Level 3 ASPs

Hi All,

We are reintroducing the Standards Reference Forums which were last held in 2021 to promote engagement and consultation for development and implementation of design and construction standards.

We are engaging in a spirit of openness and transparency to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes and improvements across the scope of design and construction standards.

The Standards Reference Forums scope does not include Contestable Design and Certification, Connections, Outage Management, Authorisations and Electrical Safety Office queries.

The forum will be chaired and facilitated by Manager Network Assurance with support from Manager Engineering Overhead, and Manager Engineering Underground.

Topics included at this forum include Overhead and Underground Standards and streetlights updates.

Your invited.

• Date: Thursday the 10th of November 2022.
• Time: 10:00am - 12:00 Midday.

what do i need to do?

• Register in advance to attend by clicking on this Register Here.
• After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
• Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.
• View this communication via Essential Engagement.

Important Changes to the Standard Construction Schedule.

As you are aware, Essential Energy is streamlining its customer experience and introducing the Essential Connections Portal powered by Salesforce. It will provide a seamless end-to-end connections process to deliver a great connection experience for our people, partners and customers.

As previously communicated, we are updating our Design Submission standards in parallel to help streamline the certification process, enhance design submission quality and automate activities downstream.

These important changes will be implemented from 21st November 2022.

What does this mean for me?

To support our updated design standards, we have created a Microsoft Excel template file to standardise design construction schedules. The structure of this template is similar to our existing formatting requirements, with two additional columns – Status and Asset Type. Our Design Submission policy CEOM7001 will be updated to reflect this new format soon.

The Status and Asset type will auto populate from the Standard Drawing Number where possible, or users can select from dropdown menus.

We have also made it easy to convert the construction schedule in the template to a visually suitable format for inclusion on a construction plan with an ‘Export to Construction Plan’ button within the template.

Construction Schedule example as presented on a Construction Plan.

What if I am a Neara user?

Neara users will be able to import Neara CSV output files directly into the template where they will be automatically converted into the required format for submission.

Neara users can also use our tool to convert Neara output into a visually suitable format for construction plans.

What are the key dates for these changes?

The key dates for these changes are:

• 2nd November 2022 – New standard construction schedule format excel file available to all Level 3 ASPs on Essential Energy Website. There is a clean template file and a worked example file available.
• 2nd November 2022 – ASP Drop-In session to walk-through new standard construction schedule format and answer any questions.
• 18th November 2022 – updated ‘CEOM7001: Network Mains Design - Construction Drawing Requirements’ published outlining need for the submission of the new standard construction schedule format with all designs for certification.
• 21st November 2022 – new standard construction schedule format mandatory with all new design submissions.

Where can I find out more?

We will provide more information in the ASP Drop-In session currently scheduled for 2nd November 8:30am-9:30am.

Add the meeting to your diary and access it via Register Here.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

New foundation checks

You will notice from Monday 24th October 2022 two new reports will have been added to the automated Strength Validation reports in Neara. These extra reports have been added following requests from both our internal certifiers and designers, and ASPs.

The two new reports are:

• EE Pole Foundation Rotational Check report.
• EE Pole Foundation Vertical Bearing report.

To see these updated reports:

• Click on a pole in Neara.
• Click on the Foundation tab in the Properties panel.
• Select or create an appropriate soil type.
• Click on the Strength Validation tab and review the Foundation reports.

An updated foundation guide with full details is attached. You can also find this guide at Essential Engagement.

The guideline for Essential Energy’s Automated Checks in Neara has also been updated to accommodate these two new reports see pages 28 to 33. You can find this guide on Essential Engagement.

The Link below is of two short 2-minute recordings of how to update reports and workspace.

Click here to watch the Recording.

Please do not hesitate to contact me or the Digital Asset Management team at dam@essentialenergy.com.au if you have any queries.

Essential Connections Weekly Update 26th October 2022

The new design portal went live on Monday 24th October 2022, allowing new design applications to be submitted via the Essential Connections portal.

Data migration activities in relation to existing design applications and submissions are almost complete and most files related to design cases should be available from today.

Large files may take until the end of the week to come through the new system. If you need access to any missing files urgently, please email: contestableworks@essentialenergy.com.au and provide the relevant reference details for Essential Energy to manually attach the files to the new system.

