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Electricity and gas traders are migrating from the on-premises solution ENER-GX Sales to the cloud platform cpX.Energy.
E.ON Portfolio Solutions GmbH (EPS) is one of the leading German providers of electricity and gas commodity solutions, employing around 100 people. EPS customers include several hundred public utilities and regional suppliers as well as large industrial customers. The range of products and services offered covers standard products, such as scheduled deliveries and residual load coverage contracts, through to portfolio management services and individual supply plans. EPS has around 10 locations in Germany with its main locations are in Dortmund and Essen.
From on-premises to the cloud
E.ON Portfolio Solutions have been managing gas and electricity trading activities for large and industrial customers in the E.ON Group. Prior to being acquired by Innogy, the company had been using the ENER-GX Sales solution for billing its gas and electricity supply contracts. To optimise processes and save costs, the management decided to migrate from the on-premises solution hosted by their own IT teams to the cpX.Energy cloud solution from Sopra Steria. In parallel to this, E.ON Portfolio Solutions took over the processing of electronic invoices for grid use (INVOIC) from the SAP IT solution, IS-U. This includes posting in the general ledger via service integration and responding to the grid operators via REMADV messages. The aim of the migration was to automate billing, providing a smoother experience for the business and customers alike.
Project facts
- Setting up a cpX.Energy client: User authentication via OpenID Connect, establishing the technical communication connections, checking and adapting interfaces, reporting, etc
- Migration with two days downtime: Data from an Oracle database was transferred to the MariaDB database instance in cpX.Energy.
- Many new interfaces: Transfer to the new environment as workflows in the BPM solution cpX.Energy APM. Implementation of new security protocols, such as OAuth2
- Automated processing of INVOIC invoices: Externally supplied electronic invoices pass to financial accounting in order to be forwarded for payment. Unclear cases are processed manually and all other INVOIC invoices are automated and answered in REMADV message format.
Challenge
E.ON Portfolio Solutions was spun off on a fixed date. By this time, the company had to process billing in its own systems as previous IT resources were no longer available. The deadline increased the requirements for the transition project. As part of the technical migration, application downtime could last no longer than two days.
An additional complication arose from the need to process electronic invoices, which had to be transitioned to another system (SAP IS-U) and department, while keeping the previous billing team in place. The only viable solution was to maximise automation to the highest degree possible.
Solution
cpX.Energy is the ideal choice for transition projects. Developed and hosted by Sopra Steria, this platform-based solution eliminates the need for customers to establish their own IT infrastructure, allowing projects to start immediately. This approach requires little time and budget and can be planned with precision. In addition, a scalable software-as-a-service model ensures genuine pay-per-use flexibility.
The cpX.Energy platform for energy traders from E.ON Portfolio Solutions offers a high-performance solution for billing electricity and gas supply contracts for large and industrial customers. The solution supports all relevant processes, namely contract billing, quotation calculations, market communication and planning. And a subledger is also available to users.
Automated processing of electronic invoices (INVOIC) has been added to contract billing specifically for E.ON Portfolio Solutions.
Collaboration
The project was completed in less than five months, following a standard procedure combined with Agile components.
The concept was developed in workshops which were run 100% remotely, the project team coordinated closely with upstream and downstream communication service providers. All questions, tasks and problems to be clarified were quickly resolved by the project participants. This solution orientation with everyone pulling together contributed greatly to the success of the project.
Results
The billing system was successfully implemented, allowing E.ON Portfolio Solutions to seamlessly transition to cpX.Energy from day one without any significant downtime. All interfaces functioned smoothly.
The new process for processing electronic invoices (INVOIC) was then launched. Early feedback has been positive: pre-testing, carried out by a service provider, and automated processing in cpX have worked efficiently.
Here's how it operates:
- INVOIC invoices are imported into the cpX.Energy billing solution via web service calls by cpX.APM (Advanced Process Management), as an integration add-on.
- Tests are run automatically, and any cases requiring clarification are flagged on a monitor. These are pre-sorted by the service provider for easier handling.
- For all other invoice transactions, processing is fully automated. If an INVOIC invoice is rejected, a negative REMADV message is sent, explaining the reason for the rejection. For approved invoices, a positive REMADV message is sent out, and the electronic invoices are transferred to financial accounting for payment.
Many thanks to everyone at Sopra Steria for their excellent support and cooperation throughout the project period. For us, cpx.Energy has become an indispensable system that has solved many problems and created new opportunities in our company.
Wolfgang Stroh, Leiter E2E Operations, E.ON Portfolio Solutions