Import meters from various DCAs into eAuto
Jump to: Overview | Variables | Sample | App | Validating Meters | OnDemand SSRS | Best Practices | Related Alerts
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Overview
Overview
This process will push meters from various DCAs as well as our other processes that import meters (i.e. KPAX, MPS Monitor), store them in a temp table and only import to eAuto those needed as set by you (for billing or perhaps monthly regardless of billing), vastly reducing your meter table size.
Run Schedule: Daily Early AM
Limited in time and frequency we can run as either the process gets locked out and fails to complete because there’s so much competition for users in the meter tables, or worse, it locks out users and even remote tech connections by taking priority over those things.
Type of Output: Email/APP/On Demand Report
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Variable
Variables
Variable8: Select which DCA Platform you are using:
Variable12: Indicate eAuto Meter Source to be assigned to meters entered into your eAuto
Variable1: Custom Property Control to turn this integration OFF at either Equipment or Customer Level. We build this Custom Property for you and default to ON so this process is effectively ON for everything. You can set the exceptions to OFF at either Equipment or Customer Record level, as needed. Please note, setting to OFF at Customer Level will turn off for all Equipment Records showing that customer as Main Customer. For example, if Equipment Custom Property is set to ON and Customer Custom Property is set to OFF, the alert will NOT consider any of the equipment.
THESE TWO VARIABLES SHOULD BE CLOSELY CONSIDERED AND REVIEWED:
VariableHidden2: Date Limiter - Do not import a new meter read unless it has been VariableHidden2 days since last Valid meter read (set to -2 to completely suppress since-last-read functionality and use ONLY due-to-bill per VariableW).
VariableW: Billing Limiter - Import meter reads if no read in last VariableW days AND meter is inside a Billing window (due to bill soon per the Billing Tolerance settings in e-automate). Set to -2 to suppress this functionality and use only days-since-last-read functionality in VariableHidden2 above.
Meter tolerance set via Tools / Options / Contracts / MetersOverages:
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Sample
Sample
Two Worksheets:
Action Items - shows devices we could not push the meter into eAuto for, their eAuto meter info, and why:
No Action Needed - shows devices we did push meter readings in for along with the meter details:
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APP
APP
You will need to tell our app which eAuto Meters correspond to the DCA Meters, so we know which meters to insert where in eAuto.
**DO NOT USE INTERNET EXPLORER AS YOUR BROWSER! IE is no longer supported and our Apps do NOT working in the IE environment.
Go to your CEO Juice apps (if you don't know the URL use http://localhost:8888)
Select model-mapping-and-key-services:
The two hyper links at top take you to
(1) Metertypes
(2) Meter Mappings
Metertypes shows the DCA Meter Type names and eAuto Meter Type names, indicating if mapped and/or if ignored for mapping:
To get started go to Meter Mappings to start mapping your MP Monitor or HP Action Center (DCA) Meter Types to eAuto Meter Types:
Once you have mapped all your meters, the app can determine which meters to insert into eAuto.
When you select Add Mapping you will need to select the EA Metertype to be mapped to DCA Metertype:
When you select Add Mapping you are essentially telling us which eAuto Meter Types match the DCA Meter Type.
Within this 'Create Mapping' tool, the DCA Source is driving the DCA MeterType and DCA Fallback to ensure you don't map a DCA Source of FMAudit to eAgent, for example.
The 'Fallback DCA Metertype (optional)' is only needed when the same EA Metertype applies to more than one DCA Metertype.
For example:
B\W only device has DCA Metertype of Total Meter which needs to be mapped to EA Metertype of B\W. But a color device has DCA Metertypes of Total Total Meter, Total B\W, and Total Color. You don't want DCA Metertype of Total Meter to go into eAuto as Total B\W clicks.
So you want the DCA Metertype = Total B\W and the Fallback DCA Metertype = Total Meter
Essentially you are telling the app, if Total B\W from DCA does NOT exist, then use DCA Metertype of Total Meter for my eAuto B\W meter.
Example below, shows various mappings that include multiple Meter Types and Fallback Meter:
IF you have any questions or need changes on what DCA Metertypes are being pushed in, please contact your DCA support team directly as they can help you set which meters report.
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Validating Meters
Validating Meters
est vs. Live Mode
1. Test vs. Live Mode
While in Test Mode, we will consider EVERY device regardless of your variable settings for Billing and Date Limiter (Variables Hidden2 and W). This is to provide you as many devices for mapping meters as we can to help ensure your mapping is as completed as can be. (Test mode looks back 45-days in DCA for meters to report on.)
Once process is running live, then we will only report daily on those meters qualified for consideration based on your variable settings for Billing and Date Limiter (Variables Hidden2 and W).
Billing and Date Limiter
2. Billing and Date Limiter
These variables effect whether a device's meter is considered by our process. When alert is running live, any device not meeting your Billing and Date Limiter settings, will NOT show on your daily report BUT will still go to your processed folder.
