blackout ‘fried city billing’ - battery management unit

Msunduzi did not keep his back-
During last month's load reduction, up battery kept its billing system online, causing a huge billing mess.
In addition, the ongoing strike by the city's billing department means that Msunduzi is still not closing the books of February, which means that it is unlikely that it will be accurate and timely in invoicing customers for the month.
The witness learned from impeccable sources that the bill for January was only sent out last week --
Nearly a month late.
Because several power outages last month interrupted the processing of bills, the staff had to manually sort the customer's data eight times.
Uninterrupted power supply (UPS)
If there is a power outage, the device that should keep the system online has no battery, and the Msunduzi is "not well maintained", causing the system to crash several times.
The latest news is sure to get angry with residents, and while there is news that Msunduzi did not provide the bill, they reported being affected last month by a controversial disconnect drive.
The source said that this is also a plan to "compensate for all exceptions in the billing system.
The customer's information about the Msunduzi book is pulled into a form on the SAP billing system that creates a "smart form" that is the bill when the customer receives the bill.
However, the power outage on February 6 meant that the process of billing was interrupted on January.
"The process of creating a smart form takes about 48 hours, and the disruption happens in half," a source said . ".
According to sources, a witness report last week said that residents only received bills reflecting water use, "very reasonable ", because a system that is turned off halfway means that the information of most customers is not recorded on the bill.
"This has a huge impact and requires people to manually clean up customer data, which takes two to three days," said an insider . ".
Due to a further blow to the load cut last month, the process had to be repeated eight times.
"The system needs UPS because it needs a constant power supply.
"The generator is not good enough because it takes a few minutes to start," a source said . ".
"This is a key system with information from all customers.
What happens if it crashes completely?
These are complex systems that need to be careful.
Data on millions of accounts will be destroyed.
The source also said that if the customer is unable to provide the bill, the staff can still print out their electricity and electricity bills for them.
"But the staff are lazy and they are not willing to learn things," the source said . ".
At the same time, the strike allegedly slowed the closing of the Msunduzi books on February, which were said to be incomplete.
"These books should be closed last week and invoices will be processed over the weekend.
Now because of the strike, the receipts in the cash Hall are not processed on time, so at least there will be a large backlog and no one knows if the customer has a bill, the source said.
Sources said,
Defamation of the SAP system is not the culprit, but the lack of proper implementation, supervision and accountability in cities.
Ntobeko Ngcobo, spokesman for Msunduzi, received a detailed inquiry but did not respond and did not respond to a phone call or text message.
Cities "waste money" on problematic SAP systems ". There is a problem with the SAP financial system in the city, and thousands of reports are sent to consumers every month, either incorrect or unbalanced.
According to financial workers who are dissatisfied with Msunduzi, this is one of the reasons for their recent unprotected strike, and they raised the issue of SAP.
They say they have been facing abuse from consumers since July 2017, and they accuse them of being incompetent due to incorrect statements issued by the SAP system.
"When consumers ask about their statements, we try to give them a reason for the amount reflected, but we lie more than half the time, because we don't know how the amount is generated in the first place, said a finance clerk.
The city began its transition from the Promis system to SAP in 2016 and plans to integrate all its key features, but it was not until 2017 that the bill plan, which frustrated taxpayers, began to be implemented, some members began to question its complexity.
"The city takes away thousands of rands by having consumers pay incorrect amounts every month because they say you have to pay first and file a complaint after disconnecting," if the cashier says, one said.
Other staff members said they had never been trained for more than a few hours on how to use the system, so they could not tell if some input was correct.
They say they also don't know how to correct some mistakes once they are discovered.
"The fact is that SAP has never worked properly, but every time we try to point out the problems it causes, management has discouraged us from speaking out loud, said another employee named Msunduzi who has worked for more than 10 years.
He said that the city's procurement scheme is not suitable for the type of financial transactions of the size of the city of Msunduzi.
Another of his colleagues said Promis is a better system because of its "transparency" and the trajectory of consumption and interest calculation makes sense.
"The money to pay for SAP and consultants is what I call a waste of spending, because unless the municipalities come up with more cash to pay for a more advanced version, otherwise, the system will never work, she said. -