Well, there are more number of on-line resources about Master Data in SAP IS-U, thanks to those authors.

SCN Blogs:

SAP IS-U data model - Business and Technical Master Data

SAP wikis:

How to Create Technical Master Data - Utilities Industry - SCN Wiki

But, what happens when you decide to change your basic Data Model in your IS-U? wait, why do you want to do this? To give you a scenario, in one of my previous project the data model was not standard in first place, and we have to change this to standard best practise, and now you got why this blog!

By not standard I mean, initially, for each divisions i.e. for Electricity service and for Gas service, users were using individual Contract Accounts and also individual technical master data. This means duplicate of data and business processes. Now in this case we have to change the data model towards as standard SAP IS-U approach as possible with minimum impact to the current business process.

There could be many ways to change this Data Model, but I am not going into detail of each, as it depends on specific client/project situation/scale/time/money...etc, few methods are below:

A) Having a custom migration process (initially thought of one-off process) where we did updates to the master data tables.

B) For affected scenario, perform Move-out of one fuel and perform move-in (no need of much custom developments compared to A).

Each method will have its own pros and cons, needs further custom enhancements and logic to be implemented at various process within IS-U.

Note: I will update this blog regularly and add my knowledge gained during the support of this project after go-live.

Neste, Veolia, and Borealis have agreed to create a joint venture company to build a new combined heat and power plant and produce and supply steam and other utilities to Neste’s refinery and Borealis’ petrochemical plant in Porvoo, Finland.

The company, Kilpilahti Power Plant Limited (KPP), will be owned 40% each by Neste and Veolia and 20% by Borealis. Neste will contribute its required equity share in KPP by transferring the current power plant to the joint venture company. The arrangement is subject to the finalisation of the financing agreements.

Agreements are expected to take place during 1Q16.

“We have combined forces to build this modern power plant, and from 2018 onwards its customers will have a more secure, efficient and clearly cleaner power source,” commented Matti Lehmus, EVP Oil Products at Neste Corp.

KPP will build four new steam and power generation assets with an installed capacity of 450 MW thermal and 30 MW electrical running on side streams from the refineries as well as natural gas, with asphaltene being the main fuel. The total investment is approximately €400 million, of which an estimated €350 million for the new power plant. The resulting new power plant will comply with the latest environmental regulations, including the European Commission’s Industrial Emissions Directive (IED), and is expected to be in operation during 2018. Read the full article >

Since its launch on Nov 2013, SAP MCF has been widely adopted by customers across the globe and continue to grow as a solution with several releases since then. So what is SAP MCF?. Simply put, SAP MCF allows Utility companies, in a simple and cost effective way, to digitize their customer interactions through self-service digital channels like web, mobile and social. It does so by abstracting the complexity of the SAP Business Suite for Utilities into simple open standard Rest based APIs/OData services that can be easily consumed by consumer facing apps-on any channel, built using any technology.

Click on the picture to enlarge

The following things should come to your mind when you think SAP MCF.

Apps

3 template apps that can be deployed for use by end consumers are delivered as part of MCF. A standard desktop web app, a responsive design app that dynamically renders itself to device form factor ( you could think of it as mobile optimized web page) and a native mobile app for Android and iOS. Technically,the apps are built with SAP UI5/HTML5. The interesting thing is that all the apps use the same MCF Rest based APIs/OData services, hence no more costly app-per-app integration required and what's even better is that the customer gets to see same data irrespective of the app he/she is using.

Click on the picture to enlarge

55+ pre-integrated self-service scenarios

Working with our customers, we have identified the most important self services scenarios and delivered them as part of the standard solution. A scenario is delivered as a single or  a combination of Rest based API/OData services that are fully integrated to the SAP Business Suite for Utilities. The scenarios range from simple ones like view bills, change personal data to more advanced like view smart meter consumption, signing up for a new product and submitting a meter reading anonymously. So lots of content that can be used out-of-the-box, have a look below.