VariableHidden2: Date Limiter - Do not import a new meter read unless it has been VariableHidden2 days since last Valid meter read (set to -2 to completely suppress since-last-read functionality and use ONLY due-to-bill per VariableW)
VariableW: Billing Limiter - Import meter reads if no read in last VariableW days AND meter is inside a Billing window (due to bill soon per the Billing Tolerance settings in e-automate). Set to -2 to suppress this functionality and use only days-since-last-read functionality in VariableHidden2 above.
Suggested Best Practice: set to a value a little less than half your billing tolerance value, this is your best bet to have a most-current read at time of billing.
If, for example, your billing tolerance is 7-days before and after, then we recommend setting the Billing Limiter to 3. Then you would get a read at 7-days (assuming no other recent activity) before billing date, one at 4-days before billing date, one at 1-day before billing date, and another at -2 days if you haven't billed yet.
Meter tolerance set via Tools / Options / Contracts / MetersOverages:
3-days
3. 3-Days Limitation
Once running live, this process ignores meter reads received more than 3 days ago and they will not show on your daily report. This limitation is in place because users were seeing meters with errors persisting on the report for far too long with basically ‘unsolvable’ problems, or at least problems no one was interested in solving. Now meters will show on the report for three days throwing their error and then they go away unless we have a newer read for that meter, one which hopefully there are no problems with. This function does NOT interact with the VariableW Billing Delimiter at all – the meter won’t have a chance to be considered for billing (or for Hidden2 non-billing Delimiter) once the three days are up.
Required Meters and Considering Valid:
4. Required Meters and Considering Valid:
Our integration will only consider meters set as required on Equipment Record AND due for billing today or past due per Contract Record.
We then use your eAuto Meter Validation Buffer to check the meter is valid and report back to you if it doesn't meet your set threshold:
This can be seen via Tool / Options / Equipment:
Suggested Best Practice is starting at 50% and then increase to 80% if you get too many warnings. 25% will give you a ton of warnings and people will just start to ignore the warnings.
Per e-Auto online help portal: "Meter validation buffer refers to the buffer you want to allow on a meter reading that is greater than a calculated average. The buffer percentage is taken and multiplied by a 6 month average in the system. If the buffer is 25%, e-automate multiplies the meter reading by 1.25. If the amount is 25% more than the 6-month average, e-automate will warn you."
Add-On Features
5. Add-On Features Available (version 2024.05.23 only)
Optional features we can add for you (these do not come standard with this integration). Please let us know at help@ceojuice.com if you would like any of these added to your integration. Please note, if you have multiple ID968 subscriptions, these add-on features will apply to ALL not just one specific DCA type.
-Ignore eAuto Inactive Equipment
-Allow Same as Previous Meters to be Pushed into eAuto
-Exclude Non-Managed Devices (not available for KPAX or Sharp MICAS DCA)
-For Billing and Date Limiters - Only Consider Last Valid Meter We Pushed into eAuto For You (as opposed to any/all previous valid meters)
DCA to EA ID
6. DCA ID to eAuto Equipment ID (version 2024.05.23 only)
For FMAudit, Printanista, HPSDS, & MPSM only we match first on DCA ID to eAuto Equipment ID instead of serial number first. If not DCA ID, then we look to serial number (see #7 below).
This should be available for KPAX in our next version (no ETA as of July 2024)
This will never be available for Sharp DCA as it is not part of API.
Serial Numbers
7. Serial Numbers
The serial number we pull for you MUST match the serial number exactly in eAuto. If they do not match, we will not push any meters in. There are a few exceptions we've had to make due to standard differences between manufacturer and dealer.
Sharp - we ignore the last two 00 (zero's) at the end of the serial number
Brother - we match on the last 9-digits of the serial number
**For any accommodations we've made by manufacturer, our process looks first for an exact match on the serial number, if no match found, then we run through a second time based on the exception by manufacturer.
Mapping Errors Explained:
8. Errors Explained:
Actual updated based on previous Meter Reset Invalidated by Native Sanity Check: this is two different flags which almost always appear together. 'Actual updated based on previous Meter Reset' means that there is a meter reset somewhere in the past, which means EA will calculate a true 'Actual' to the best of its ability. 'Invalidated by Native Sanity Check' means exactly that, because parts of the sanity check rely on the Actual meter and it usually takes a long while after a reset before the historical data looks solid enough for the sanity check to give it a pass.
Duplicate Serial exists in EA: there is more than one serial number in e-Auto. If needed, we can code your logic to only consider active Equipment Records 100% of the time.
Meter would post to a future date: the DCA returned a meter reading value that is significantly future-dated. Not unusual to see one an hour or two 'in the future' if machine is in a different time zone, but this error means it's something like 12+ hours into the future relative to the time the API served the meter to us.
