urban with high-rise, dense tree canopy/suburban, hilly rural) so we can size node density?
- How many planned network gateway/relay nodes do you estimate per square mile and which mounting types are permissible at each planned site (utility pole, rooftop, indoor comms room)?
- Require support for which radio standard or spectrum plan in your territory (example: IEEE 802.15.4g, licensed sub-GHz band) for RF compliance and coexistence planning?
- Specify the RF coverage threshold you require in the pilot area (for example 95% packet delivery ratio within three hops or minimum RSSI of -85 dBm) to qualify network performance.
- Who will coordinate pole attachments, right-of-way, and local permitting for node installations and what documentation do you provide for that coordination?
Field Gateway and Collector Installation
- List gateway sites that currently have backhaul available and indicate backhaul type for each (fiber handoff, cellular LTE/5G, microwave hop).
- Do you already hold pole attachment licenses for the planned gateway locations or should a permitting plan be included in scope?
- State the minimum environmental enclosure rating required for gateways (for example IP65, NEMA 4X) and any site-specific heating/cooling constraints.
- Provide the preferred operations ownership model for gateway maintenance after handover (your internal crew, contracted O&M partner, vendor-managed), and note existing SLAs if any.
- Indicate which gateway telemetry metrics must route into your network operations center (examples: RSSI distribution, packet loss, CPU/Memory, WAN latency).
Meter Endpoint Installation and Commissioning
- Estimate the average number of endpoint installations per crew per day you expect during peak rollout and how many crews you can resource.
- Require what customer access model for installs (scheduled in-home appointment with electrician, curbside install without entry, self-install kit with app-based commissioning)?
- List the commissioning records you require at the point of install (meter serial, firmware version, final meter reading, CT/PT ratios) and the submission method (mobile app, API, CSV upload).
- Describe the mandated safety and lockout/tagout (LOTO) steps installers must follow for live-service meter changeouts according to your safety program.
- Define acceptance for an installed endpoint (examples: successful first hourly interval upload to head-end, registration in MDM, and correct mapping to CIS account).
Over-the-Air Firmware Updates and Management
- Are signed firmware images and secure delivery (code signing with rollback support) required for meter OTA pipelines and key management integration?
- Specify the release cadence and change control gate you require for OTA pushes (for example monthly security patch window, quarterly feature release with CAB approval).
- Indicate which staging environments must be available for OTA testing (pilot group, pre-production cluster, full production) and who approves promotion between stages.
- Outline the recovery behavior you require for failed OTA updates (automatic rollback, automatic retry schedule, follow-up field dispatch) and escalation triggers.
- Confirm whether cryptographic key storage must integrate with a hardware security module (HSM) and your security operations center for key rotation audits.
Head-End System Deployment and Configuration
- Identify the head-end communication protocols and adapters that must be enabled (examples: DLMS/COSEM, ANSI C12.22, proprietary meter adapter).
- Select target throughput load test scenarios for the head-end to validate performance (for example 1,000 meter messages/minute, 10,000 meter messages/hour).
- State which integration methods to your MDM and downstream systems are required (real-time webhook, batch file exchange, REST API) and expected message formats.
- Name the operational owner who will approve configuration changes after handover and the expected change-control process (ticketing, CAB approval cadence).
- Report any existing head-end redundancy or high-availability requirements (active-active, active-passive, RTO/RPO targets).
Meter Data Management Platform Deployment
- Estimate the day-1 endpoint population and the projected year-5 population the MDM must support so we can size storage and compute.
- Choose the interval granularity and retention policy you require for interval reads (examples: 1-minute, 5-minute, 15-minute intervals and retention years).
- Identify required data validation rules (gap detection, timestamp alignment, outlier filters) and who will own rule definitions and tuning.
- List required export connectors and formats for analytics and regulator filings (CSV extracts, EDI batches, REST API endpoints).
- State the SLA targets you require for MDM data availability and query latency to support customer care and regulatory reporting.
Integrate MDM with Billing/CIS/OMS
- Which billing/CIS interfaces must be supported for usage transfer (batch daily usage file, hourly billing API, or both)?
- Provide the mapping rules required between meter serials and CIS customer account IDs and indicate where the golden source file will come from.
- Indicate the reconciliation cadence you prefer to validate MDM to CIS mapping (daily, weekly) and who signs off on reconciliation exceptions.
- Select the accepted tolerance for billing-ready data reconciliation (example tolerances: 0.1% energy mismatch, 0.5%, 1%).
- Do you require direct forwarding of MDM events to your OMS and which event types should be included (power loss, tamper, voltage sag)?
Remote Connect/Disconnect Activation
- Estimate the percentage of endpoints that will need remote connect/disconnect capability at go-live so we can size command throughput.
- Which preconditions must be checked before issuing a remote disconnect (payment hold flag, active work order, LOTO tag) per your operating rules?
- Choose the retry and escalation behavior you want when a remote command fails (automated retry policy, queue for manual retry, field dispatch after N retries).
- Are audit trails required for each connect/disconnect action including operator ID, timestamp, and reason code integrated into CIS?
