New smart metering regulations in Ontario have led local distribution companies (LDCs) such as EHM to make dramatic changes to their existing CIS to support TOU rates. EHM, an energy distribution company serving more than 188,000 residential and business customers in the City of Mississauga, deployed a foundational CIS with Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing to meet these requirements.

Since all LDCs in Ontario operate under the same general rules of the Ontario Energy Board (OEB), EHM has collaborated with other utilities on implementing its respective systems and sharing costs, as well as addressing changing OEB regulations, including monitoring and reporting requirements, more rapidly. Using the Oracle solution, EHM is able to effectively manage the transactions between retailers and utilities, which is important because retailers in Ontario sell power to some customers, but use the utility for all power delivery and billing services.

Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing helps further EHM’s use of smart grid technologies with effective capturing and billing for energy consumption based on interval meter reads for commercial customers and, in the very near future, residential customers.

Oracle Utilities delivers proven software applications that help utilities of all types and sizes achieve competitive advantage, business performance excellence and a lower total cost of technology ownership. Oracle Utilities integrates industry-specific customer care and billing, network management, work and asset management, mobile workforce management and meter data management applications with the capabilities of Oracle’s industry-leading enterprise applications, business intelligence tools, middleware and database technologies. The software enables customers to adapt more nimbly to market deregulation, meet ever-evolving customer demands and deliver on environmental conservation commitments. Additionally, Oracle Utilities helps utilities prepare for smart metering and smart grid initiatives that enhance efficiency and provide critical intelligence metrics that can help drive more-informed energy and water usage decisions for consumers and businesses. For more information, visit www.oracle.com/goto/utilities.

Blue Heron is expanding its value integration delivery and consulting around the world. New accounts were opened in the Middle East and Pacific Rim in the 1st and 2nd quarters of 2009 and plans are in place to establish regional global offices in 2010.

Blue Heron has continued their success by delivering Value Integration Services for software implementations to the marketplace. BHC Value Integration provides their clients the ability to install enterprise software more affordably and at higher quality levels because they:

– Only deploy proven, battle tested industry professionals
– Utilize a proven deployment methodology that is constantly being enhanced from its long track record of implementation success stories
– Leverage project templates and accelerators that save time and reduce cost

As a result Blue Heron’s world-class customer base continues to grow:

– St. Louis Sewer District – Oracle eBusiness Suite Implementation
– Seattle Power & Light – Oracle Work and Asset Management (WAM)
– Burbank Water and Power – Oracle Work and Asset Management WAM)
– Veolia Water – Oracle Work and Asset Management (WAM)
– Golden State Water Company – Oracle Customer Care and Billing (CC&B)

Blue Heron provides objective, high-quality consulting and value-based systems integration services to the marketplace, focused on deployment of large scale business enabling software projects:

– Chief Financial Officer
– SVP of Worldwide Sales
– SVP of Worldwide Delivery

Blue Heron continues to focus on growing their consulting organization capabilities in the areas of:

– CIS/CCB
– EAM/WAM
– ERP/eBusiness
– eServices / eTraining
– Project Health Assessments

Blue Heron provides objective, high-quality consulting and value-based systems integration services to the marketplace for focused on deployment of large scale business enabling software projects. Blue Heron offers world-class systems implementation, data conversion, independent verification & validation, project management/consulting, and expertise in both the Oracle product set and associated technical environments.

Harris Computer Systems is a wholly owned subsidiary of Constellation Software, Inc. and has been a leading provider of financial management and Customer Information Systems (CIS) software solutions since 1976. Harris Computer Systems has focused on providing feature-rich and robust turnkey solutions to all levels of local government, public power and water entities as well as school districts throughout North America. Harris focuses on meeting changing needs of customers, and adhering to the utmost standards of quality as part of that customer focus. The company utilizes proven methodologies that tie together software design, testing, project management and implementation, training and consulting and customer support. That focus on high quality is perhaps part of the reason the company has established such a strong track record, boasting more than 600 successful implementations in North America.