Click on the picture to enlarge

Click on the picture to enlarge

Platform

While SAP MCF is an out of the box solution offering ready to use self-services scenarios and apps, it is very much also a high productivity platform that makes it easy to enhance the standard or develop new scenarios. It is powered by SAP Gateway and SAP Mobile Platform that enable enterprise grade security, scalability and enhanceability. SAP Gateway where OData services are build and consumed, is further complemented with a framework to make it easy to enhance or add to the Utilities OData services. The MCF mobile app runs on SAP Mobile Platform which in addition to providing a mobile infrastructure, also contains various tools to enhance existing or create new mobile apps.

No Upgrade required

SAP MCF is delivered as a set of 3 non-modifying add-ons, one each to be deployed on ISU, CRM and Gateway respectively.As long as min release level requirements- ISU 6.04 and/or CRM 7.0 are met, its a simple add-on installation without any need for upgrade.This means that you can go up and running with MCF with minimum disruption to your existing running business systems. Also to be noted that CRM is optional and MCF can also be deployed with ISU only installations.

Misc

If all the above is still not enough ,  MCF comes with more features like own user management, channel analytic, 360 customer view, push notifications, co-browsing for agent and customer.

Keep exploring the MCF page for more interesting information. I look forward to your comments.

Which devices do you take on your next vacation trip? From small to large:

- Wearable (like an activity tracker or a smart watch): Yes, in case you have them.
- Smart phone: Definitely.
- Tablet: Maybe.
- Laptop: Hopefully not.
- Digital camera: If you are a photographer, then I would understand this.
- Video camera: Are you really part of a film crew?

In essence, you take the smart mobile devices and leave the rest behind. Even the laptop can stay behind, mobile and cloud solutions make this possible, data and apps are no longer locally bound. Check-in and boarding pass: from the cloud to the phone. Taking pictures and sharing them: phone and cloud. Find a restaurant, reserve a table and then share the experience: on the phone and in the cloud. Go for a run: the phone or smart device guides, monitors and tracks, results are stored in the cloud.

Think like this in business. Independence requires mobile and cloud. Most workers are mobile, not just those in the field like sales, service or maintenance but also office workers. They are constantly in meetings, commuting or just away from their desk. But question even those scenarios where you think people need to sit in a brick and mortar building at a desk all the time staring at a piece of hardware. Do call center agents really need to sit in a cubicle, with flashing electronic boards showing queue stats over their heads? No, they don’t.

In the digital world, new scenarios are possible. While self-service reduces calls, I do not believe that people can no longer call customer service in the near future. Agents are required, but the call center can become more virtual, flexible and less of the typical set up. And do not worry about specific devices, hardware or software. Think about new ways to run the business, with fewer dependencies.

All the agent needs is an app with a screen for accessing data from the cloud and a headset. Do you already see them on a bean bag or lazy chair? Maybe in a nice business lounge or at home? Ring ring – tap tap swipe – next caller.

This is reality. One of our most recent customers will run the SAP for Utilities solution for customer service on iPads. Again, in the mobile digital world don’t worry about specific devices, hardware and software, leave this to us and others. And in case you are wondering: Yes, the SAP CRM Webclient UI runs on iPad. Utilities can now put their call center agents in bean bag chairs, either running CRM or cloud for customer on a tablet.

Cheers, Robert

OpenText will once again be a sponsor of the International SAP Conference for Utilities, this time in the Hague!

The theme of this year´s conference is "Creating Value in the Digital Energy Network" and our focus at the event will be on how SAP & OpenText can deliver value and innovations for the Digital Utility in the areas of asset management, customer and workforce engagement, and supplier excellence. We are currently working on securing customer speakers and planning other activities for the event so please stay tuned for more information abour our engagement as we get closer to the event.

See you in 12 weeks!

SAP & OpenText Run Digital

Well, there are more number of on-line resources about Master Data in SAP IS-U, thanks to those authors.

SCN Blogs:

SAP IS-U data model - Business and Technical Master Data

SAP wikis:

How to Create Technical Master Data - Utilities Industry - SCN Wiki

But, what happens when you decide to change your basic Data Model in your IS-U? wait, why do you want to do this? To give you a scenario, in one of my previous project the data model was not standard in first place, and we have to change this to standard best practise, and now you got why this blog!