- Who is authorized to approve mass disconnect or reconnect campaigns and what role-based approval workflow do you require?
Outage Detection and Automated Alerts Setup
- Which meter-derived indicators should open an OMS ticket (examples: sustained loss of interval data, sudden zero consumption, tamper event)?
- Select the detection-to-notification latency you require for customer alerts and field dispatch (for example within 5 minutes of event confirmation).
- Do you require templated customer notifications and regulator-ready outage reports for extended interruptions and do they need statutory fields included?
- Specify the restoration-verification condition needed before auto-closing an OMS ticket (for example N consecutive normal intervals at the meter).
- Identify which stakeholder groups must be notified and in what order for major outages (distribution operations, customer care, regulatory affairs).
Voltage and Power Quality Monitoring Enablement
- Which power-quality metrics must be captured at interval level (examples: RMS voltage, flicker, total harmonic distortion) and at what interval granularity?
- Where (which feeders or transformer zones) do you need prioritized voltage monitoring for early warning and regulatory reporting?
- Do you require automated correlation between meter voltage events and SCADA/topology for root-cause analysis and which data exchange method do you prefer?
- State the alarm thresholds for power quality that will trigger operational tickets (example: voltage deviation greater than 5% for 5 minutes).
- Who will own ongoing power-quality analytics and periodic regulator filings produced from meter data?
Network RF Tuning and Performance Optimization
- Do you already have RF propagation heatmaps for the service territory or should a site survey be included to model path loss and canopy effects?
- Which RF health KPIs must be tracked continuously (packet delivery ratio, average hops per meter, RSSI/CINR distribution)?
- How often should RF retuning be scheduled during rollout and what triggers should provoke an ad hoc retune (seasonal foliage changes, new construction)?
- Compare acceptable mitigation techniques for persistent coverage gaps (deploy relay nodes, install higher-gain antennas, add rooftop gateways) and indicate preferred order.
- Assign who will approve and fund additional RF infrastructure discovered during optimization (your capex, joint funding, vendor-funded with recovery).
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Mutual Commit
Finalize commercial and contractual terms, acceptance criteria, milestones, and regulatory filing support obligations.
Agreement Modules
- Master Services Agreement (MSA)
- Statement of Work (SOW)
- Purchase Agreement - Hardware Order
- Subscription Agreement - Meter Data Platform
- Service Level Agreement (SLA)
- Acceptance Test Plan & Criteria
- Milestone Payment Schedule
- Regulatory Filing Support Addendum
- Data Processing Agreement (DPA)
- Hardware Warranty & Repair Terms
- Change Order Agreement
- Termination & Transition Agreement
- Integration & Cutover Addendum
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Deployment
Lock readiness facts and configuration values before execution begins.
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Pre-Deployment Readiness
Capture concrete readiness facts — site access, data owners, billing system touchpoints, and timelines — required before configuration and execution.
Pre-Deployment Questions
Environment and site access
- Which buyer systems will receive interval data in production? Select all that are confirmed as part of scope (so we know which integrations to plan).
- Production environment readiness status for the systems you selected (so we can schedule integration testing and cutover).
- Site access status for meter installations across rollout sites (select the option that best describes current state so we can sequence field crews).
Data and configuration
- Primary billing system architecture (this tells us whether mappings and cutovers are single‑system or multi‑system).
- Is there a named data owner responsible for billing account mapping and interval data acceptance? Provide name and role (so we have the approver for mapping and validation).
- Will a historical interval data migration or replay be required for billing/validation (so we can size extraction and scheduling)?
People and ownership
- Who is the buyer's single technical integration owner (name and role) — this person will be the primary contact for test coordination and issue triage.
- Who is the buyer's deployment field coordinator and escalation contact for installations (name and role) — this person manages site access, crew scheduling, and field escalations.
Timing and constraints
- Are there regulatory filing dates, installation blackout windows, or other schedule constraints that will limit installation or system cutovers? Select all that apply (we will need exact dates/milestones after selection).
- Target date the buyer expects configuration activities to begin in production‑like environments (YYYY‑MM‑DD) — so we can align the project timeline and resource assignments.
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Configuration Details
Lock exact configuration values the deployment team will use — integration endpoints, API credentials, field mappings, and network node parameters.
Configuration Details
Environments & Endpoints
- Enter the production head-end URL the deployment will use (format: https://...). Default: required — paste the exact URL used by the platform's connector.
Authentication & Credential Handoff
- Choose the authentication method the buyer will use for head-end / MDM integration (Default: OAuth2 client credentials). Note: we will NOT request secrets in this sheet — secret exchange is handled via your secrets manager at kickoff.
- Enter the non-secret identifier for the chosen authentication above (client ID, API key NAME, or certificate thumbprint). Do NOT paste secrets or passwords.
Field & Identity Mappings
- Enter the exact field name used for meter serial numbers in your source system (billing/MDM). Default: meter_serial — paste the exact column/field name.
- Enter the exact field name used for customer account ID in your billing system (exact column/field name). Default: account_id.
