The following document describes many of the most common questions related to managing accounts in BEACON.
What is an “account”?
The concept of holding an “account” will be familiar to anyone that gets billed on a regular basis for ongoing services. When a person or business becomes a utility customer, they are typically given an account that is identified using an account number or, as they’re referred to in BEACON, an Account ID. An Account_ID represents the customer number, customer id, or account id of a utility customer.
How Do I Add or Delete Accounts from BEACON?
When adding or deleting accounts from BEACON, you are really keeping BEACON in-sync with your utility billing system. In other words, when you “add” an account to BEACON, you are passing details about that account from your billing system to BEACON. The more details that you pass between systems, the more functionality you enable in BEACON.
At a minimum, you need pass an Account ID, a Location ID, a Service Point ID, a Meter ID, an Endpoint ID, and various details about the meter (its size, register unit of measure, and register resolution), and if the endpoint is being “provisioned” for the first time, Endpoint_Type. Passing a Service Agreement Start Date lets BEACON keep track of when the new account was opened.
“Provisioning” is the process of associating a meter and an endpoint with an account at a specific location.
There are two methods you can use to add/provision an account. The first is to use a Data Exchange (DE) file. The second is to do it manually using a process detailed here. DE files let you add accounts at scale. That is, you can add dozens or thousands of accounts in a single file. The manual method lets you add one account at a time. The manual method is being phased out and is not available to all utilities.
How you “delete” an account from BEACON depends on what you hope to accomplish.
- To “close” the account and continue to monitor usage at a given location, you could open a new “vacant” account at the location using this workflow, which “closes” the previous account but retains the Monitor page card for that location.
- To “delete” the account card from the Monitor page, you can do one of:
- Use a DE file to pass the Account ID, Location ID, Service Point ID, Meter ID, and Endpoint ID along with a Meter Removal Date, an Endpoint Removal Date, and a Service Agreement End Date. This method supports deleting multiple accounts in a single operation.
- Use the Service page feature to manually delete the account card from the Monitor page.
NOTE: Whichever method you use to close or delete an account has no effect on active Leak Alerts. In other words, Leak Alerts remain active unless you deactivate them. As a best practice, the first step to take when you close or delete an account should be to remove any email addresses and SMS text numbers associated with the meter and deactivate its Leak Alert. The full procedure is described in Set and Edit Leak Alerts.
How to Add and Remove Staff User BEACON Accounts
Utility staff members are said to have BEACON accounts. These accounts give staff users access to the BEACON SaaS platform.
To add a staff user to BEACON, users with Admin privileges must send the user an invitation following the process described on the Staff page of BEACON Help.
To remove a staff user, a utility user with Admin privileges must deactivate the staff user following this process.
How to Manage EyeOnWater Accounts
Utility customers typically create their own EyeOnWater web portal and smartphone app accounts. This account creation process establishes a password-protected link between the utility customer’s email address, their BEACON Account ID, and their zip/postal code.
Linking additional accounts so they can be accessed via a single EyeOnWater web portal and smartphone app account is also a self-serve process for utility customers. That process is described in the Link More Accounts section of EyeOnWater Help. Utility customer service representatives (CSRs) can also link additional accounts to a single EyeOnWater web portal and smartphone app account via the Manage EOW page.
You can also use the Manage EOW page to “delete” an EyeOnWater account. While this deletion removes the user’s access to their BEACON account, it has no effect on the data in BEACON. Instead, it breaks the link between the customer’s email address/username and the BEACON account.
NOTE: Removing access to EyeOnWater has no effect on active Leak Alerts. As a result, you must remove the customer’s email address and SMS Text numbers and deactivate their Leak Alert when deleting an EyeOnWater account.