By not standard I mean, initially, for each divisions i.e. for Electricity service and for Gas service, users were using individual Contract Accounts and also individual technical master data. This means duplicate of data and business processes. Now in this case we have to change the data model towards as standard SAP IS-U approach as possible with minimum impact to the current business process.

There could be many ways to change this Data Model, but I am not going into detail of each, as it depends on specific client/project situation/scale/time/money...etc, few methods are below:

A) Having a custom migration process (initially thought of one-off process) where we did updates to the master data tables.

B) For affected scenario, perform Move-out of one fuel and perform move-in (no need of much custom developments compared to A).

Each method will have its own pros and cons, needs further custom enhancements and logic to be implemented at various process within IS-U.

For the first method (A) we do need to consider all the business processes currently being used by the customer and design an improved process by suggesting the standard. Following are the processes which I could think of immediately:

1)  Move-in

2)  Move-out

3)  Change of Tenancy

4)  Billing of Contracts (no major change here...)

5)  Invoicing

6)  Invoice printing (this is the big one)

7)  Scheduling and Management of Meter Reading Process (no major change here as well)

8)  Changes in Payment Schemes (next big one)

9)  Payments and Returns

10) Collections and Dunning

Now coming to the technical part, yes, you got it right, most of the Technical and Business Master Data tables needs to be updated, to name few (and not restricted only to:) EANL, EUIHEAD, EVBS, EVER and other tables like EEINV, EAUSV, EBP_ADDR_SERVICE...etc.

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

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

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.

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

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

In June of 2015, we released our utilities consumer self-service mobile application SAP Self-Service for Utilities (SAP SSU) 1.0 for Android and iOS. SSU is a hybrid mobile app, meaning it is an HTML5+Cordova application.

The app released on iTunes and Google Play is only for demo purposes and cannot be used productively by a utility.  To put it to productive use, a utility company would need to make use of the app source code delivered by SAP to make the necessary modifications to it.  As part of the implementation, a utility company would first need set up SAP Multichannel Foundation for Utilities and Public Sector to enable the integration of the mobile app with the SAP utilities backend (SAP ERP IS-Utilities and SAP CRM for Utilities).

In the first blog of this two part blog series, I explained the steps for importing the app source code into your development environment and running, testing and debugging it for the Android platform.  In this blog, I will explain the same steps for the Apple iOS platform.

Before proceeding with the steps listed below, make sure you have the following prerequisites in place:

1. SAP Multichannel Foundation for Utilities and Public Sector SP5 is installed and setup.
2. SSU mobile app leverages SAP Mobile Platform (SMP) 3.0 for the push notification scenario. All the communication between the app and the SAP utilities backend passes through SMP.  The app first connects to SMP which then forwards each request to SAP Gateway.  Therefore, it is important to make sure that SAP Mobile Platform 3.0 is configured for OData consumption. For further information on how to configure the server for our app, please follow the steps in Chapter 5 of the SSU admin guide. For more information about SMP 3.0 Server, visit http://help.sap.com/smp305svr
3. Xcode 6 and above.
4. iPhone simulator (iOS 7 and above).

Note: the current version of the source code of the mobile app is based on the code line of UMCUI501 SP5. And the source code of iOS application is to help our customers, utilities companies, updating SSU www resources, not building the application from scratch.

Step1:Download the Xcode project

First you need to download the project from the SAP Service Market place.  To obtain source code, see SAP note 2165708.

After downloading the self-contained Xcode project that includes all the required  dependencies,  unzip the file in a folder and the contents of the folder will look like below:

Please note that you MUST NOT delete the target folder.

Step2: Import the project into Xcode

After unzipping, browse to the folder containing the .xcodeproj file by following path<folder where you unzipped files>\src\xcode\

Now open SelfServUtil.xcodeproj using Xcode.