Network Node Parameters
- Select the radio frequency band the deployment will configure for field devices (Default: 900 MHz ISM). Choose the option that matches the buyer's permitted/regulatory band.
Integration Targets & Operational Thresholds
- Select the billing-system integration method the deployment will use (Default: Batch file export (SFTP)). This determines which connector the build will enable.
- Enter the single billing integration identifier the deploy will use (API client ID OR SFTP username OR DB schema name). Do NOT paste credentials; provide the non-secret identifier exactly as it appears.
- Enter the daily data-availability acceptance threshold per endpoint as a percentage (numeric). Default: 99.5
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Deployment Execution
Plan and execute phased rollout with clear owners, sequencing, pilot-to-scale gates, and escalation paths for field and systems teams.
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Go‑Live Acceptance
Verify acceptance criteria, regulatory filing outputs, integration correctness, and operational readiness before declaring each phase live.
Checklist items
- Receive written phase acceptance from the buyer's designated approver
- Obtain regulator filing acknowledgement or reference for required phase filings
- Head-end and MDM integration test scripts executed and passed with sign-off
- Billing export and bill-print/e-bill samples validated and signed by billing owner
- Communications network performance acceptance tests passed and logged
- Field safety and LOTO checklist completed and certified for energized work
- Written Permission to Operate or equivalent authorization obtained for energized endpoints
- Rollback plan and verified rollback point documented and tested
- Operational monitoring, alerts, dashboards, and escalation contacts provisioned and acknowledged
- Privacy/customer notification and opt-in/opt-out records delivered and archived
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Operational Success
Track realized savings, meter/network health, integration stability, and maintain a channel for support, enhancements, and regulatory reporting.
Success Reviews
- Go-live Health Check (weeks 1-4)
- First Measurement Review (weeks 4-10)
- 90-day Realization Review
- Quarterly Operational Review
- Annual Operational Review
Issues & Enhancements
- Deliver a prioritized incident closure plan with expected resolution dates for each open incident older than 30 days.
- Publish a closure plan for each remaining acceptance gap with target dates and verification steps.
- Deliver evidence of legacy system decommissioning or read-only configuration and data archive completion.
- Provide the regulatory filing extract samples that will be submitted if requested.
- Operational metrics dashboard
- Ensure network packet delivery rate and integration uptime remain within the tolerance recorded in Solution Scope.
- Reduce the count of persistent open incidents by a targeted percentage before the next quarter.
- Agree next-quarter priorities for enhancement requests that materially affect operations or reporting.
- Re-confirm success criteria and owners
- Publish a quarterly operational dashboard snapshot showing packet delivery rate and integration uptime.
- Capture and circulate the prioritized enhancement backlog for scheduling consideration.
- Year-to-date realized savings
- Confirm the year-over-year realized savings against the Solution Scope financial model and surface any material variances.
- Agree a 12-month plan to address any meter or network health trends that threaten service levels or regulatory obligations.
- Validate that regulatory reporting outputs meet the required formats and data completeness for filings.
- Produce a reconciliation of realized savings versus the Solution Scope model with explanations for material variances.
- Create a 12-month maintenance and refresh plan addressing meter and network health risks identified in the review.
- Deliver a regulatory reporting checklist confirming data sources, formats, and responsible owners for the next filing cycle.
- Confirm that the deployment components expected at go-live are present and communicating.
- Identify and assign owners for all critical go-live blockers with committed remediation windows.
- Ensure all parties understand where numeric targets and acceptance criteria are documented in Solution Scope.
- Publish an issues-and-owners list with remediation deadlines within 24 hours.
- Provide an updated inventory of meters and network nodes that reported during the first 72 hours.
- Circulate a confirmation of who owns each Solution Scope success criterion.
- Present first measurement data
- Determine whether daily endpoint reporting rate and truck roll reduction are tracking toward targets and why or why not.
- Agree a prioritized remediation plan with dates to address the top 1-3 root causes.
- Confirm when the next data re-check will occur and which dataset will be authoritative for that check.
- Produce a remediation plan addressing the top root causes with milestones and target completion dates.
- Run a focused integration test and deliver an API error-rate log for the last 14 days.
- Prepare a re-check dashboard snapshot for the agreed follow-up date.
- Present 90-day outcome data versus acceptance criteria
- Confirm which acceptance criteria from Solution Scope and Pilot & Field Evaluation are met, and which require remediation.
- Establish firm remediation timelines for any unmet criteria and a verification date for closure.
- Ensure the legacy metering system is either decommissioned or formally retained read-only with archived data and closed fallback habits.
- Persistent issues and incident burn-down
- Meter and network health trends
- Document remediation items and resolution timelines
- Integration stability summary
- Deployment and migration validation
- Support ticket trends and SLA adherence
- Incumbent system decommission status
- Integration stability and incident trend analysis
- Root-cause diagnosis for any gaps
- Early adoption and usage signals
- Regulatory reporting and compliance summary
- Blockers and open issues triage
- Agree corrective actions and timelines
- Enhancement request triage
- Regulatory reporting and deliverables check
- Agree immediate remediation actions
- Integration incident and escalation review