Posts Sales and Service messages in e-automate when equipment has been billed on estimated meters, so your team gets a real reading at the next customer contact.
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Overview | Samples | Variables | Alert Functionality | Best Practices & Tips | Related Alerts
Overview
Overview
Estimated meters are a problem, and not billing contracts because of no meters is a bigger one. This alert posts both Sales and Service messages in e-automate advising the need to get a meter, so don't let that customer off the phone without a meter, and make sure the tech gets one if there is a service call.
It identifies billed meters in the last 90 days where the billed Beginning Meter and End Meter were both estimated, and no non-estimated meter has been received after the last End Meter Date for that equipment meter. Once a real reading comes in, the message is removed automatically.
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Run Schedule: To be confirmed
Type of Output: Sales and Service messages in e-automate
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Sample
Sample
Sample (right click on image to view in larger form):
Sample output
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Variables
Variables
Message Subject: Message subject for Sales/Service messages. Also used as the contract message when Create contract messages is set to Yes. Default: Meter(s) Required
Custom Message: Custom message to add to Sales/Service messages. Default: Meter reading needed!
AttributeName for Customer/Equipment to exclude: The custom property attribute on the equipment or customer record used to exclude that account from this process. Default: ZCJ_Alert882MeterHold. See Custom Property Set Up.
Branch Numbers: Branch numbers to trigger on, separated by commas. Leave blank for all branches.
Days without confirmed reading: Number of days a device has not received a confirmed meter reading. Leave blank to ignore this and only trigger on begin/end billed estimated meters.
Create contract messages: Create/modify contract messages. Default: No
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Alert Functionality
Alert Functionality
Which equipment gets a message
ID882 looks at meters billed in the last 90 days and flags any equipment meter where:
- both the billed Beginning Meter and End Meter were estimated, and
- no non-estimated meter has been received after the last End Meter Date for that equipment meter.
If you set Days without confirmed reading, it will also flag devices that haven't had a confirmed meter reading in that many days.
Only equipment in the branches listed in Branch Numbers is included, or all branches if that's left blank.
The messages
For each flagged device, ID882 posts a Sales message and a Service message in e-automate, using your Message Subject and Custom Message. Anyone speaking to the customer, or a technician on a service call, can see that a meter reading is needed.
The Message Subject text is wrapped in braces — for example {Meter(s) Required} — so the process can find its own messages again later.
If Create contract messages is set to Yes, ID882 also creates or updates a contract message using the Message Subject.
Clearing messages
Each run starts by checking every customer and equipment record that carries the message text. Where a non-estimated meter has been received after the last billed meter date, the text is removed — so messages clear themselves once a real reading is in.
Excluding customers or equipment
Use the custom property named in AttributeName for Customer/Equipment to exclude to keep accounts out of this process. Set it on a customer to exclude all of that customer's equipment, or on a single piece of equipment to exclude just that device.
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Best Practices & Tips
Best Practices & Tips
Custom Property Set Up
To exclude customers or equipment, create a custom property attribute with the name set in the AttributeName for Customer/Equipment to exclude variable (default ZCJ_Alert882MeterHold):
- Data type: User-Defined Lookup, with the values Enabled and Disabled.
- Add it to your customer and equipment custom property configurations.
- Set it to Disabled on any customer or piece of equipment you want ID882 to leave alone.
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Related Alerts
Related Alerts
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