Step3: Verify the dependencies linkage

In order to make sure that you have the right app build context, meaning whether you are building the app to run on the simulator or on a real device and whether you are building it for debug mode or release mode, it is important to make sure that the project is linking to the required libraries and headers.

To verify this, go to the build settings tab and search for “header search path” and make sure it has the following entry:

${PROJECT_DIR}/../../target/headers/${BUILD_STYLE}-${PLATFORM_NAME}

Four possible values for the parameter /${BUILD_STYLE}-${PLATFORM_NAME} are:

• Debug-iphoneos
• Debug-iphonesimulator
• Release-iphone
• Release-iphonesimulator

Then search for “library search path” and make sure it has the following entry:

${PROJECT_DIR}/../../target/libs/${BUILD_STYLE}-${PLATFORM_NAME}

Step5: Running and debugging the application

Now you can run the application on the simulator

Since this is a hybrid app, you need to debug it using a Web developer tool - we use Safari by going to the developer tool.

Click on “index_packaged.html”.

Location of the application resources:

App resources are located inside www -> umc folder so if you would like to change the User Interface or would like to modify or add a feature to the app, you need to modify files under this folder.

And the corresponding file structure is:

Where the splash screens and icons are located, so you can replace them but please pay attention to the image size and its name.

It is important to mention that there is one more library, smp (www -> umc -> smp), added to SSU for iOS and Android, and please don’t confuse it with the one that comes with kapsel plugins, which is directly under www (www -> smp). It plays the glue role between the SSU mobile resources and cordova plugins (including kapsel plugins).  For further information about kapsel plugins, see http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-49592.

The application works in demo and online modes. If you would like to test in demo mode just go to the logon screen and click on the Demo button.

Add custom theme

It is highly recommended to use the theme designer tool to modify the theme for SAP SSU responsive application. The following pic shows where to locate the custom theme:

Add custom logic and functionalities

If you have any custom logic or functionalities you need to place them in the corresponding folder (foundation, private, public). You need to pay special attention to those hooks, which are used to call methods in the package context. For example, some functionalities are handled different in the context of package app for example login and logout.

Summary:

In this blog, I described the steps to import the mobile app’s source code from SAP Service Market place, run it, and where to import custom them and code.  In a separated related blog, I will explain the same steps for Android platform.

In June of 2015, we released our consumer self-service mobile application for utilities, SAP Self-Service for Utilities (SAP SSU ) 1.0 for Android and iOS. SAP SSUis a hybrid mobile application, meaning it is an HTML5+Cordova application.

The app released on iTunes and Google Play is only for demo purposes and cannot be use productively by a utility.  To put it to productive use, a utility company would need to make use of the app source code delivered by SAP to make the necessary modifications to it.  As part of the implementation, a utility company would first need to set up SAP Multichannel Foundation for Utilities and Public Sector to enable the integration of the mobile app with the SAP utilities backend (SAP ERP IS-Utilities and SAP CRM for Utilities).

Once this prerequisite is fulfilled, the utility company can download the delivered source code of the mobile app from SAP Service Market Place - See SAP note 2165708and make the desired modifications to the app before making a branded version available on the Apple and Android app stores for its consumers.

In this blog, I will walk you through the steps of importing the app source code downloaded from SAP Service Market Place into your Android development environment to enable you to make the desired modifications to the app, test them and debug the code.

Before proceeding with the steps listed below, make sure you have the following prerequisites in place:

• SAP Multichannel Foundation for Utilities and Public Sector is installed and setup.
• SAP SSU mobile app leverages SAP Mobile Platform (SMP) 3.0 for the push notification scenario. All the communication between the app and the SAP utilities backend passes through SMP.  The app first connects to SMP which then forwards each request to SAP Gateway.  Therefore, it is important to make sure that SAP Mobile Platform 3.0 is configured for OData consumption.

