The ESS Portal – ACP User GuideAn ACP guide to the ESS Portal

User guide - ESS Portal Version 2.0, May 2015

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© Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal of New South Wales 2015

This work is copyright. The Copyright Act 1968 permits fair dealing for study, research, news reporting, criticism and review. Selected passages, tables or diagrams may be reproduced for such purposes provided acknowledgement of the source is included.

Inquiries regarding this document should be directed to a staff member:

ESS Development (02) 9113 7759 or ess@ipart.nsw.gov.au

Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal of New South Wales PO Box K35, Haymarket Post Shop NSW 1240 Level 15, 2-24 Rawson Place, Sydney NSW 2000

T (02) 9290 8400 F (02) 9290 2061

www.ipart.nsw.gov.au

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Document Control

Version number Change description Date published

V1.0 Initial release – following gazettal of ESS Rule Amendment No.2

8 September 2014

V2.0 Added chapter 5 – Portal events Minor consistency edits

TBD

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Contents

1  Overview 1 

2  Portal access 2 

2.1  Creating an account 2 

2.2  Logging in 2 

2.3  ACP dashboard 4 

3  Account Management 5 

3.1  Change contact details 5 

3.2  Change password 6 

3.3  Create/deactivate users 7 

4  Submitting data for clause 6.8 of the ESS Rule 9 

4.1  Initiating submission 9 

4.2  Submission validation 10 

5  ESS events 13 

5.1  Audit events 14 

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1 Overview

This document provides Accredited Certificate Providers (ACPs) with guidance on how to use the ESS portal. The ESS portal is a web interface which lets ACPs:

maintain their contact details

create and manage additional user accounts

view their Recognised Energy Saving Activity (RESA) details

submit data for ‘Clause 6.8’ of the ESS Rule

view their ‘Clause 6.8’ data submission history, and

track key ESS events.

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2 Portal access

2.1 Creating an account

The Primary User1 for your organisation should have received a username and password from the ESS portal via email (shown below). Both username and password are case-sensitive. If you have not received log in details you may request them by contacting the ESS development team at ESS_Development@ipart.nsw.gov.au.

Accounts for other user types such as secondary users or support staff can be created by the Primary User from within the portal.

2.2 Logging in

You can access the ESS portal via the ESS website at: www.ess.nsw.gov.au/ESS_Portal. You will see the ESS portal landing page, which is also the login screen (shown below).

Upon successful login, you will be redirected to the next screen which is the ACP Dashboard.

1 The Primary User is the primary contact listed for your Accreditation.

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Unsuccessful logins and forgotten passwords

If your login attempt is unsuccessful the error message below will be displayed.

Five consecutive unsuccessful login attempts will lock your account and you will need to contact ESS_Development@ipart.nsw.gov.au to unlock it. If you have forgotten your password, you can request a new password from the login page by clicking on the forgotten password link (highlighted below).

You will be directed to a recover password page (shown below) and a new temporary password will be created and emailed to you. If you have forgotten your username please contact ESS_Development@ipart.nsw.gov.au.

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2.3 ACP dashboard

The Dashboard (shown below) is the first page you will see when logging in. From the Dashboard you can:

maintain your contact details

create and manage additional user accounts

view your RESA details

submit data for ‘Clause 6.8’ of the ESS Rule

view your ‘Clause 6.8’ data submission history, and

track key ESS events.

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3 Account Management

3.1 Change contact details

Only the Primary User can update your organisation’s contact details by clicking on the blue ‘Update Organisation Details’ button at the top left of the Dashboard. This will load the ‘Update Details’ page (shown below) where details such as the organisations’ address and contact details can be updated.

Other users can update their own details but cannot change the organisation’s contact details.

For changes to key details that were provided at the time of accreditation such as organisation name, ABN or ACN you will need to contact the ESS development team at ESS_Development@ipart.nsw.gov.au.

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3.2 Change password

To change your password, locate the menu in the top left corner of the Dashboard (shown below) that appears as your name.

Click on your name and a list of options will appear in a drop down. Select ‘Change Password’.

You will be redirected to the ‘Change Password’ page (shown below).

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Enter your current password and then your new password twice. Your new password must be at least seven characters long and contain at least one non-alphanumeric character (ie, *%!?).

3.3 Create/deactivate users

If you are the Primary User, you can create a single secondary user and multiple general users. If you are the secondary user, you can create multiple general users. General users cannot create other users. Primary and secondary users can also use the portal to deactivate and reactivate user accounts.

Create users

To create a new user click on the dark blue ‘Create New User’ button at the bottom left of the Dashboard. This will direct you to the ‘Create User’ page (shown below).

Fill out the ‘Create User’ form and then click ‘Create User’ to finish creating the user account. When the account is created, the system will email a temporary password to the email address you provide. The new user can log in to their account using the email address as the username and the temporary password.

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Deactivate users

The Primary User can deactivate the accounts of other users associated with their accreditation. Deactivating an account prevents the user from logging in but does not delete the account, so it can be reactivated at a later date, if needed.

To deactivate an account, from the Dashboard go to the ‘User Contact List’ and find the account you wish to deactivate. In the status column next to the chosen account, change the status from ‘Active’ to ‘Inactive’. A pop-up box will confirm the status change.

