Welcome to 2020, the year in which way too many marketing campaigns will feature at least one obligatory reference to perfect vision. So, let’s get ours out of the way now.
Our vision for 2020 is clear, and we’re excited about what we have in store for EnergyCAP users over the next 12 months. Some are improvements to existing offerings, and others reflect an expert-level foresight that can only come from 40 years of industry experience.
So, keep your eyes open for the following EnergyCAP offerings and events about which you’ll be hearing (and seeing) more this year.
Utility Bill Processing & Management
We unveiled our utility bill processing service—Bill CAPture—in 2014 to remove the burden of bill data entry. After just five years, our Bill CAPture operation now processes more than 70,000 transactions every month, and the time has come to expand our service offering. In addition to processing and auditing utility bills, our utility bill experts are now available to provide utility account management services.
Utility bill data is automatically audited by EnergyCAP to confirm accuracy and completeness. Under the new “Management” service offering, when a bill is flagged by EnergyCAP due to a suspected issue, your assigned Bill CAPture representative will review the issue and take appropriate action to keep the bill processing workflow moving. This service includes setting up new accounts and meters in EnergyCAP and resolving missing, duplicate, or corrected bill issues. When necessary, we will contact your vendors to request missing invoices, confirm account changes, update contact information, question unexpected charges, and request appropriate refunds or re-bills.
Account management actions are based on your organization’s business rules and are documented and available for review within EnergyCAP, provided via reports, and discussed during regularly scheduled phone calls or online meetings.
Contact your EnergyCAP account manager or your current Bill CAPture representative to learn more about the expanded service offering.
Even More Government-Friendly
The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) “enables [government] agencies to rapidly adapt from old, insecure legacy IT to mission-enabling, secure, and cost-effective cloud-based IT.” (FedRAMP.gov/About) In short, the FedRAMP program outlines strict data hosting requirements to ensure data security and accessibility, and it’s a standard required by most federal government agencies.
Our Technical Division staff have invested many hours into the FedRAMP certification process, and we’re now in the final auditing stage. That means that EnergyCAP, Inc. will soon be adding a FedRAMP-certified database hosting service to our list of hosting options.
Interval Data Made Easier via Smart CAPture℠
We will continue to promote the energy management value of interval data in 2020. Our Smart CAPture service automates the interval data acquisition and import process, making it easier for EnergyCAP users analyze their facilities’ energy usage. When we introduced Smart CAPture three years ago, the number of supported vendors was small. We’re pleased that, this year, the list of utility vendors from which interval data can be “CAPtured” has grown tremendously.
Interval data can also be imported from customer-owned smart meters. The Smart CAPture service can interface with existing meters, or we can work with our hardware partner, eGauge®, to provide a turnkey interval data solution. Once in EnergyCAP, interval data is available for analysis through charts and reports and can be shared publicly via live dashboards. Check out Aurora Public School District’s public dashboards to see the results of an eGauge-Smart CAPture-EnergyCAP partnership, and contact us if you’d like to learn more about Smart CAPture.
Get Smart. Get Certified.
Catalyst 2020 is a little more than three months away, and every EnergyCAP user or prospective user is encouraged to attend the three-day training seminar. As always, the Catalyst agenda will be packed with informative training sessions and will be an excellent opportunity to network with other EnergyCAP users from across North America. And this year, we’re offering something brand new.
Catalyst attendees will have the opportunity to earn a Mastery of EnergyCAP Fundamentals Certification by passing an EnergyCAP knowledge and skills exam on the conference’s final day. The initial certification focuses on EnergyCAP’s core functionality, and self-study resources will be provided to registered participants several weeks prior to Catalyst. Additional information is available on the Catalyst website.
“Early birds” who register for Catalyst by February 1, 2020 will automatically receive a $100 discount on registration.
Version 3 Sunset
We all recognize that time marches on, and in the tech industry it’s more a sprint than a march. We announced our plan several months ago to sunset EnergyCAP Version 3. The platform for Version 3 is Adobe Flash, and Adobe has announced an end-of-life date of December 31, 2020 for the Flash platform and Flash Player. The preferred platform technology is now HTML5, the technology used by EnergyCAP Version 7.
A high percentage of organizations have already upgraded in whole or in part to Version 7, and we encourage every organization to complete the migration to Version 7 as soon as you are able in order avoid a last-minute crunch or interruption in service. Details regarding the Version 3 sunset plan and schedule are provided in the EnergyCAP Help Center, and our staff are available to assist with upgrade plans.
A Major Anniversary and a New Home
We’re celebrating our 40th anniversary in 2020, and to honor the accomplishment, we’re gifting ourselves a new headquarters facility.
Construction of our 20,000-square-foot single office building began in August 2019 and move-in is scheduled for late June of this year. The building is located on a prime technology park lot and will offer beautiful unobstructed views of Tussey Mountain and Mount Nittany. The site is directly adjacent to a planned community park and a network of hiking and mountain bike trails. Besides enjoying the inspiring mountain views, employees and family members will have free and easy access to disc golf, miles of trails, a fishing pond, a picnic pavilion, a fitness center, and local bus service.
We’re excited about our new home and our plans for 2020. We look forward to helping you realize your energy management vision.
Best-in-class portfolio-level energy and utility bill data management and reporting.
Real-time energy and sustainability analytics for high-performance, net-zero buildings.
A holistic view of financial-grade scope 1, 2, and 3 carbon emissions data across your entire business.
Energy and sustainability benchmarking compliance software designed for utilities.
