‘Box of truth’ forms a foundation for energy management support delivery.
A joint venture between Staffordshire County Council and Capita, Entrust Support Services effectively forms the Council’s energy management team.
The challenge
Besides day-to-day activities, such as managing and collecting billing and metering data, Entrust receives bespoke requests from organisations they support across Staffordshire – for example academies and the emergency services.
For example, a school may need assistance with their budgeting against contract and energy market data. A strong software solution equips a school with a strong utilities data record to power their long-term planning.
For instance, this could include bespoke dashboards for different users within a single school; A site manager dashboard uses profile data to stay on top of site events, while a finance officer can compare costs to a previous year.
Solution
Referred to as ‘the box of truth’, Energy Manager has served as the team’s energy bureau solution for well over a decade, supporting Entrust as they in turn offer their energy expertise to other organisations.
For any software solution used for this long, processes have evolved along the way. SystemsLink training used to be more generic, but the onboarding process has become progressively bespoke for each organisation.
After finding the original Energy Manager user guides not detailed enough, Entrust created their own version for their colleagues who may have less energy industry experience.
This meant going back to basics and producing a roadmap for new associates – for example, what validation fields must be set up to reflect their clients’ needs.
This is where SystemsLink Associates – experts who are available to help organisations utilise their software by providing hands-on support – joined in.
Entrust worked with an experienced SystemsLink Associate who supported their team face-to-face and online to create suitable documentation and processes to create new guidance. This led to a robust user guide tailored to their needs – allowing new starters to make the most out of Energy Manager from the start.
A source of pride to the Entrust team, this exercise showcases the potential of the benefits working with a SystemsLink Associate can create for new and long-term software users alike.
The results
As part of their ongoing journey with Energy Manager, the Entrust team has embraced Smart Spaces – a powerful tool that uses up-to-date interval data to stop energy from going to waste.
Designed for energy managers with large portfolios, Smart Spaces sends an email to a designated site contact when wastage is detected. The Entrust team has implemented Smart Spaces to help schools understand their gas usage, especially around times when the buildings are not being used.
Not only this service underlines any poorly performing sites in a portfolio but allows Entrust to demonstrate their value as an expert energy partner.
For example, Smart Spaces picked up an issue with a newly installed device at a school. The device had been programmed for weekdays but otherwise remained on manual – causing heating to run over the weekend.
Historically, this would likely have been picked up only when the bill arrived – and the billing cycle could have meant the weekend heating could have run undetected for further 5-6 weeks.
If you would like to speak to one of our experts regarding Energy Manager, get in touch.
“We quickly established that SystemsLink has to become the box we load everything into, and we must then use it to benefit clients. Over time, SystemsLink Associates has also become a vital resource for us to deliver and demonstrate the value of our work to our clients. Tolu, our associate, worked closely with us to produce a fantastic series of user guides – improving our user experience immeasurably”
David Bate, Energy Consultant and Energy team leader, Entrust Support Services
Want to find out more about Energy Manager?
The UK’s most sophisticated energy monitoring and targeting software package – at your disposal.