Harris School Solutions’ flagship enterprise Student Information System, SME, is designed for school district central offices, school administrators, and teachers. The incorporation of Pentaho has provided ad hoc and standardized reporting, interactive analysis, and dashboards. The application makes critical operational information available to tens of thousands of users in user-friendly, interactive formats, relying on underlying data stored in the SME database. For example, a school administrator could look at some key metrics on attendance and discipline and then create an ad hoc report to better understand how those items can impact student performance.

“We chose Pentaho BI Suite Enterprise Edition because it provided the rich functionality that our end users need, with the low cost and flexibility of an open source model, backed by high-quality commercial support,” said Todd Nagy, manager of software development at Harris Computer.

“Pentaho has become the obvious and preferred choice for independent software vendors that need to deliver robust BI capabilities while escaping the cost and inflexibility of proprietary BI,” said Lance Walter, senior vice president of Marketing at Pentaho Corporation. “We’re pleased to work with an established provider in Harris Computer that has the domain expertise to deliver maximum BI business value for clients.”

About Pentaho Corporation
Pentaho Corporation is the commercial open source alternative for Business Intelligence (BI). Pentaho BI Suite Enterprise Edition provides comprehensive reporting, OLAP analysis, dashboards, data integration, data mining and a BI platform that have made it the world’s leading and most widely deployed commercial open source BI suite. Pentaho provides support, services, and product enhancements via an annual subscription that can lower total cost of ownership by 90% compared to traditional, proprietary BI offerings. Since its 2004 founding as the pioneer in open source BI, Pentaho’s products have been downloaded more than five million times, with production deployments at companies ranging from small organizations to The Global 2000. For more information, visit www.pentaho.com.

Ventyx Customer Suite is the most comprehensive customer management system available, capable of managing all of a utility’s customer-facing processes, from meter reads to billing and customer inquiries through the call center or self-service and service management. The solution’s extensive breadth of features are time-proven across gas, water and electric utilities.

The latest release of Customer Suite, Release 4.2, includes several key new features, including the following:

– Support for renewable energy rates and AMI metering. New net metering features enable Customer Suite to enroll customers in renewable energy programs, measure energy generated and consumed on a single meter, bill customers for services and refund/credit customers for remaining excess generation.
– Enhanced security. Expanded support for the Payment Card Industry (PCI) security standards.
– Enhancements to master summary billing. Improved flexibility in querying master bill history and detailed views.
– Technology upgrades. Technical currency improvements such as migration to the Oracle 11g database platform.
– Usability improvements. Improved address maintenance and online help enhancements.

The new features targeting renewables integration were key for some clients considering migrating to the 4.2 release. “One of the main reasons Longmont wanted to migrate to 4.2 is the net metering capability,” said Information Systems Administrator/Coordinator Sherri Spengler of City of Longmont, CO. “Right now, we are doing those calculations by hand, so this will be a great time saver. I tested the 4.2 version a few weeks ago and was really impressed with the net metering, addressing and the general layout of the system. We have been looking forward to the release so we can start our migration.”

Customer Suite 4.2 is available immediately from Ventyx and its certified reseller partners. For more information, contact your Ventyx sales representative or email sales@ventyx.com.

Ventyx is a leading business solutions provider, delivering asset management, mobile workforce management, energy portfolio management, and customer care solutions to more than 1,250 energy, utility and communications customers, as well as to asset-intensive customers in selected commercial markets. Ventyx delivers best-of-breed business solutions that maximize operational and financial performance, backed by the industry’s deepest available industry-specific domain expertise. For more information, visit our Website at www.ventyx.com.

