A Timed Meter Schedule provides the user with the facility to create multiple tariffs at different rates. It's used in conjuction with Timed Meters.
A Timed Meter uses the periods and values set up on a schedule to calculate how much the Tenant should be charged when the Invoice is generated. For example, a user configures the schedule so between the hours of 9 till 5, the Tenant will be charged a rate of 2 for the electricity they consume. Therefore, from the Meter log the start and end value from 9 till 5 will be substracted from each other and then multiplied by 2 to calculate the value.
When editing the Schedule times and rates, the user is presented with a dialog box with four tabs. The first tab entitled 'Weekly Schedule' allows the user to set up the default time periods and rates for the given contract. The 'Weekly Schedule' tab shows all the days of the week starting from Sunday horizontally. The times are shown vertically.
To create a new time period, simply click on one of the days and drag the mouse vertically downwards. This will in turn create a colored bar. This bar defines the time period and rate the Tenant will be charged for on that day between those times. The colored bar can be dragged and expanded to fill the available times needed as shown in the dialog below.
When a bar is selected, its color will change to highlight itself. When a bar is highlighted, the 'Event Start', 'Event Finish' and 'Event Output' will show the bars current values. To change the rate being used for that time period edit the 'Event Output' edit box while noting not to tick the 'null' tick box.
By right clicking on one of the bars, the user is presented with various options to repliate that time period and rate across many days, delete the event or even cut amd paste it to another schedule.
A special event represents a special day for the Tenant. For example, the user may want to charge the Tenant a different rate during a holiday.
To add a new special event, go to the 'Special Events' tab and click the 'Add' command button. This will ask you to input a special time. For example, you could create special event to run every month or just create it as a one off. Once you have chosen the date, click the OK button. The new special event will appear in the list. The special event can now be selected and the times edited.
An out of hours rate can be set up on the 'Properties' tab by editing the edit box marked as 'Default Output'. Therefore, if there is not a time period set up on a given time for the given week day or special event, this rate will be used.
For example, diagram below shows a normal weekday. If an out of hours rate of 2 is defined, for all the white space in the day will use that rate and be included within the calculation.
There are other properties upon the 'Properties' tab, however it is unadvised to change the 'Cleanup Special Events' to true as this could prematurely delete any special event entries you have created in the schedule.
The 'Summary' tab shows a summary of all the information that has been set up on the schedule including special events. The command buttons listed at the top of this dialog allow the user to navigate back and fourth between different months to see how the schedule has been set up.
Let's have a look at this in more detail to see how part of the invoice is calculated...
The Numeric Schedule has an output value of 3 between the hours of 9:00 and 11:00 A.M. In this case 3 is the 'in hours rate'.
The start value is the value from the Meter history before or equal to 9:00 A.M..
The end value is the value from the Meter history before or equal to 11:00 A.M.
Therefore, to calculate the invoice (end value - start value) * rate which in this case is 3. This value is used in computing the in hours cost.
This calculation repeated between the start and the end date the invoice is calculated for. The invoice calculation also takes into account...
The default output of the schedule: the default output is the out of hours rate. For example, the above picture shows an our of hours rate of 2 between the hours of 12:00 and 9:00 A.M. The value calculated here will get used to compute the out of hours cost.
Special events: The normal hours can be 'overriden' by a special event. The special event can specify an alternative set of times and rates to be used for a day.
Effective period: The effective period gets taken into account when computing the invoice. If the start and end dates specified for calculating the invoice fall outside the effective period, the out of hours rate will be used (if specified).