SAP and OSIsoft Enable Innovative Internet of Things (IoT) Scenarios

Don't miss this special session at DistribuTECH 2016 to learn how you can transform your utility with data and analytics.

Putting your DistribuTECH 2016 agenda together? Make sure to include SAP and OSIsoft in your plans to benefit from key insights at this year’s premier transmission and distribution industry event.

Join us for a special DistribuTECH 2016 livesession that will also be streamed for our virtual viewers to learn how SAP and OSIsoft enable Innovative Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios through IT/OT integration and convergence.

At this event, which is being broadcast live from Room W206 of the Orange County Convention Center during DistribuTECH 2016, experts from SAP and OSIsoft will provide tips on:

• Moving from near real-time business intelligence and real-time operations intelligence to a combined data warehouse and Big Data platform
• Optimizing business operations by analyzing all data sources and creating an enterprise intelligence framework
• Getting to the next stage of predictive or cognitive analytics

If you’re interested in combining disparate sources of information in IT and OT into a comprehensive enterprise framework, you do not want to miss this informative session.

Register now to join us.

We look forward to seeing you online!

Best regards,

SAP

SAP and OSIsoft Enable Innovative IoT Scenarios

Date:
Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Location:
Conference Room #W206 at the Orange County Convention Center, Orlando and online for our virtual attendees

Time:
12:00 p.m. ET/9:00 a.m. PT

Featured Speakers:

Frank Ruland
Global Vice President/Global Head of Energy and Natural Resources, Industry Ecosystem
SAP

Kevin Walsh
Global Industry Principal, Transmission/Distribution and Smart Grid
OSIsoft

Past news bites:

• Traditional IT in a Non-Traditional World

Radio Info Session Live and on-demand with CMS Energy, IDC and SAP

Tuesday, October 27 at 9 AM Pacific / 12 Noon Eastern

Read more

• Digital Transformation for Utilities: Customer Service Innovations

Radio Info Session Live and on-demand

Tuesday, October 6 at 9 AM Pacific / 12 Noon Eastern

Read more

• SAP Multichannel Foundation for Utilities: Two-Day Classroom Training

Walldorf, Germany 2015: Oct. 5-6 (German)

Target Audience: Solution Consultants, Developers

Read more and register

• 
  
• 2 Day Design Thinking Workshop with SAP at Montreal, Canada (Mid-October 2015)

This workshop is organized for utility companies who would like to work with

SAP in the context of the Customer Engagement initiative. The aim of the workshop

is to identify key solution blocks and most important use cases.

Read more and register

• Customer Connection Program, SAP Customer Influence:
  Join the Delivery Call for CRM 2015 and the Kick-off Call for the CRM 2016
  Get informed about the delivered improvements CRM 2015 and be a part of the CRM 2016 process.
  Read more and get the details

• Webinar from SAP and OSIsoft: Enabling Data-Driven Intelligence in the Hyper-Connected World of the Enery and Natural Resources Industries

• Customer Story on how CenterPoint Energy transformed its operations with innovative SAP solutions: Webcast

• SAP Cloud for Customer Training Schedule for Q1/Q2 2015

• For Partners only: Customer Engagement and Commerce (CEC) strategy for Utilities
  Online Event: July 10, 2015, 10:00 (GMT2)
  Read more and register

• Ariba Live 2015
  Munich, Germany: June 8-10, 2015
  Read more and register

• openSAP: SAP Screen Personas

• openSAP: SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA in a Nutshell
  Online: Wednesday, March 25, 2015 09:00 (UTC) - Monday, May 18, 2015 21:00 (UTC)
  This course gives you the opportunity to get an overview and gain further insights into this new SAP offering.
  Read more and register
  
• Simplify to Innovate Forum - SAP S/4 HANA
  
  Palo Alto, April 8, Read more and register
  
  Dallas, April 14 Read more and register
  
  New York City, April 15, 2015 Read more and register
  Chicago, April 16, 2015 Read more and register
  
• 5th SAP for Nuclear Infodays, March 25 - 26, 2015, Read more and register
• Info Session: Join Critigen, SAP & 5th SAP for Nuclear Infodays, March 25 - 26, 2015, Read more and registerEsri for Put A Map In Your App Webinar, March 19, 2015
• Info Session: ISO 55000: Using SAP Solutions to Support ISO 55000 Standards for Asset Management
• Info Session: Best Practices: How to Bridge the Gap between SAP Structured Data and Unstructured Content for Asset Management Processes
• Info Session: SAP Predictive Maintenance and Service
• Info Session: Big Data Analytics in Utilities - Lessons from the Trenches
• One-Day Seminar: Transforming Assets to a Plan: Learn How to Solve the ISO 55000 Challenge
• Info Session: How and Why CenterPoint Energy chose SAP HANA
• Deep-Dive Workshop: SAP CRM for Utilities New Ehp3 Developments - free of charge More information
• Mobile Info Session: Put a Map in Your Mobile App
• Multichannel Foundation Workshop - free of charge
• Classroom Training: SAP Energy Portfolio Management 6.04