* Solution (ERP, EAM, and CIS) has been successfully implemented in a cooperative environment, within the last five years.
* Solution currently supports at least three clients with more than 100,000 customers, two of which must be electric.
* Most current two years’ audited financial statements with an analysis demonstrating stability and solvency.
* Prime contractor has been in business for at least seven years.
* The vendor must provide a commercial, off-the-shelf solution that will promote implementation of a functionally rich base product with minimal modifications. PEC will not consider custom development proposals or any solution which requires extensive customization in order to meet the functional requirements as set forth in Appendix A of the RFP document.
* Proven expertise in the provision of personnel to meet the requirements.
* If the proposal includes any partnerships, one referable engagement must be included with the proposal.
* Available to provide the services required at the time required.
* Sufficient staff with the relevant skills for this project.

Due to energy deregulation in the Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese) peninsula, EDP needed to make its existing SAP-based customer information system (CIS) more efficient in serving its business customers. Built on open standards, Oracle’s enterprise-class applications and technology will help provide the flexibility and scalability EDP needs to streamline business processes while enhancing customer service.

Iberia has one of the highest growth rates of electricity consumption in Europe. Anticipating the creation of the Internal Electricity Market in Europe, the Portuguese and Spanish markets are in the process of being integrated, which will ultimately create the Iberian Electricity Market (MIBEL). The substantial regulation differences between the two countries’ electricity systems, are one of the main obstacles to the formal creation of MIBEL. In addition, EDP recently acquired two Spain-based electricity companies with disparate customer care and billing systems. The combination of new regulatory requirements and consolidation led EDP to select Oracle.

Oracle Utilities delivers the proven software applications that help utilities achieve competitive advantage, business performance excellence and a lower total cost of technology ownership. Oracle Utilities integrates industry-specific customer care and billing, network management, work and asset management, mobile workforce management and meter data management applications with the capabilities of Oracle’s industry-leading enterprise applications, business intelligence tools, middleware and database technologies. Oracle Utilities enables its customers to adapt more nimbly to market deregulation, meet ever-evolving customer demands, and deliver on commitments to environmental conservation. For more information, visit http://www.oracle.com/industries/utilities.

Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) is the world’s largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, please visit www.oracle.com.

Blue Heron Consulting Corporation is the value integration company in the utility industry that provides customers with world-class systems integration and organizational change management expertise at affordable rates. MDU’s selection of Blue Heron and Oracle Utilities CC&B enables the Utility to meet a strategic objective to replace multiple aging legacy CIS systems with one cost-effective, centralized, state-of-the-art system that contains rich functionality and technology.

Blue Heron provides objective, high-quality CIS/CRM integration services to the utility industry and specializes in the installation, maintenance, and enrichment of Customer Information Systems (CIS). Blue Heron has over nine years of experience installing, maintaining, and upgrading Oracle® CIS products. Blue Heron serves both investor-owned utilities and municipalities and has experience with all major utility service types: gas, electric, water, waste water, solid waste, cable/broadband, and telecommunications.

“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.

Ventyx Introduces Customer Suite 4.1,
* 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.

“The numerous enhancements in Customer Suite 4.1 are designed to help Ventyx clients achieve critical business goals,” added Carpenter. “The solution enables clients to reduce their cost to serve customers through integration of key features and analytical tools. It also helps Ventyx meet key goals including acquiring new clients in one of our core markets, inspiring existing clients to upgrade to leverage the latest technological advances, and most importantly, maintaining the highest customer satisfaction possible.”

Clients Planning Implementations
The importance of the enhanced features in Customer Suite 4.1 is highlighted by the fact that, even before its release, several Ventyx clients had 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 Ventyx Introduces Customer Suite 4.1, included in this release is expanded functionality for stormwater rates, more secure data through encryption and improved archiving/purging.”

“After evaluating the new features in Customer Suite 4.1, it was apparent that implementing the release held several significant advantages,” said Wade Pascal, Utility Customer Service Manager at City of Wichita. “Primary among these was the opportunity to eliminate a heavily customized charge calc and to have multiple-period billing adjustments apply to history-based charges. Contingent upon approval of a revised contract and budget by the City Council, implementation of this release will enable Wichita Water Utilities to basically stay with a zero mod approach, which carries with it significant long-term advantages.”