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4 Submitting data for clause 6.8 of the ESS Rule

4.1 Initiating submission

You can initiate a Clause 6.8 submission by clicking on the dark blue ‘Upload RESA Data’ button, next to ‘RESA Upload History’. This will direct you to the RESA upload page.

Using the drop down list, select the RESA you are uploading data for, then use ‘choose a file’ to select the ‘Clause 6.8 Submission’2 Spreadsheet to upload.

2 Clause 6.8 submission spreadsheets are available on our website.

http://www.ess.nsw.gov.au/Registry/Creating_certificates

PLEASE NOTE: To avoid issues uploading the submission, please ensure your completed “Clause 6.8 Submission” Spreadsheet conforms to the following requirements:

The submission spreadsheet was obtained from the ESS website.

The submission spreadsheet doesn’t exceed 100 rows of data.

Each row has a unique ‘Implementation ID’ that has not been used previously.

The RESA ID includes the full identifier (i.e. GHGR00123Z/1).

All implementations produce ESCs of the same vintage.

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4.2 Submission validation

After submission, the system conducts a validation which may detect:

errors which you must resolve before uploading the file again, or

warnings which you must acknowledge before continuing.

Submission errors

If there are errors identified in your upload, the system will return error messages in red advising you of the issue identified. If you receive an error of this type you must correct the error and upload the file again.

Submission warnings

The system conducts a check of the address provided for each row and will display a yellow warning if:

the address could not be validated against our database of geographical addresses, or

the address has been associated with a previous ESS activity.

If you receive a warning you may proceed if you are confident that the address is valid and the project has produced energy savings not captured previously. All warnings are acknowledged with a single click.

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To accept all warnings and continue click the ‘Proceed’ button, which appears below the warning message.

Alternatively if you need to change the submission to address an issue, click the ‘Cancel’ button and initiate a new submission with the correct data.

Corrupted files

If you receive an error advising you that the uploaded file is corrupted, please try the following steps to resolve the issue before contacting us:

Ensure you are using a submission sheet obtained from the ESS website.

Use ‘Save As’ to save a clean copy of the spreadsheet, then upload the clean copy.

Check you are not using macros or excel add-ins, which modify the file.

If you are unable to upload your submission, or have any questions, you may contact us at ESS_Development@ipart.nsw.gov.au for assistance. Please include a screenshot of any unresolved errors you encounter so that we can attempt to replicate the issue.

Successful uploads

If your upload is successful you will receive a green confirmation message. This message will show the total number of ESCs submitted, with a ‘Reference Number’ for the submission.

The submission will also be displayed in your Dashboard.

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To register the ESCs you need to log into the ESS registry3. The reference number generated by the ESS Portal will appear in the registry to allow you to register ESCs against the correct submission. A guide to using the ESS Registry is available on the ESS website.4

3 ESCs may not be available for registration in the ESS Registry until the next business day. 4 http://www.ess.nsw.gov.au/Registry

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5 ESS events

The ESS team can use the ESS Portal to inform you of key dates relevant to your accreditation by creating ‘events’. There are two different types of events:

audit events, and

ad-hoc events.

The ‘My Events’ section of the Dashboard provides the following information for each event:

Due date indicates the date the event is due to occur on, or the date the event must be actioned by.

Reminder period shows how many days before the due date that the system will send a reminder email.5

Description provides an overview of the event. If the description is longer than 15 characters the description will be partially hidden. The full description can be viewed by hovering the mouse pointer over the description field.

Status indicates the current status of the event. Possible status options include:

– Active: meaning the event is current but is not yet due.

– Overdue: meaning the event still requires actioning and the due date has passed.

– Closed: meaning the event no longer requires any action.

Accreditation specifies which accreditation is due to be audited. This field is only populated for audit events.

Clicking on the ‘view’ field next to an event loads the ‘Event Details’ page, which provides details about that event. The details displayed depend on the event type.

5 The reminder email will be sent to the email address we have recorded for your organisation.

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5.1 Audit events

Audit events are used to track the date by which you must have engaged an auditor to undertake an audit of your accreditation. This date is specified in your Accreditation Notice.6

When you click ‘View’ for an audit event, you will see a form providing details about the audit event.

Audit event notification history

Each time the ESS Portal generates a reminder or overdue email a record of the email is recorded under the ‘Event Notification History’ table as shown below.

For each email you will see the date the email was sent, the subject of the email and the email address it was sent to.

Clicking on the ‘expand’ arrow located next to the ‘ID’ column will display the email content or ‘body’ as shown below.

6 For accreditations with a volumetric audit limit, only the periodic component is tracked with

this date. If you reach the volumetric limit, you will need to undertake an audit prior to this date.

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5.1.2 Ad-hoc events

Ad-hoc events are used to inform and remind you of key ESS events that happen from time to time.

When you click ‘View’ for an ad-hoc event, you will see an ‘Event Details’ form that provides details about the event.

Ad-hoc event notification history

Each time the ESS Portal generates a reminder email for an event a record of the email is recorded under the ‘Event Notification History’ table (shown below).

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For each email you will see the date the email was sent, the subject of the email and the address it was sent to. Clicking on the ‘expand’ arrow located next to the ‘ID’ column displays the email content or ‘body’.