Being able to identify potential problems with your utility usage is absolutely critical to help you manage your energy effectively and help detect avoidable waste. The idea is that you set-up a number of monitoring strategies to notify you whenever an unusual pattern is identified on your periodic channels. This is useful in being able to efficiently determine where your energy usage has gone off trend so that investigative or corrective action can be taken quickly to prevent the exception from happening again and avoid potential waste.

A dynamic profile is where recent data is compared with preceding historical data to determine whether the recent usage might be suspect - i.e. the usage has gone 'off trend'. This is commonly known as precedent based targeting. The system will automatically review the data to notify you of these issues to help prompt proactive investigation to determine whether anything needs to change to bring usage back to something more normal. The sensitivity of these checks and how often they should be performed is entirely configurable. This is often referred to as "spike" or "drop" identification.

For example:

every Monday for the past four weeks has used an average of 100 kWh, but the latest Monday has used 150 kWh.
the weekly consumption for the previous 2 weeks has been 12,000 kWh, but last week was 15,000 kWh

Adding a Dynamic Profile Strategy

Creating the Strategy

From the Strategy Configuration Tab, click
Choose the Strategy Type from the dropdown

Click OK to take you to the Monitoring Strategy Editor

Monitoring Strategy Details

The top section of the Monitoring Strategy Editor is common to all the different monitoring strategy types that can be setup.

The details that need to be entered are as follows:

Field	Default	Details
Type	N/A	The field is disabled and displays the Strategy Type being created
Name	Empty	Enter a name - mandatory
Description	Empty	Enter a description - mandatory
Priority	Low	Choose the importance of any notifications that are created against this strategy. Available options are: Low Medium High
Context	Fixed	Choose from: Fixed - allows you to drag and drop individual Channels. Click here for more details Flexible - allows you to configure the set up to automatically include Channels, see below for more details
Status	Off	Choose On or Off to determine whether the system performs the checks
Email	Empty	Tick if you want Sigma to send summary notifications that are raised on a regular basis. Note, you can also manage a Strategy in Schedule Management Activity if an email address is added
To addresses	Empty	Enter email address(s) to send a summary notification to. More than one email address can be entered, and will need to be separated with a comma.
Send to Site Contact	Empty	Tick if you want to send an email to the Site Contact (entered in the Site Editor) with a summary of notifications that relate to the assets on their site only.
Recurrence	Monthly	Choose from Daily Weekly Monthly Note, there are more options depending on which of the above you have chosen, see below for more details on the configuration options.

Channel Context Configuration

It is possible to define which periodic channels the strategy should run for. This will help you ensure your strategies continue to run as your energy estate evolves and assets change/get added.
A monitoring strategy can have a "context" of either:

Fixed - assign the channels you want the strategy to run for on a case by case basis. Doing it this way will only run for the channels that you have specifically assigned so it will not run against new periodic channels that you might add unless you also specifically assign them to the strategy. Click here for instructions on how to do this.
Flexible - configure the attributes of the channel that the strategy should run for when setting up the strategy (e.g. run for all channels, run for channels of commodity type x etc.). Doing it this way will help make sure that the strategy will run for the assets you want it to as they evolve or new assets are added - you don't have to specify the periodic channel when you add new ones.

Setting up Flexible configuration:

Choose Flexible from the Context dropdown

Click on to show the Flexible Context Configuration popup

Either:

Tick Yes to run for all Channels

OR

Leave as No and choose your own configuration using the dropdown options based on the attributes of the channel and their relates assets

The available options are: Commodity, Data type, Unit, Site Property Keys, Meter Property Keys, Channel Property Keys.

For example, the above configuration would include all Electricity and Gas Channels that have a unit set to kWh. As new channels that match these parameters are added to your estate, the monitoring strategy would automatically include them when it runs.

Click Save to return to the Monitoring Strategy Editor to continue configuring the Strategy

Email Options

If you want to be notified of new issues by email, you can choose how often you should get an email and who the email should be sent to.

Tick
Enter the email address(es) you want to send the notification to. Any email addresses entered here will receive a summary of all notifications raised across the entire estate. Note: for more than one email, add a comma between the addresses
Tick if you want to send an email to the Site Contact (entered in the Location tab in the Site Editor). If this option is selected, the site contact will receive an email containing a summary of notifications only for the sites that they are responsible for
Recurrence: Choose from Daily, Weekly or Monthly (each option then has further choices for the configuration to configure exactly when the email will be sent).

Emails will contain a summary of new notifications that have been raised since the last email was received. It will also contain a summary of all the outstanding notifications.

Dynamic Profile Configuration

The Monitoring Strategy Editor also contains an Dynamic Profile Configuration section that allows you to set the specific configuration to use when finding and managing your data.

