In-bulk account setup

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In this article, it is explained how to make an in-bulk account setup.

Contents of this article:

 

What is an In-bulk account setup?

The EMS platform allows you to export the whole configuration of your account. This functionality can be very useful when your portfolio of locations is considerably large and manually handling your data is not an option.​

Additionally, once you export your account information, you can make any change you consider convenient and then you can import it back to your account as explained here.

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In-bulk export 

The EMS platform allows to quickly export all the content of your account in an Excel file with just a few steps. In this tutorial, you will learn how to in-bulk export the configuration of your account. 

 

Prerequisites

  1. To have an existing account in EMS platform. 
  2. To be a SuperAdmin user. You can find more information about how to configure users here.


How to export your account

To export your account you should go to Settings -> Preferences -> Bulk account setup. Then just click in the "Export Inventory" button, and an EXCEL file will be generated and downloaded. It may take some minutes depending on the account size.

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What will you obtain?  

The excel file contains different sheets with the following information:

  1. Locations: The hierarchy structure of your portfolio of locations along with their relative data.
  2. Devices: An inventory of all your devices and how they are associated with each gateway and associated POD supply if applies.
  3. Reference devices: You'll get a clear list of all your devices that act as reference devices, to which location are they placed and what type of device they are.
  4. Supplies: Your supplies will be listed along with their configured information.
  5. Contracts: There will be 5 sheets, each one for all the available types of contracts present in the EMS Platform. Configured information about your contracts will be inserted on the Excel file. 

 

In-bulk import 

If you have a huge portfolio of locations it might be tough to configure the account manually. The platform offers the option of configuring all the account at the same time by doing an In-bulk Import. 

By filling up our template, a massive number of sites can be configured in a few steps. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to do so! 

The in-bulk import consist on fulfilling an excel file as the template example and send it back to us so we can upload it to the platform. You can also modify the existing excel downloaded from the in-bulk export. 


Template example


To better understand this tutorial it is advisable to take a look at the following template which has been already filled up with an example of a project. You can find it here

 

Prerequisites

  1. To have an existing account. If you still do not have an account you can learn how to create it here.
  2. To be have Superuser permissions. You can find more information about how to configure users here.
  3. To have at least one Gateway created. If you do not have it, you can create one as explained here.
  4. It is recommended to have your prices configured. See how to configure a price here.
  5. To have a portfolio of sites that you want to in-bulk.

Note: Gateways and prices can not be created in-bulk! They must already exist on the platform when you import the excel file. 

 

In-bulk Guide

Firstly, before starting with the guide, it is important to know some general tips and also the great importance of the keys in this function

General tips:

  • Follow the naming of the "Designations tab" for the specified fields.
  • Remember that some fields don't allow accents or signs such as "
  • If you want to leave a field empty (because it is not mandatory), leave it empty, do not insert a 0
  • If you need to put a post code that starts with 0, make sure that the format of the field don't delete this first zero. Use text format, for example.
  • Remember that all references must exist. For example, if you create a location with a Hierarchy Parent ZGZ, the location or zone with code ZGZ has to exist either in the platform already or in the same excel that is being uploaded.
  • Remember that the file has to have a specific name (the one it has by default when downloading it from Preferences) and has to be have  .xlsx format.

The importance of Keys for identification:

Keys are crucial elements for the unique identification of Locations, Devices, Gateways, Contracts and Pricing within our platform. These keys enable precise recognition of each entity in the database and play a critical role in maintainig the integrity and organization of the data.

Specific Rules for Managing Keys:

  • Creation of Keys: When creating new entities such as Locations, Devices, Gateways, Contracts or Prices, it is essential to assign a unique key to each. This key will serve as the primary identifier for future references and operations.
  • Modification of Keys: It's important to note that once established, keys cannot be modified in bulk through the bulk upload process. The mass update process is not designed to recognize changes in keys within the database, as these act as primary identifiers. So, if you change the key of a location, and configure the same name, you would duplicate this location.
  • Update via Bulk Files: When using bulk files for modifications, the systems identifies and updates entities based on their keys. Modifications to other fields are recognized and applied only when corresponding keys is correctly identified in the file. Therefore, any desired changes to associated information must be made ensuring the key remains unchanged to guarantee correct recognition and data updating.