Process for re-certifications

We have had a couple of queries around the process to follow for recertifications.

If the design for your project was certified via the Contestable Works process, you will need to follow the Contestable Works process for recertification.

If the design for your project was certified in the Design Portal (ST projects) or in the Essential Connections portal, you will need to complete the recertification in Essential Connections.

If you need to do a recertification of a design in Essential Connections on a migrated design case, you may find that you error messages on your screen. In this instance, check the compliance checkboxes in the same way you do for a new design submission (follow the external user guide for design submission). This won’t be required where you do a recertification on a design certified in the new portal.

Need help?

A registered user guide has been published on our Essential Connections Support portal, to help you navigate the new design portal. The guide contains information on how to log in, submit requests in the new portal and where to go for additional support so please use this as your first point of contact, along with the below support sessions. Note: If the latest version (October 2022) doesn’t appear, hit the ctrl key + F5 to refresh the guide. Please find a link to the Level 3 ASP Design Training Recording.

Our support sessions continue, with many great questions received so far, so please join one of our upcoming sessions to have your questions addressed live.

What do you need to do?

1. Access our Essential Connections Support to view our registered user guide.
2. Sign up to one of the above sessions to have your questions answered live.
3. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.
4. View this communication via Essential Engagement.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

As you know, the BetterConnect project has been preparing for the next Essential Connections release, which will support the design phase of the end-to-end connections process to be managed in the Essential Connections portal.

Although we are progressing well with ensuring the readiness of the system, and it is available for the submission of new design applications, we are experiencing a delay in making your existing design-related data available.

What does this mean for you?

New and in-flight connection enquiries and applications

• The system is now open and ready to accept new connection enquiries and applications and Essential Energy is able to assess and provide you with connection offers

New design submissions

• You can now submit NEW easement requests and design related services (design information application requests, design submissions, asset labels and non-standard approvals) via the Essential Connections portal.

Existing design submissions (design information applications, design submissions and non-standard approvals)

• Whilst you will be able to see your in-flight design cases we are still migrating your design file attachments into Essential Connections portal - these will be available progressively over the coming days.
• We anticipate that all data will be available this week

PLEASE DO NOT ACCESS OR PROCESS ANY IN-FLIGHT DESIGN PROJECTS AS THIS MAY CORRUPT YOUR REQUESTS

Design Information Applications where the Connection Application was Submitted in the NECF Portal

If you have a design information application (DIA) request to submit for a project where the connection application was processed in the NECF portal you won’t be able to submit the request until you get an Essential Connection Number (ECN) and application case number from us. Please send an email to contestableworks@essentialenergy.com.au and include your connection offer number and street address and we will be able to provide you with the information you need to submit the Design Information Application (DIA) request.

Need help? Join our Essential Connections support sessions and have your problems solved live!

Support sessions have been scheduled to address any system questions and solve your problems live. If you need help accessing the portal or have any navigation questions, please join us in one of our sessions and we’ll do our best to assist you!

For learning materials and our step by step Registered User Manual

Information on Essential Connection portal and how to use the solution can be found on Essential Energy's support page, check out the Essential Connections Portal Registered User Manual.

Additional support

If you can’t make any of the support sessions mentioned above, please send an email to the relevant mailbox based on your type of enquiry.

Note: please send your enquiry to one mailbox only and do not cc other mailboxes as this will delay Essential Energy’s response to your enquiry.

Essential Connections Weekly Update 20th October 2022

We continue to work towards next Monday 24th October 2022 for the new design portal to go live. As previously communicated, the following processes are going live on Monday 24th October @ 09:00am.

• Design Information Applications
• Design Submissions
• Non-Standard Approvals
• Asset Labels
• Easements

Construction (Level 1 ASP) processes will not be used in the new system until later in the year. These processes will continue to be carried out via Contestable works and we will communicate further around the phased onboarding approach for construction.

If you have missed this week’s Essential Connections ASP information session or would like to revisit any of the information, please view the Information Session and/or watch the Recording.

Level 3 ASPs: Accessing Essential Connections on Monday 24 October 2022

Existing Level 3 ASPs who have been using Essential Connections will automatically have access to the portal – there is no need to register for the new system.

