Throughout 2021 our team invested much time and effort into ez2view to improve the functionality of the software and the user experience of our customers. This focused investment has continued into January 2022, and will continue into the future…
(a) To all of our clients who have provided suggestions, and worked with us as we have rolled them out, we say thank-you!
(b) For those of you who bump up against things you’d like to see done better, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
This post has been put together to inform our growing base of ez2view users about some of the updates that you may have missed throughout the year.
(A) We’ve upgraded the information provided about ez2view online
We’ve done this in several stages over recent months:
Step 1 = Launch of ez2view Help Site
You may have already noticed that in late 2020 and throughout 2021, we went through the process of completely revamping the ez2view Help Site, in order to make it easier for our clients to access help and support information about the software.
You can find this at:
https://help.ez2viewaustralia.info/
The site is specifically designed for existing licensed users and includes links to download files, an introduction to universal concepts within the software, and individual guides to each widget, amongst other information.
Whilst other priorities within the company have taken our focus at present, we will look to continually improve and add to the help site as time permits. As always, we invite our clients to contact us if they have any feedback or suggestions about any information available on the site.
Step 2 = Launch of ez2view Timeline Site
In October 2021, we created this separate website (i.e. the ez2view Timeline Site) as a central location where we can periodically publish release notes and other notices from our development team. You can find this at:
https://timeline.ez2viewaustralia.info/
We envisage that this website will become the main channel in which we communicate updates with ez2view users, so as such, we have attempted to fill in the subscription list of this website so that known users are in the loop on all updates.
Step 3 = Inviting ez2view users to Subscribe for updates
If you wish to subscribe yourself or any of your colleagues to this site’s newsletter, you can do so on our subscription page. We’ve subscribed a number of our clients already, in order to get the process started.
And you can unsubscribe at any time by following the link at the bottom of the newsletter email that you receive.
(B) Many enhancements to ez2view through 2021
For most of 2021, we grappled with the effects of the incoming commencement of Five Minute Settlement (5MS).
The 5MS introduction meant that a considerable amount of development work had to be done to cater to the changes in cadence, volume, and interpretation of trading data. After the rule change came into effect on 1st October 2021, we continued our enhancements and also incorporated the new Wholesale Demand Response Mechanism (WDRM) data into the software, and other enhancements to existing widgets.
Some of the highlights from our development work in 2021 are listed below:
v8 released in February 2021
We commenced 2021 with the release of ez2view v8 and commenced the process of retiring v7.
v9.0 released in July
In early July, we released v9.0 which was the first version of the software compatible with the AEMO’s new MMS 5.0 data model. There were some known performance issues, specifically with bid analysis, that we were aware of but we made this version available early as a temporary measure so that our clients could prepare for the full commencement of the rule change (that was coming on October 1st).
v9.1 released in Sepember
In late September, that release was superseded by v9.1 which contained a significant optimisation of bid data processing, meaning that the ‘Bids & Offers’ widget in ez2view has collected a growing number of compliments from very happy clients since that time.
v9.3 released in November
In November, we released v9.3 which provides visibility of new data sets created with the introduction of another important market rule change, the Wholesale Demand Response Mechanism (WDRM).
‘Bleeding Edge’ Releases
On the right-hand-side of the ‘ez2view Installer’ table here you will notice a ‘Bleeding Edge’ release that links to a version of the software which has passed a battery of automated tests we run at the end of the automated build process and has been made available to clients, but has not yet been subjected to a full run of manual tests.
You’re welcome to use these ‘Bleeding Edge’ versions and provide us your feedback on the latest functionality … indeed sometimes we specifically ask clients to install these in order to test out functionality built in response to particular requests from them.
Such an occasion occurred on Wednesday last week (5th January) when the ‘Bleeding Edge’ version was v9.3.3.73. As we type these notes, the version has moved on from that (currently v9.3.3.92) and may well be more advanced by the time you read this note.
That’s the point! We operate a rapid development process (have for years, and will continue to do so into the future) meaning the version of ez2view is always being incremented.
About v9.3.3.73 (and more recent releases)
More generally for all of our clients, it’s worth noting the three enhancements added into the software following a (very rare, in COVID times) on-site visit with one of our clients, when they were able to provide us some focused feedback. As a result of what we learnt in the visit, we have added into three Widgets:
1. Swim Lanes. We have added the ability for users to ‘transpose’ the table within this widget so that they can get a vertical tabular view of data.
2. Notifications. Functionality has been added so that users can hide the display of intervals where an alert wasn’t triggered in their notification steam.
3. Regional Trading Prices. You can now adjust the text size of the data within this widget, especially useful if you are displaying these widgets on a larger dashboard.
You can download the latest ‘bleeding edge’ release, (whatever version it happens to be) from the ‘ez2view Installer’ page of our help site.
Insights from GenInsights21 to enhance ez2view
In the broader context of our company, we capped off 2021 by releasing our GenInsights21 report on Wednesday 15th December 2021.
The report is the result of hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of work from a team of analysts and is an in-depth examination of historical generation and market data in the NEM, and what it means for future challenges in our larger energy transition. In conducting the analysis for the report, several insights jumped out at us and have provoked discussion about how we can improve the software in 2022 to cater to how the market is evolving.
The way in which ez2view will be enhanced as an outcome of our learnings in GenInsights21 is similar to what happened to ez2view after we released the GRC2018. Hence if there are any ez2view clients who see particular insights in GenInsights21 they’d like us to prioritise in ez2view, please let us know!