The settings entered here will control how recent data is compared with previous data to determine whether there is an issue. Ultimately, these options provide you with the tools to choose the granularity you want the check to be performed (e.g. aggregated week / day / hour aggregation or half-hourly) and what the system should use as historical data to compare that against.

Whilst each of the fields are explained below in more detail, please click here to jump to a table that provides a some example configurations and (e.g. I want to check a days behaviour with the behaviour on the same days over the last 2 weeks).

Field	Default	Description
Period to Monitor	Month	This represents the period of time you want to compare to. Combined with the offset that can be defined, this will determine what the latest data will be compared to. Choose from: Year (i.e. compare to previous year) Month (i.e. compare to same period last month) Week (i.e. compare to same period last week Day (i.e. compare to same period yesterday) Please note, the period to Monitor selected will drive at what point in time the system will perform the checks and how it determines the latest period of time that is being checked. Year The last full calendar year of data (e.g. 01/01/2018 00:00 to 31/12/2018 24:00) Month The last full calendar month (based on data being available up until 24:00 on the last day of the month) Week The last full week (based on Sunday being the end of the week at 24:00) Day The last full day (based on data being available up until 24:00) Click here to look at example configurations
Interval to Monitor	Month	This represents the interval within that period that you wish to monitor. The options available in the dropdown will depend on the Period to Monitor that has been chosen. Period: Year Year Period: Month Month Period: Week Week Day Hour Half Hour 15 Minutes Period: Day Day Hour Half Hour 15 Minutes Click here to look at example configurations
Source Profile From	Data Prior to Check Period	Choose from: Data Prior to Check Period - this will compare recent data against the period of time directly prior to the period being checked. Data Ending on A Fixed Date - this will compare recent data against the period of time directly prior to the end date that has been specified.
Data Prior to Check Period is chosen... compare recent data against the period of time directly prior to the period being checked.
Offset (<period selected>)	1	Specifying a number greater than one here specifies an offset as to how many prior periods should be skipped when determining the period of time to compare the recent behaviour against. By default this would be "1" and this means: Year - compares against equivalent interval in year directly prior Month - compares against equivalent interval in month directly prior Week - compares against equivalent interval in week directly prior Day - compares against equivalent interval on day directly prior Some examples where the offset may be changed to something other than "1": if a Period of Monthly, if the offset is one, it would compare the last month of data with the month directly prior. However, if you want to compare a month with the same month in the previous year, an offset of 12 could be specified. if a Period of Daily is used, if the offset is one, it would compare the last day of data with the day directly prior. However, if you want to compare a day with the same day in the previous week, an offset of 7 could be specified.
<period selected> to Average	1	This will define the number of prior periods of time that will be used to derive an average profile which the recent data can then be compared to to determine if it is suspect or not. For example if the period selected is: Daily - it will source the data for equivalent intervals for the previous x days and calculate an average Weekly - it will source the data for equivalent intervals for the previous x weeks and calculate an average
Data Ending on a Fixed Date is chosen... compare recent data against the period of time directly prior to the end date that has been specified.
Fixed Date	Current Date	Amend the Fixed date using the arrows or the calendar
<period selected> to Average	1	As above - it will average the period directly prior to the period ending that has been specified.
Thresholds
High Threshold	20	Use the tickbox to the left of the High Threshold label to enable/disable the high threshold check. The value entered here is effectively the sensitivity of the upper limit that is permitted when the recent data is compared against the historical data (i.e. where the data spikes). This should be considered in conjunction with the type of threshold listed below.
Low Threshold	30	Use the tickbox to the left of the Low Threshold label to enable/disable the low threshold check. The value entered here is effectively the sensitivity of the lower limit that is permitted when the recent data is compared against the historical data (i.e. where the data drops). This should be considered in conjunction with the type of threshold listed below.
Threshold Type	Percent	Choose from: Percent - this is to say that the exception should be raised if the recent data exceeds the permitted tolerance by a specified percentage Units - this is to say that the exception should be raised if the recent data exceeds the permitted tolerance by a specified number of units (e.g. 10 kWh or 5m³) Standard Deviations - this is to say that the exception should be raised if the recent data exceeds the permitted tolerance by a number of standard deviations from the mean
Raise a notification after X consecutive breaches	1	This setting allows you to control how sensitive the check is and whether it should only alert you if the issue is a consistent problem. For example, you maybe performing a daily check against the same day last week. You might only want it to tell you if a problem is found 2 days in a row, in this case this would be set to "2".

Click OK to save the Monitoring Strategy.

Once the Strategy has been set up, Sigma will review the data each night and create any relevant notifications in the Notifications tab

Example Configurations

Click here to see some example configurations

Managing Dynamic Trend Profiles

Click here for more information on Managing Dynamic Trend Profiles

Sigma Online User Manual

Creating a Dynamic Trend Profile