About Ventyx
Ventyx is the leading provider of best-of-breed software solutions which enable energy, utilities, telecommunications, broadband and other commercial field service organizations to optimize the management of their customers, workforce, spare parts inventory, equipment, tools and documentation — empowering organizations to maximize efficiencies in their customer relationships, facilities, workforce and field service operations. The Ventyx Global Energy Decisions business unit is a leading provider of utility industry solutions for generation asset and portfolio optimization, energy trading and risk management, schedule management, price and load forecasting, maintenance optimization, resource planning, fuel budgeting, plant betterment and environmental compliance analysis. With offices in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, Ventyx has more than 700 clients in select asset-intensive service-based industries.

Ventyx is a trademark of Ventyx Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

Shelby Utilities, a member of ElectriCities of North Carolina, is a municipally owned and operated public utility system that operates its own electricity distribution system which spans over 125 miles of power lines. The Water/Waste Water Deptartment treats an average of 4.2 million gallons of water per day and serves the City of Shelby as well as Boiling Springs, NC. The Gas Deptartment serves 10,250 customers within the City of Shelby as well as other municipalities in the region such as Earl, Waco and Fallston across 450 miles of gas mains and 224 miles of service lines.

Shelby chose the NorthStar division for its robust and comprehensive NorthStar v6.2 solution and its consistent track record of successful implementations.

“We are excited to have the opportunity to work with the City of Shelby. We look forward to a long relationship there, helping Shelby serve its customers with a full-featured, utility focused CIS solution.” said Ken Hayes, Director of Sales.

Rob DiMurro, Executive Vice President for NorthStar said, “NorthStar represents what our customers are demanding from their CIS solution – flexible platform, intuitive user interface and strong functionality and features. Our customers are the best judges of success and with the number of live customers on NorthStar its success speaks for itself. We are extremely pleased and excited to have Shelby join our large and growing customer community.”

NorthStar v6.2 represents the next generation of CIS software. Incorporating a state-of-the-art user interface, it provides users with business-focused functionality and ease of use. NorthStar v6.2 continues to deliver innovative, utility-specific features in a robust environment that is cross-database and cross-platform capable. Harris NorthStar is dedicated to giving customers value driven software with unparalleled customer support.

About Harris
Harris is a leading provider of utility customer information systems (CIS), billing, and financial management software solutions. Since 1976, Harris has focused on providing feature-rich and robust turnkey solutions to public power and water markets as well as all levels of local government throughout North America. Harris’ focus is on creating long-term relationships with our customers and ensuring that we meet the changing needs of our customers over time.

ERWSD currently manages a system that serves 24,778 water and 25,155 wastewater single-family equivalent units. While the District’s permanent population is estimated to be approximately 20,000, its population during peak season exceeds 40,500 residents due to the influx of temporary residents for recreation and tourism purposes during the winter and summer seasons.

“We are pleased with our selection of Advanced as our CIS / Utility Billing vendor”, states ERWSD’s Evette Curran. “And based on our review of their solution, we are confident that it will enable us to introduce a number of efficiencies to our day-to-day operations.”

CIS Infinity will provide the District with extensive functionality standard for all of its day-to-day utility billing requirements, including the much anticipated consolidated billing functionality. As well, the District will utilize the real time integration Advanced offers from its CIS Infinity application to the Great Plains financial system.

The implementation of CIS Infinity is set to start over the coming weeks with an expected LIVE in 2008.

About Harris
Harris is a leading provider of financial management and Customer Information Systems (CIS) software solutions. Since 1976, Harris has focused on providing feature-rich and robust turnkey solutions to all levels of local government as well as public power and water markets throughout North America. Harris’ focus is on creating long-term relationships with our customers and ensuring that we meet the changing needs of our customers over time.