Electric utilities are focusing on the Smart Grid already since quite a while, but “Smart Water” is now catching up. At the 2016 International SAP Conference for Utilities in The Hague we therefore offer the workshop “Smart Water – How Water Utilities Benefit from the Internet of Things”. We will present and discuss the results of the international iWIDGET project, that examined a broad range of use cases – from lowering energy consumption to avoiding water losses to influencing consumer behavior. We will also demonstrate how these use cases can be realized with the latest technology, including in-memory computing, predictive analytics, and data streaming.

During the conference there will also be a variety of break-out session given by the following water utilities:

• Farys from Belgium: “Innovation Foundation with SAP HANA and Mobility Toward SAP S/4HANA”
• Gelsenwasser from Germany: “Focusing on the Customer with SAP Multichannel Foundation”
• EPM from Columbia: “Revenue Intelligence Using SAP HANA - Detection and Management of Fraud and Theft of Electricity, Water, and Gas”
• Loudon Water from the US: “Geoenabling the Enterprise – Implementation of SAP Geographical Enablement Framework”

In addition there are of course many presentations that are of interest for electric, gas and water utilities alike, for example the keynote on the “Digital Disruption in the Utilities Industry”.

We hope you join us at the conference and especially the Smart Water workshop.

Kind regards,

Gero Bieser

Hi Shah, I am not able to find out a solution to update Rate Categories (EA54) by using BAPI. Can you send me some details how to use BAPI or any Methods to update Rate Categories.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Roy

Problem

Immediately after our SP upgrade (now at IS-UT: 617-0008-SAPK-61708INISUT / EHP7 FOR SAP ERP 6.0) we faced an error message ‘Rate Determination Inconsistent’ when we try to change/maintain the installation facts in transaction ES31 for the below scenario:

Gap between the validity period start date of Rate Determination and start date of the Installation time-slice.

Analysis and further explanation

All of the move-ins for these Installations are obviously after the tariffs start dates (Rate Determination validity) but the issue here is that, during Technical Master Data creation the start date of the Installation is always fixed (as 01.01.2007 which is not good as this is hard-coded!) in the past. For the new tariffs, Rate Determination validity is very recent (as in the case if we introduce new tariffs). This scenario is quite common in Utility industry.

After few analysis, I found that initially note 1081528 introduced this additional check on gap and throws this error message AJ-228 ‘Rate determination is inconsistent’ while in the maintenance of Rate Data from EC30.

Solution

Here we need to stop this additional check while maintaining the Installation Facts from transaction ES31, thus I found the SAP note 1554782 which is the solution for the side effects caused by the above note 1081528.

Enhancement Spot: ISU_BI_BILLING_SPOT - Enhancement Spot for Billing Execution is introduced in one of the latest enhancement pack for IS-UT which enables Utility customers to add their custom logic during billing or when reading the billing lines.

I implemented the BAdi ISU_BI_CUST_CONTROL under this Enhancement Spot.

In the method SUPP_RATE_DET_CONS_CHECK - ‘Suppress Consistency Check during Rate Data Maintenance’ we just have to set the indicator XY_NO_CONS_CHECK = ‘X’, this means the consistency check is suppressed while maintain the Installation facts from ES31.

Further Notes:

While implementing this solution and going through the manual actions mentioned in the note I realised that there are other BAdis under the enhancement spot ISU_BI_BILLING_SPOT, and each has several methods which are really useful and opens up more possibility to enhance the billing process, so I thought I will mention those in this blog and I believe these will be useful for other SCN members:

BAdi: ISU_BI_ADV_PERIOD - Advance Billing Period

Method: CHANGE_ADV_PERIOD - Change Advance Billing Period

BAdi: ISU_BI_CUST_CONTROL - Customer-Specific Billing Parameters

Methods:

ERCHZ_NO_JOIN - Single Access to DB Structures of Billing Lines

CHECK_IMPL_MR_IN_BILLING - Check for Implausible Meter Readings in Billing Period

ABHA_TRANS_OPTIMIZATION - Performance Optimization of Transitive Setup of IABHA

ONLY_ACTIVE_INST_FACTS - Read Active Installation Facts Only

INST_FACTS_DATEXCONNECT - Write IDOC for Installation Facts in Billing

SUPP_RATE_DET_CONS_CHECK - Suppress Consistency Check During Rate Data Maintenance

