New On-premises Release Available: EnergyCAP Version 7.14

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

A new on-premises version of EnergyCAP Version 7 is now available. Please open a support ticket using the button below to receive the installation package for EnergyCAP Version 7.14.

This semi-annual update includes a variety of new features and updates including:

Bill Auditing and Bill Flag Enhancements

• Easily flag bill outliers. Using historic performance and weather data, EnergyCAP performs bill-by-bill regression analysis to determine if new bills are within expected ranges for use, cost, and demand. EnergyCAP will automatically flag your bills for review based on the sensitivity levels you choose (NOTE: By default, “severe” outliers will be flagged automatically).
• Automatically assign flagged bills based on audit results. Each bill audit failure can be assigned to one or more EnergyCAP users based on the type of failure. Users can easily filter flagged bills to review bills assigned to them for review.
• Ignore bills based on cost. Each bill audit type has a new setting for “minimum cost” to automatically skip specific audits on bills with a low total cost.
• Bills flagged with specific audit failures. We’ve added “issue types” to track the specific bill audits that caused your bills to be flagged. Whether your bill fails one or many audits, you can easily identify bills that have been flagged based on a specific type of audit exception.
• Disable bill audits for specific accounts. Limit false-positives by turning off all bill audits for specific accounts.
• New quick filters on bill lists. New quick filters help you find the bills you’re looking for faster across all bill lists. Easily filter for flagged bills and use the new issue types to narrow-in on specific audit exceptions.
• Easier to use bill lists. We’ve updated bill lists to make selecting bills, opening bills, sorting, choosing columns, and taking actions easier and faster.
• Outlier analysis available for chargeback bills. We’ve upgraded the chargeback engine to flag chargeback bill outliers. After chargeback bills are created, they are evaluated against historic performance to identify any outlier conditions.

Report Distribution
Schedule reports to be emailed to groups of users on a regular basis

• Easily configure reports for email distribution. Choose a report, configure filters, decide how often to send, and select one or more user groups to receive the report. It’s that easy!
• Modern reports built for EnergyCAP’s latest features. Any of the reports specifically built for EnergyCAP Version 7 can be scheduled for distribution. These reports include the latest reporting enhancements and features.
• Reports include exactly what each user should see. Reports are automatically filtered based on each user’s topmost place and topmost cost center settings. Each user’s report will be tailored based on their permissions making Report Distributions easy to manage with no additional settings.
• Easily create new “limited users”. Need to send a report to someone who’s not already an EnergyCAP user? Now you can easily create users with a new “Basic Contact” role—giving them access to dashboards and reports. Each limited user has specific topmost place and topmost cost center settings.
• Try out a Report Distribution before making it active. Test any Report Distribution by sending it to yourself first.
• Send Report Distributions on demand. Sometimes you want to send out an interim report before the next scheduled email. With Report Distributions, you can choose to “send to recipients now” at any time without disturbing your regularly scheduled emails.
• Even more options available. Report Distributions come with lots of additional features and options like temporarily disabling emails, copying an already configured Report Distribution, providing a specific “reply-to” email address, customizing the message of your emails, and robust logging.

NOTE: Report Distribution in EnergyCAP Version 7 is a new feature that has been designed based on user feedback and suggestions. This feature is separate from the Report Distribution features that were available in Versions 3 and 6. of updates is available with EnergyCAP’s Release Notes.

Advanced Custom Fields
We’ve added several new Custom Field types to make EnergyCAP even more valuable to your teams:

• Images. Add images to enhance your EnergyCAP database. Include pictures of buildings, meter locations, and more!
• Documents/PDFs. Now you can save workflow instructions, forms, and more in EnergyCAP.
• Formatted text. Save longer messages with formatting like lists, links, and more.
• JSON. Save formatted information that can be used by developers to enhance your workflow and integrate more easily with other systems.

Reporting enhancements

New and updated features to make EnergyCAP reports even easier to use and share.

• New pre-configured reports. We’ve configured some of EnergyCAP’s most used reports and saved them with common settings to make finding and using reports even easier.
• Additional help available when running reports. We’ve added a new “instructions” section to our reports. You’ll find tips for commonly used filters and settings to make the most of each report.
• Dedicated help page for each report. Within the new report instructions, we’ve included a link to a dedicated help page in EnergyCAP’s User Guide for each report. You’ll find recommended setting, detailed filter information, additional information about the data contained in the report, formatting options, and more.
• Find report alternatives for legacy reports. When running a legacy report (Crystal Report), you’ll be notified if there is a newer report that’s available.
• Easily find related reports. We’ve added links to jump between related reports.
  
  

User Group enhancements

Easily manage user groups through the new User Group screen, and automatically create users based on email address.

Custom Fields added to Rate Schedules

You can now track Custom Fields on rate schedules. Combine this enhancement with the new Advanced Custom Fields feature to upload contracts with utility vendors or details about specific rate agreements.

New Report: Invoice Format (Report 09a)

Prints bills in a user-friendly format that mimics common utility bills.

New Report: Bill and Batch Spreadsheet (Report-41)

Bill/batch-focused report to supporting accounting workflows (replaces several BL legacy reports)

New Report: Database Statistics (Report-43)

Overview of database size and use details (replaces SU53 legacy report)

A full list of updates is available with EnergyCAP’s Release Notes.

Technical release details:

• Upgrading to Version 7.14 requires your database to be upgraded to database version 111 (upgrade scripts available in the installation package).
• SQL Server version 2019+ is required to install Version 7.14
• The new Report Distribution features require a daily job to be run on the EnergyCAP Version 7 application server. Details regarding this job are available in the installation instructions.
• This is the final on-premises release of EnergyCAP that supports EnergyCAP Version 6. Future EnergyCAP updates will support only Version 7. EnergyCAP is actively migrating remaining supported functionality from Version 6 to Version 7. Additional details regarding this transition will be communicated in 2022.

Please submit a ticket to EnergyCAP Support to request the latest installation package for EnergyCAP Version 7.

Regards,

Joel Brickell
Assistant Vice President, Technical Support
EnergyCAP, LLC