For further information on how to configure the server for our app, please follow the steps in Chapter 5 of the SAP SSU. For more information on SMP 3.0 Server, visit http://help.sap.com/smp305svr

• For the latest Android Studio, see http://developer.android.com/tools/studio/index.html.
• Gradle version 2.4+, for more information about the Gradle with android studio see https://gradle.org/getting-started-android/
• Android SDK API level (minimum 14, recommended 21)

Note: the current version of the source code of the mobile app is based on the code line of UMCUI501 SP5. And the source code of android application is to help our customers, Utilities companies, updating SSU www resources, note building the application from scratch.

After the prerequisites are fulfilled, proceed with the steps below

STEP 1: Download application source code

Go to SAP Service Market Place and download the source code artifact of the android release. See SAP Note 2165708 for details on how to obtain app source code.  The content of the artifact contains all the files that are needed to build and deploy the mobile app for the android platform.

STEP 2: Import source code project into Android Studio

Gradle is used as a building tool, so you can find all the Gradle scripts and settings necessary for the build.

If your development environment is running behind a proxy, edit the file “gradle.properties” using any text editor and set the proper proxy values

And you need to set the Android SDK path in the file “local.properties”

Now the project is ready to import using Android Studio. Start Android Studio and choose the option “Open an existing Android Studio Project”

A popup will ask you if you would like to Sync the Gradle; choose OK. Make sure you are connected to the Internet.

STEP 3: Running the project in the Android Simulator

After the import, you will find some files and folders have been added as part of the project settings in Android Studio and you don’t need to commit them to version control system; keep them locally. The structure is going to look like this:

The application is ready to be deployed on the simulator or device which will look like this on simulator

STEP 4: Understanding the project structure

Location of the UI resources is under the www folder as it is depicted in the following screenshot:

As you have noticed, there is an extra library smp added to SAP SSU for both Android and iOS to play a glue role between SAP SSU resources and Cordova plugins (including SMP Kapsel plugins). For more information about SMP Kapsel plugins and SMP3, see http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-49592 .

STEP 5: Debugging

You could deploy the application on the device but make sure that the developer mode is active on the device. After deploying the application you can debug the static resource using Chrome developer tools, since the application is hybrid. For more information about how you can debug, please visit this link: https://developer.chrome.com/devtools/docs/remote-debugging

On your desktop Chrome browser, navigate to chrome://inspect

Click “inspect” to start the developer tool.

Add custom theme

It is highly recommended to use the theme designer tool to modify the theme for SAP SSU responsive application. The following pic shows where to locate the custom theme:

Add custom logic and functionalities

If you have any custom logic or functionalities you need to place them in the corresponding folder (foundation, private, public). You need to pay special attention to those hooks, which are used to call methods in the package context. For example, some functionalities are handled different in the context of package app for example login and logout.

Summary:

In this blog, I described the steps to import the mobile app’s source code from SAP Service Market place, run it, debug it and also explained the folder structure.  In a separated related blog, I will explain the same steps for iOS platform.

"Creating Value in the Digital Energy Network" is the motto of this year´s International SAP Conference for Utilities, which will take place in The Hague, Netherlands from April 11 - 13, 2016. This event presents a world-class networking and learning opportunity. Take advantage of the opportunity to meet one on one with our executive team and solutions experts, as well as global customer and partners - all in one place at one time.

Download your copy of the detailed agenda now and register your place.

The intention of this blog post is to provide you with further details about the workshops, presentations, microforums and activities. It will be updated as soon as there is new information available for you.

AGENDA

• Melanie Fiolka from SAP is organizing the conference together with T.A. Cook: International SAP Conference for Utilities - AGENDA LIVE

PRECONFERENCE WORKSHOPS, Monday, 11 April, 2016

• Workshop 9: Smart Water - How Water Utilities Benefit from the Internet of Things

Read more about this half-day water workshop written by one of the facilitators Gero Bieser: Smart Water moves into the Focus

• Partnering for Success in Utilities and Oil and Gas (open for SAP partners only)

Get more details from Frank Ruland:  Less than 3 months to go - SAP Industry Conferences in The Hague

EXHIBITION:

• Meet our partner OpenText at the exhibition: OpenText at the International SAP Conference for Utilities

Watch video from the last SAP Conference for Utilities in  Conference in Berlin in April 2015:

Stay tuned for more updates!

