BetterConnect Project Update

The new BetterConnect portal is going live on 25 May 2020.

As you know, we have been working on a new portal called BetterConnect. This is part of Essential Energy’s ongoing continuous improvement initiatives which aim to make processes for our customers more efficient, and make it easier to do business with us.

All Level 3 ASPs and their nominated employees will be required to use the portal from 25 May 2020, including the new enquiries channel.

Benefits

The new portal has been developed in collaboration with a Reference Group of 12 Level 3 ASPs working closely with us since the inception of the project. It focuses on more efficient interactions between L3 ASPs and Essential Energy, which in this instance means:

• No more email interactions for submissions and project creations
• Full electronic submission and online forms for:
  • Design Information requests
  • Asset Label requests
  • Notice of Arrangement Only requests
  • Design Submission Requests
  • Easements Only Requests
  • Enquiries (General, Design and Closed Project Enquires)
• Instant visibility to Essential Energy when an enquiry or case has been submitted
• Real time visibility to Level 3 ASPS of the current status of their projects.

Please remember, we are working towards automating the end-to-end connections process, and this is just the first step.

It’s your tool – so have your say

In recent weeks, our Reference Group has been using the portal in a testing environment. This allows them to provide feedback on the functionality so we can continue to improve it.

Of course, continuous improvement means that we will keep looking at ways to make things easier and more efficient for all of us, so your feedback is encouraged. This tool is currently a minimum viable product, which means we will continue to develop and make improvements to it– so please, don’t hesitate to send in your feedback and suggestions.

Support for you

Our people are ready to support you if you have any issues.

The portal has a comments field built into it, and we ask you to use this as your first point of call. This allows all the information to be stored in one place and can be accessed readily throughout your project. It also means you are not relying on a single resource on our end to keep your project moving along.

The live portal will be a new tool for Essential Energy staff as well, so will be learning new ways of working together.

We’d like to thank everyone who has worked with us to get this project live for their invaluable assistance and also to those who have provided their details for access to the portal. If you haven’t done this already, please contact betterconnect.project@essentialenergy.com.au for more information.

We look forward to continuing to work with our customers on further improvements which will benefit both you, and us.