Ventyx has announced the general availability of its customer information system (CIS)/billing solution, Customer Suite 4.1. The new release delivers improved data security and increased flexibility in charge calculations, billing and service order management. These key enhancements are in high demand throughout the energy and utility industry, as evidenced by a number of leading utilities who have already established plans to implement the new release.
“Customer Suite 4.1 continues Ventyx’s strong progress in delivering innovative solutions to utilities’ complex business problems,” said Ventyx Chief Technology Office Steve Carpenter. “Today’s challenging energy market and increasing customer demands require customer management solutions which enable flexible rate calculations based on a diverse set of variables, as well as efficient billing and service order management – all while ensuring customers’ personal information is protected from theft. Our latest release of Customer Suite meets all of these critical needs. As a result, we expect that it will add to our market leadership demonstrated by the more than 100 utilities already utilizing our CIS solution.”
Customer Suite 4.1 includes numerous key enhancements to the charge calculation, billing and service order generation processes, as well as improvements to the user interface. Among the improved features are the following:
- Flexible Charge Calculation. Provides the flexibility to develop external algorithms to be used during the charge calculation process. Also enables percentage discounts and user-defined weather normalization adjustments to be applied to calculated charges.
- Security and Data Encryption. Provides data protection for sensitive customer information by encrypting at the database level, masking the user interface and masking reports.
- Flexible billing. Provides the ability to generate charges and produce a bill for a person who does not have an established premises and service with the utility, such as an out-of-service customer. Also enables billing for storm water services to cover the costs of storm water planning, maintenance and upgrade activities.
- Flexible service order management. Enables utilities to create service orders without requiring them to be tied to a customer or premises, in order to manage activities such as capping an overflowing fire hydrant, remove water pooling in a street or repairing a pot hole.
Several Ventyx clients have already made plans to implement the new solution. Among these clients are Connexus Energy; City of Fort Collins, Colorado; National Water Commission of Jamaica; City of Provo, Utah; and City of Wichita, Kansas.
As a recent winner of Ventyx’s annual Award for Excellence in Business Results, Connexus Energy has been a long-time user of Customer Suite. “As one of the largest and fastest growing electric distribution cooperatives in Minnesota, Connexus Energy must stay up-to-date on the latest technological advances to help us keep up with growing demand while maintaining the highest levels of customer satisfaction,” said Julian Jones, manager - customer operations at Connexus Energy. “With Customer Suite 4.1 we see the opportunity to meet our exacting needs while implementing a baseline product. As a result, we can continue streamlining our customer service processes today while laying the foundation to easily implement future advances in the product in the years to come.”
“Fort Collins Utilities is preparing to upgrade to CIS version 4.1 for expanded functionality, to stay current with technology and to improve service to our customers,” said Curtis Miller, Utilities Technology and Customer Service Manager for Fort Collins Utilities. “Version 4.1 includes synchronization of billing dates for metered and non-metered services, allowing for coordinated billing dates (days of service) for electric, water, wastewater and stormwater services. Also included in this release is expanded functionality for stormwater rates, more secure data through encryption and improved archiving/purging.”
