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PPU Meter Lookup and Rebroadcasting Self-service

The PPU Lookup and Rebroadcasting self-service page of the Electrum Console offers users clear processes and guidelines to unblock customer meters, ensuring successful transactions on future attempts.

Rebroadcast functionality

The primary purpose of the rebroadcast feature is to "unblock" a customer's meter by triggering a new confirmation on which service providers are supported. You can initiate this process, which the system will automatically complete at the next transaction attempt.

Steps to unblock a meter:

Should a service provider’s meter become blocked, follow these steps to restore its functionality:

  1. If an electricity token transaction fails, you can use the load balancer view in the Electrum Console to verify the service provider's health. Then, use the Electrum Console to locate the customer's meter number.

  2. After locating the meter, if its support status is Awaiting confirmation or No, select the Confirm support button. This action does not resolve the issue immediately; instead, the system receives a hidden signal.

  3. When the customer makes this second purchase attempt, the system sees the hidden flag on the meter, which indicates that the meter can be .

  4. The service providers respond to the rebroadcast query, and the system updates the meter's status based on these new responses. If a provider who previously responded No and now responds Yes, the meter is unblocked. The last lookup response date has been updated to the current date, and the rebroadcast flag has been cleared.

  5. The next time you recheck the meter in the console, you will see that the status has been updated to show a confirmed, supported provider. The meter is now unblocked, and the customer can complete their purchase.

When to use the rebroadcast feature

  1. After an initial transaction fails: The customer's unsuccessful token purchase attempt is the primary trigger.

  2. When providers are healthy: Only use this feature after confirming the general health of all service providers. This will help isolate the problem to an individual meter rather than a system-wide outage.

  3. To diagnose a meter's supported status: This tool indicates whether a meter is currently supported ( Yes, No, or Awaiting confirmation ) by specific service providers, which is the initial step in enabling its use.

4 To initiate a "fix": the Confirm support action logs a request for a rebroadcast. This is the rebroadcast's most important use, as it triggers the process that will eventually unblock the meter.

Important

If a provider is down or a known system issue affects many transactions, this feature will not resolve it. You must refer to the general system health dashboards first.

Remember

This is not an instant solution. When you click Confirm support , you won’t see immediate results. You’ll need to wait for the customer’s next attempt to transact. It’s important to understand this point when managing customer expectations.

Note

We designed the feature as a targeted, meter-level diagnostic and corrective tool. It activiates when a transaction fails and the error lies with a provider’s supported status for that specific meter. It’s the critical step between general system checks and telling the customer to “try again later”.

PPU Meter Tab

Users can find real-time meter information in the PPU Meter tab section to search for meters, view utility and supporting service providers, and mark them for rebroadcasting.

The meter lookup feature can be used as follows:

Meter Lookup User Journey

  1. Log in to Electrum Console using your institution details.
  2. Select the PPU tab on the left sidebar and then the Meters tab below. The screen below should appear.

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  1. You can search for a meter number on the new page. As you type the number, the system will display related meters, as the screenshot below shows.

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  1. Once you select the relevant meter, the information page will be displayed.

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  1. You will see the meter number and utility, as well as the following information per service provider:

  • Provider ID: This is the institution ID of the service provider as assigned by Electrum.

  • Provider: This is the name of the service providers who have been integrated into this service.

  • Last Response: This is the last time each service provider responded to a meter lookupRequest. The field will either display the time since the last response or Awaiting confirmation if the service provider has not responded since the last lookup broadcast or has never responded. When you hover your mouse over the field, the exact time of the last response shows.

    • Supported: This field shows the result of the last lookup meter request per provider. The possible states for this field are described here:
    • Yes - The service provider responded to the meter lookupRequest and supports the meter.
    • No - The service provider responded to the meter lookupRequest and does not support the meter.
    • Unconfirmed - The service provider did not respond to the meter lookupRequest or Electrum has not forwarded the lookupRequest.

  1. The meter’s utility and service provider support should be considered to understand the behaviour of the meter purchase route. The meter will generally follow the preferred service provider route unless it is not supported by all providers or if the meter has a specific meter level routing preference. In certain instances, a meter might not be assigned to a utility; in this instance, Unassigned will instead be displayed for the utility. If the meter is not supported by any service provider or too few service providers, it is recommended to select the Confirm support button.

  2. If the meter is not supported by any service provider or too few service providers, it is recommended to select the Confirm support button. The page will then show that the meter is marked for rebroadcasting as below.

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  1. Once a meter has been marked for rebroadcast, the following changes are made to the page:
  • The message, as shown above, will be displayed, explaining that the meter is marked for rebroadcast.
  • The Confirm support button will disappear.
  • In the Supported column, all service providers who have not explicitly confirmed support for the meter will be marked as Unconfirmed.

  1. The next meter lookup for this meter will be broadcast to all unconfirmed service providers in an attempt to establish potential routes. Upon initiating a Prepaid Utility Token Purchase, the system sends meter lookups. Thus, the next time the consumer attempts to purchase a token for their meter, the system will send a meter lookup to all unconfirmed providers.

  2. The Support status of the service providers who respond to the meter lookup will no longer show Unconfirmed and will change to either Yes or No. The service providers who do not respond to the meter lookup will remain Unconfirmed until they reply to a subsequent meter lookup. Then, the consumer can attempt another token purchase, resulting in a meter lookup that may be responded to by the remaining providers.

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