We are looking forward to meeting you in The Hague.

In November 2013, SAP launched SAP Multichannel Foundation for Utilities (MCF, which extended is reach to the Public Sector industry last year), and its central entry page Key Topic: SAP Multichannel Foundation for Utilities and Public Sector rapidly became one of the most popular utilities-industry pages on SCN.

In parallel, the new product got widely adopted by customers around the world - just have a look at the map to see in which regions utility companies of different sizes have bought MCF:

Note that each circle (filled in orange color) is representing a customer that has purchased a MCF license so far. While the largest implementation project I am aware of is ongoing in Australia, Japanese utilities are currently preparing for market liberalization, mobile scenarios (including its bundled native mobile app, see SAP Self-Service for Utilities (SAP SSU) 1.0 mobile app for Android and Apple is now available) are in the focus of several gas providers in India that implementing MCF right now.

We also observed a high customer adoption of MCF in North America: In this region, many utilities have been influencing SAP's product offering during the last years through ASUG and its dedicated influence councils. With interested utility companies, we have conducted interactive Design Thinking workshops and regular conference calls where they got direct exposure to the SAP development team.

Let's zoom in to Europe where utility companies from several countries have chosen MCF as well:

See a dedicated bilingual blog (English/German) for more details about both official European MCF reference customers: SAP Multichannel Foundation for Utilities: First reference customers / Erste Referenzkunden

Finally. do not miss the 11th International SAP Conference for Utilities taking place in The Hague (Netherlands) from 11 to 13 April 2016. At this major industry event, one of our reference customers GELSENWASSER AG will share details about how they are productively using SAP MCF to offer online customer services for 11 retail companies with to 5 divisions and their grid operator. Visit the official event website http://uk.tacook.com/utilities

and stay tuned for more updates under International SAP Conference for Utilities 2016: Blogs, Videos and More.

Background

Are you not getting this error E7-302 after SP upgrade from tx ES21? if yes, then you are reading the right blog yes, after our SP for IS-UT upgraded to SAPK-61708INISUT, we are not getting this error message when we try to change one of the Contract's Joint Invoice indicator to '1' (Contract must be invoiced jointly with other contracts) for Dual Fuel Customer i.e. two Contracts under one Contract Account.

Scenario

Dual fuel customer with active Payment Scheme or when you try to create a Payment Scheme.

E.g. A Contract Account (with Budget Billing Procedure = 4) has two Contracts (no alternate Portion at Contract level) where the corresponding Installations are under different MRU which belongs to different Portions. To create PS (at CA level) our pre-requisite is that both Contracts should have JI flag as '1'. Initially by default Contracts are created with JI flag as '2'. Now when we try to change the Contracts to have JI as '1' we were getting this error message E7-302 [Contract &1 (&2) has a different portion than contract &3 (&4)] but not after our SP upgrade from ES21

Analysis and Observation

I checked the program behind ES21 and found that from SAP Note 1966454 - (ES21: Message E7-302 with Alternative Portion), they have introduced a check on Portion level BB Cycle i.e. field ABSZYK from table TE420. Ideally for our Payment Scheme procedure this field is irrelevant, and hence Contracts/Installations are now allowed to have different Portions. You can find this in Include LES27F10, FORM CC_PORTION.

Solution

After my analysis I raised this an OSS message with SAP and a new SAP Note 2272494 is released (just today 02.02.2016 ) which is the solution note for old note 1966454. The correction now rightly includes to check on Budget Billing Procedure which is the key to raise this error .

Further notes:

I thought I will post this blog so that it will be helpful for others dealing with 'SAP for Utilities' upgrade projects.

Ideally you will face this issue during testing phase of the project (and depending on your BBP setting under posting area 301) in non-production environment, and if you raise this with SAP OSS then it might be considered as low priority and would be delayed in getting it fixed. But with this blog, I hope you have googled your issue and found this blog , you can quickly check the solution note mentioned above and implement the corrections.

Thanks for reading this!