METERSOURCE DOES NOT EXIST!!: Meter Source missing either from Variable12 on your ID968 and/or there is no Meter Source in e-Auto corresponding to the Meter Source listed in Variable12 (regardless of whether running in Test or Live Mode).
MPSM Meterset Dates Error: Indication we are getting meter readings across multiple days (generally standard counter set on one day, blended counter set on another, or vice-versa). eAuto cannot deal with that, there's one date at MeterGroup level. Please check the devices in MPSM as well as time zone they are set for.
MPSM Meterset Error: see below
Negative value indicates mapping not found: the DCA meter has not been mapped to an eAuto meter. Use the Meter Mapping App to set.
Read Invalid due to less or equal to previous: the meter from DCA is less than or equal to the previous meter in eAuto. If you do want no change meters (meaning current is equal to previous) 100% of the time, then we can code your logic to push those in for you.
Read Invalid due to other missing required reads: indicates a required meter (per eAuto Equipment Record) is either not mapped or not being pushed in from the DCA.
Read Invalid due to other Invalid reads in required set: indicates there are required meters for this device that are invalid (for one of the reasons above)
Read Invalid due to validation buffer: reading failed validation buffer test by eAuto per your eAuto validation buffer %.
MPSM/HPSDS specific:
MPSM Meterset Error: This is a bug in MPSM's API. They are working on a solution. It is essentially us not getting the Standard Counters from the API, only the Blended Counters. We see these error rates higher on Monday's and many seem to self resolve by the next day.
Below is list of the Standard Counters we receive. If any of these meters not coming through from MPSM, then you will receive this error. As of July 2024, MPSM has not been able to provide a solution for this "bug" in their API (please reach out to their support team support.americas@mpsmonitor.com directly with sample serial number, explaining that the standard counters are not coming through the API to CEO Juice).
**FYI we only get Standard and Blended meters through the API.
If you have a DCA meter that is older than current day of meters being pushed in, then this indicates the device has fallen off monitoring, meaning no new meters coming in. But our integrations always considers the most recent record available:
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OnDemand SSRS Report
OnDemand SSRS Report
You also have an On Demand SSRS Report to review what has pushed in that day and what has had errors that day. This is essentially a duplicate to the daily email sent to those emails listed on your ID968 subscription.
Report shows on Page 1, any meters unable to push into eAuto due to error indicated:
Page 2 shows what meters have been pushed into eAuto:
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Best Practices
Best Practices
1. We highly recommend NOT pushing meters in every day. The main reason is table bloat in your eAuto database and the eAuto performance issues that follow because so many modules touch the meter tables so often. The secondary reason is the 'clutter' in the Meter Console, users have a much harder time making sense of 1000 rows of data than 50 or 60. If you REALLY REALLY insist to still have them push in daily, then set your Date Limiter to -1 and your Billing Limiter to -2.
2. Consider when your eAgent requests for meter readings send out against when you have your Billing Limiter variable set. To avoid sending out meter requests to customers expecting you to use DCA meter, set your Billing Limiter 1-2 days earlier than your eAgent task,
Also make sure the e-agent task runs later in the day than ID968, and not on weekends (since ID968 does not run on weekends)
3. Creating Custom Property
Custom Property
Custom Property
Use Custom Property to turn this integration OFF at either Equipment or Customer Level. We build this Custom Property for you and default to ON so this process is effectively ON for everything. You can set the exceptions to OFF at either Equipment or Customer Record level, as needed. Please note, setting to OFF at Customer Level will turn off for all Equipment Records showing that customer as Main Customer. For example, if Equipment Custom Property is set to ON and Customer Custom Property is set to OFF, the alert will NOT consider any of the equipment.
Creating the Custom Property if you are missing in eAuto:
Step 1:
Create Custom Property Attribute via Tools / Lists & Codes / Attributes:
Attribute name = ZCJ_DCAMeterImport
Description = ZCJ_DCAMeterImport for ID968
Data type = User-Defined Lookup
Lookup List = On / Off
Step 2:
Add Custom Property Attribute to both your Customer and Equipment Record Configurations via Tools / Lists & Codes / Configurations (custom properties):
Select Edit for Group Customer Properties:
Search Available attribute(s) for ZCJ_DCAMeterImport, check off Default value and select ON, then select QuickAdd - don't forget to hit OK to save:
Do the same for Group Equipment Properties:
Now you have this Custom Property available on Customer Record:
and Equipment Record:
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Related Alerts
Related Alerts
ID29 - FM Audit API Credentials
ID30 - Supplies Network API Credentials
ID32 - Sharp API Credentials
ID76 - KPAX API Credentials
ID192 - Printanista API Credentials
ID252 - Contract Equipment Missing Meter Collection Info
ID311 - MPS Monitor and/or HP SDS API Credentials
ID398 - Emailed Meter Readings Mailbox Credentials
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