Sustainability & Risk / Energy / Background Data - Facilities

Energy Application On-Ramp: Using the Connectors

You can automatically load utility bill information using the Archibus Connectors, and can schedule the Connector to load the data on a regular schedule.

The Archibus Energy application stores utility bill information and processes this data so that you can analyze cost and consumption across your portfolio. This consumption data is also used to compare energy usage to actual weather data. You can compare energy consumption over time to a baseline period, but this requires having historical data entered into the system. You can also compare measurements from your internal meters to the vendor's meter used to calculate your bill, enabling you to spot discrepancies in billing. Using the Archibus Connectors you can automatically load utility bill information, and you can configure the connectors to run automatically on a scheduled basis.

The Define Bill Connector Associations task enables you to import bill data directly from an electronic source. This reduces the risk, complexity, and time associated with entering utility bill data manually. Also, the ability to load billing in a timely manner allows for quicker analysis of current trends. This could facilitate additional cost saving by detecting errors sooner, and more quickly identifying high energy consumers

Connectors are developed from specifications provided by the vendor that tells you how to interpret the bill data in the electronic file. You may have several vendors for a number of bill types that all have different connectors. In addition, bill formats can change over time, so previous versions of the connector need to be accessible in case historical data needs to be loaded.

You can still manually enter your bill data using the Enter Bills task.

Process Overview for loading bill data using the Archibus Connectors

  1. The Cost Administrator or Accounting Supervisor transfers bill data to the Excel template provided for this purpose. This file is stored in Archibus\projects\hq\datafeeds\risk\energy\bills\abrisk-energy-bill-sample.xlsx. See Preparing the XLSX Data Source File.
  2. The System Administrator defines your Connectors based on the specification provided by your vendor, and using the sample Connector provided as a model (Energy-XLS-Import-Bill) to create your own connector. See the Archibus Connectors topic in the System Management Help.
  3. The Business Process Owner associates a Connector with a vendor and bill type using the Define Bill Connector Association task. See Define Bill Connector Association.
  4. The Cost Administrator or Accounting Supervisor loads the bills into the system. See Loading Bills.
  5. Inspect the connector job log to ensure that the data was loaded as expected, and any skipped records were intentionally skipped. See Loading Bills.
  6. Generate the Energy Consumption by Location and Energy Consumption Over Time reports using the data you loaded.