This approach ensures effective and secure management of entities within the platform, maintaining data consistency and accuracy over time.

 

Step 1: Fill up the template


Our template consists of an Excel file that you should complete with all the information you want to in-bulk. The file is obtained when you export your account as explained in here. If you export an empty account then you'll get an empty file that you could use as a template. The file contains the following sheets to be completed:01_c0065bbdd0b5375c272e0df21188494ad152b85fd3a844af997f2307e0966199.png

You also can download the existing configurations and make changes on the EXCEL. 

The In-bulk excel has 10 sheets. Apart from designations the other ones can be configured. Follow the next steps to learn how to fill the different sheets:


Locations sheet


As you may know, the EMS platform allows you to establish a hierarchy order of your locations in the form of a tree as it can be seen in the following image.

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The scope of this sheet is to correctly insert the hierarchy of your locations and their data. You can take a look at the filled template provided above in where the hierarchy tree displayed in the image is implemented as an example. To do that, keep in mind the following tips:

  • Make sure to use a unique LOCATION KEY. The LOCATION KEY is a code that is internally used to determine the structure of your hierarchy tree. 03_d96bfd78b2ef2a12ea91cafa8e0757f85b4d450ba7de0c63417ad18b519f6091.png

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  • Remember to add the LOCATION KEY of the hierarchy parent of your location. In other words, the code to identify the location you have above. You can find this key in the Locations section of your account Settings.

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  • There are cases such as the Country or the Activity_tag that should be typed down exactly as specified in the sheet Designations.
  • POSTCODE or CITY. At least one of these two have to be filled up. If both are empty, we won't be able to upload it. 

Devices sheet


The EMS platform needs all your gateways to be already created in your account in order to in-bulk your portfolio of buildings. If you have not created your gateways you can learn how to do it here.

The purpose of the Device sheet is to introduce your devices and track how they are connected to which gateways and to which locations. In a similar manner as in the Locations tab, the DEVICE KEY is linked to a GATEWAY KEY and finally is assigned to a LOCATION KEY.

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To keep in mind:

  • This time the GATEWAY KEY is an existing parameter since your gateways need to be registered beforehand. You can find your gateway key in Settings -> Gateways.

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  • Once you find the GATEWAY KEY, it is advisable to fill up the rest of the row and then copy/paste the row as many times as devices the gateway has. After that, complete the empty cells with the information of the devices belonging to that gateway.
  • Note that if the device tracks the consumption of a certain supply, then the POD number should be inserted.


Reference devices sheet


Reference devices are very important to better organize your data in the analysis section, especially for a large portfolio of buildings. Our in-bulk template allows you to easily define your reference devices without going through the manual process. 

The Reference Devices sheet is quite similar to the Devices one, actually, the first 3 columns can be directly copy-pasted from Devices. The only difference is that you should introduce the LOCATION KEY and the Reference meter type of the devices that you want to use as a reference. 

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Supplies sheet


All the supplies of your portfolio of buildings must be inserted in the sheet Supplies. If you are not familiar with how the EMS Platform allows you to manage your supplies you can find more information here. Note that supply is identified by the POD NUMBER which is a unique ID provided by your supplier.

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Make sure to type down the ENERGY SOURCE, THE COUNTRY and the METER COUNTRY exactly as specified in Designations.


Contracts sheet


Our template has 5 additional sheets, each one for a specific type of contract available in the EMS platform, so you can easily introduce all your contracts during the in-bulk. If you need more information about the contracts you can find it here. The information requested depends mainly on the type of contract, however, in general terms each contract:

  • Requires a CONTRACT KEY, which will be used for the platform to identify the contract.
  • Must have a POD NUMBER, which is used to link the contract to a specific supply.
  • Must have a PRICE KEY from a previously defined price in your account. You can get the price key from one of your prices in Settings -> Supplies and prices -> Prices

 

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As an example, the following image shows the sheet for electricity contracts.

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Step 2: Send us the template

To upload your file you should send it to us at support.energy@spacewell.com and our support team will insert it for you.


You're done!

 

Pricing

However, before proceeding with filling out the template, keep in mind that this task involves an additional time commitment. For further details, please consult your Customer Success Engineer.

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