Cheers,

Srini

Industry analysts predict following top trends for worldwide utilities in terms of their likely impact across companies and the time it will take for the predictions to reach mainstream. How in particular SAP might be influenced by these trends? For discussions or additional insights and analysis please get in touch with Stefan Schmitt - CMI ENR Lead Analyst ste.schmitt@sap.com

Top trends in utilities 2016 and beyond:

• New revenue: By 2018, 20% of energy consumers will purchase new energy-related products and services from utilities and their affiliates, opening up new revenue streams
• Digital transformation: By 2018, 70% of utilities will have launched major digital transformation initiatives that address at least one of these three areas: omni-experience, operating model, or information
• Access to talent: In 2016, 70% of utilities will need to externally source talent from the ecosystem to make use of advanced analytics, cognitive systems, cloud, and cybersecurity
• Cybersecurity: By 2019, 75% of utilities will have deployed a comprehensive risk-based cybersecurity strategy, representing a maturation from a compliance focus to security focus
• Customer experience (CX) and billing solutions: By 2017, to compete in redesigned markets and support new business models, 45% of utilities will invest in a new customer experience solution and 20% in a new billing system
• Digital grid: In 2019, 50% of utilities will spend 5% or more of their capex on operational technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT) to optimize distributed energy resources, field services, and asset operations
• Asset management: By 2019, 75% of utilities will rely on managed services and industry cloud to predict asset failures or recommend solutions, but they will retain control of asset optimization

Saudi Arabia’s utilities market remains an attractive destination for ambitious investors, despite a sustained period of low oil prices and the resultant fiscal consolidation. Resilience in the sector is underpinned by the kingdom’s solid macroeconomic trajectory, supportive demographics and robust power sector capacity expansion plans.

Saudi Arabia is the biggest power market of all the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and analysts forecast increased investment in utilities over the next ten years and beyond, to meet rising demand from a growing population.

Demand for electricity alone is projected to double by 2030, according to Business Monitor Intelligence (BMI).

“The integration of diversified generation capacity, primarily gas capacity over our 10-year forecast period - will reduce reliance on oil-fired power generation and enhance the kingdom's ability to absorb economic shocks to its oil-dependent economy,” says a recent BMI report.

For instance, the power rental market in Saudi Arabia is projected to grow at a CAGR of 12.6% during 2015-20 at the back of increased infrastructure, manufacturing sector, construction sector and high demand for electricity and power requirements in remote areas.

Key companies in Saudi Arabia’s power rental market such as Aggreko, Enerco, Hertz, Byrne Investments, Peax, Altaaqa, Cummins Olayan Energy, RSS, and SES are stepping up their investments in this segment amid projections of increased demand (...) Read the full article >

EHP 8 for SAP ERP 6.0 contains several enhancements for Meter Data Management.

By using the new product features, you can benefit from easier implementation of new smart metering requirements in your customer projects and from reduced integration efforts for your Advanced Metering Infrastructure.

As an important enhancement, meter reading profiles (e.g. with values every 15 minutes), can now be processed by SAP Energy Data Management. High volumes of equidistant meter reading values can be converted into equidistant consumption values using the scalable Calculation Workbench.

Your users will profit from improved productivity and flexibility:

The creation and maintenance of master data in SAP Energy Data Management can be further automated by using the master data template. Different profile versions can be used by simply copying values from the old version to the current version.

Product Features

Here’s an overview of the product features:

• Reduced Advanced Metering Infrastructure integration efforts through simplified master data synchronization
• Device enhancement option for adding customer-specific fields to the device master data
• New mass activity for EDM Calculation
• Quantity determination based on EDM meter reading profiles (equidistant time series)
• New master data template category to generate and assign EDM profiles
• Possibility to use different profile versions for subsequent processes by simply copying profile versions

More Information

For more information, please take a look at the innovation Meter Data Management-related enhancements for SAP for Utilities solution in Innovation Discovery or access the Release Notes on the SAP Help Portal.

• Direct link to innovation

• Link to Release Notes on SAP Help Portal