CONSIDER_PRICE_TYPE_CHANGE - Take Price Type Change Into Account in QUANTI Variants

INCREASE_PERF_RATECAT_CHANGE - Accelerate Billing for a Rate Category Switch

PRODREL_CONREL_CHANGE  - Contract and Product-Related Operands in Move-In/Out

CHNG_TIMBASIS_AT_LEAPYEAR - Determine Time Basis Individually for Leap Year

CHNG_EABL_FOR_BSP - Adjust Meter Readings for Unbilled Revenue Reporting

IGN_EST_MR_IN_DPC_SIM - Ignore Estimated Meter Readings in DPC Simulation

BAdi: ISU_BI_OBJ_CUST - Enter Customer Data in Billing Object

Method: FILL_OBJ_CUST - Enter Customer-Specific Data in Billing Object

BAdi: ISU_BI_PRORATION - Selection Criteria

Method: PRORATION - Customer-Specific Proration of Billing Document Lines

BAdi: ISU_BI_UPDATE - Prepare and Save Data for Update

Methods:

            UPDATE_PREPARE - Transfer Additional Data to Update Structure

UPDATE_DO - Save Additional Data

UPDATE_DO_BSP - Save Additional Data (Unbilled Revenue Reporting)

If you find this useful or if I missing anything, please feel free to comment below.

Hello Everyone,

Can someone provide detailed documentation on volume correction factor used in Gas Billing. How it is calculated and from where the temperature, pressure values are picked up. We have gone through help.sap.com but need additional info.

Thanks,

Avneet

We have created a program based on Return Mail...we send a file with all the return mail to external site.  This external site reviews and search for the most updated mailing address and phone number, then they send us a file with all the updated information.  This file is picked up by and SAP transaction which updates all this information on the customer's accounts.  The business original request was to SAP to only update phone numbers that have an updated mailing address. We did this using FM BAPI_BUPA_ADDRESS_CHANGE and BAPI_ISUACCOUNT_CHANGE.  Now the requirement has changed, business wants SAP to update phone numbers regardless of updated mailing address.  Do you know of any function module that can do that or how can we make the change using the FM mentioned above.

Thanks in advance for you assistance..

Valentina Solorzano

Hello Everyone,

I am new in SAP Fuel supply chain management.

Please help me providing study materials.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Ashmita

Hello Experts,

While doing a bill related installation using tcode EG34 for a Device I am getting an error message as below:

_______

Error in reading table V_EGER

Message no. E9014

Diagnosis

An error occurred during reading of one or more table entries. This error was reported by the database system.

System Response

The system does not permit the reading of one or more table entries.

It is possible that an SAP short dump has been written from the SAP basis system.

Procedure

Find out if the SAP short dump provides additional information.

You can view SAP short dumps using Transaction SM21.

------------------

Data is perfectly fine. Device is technically installed on the installation already. And Bill-related installed on the same installation till 29/12/2015 and I am trying with Activity date in EG34 as 30/12/2015. Also, there is no Runtime error in system.

Please advise.

Thanks,

Twinkle

The long-awaited brochure for the International SAP Conference for Utilities (11-13 April, The Hague, Netherlands) is live! Download your copy here >>

This global conference for IT and business professionals from across the international utilities industry will feature some brilliant customer case studies from Snohomish County PUD, SA Power Networks, Alliander, Farys, Yedas, E.ON, Gelsenwasser and more!

You can also expect:

• Keynotes from Franck Cohen, President SAP Europe, Middle East, and Africa, and Marie-José Nadeau, Chair of the World Energy Council and Gerd Leonhard, a leading futurist and author

• Breakout tracks including value of platform, digital customer innovation, Internet of Things, business transformation, and digitalized assets

• A vibrant exhibition of SAP partners, live demos, microforums, and roundtables, plus the opportunity to meet privately with our executive team and global solution experts

• Pre-conference workshops covering diverse themes and solution areas

• Other co-located sessions with the International SAP Conference for Oil and Gas, including a joint track covering a range of line-of-business themes

For more information and to register, visit the event web site

Hello,

I am working on identifying the mailing address in SAP-ERP.  I have updated the mailing address in three (3) different contract accounts (see below).

1) First Scenario- I updated the mailing address: The new address is displaying at the address overview, it is also displaying at the address usages standard address and correspondence address but did not add the fix.

2) Second Scenario: I updated mailing address: The new address is displaying a the address overview, it is also displaying at the address usages Standard only.  Did not add the fix.

3) Third Scenario:  I updated mailing address: The new address is displaying a the address overview ONLY. It added the fix.