When you access the system on Monday, the ‘Design Portal’ tile will have disappeared from your OKTA screen, leaving only the ‘Essential Connections’ tile. Use the Essential Connections tile from Monday to access all your design related activity.

For some L3 ASPs you may find an error message when you log in, depending on how you have bookmarked the Essential Connections portal in your browser. If this is the case, simply go to Essential Energy okta to login to the system (and make sure you update your bookmark).

Essential Connections Design Go Live Support Sessions – Starting next week!

Click on the link(s) to register your attendance for one of our support sessions.

NOTE: Drop-in support sessions have been scheduled after go-live to support you and address your enquiries live. These sessions should be your first point of contact to have your queries answered.

Change in easement hold point

Not all projects will be able to transition to the new hold point as highlighted below.

What do you need to do?

1. Review the overview presentation and watch the session recording by clicking on the Essential Connections Information Session above.
2. Access the level 3 ASP 3 hub on Essential Engagement for links to training materials and our user manual.
3. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation.
4. View this communication via Essential Engagement.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au

Essential Connections Design Go Live Support Sessions

Drop-in support sessions have been scheduled post go-live to support you and address your enquiries live. These sessions should be your first point of contact to ask questions.

What do you need to do?

Register for the Drop-in Support Sessions that suits you.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au

Essential Connections will be unavailable from 18th October (5pm) to 24th October 2022 (9am).

As you may be aware, Essential Energy has been working on the next release of the Essential Connections portal which will support the design and construction phases of the end-to-end connections process to be managed in the one system.

To prepare for this next release, a number of activities need to be undertaken to migrate data from the existing system to Essential Connections.

What do you need to know?

From 18th October (5pm):

• The Essential Connections applications and enquiries portal will not be available from 5pm, Tuesday 18th October until 9am (AEDT), Monday 24th October 2022.
• Similarly, the Design portal will not be accessible during this time.
• There will be a freeze on design information requests, design submission requests, asset label requests, non-standard approvals and re-certification requests (that have been submitted via the design portal).
• All new design information requests will be required to be submitted via the new Essential Connections portal and will not be accepted via email.

What do you need to do?

If you are not already registered user of the new Essential Connections & Design portal, please Register Here.

Essential Connections Portal will be available on the 24th of October 2022 @ 09:00am

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au

Weekly update on Essential Connections

We continue to work towards 24 October 2022 for go live.

Please find attached the Essential Connections overview presented during the weekly update session. If you missed out or would like to revisit any of the information, click on the Essential Connections Information Session to view the Slide Pack.

The next session will be held on Wednesday 19th October 2022 from 8:30am – 9:30am and cover:

Follow this link Join Zoom Meeting if you are interested in joining next week’s meeting.

Transitions activities

Please remember that from 5:00PM on 18 October 2022, the current design portal will no longer be accessible as we will start migrating data across to the new system.

ASP support sessions

Level 3 ASP Essential Connection Go Live Support Session – 25th October 2022.

Level 1 & 3 ASP Information Sessions – as usual each Wednesday from 8.30am – 9.30am.

NOTE: all ASP sessions from go live will be focused on delivering in-session system and process support for Design (October) and for Construction (November & December).

Design Information Application (DIA) submissions in the NECF portal

If you have an existing connection application that was lodged in the old portal and need to submit a Design Information Application (DIA), you will receive a communication providing you with an Essential Connections Number (ECN) and a case number to enable you to submit a DIA in the new system.

What do you need to do?

1. Review the content covered in the last Essential Connections ASP information session.
2. Please complete our readiness survey. It will only take 2 minutes.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.

What is Happening?

Unfortunately, system issues with submission of connection applications and enquiries in the new Essential Connections Portal have resulted in delays in processing applications.

At the moment, the average time to process an application is approximately 15 to 20 days.

We apologise and ask for your patience as we put plans in place to resolve system issues and onboard additional staff to reduce the backlog and process your requests within our standard target of 10 days.

To assist in getting an application completed, please ensure you have filled out the application accurately and all required documents are uploaded.

What do you need to do?

1. Make sure your application is filled in with acturate information and you have attached all the required documents
2. Communicate this information to relevant members of your organisation and your clients.
3. View this communication via Essential Engagement.

Further Information

If you need further information, please email aspinfo@essentialenergy.com.au.