What's the logic/requirements  in SAP to move the mailing address to different places and/or when it calls to add the fix.

thanks,

Valentina Solorzano

IT software spending of utilities in Western Europe was about $3.2 billion in 2015. Major areas of software spending for these utilities were customer care and billing (CC&B) and enterprise resource management (ERM).

In 2016, Western European utilities will invest the most of its IT budget in:

• Cybersecurity and, in particular, on more strategic areas such as data loss and leakage prevention, mobile security, and cloud security.
• Meter data management (MDM), engineering and design, and plant maintenance are the line-of-business IT solutions with high investment potential in the next 12 months for utilities' asset operations
• Regarding utilities' customer operations, workforce mobility has the highest investment potential in the next 12 months.
• Also, customer care solutions will be a high investment priority, expected to attract the most investments in new solutions, while billing solutions will attract the most investments in enhancements/upgrades.
• Western European water utilities will invest the most in MDM and asset management solutions. For both, the majority of investments will be in new solutions.

With smart meter deployments picking up again in countries such as France and the U.K., Western European utilities will focus their IT solution investment potential on adopting new MDM solutions and, to a lesser extent, on enhancing/upgrading their existing MDM solutions in the next 12 months. Interestingly, this applies to water utilities as well.

For additional information please contact CMI - ENR Lead Analyst, Stefan Schmitt ste.schmitt@sap.com

When a new installation is created, how to add the summary meter to it?

I am familiar with EMIGALL objects being used for creating business object instances / data objects in SAP ECC IS-U. ... But I don't recall an instance where I used it to update any data in ECC.... how should I get started with this?   I am very familiar with LSMW using BDC, BAPI, EDI, DI  -- direct input  -- for updating data....

Thanks!

Hi Billing Experts,

As we all know that DPC (Dynamic period Control) settings one cannot use along with “Period End billing” or “Backbilling” or with “Advance billing”

Now if business requirement is to bill a customer on estimated Consumption (If meter reading are not came for any particular month - Estimate in billing) and also they have a line item which they wants to charge in advance.

So how one can achieve DPC schema with advance billing features

or

DPC schema with Period end billing

Regards

Manoj

Hi,

I want to schedule EL09 and EL16 in background to run daily.

Could you pls let me know how to go about it.

I tried using fpscheduler, but not sure how to change the Meter Reading Period dynamically for the background run on daily basis.

Thanks,

Binu

Hi Guru's,

I have a requirement like, I am collecting energy charges and Non-energy charges but thing is client is asking to give the separate report for Energy and Non-energy charges. Can you please help me on this how to over come my solution.

Ex: The below items already adding in Invoice with Consumption amount.

Thanks,

Abbas

Hi all,

Apologies if this is has been asked before or really basic. Just looking for help/shortcuts with the dunning proposal.

I have used SAPs Dunning proposal to reconcile against my accounts and create a final spool manually before our statements/chasing documents are printed and sent.

I am currently running through each separate account in the proposal and manually dropping the level where applicable.

Is it possible to select multiple items in the dunning proposal in order to drop everything in batches (e.g. level 3s to 2s and then level 4s to 3s) rather than running through each line where a change is necessary, which over the course of all our ledgers is quite extensive?

Again if this has been answered previously could you point me in the right direction?

Cheers!

Hi Experts,

   Cash Desk: Transaction Code FPCD

   While printing the acknowledgement form, 

   One number range maintained and it is triggering at the time print form of cash desk.

   Client wants different number according to Division.

   Configuration level cannot able to maintain number ranges Division wise.

    Number range maintained at this node:

    SPRO-->Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable-->Business Transactions-->Processing Incoming and Outgoing Payments-->Receipt                      Management-->Maintain Number Ranges for Receipt Printing.

               How to achieve this?

Thanks in Advance.

Hi,

We have a requirement  where the 30 days payment terms for collective invoices should follow based on days of the week on which the child contract accounts are invoiced,

For example,

Contract Account 1 - Invoiced on 02/02/2016 (Week 1)

Contract Account 2 - Invoiced on 03/02/2016 (Week 1)

When collective invoicing is performed for the above Contract Accounts (linked to same Collective Contract Account), The collective invoice should take base line date as 07/02/2016  and add 30 days for Due Date.

Similarly, if the Child invoices are billed in different days of the weeks, when Collective invoicing is processed, it needs to pick up 7, 14, 21 & 28 as the fixed baseline date based on child invoices date and add 30 days as payment terms to arrive at due date.

Is it possible to create a Payment term which can be assigned at collective contract account to meet the above requirement?

If yes, can you please guide me on the parameters to be maintained in the payment terms creation?

Thanks,

-Murthy