PPU Routing Preferences
When a customer buys prepaid electricity, the transaction must be routed to a specific service provider. Historically, Electrum handled the logic for determining which provider received a transaction in the background with the Electrum Load Balancer. This meant you couldn't easily verify whether your business preferences—such as using a more cost-effective provider or honouring a specific municipal contract—were being followed. This could mean more time logging tickets and less visibility into your own business outcomes.
As Part of Electrum’s ongoing work to help customers increase their self-service capabilities, we have begun developing a set of tooling that gives clients greater hands-on control over their business logic. Allowing the best commercial offering without sacrificing the end user's chances of a successful purchase.
The PPU Routing Preferences capability in the Electrum Console allows you to route traffic based on your provider preference. It provides a transparent view of how your transactions are processed, allowing you to review your routing preferences in as they are currently configured.
This feature is designed to solve three specific operational problems:
Commercial priority: You can confirm that transactions are going to the providers you’ve prioritised for financial or strategic reasons.
Contractual limits: You can see which providers are excluded from certain municipalities, ensuring you don't breach legal agreements.
Data accuracy: By viewing Meter Counts, you can assess the utility's size and understand the impact of provider preferences, confirm the correct utility, and see a clear display of provider tags in their routing order.
This dashboard is currently view-only. If you find a routing order that doesn't align with your contracts or see a utility that needs to be updated, please contact Electrum Support to make the adjustment.
Understanding the Dashboard
The current version of the tool focuses on visibility. It acts as your single source of truth for your utility-to-provider mappings. Below is a list of new features:
| Feature | Context |
|---|---|
| Ranked Providers | The specific order in which providers are tried for a transaction. |
| Unranked | Service Providers that do not have a priority preference set; the system uses the default load-balancing method. |
| Excluded/Disallowed | Providers are blocked from a specific utility due to contractual restrictions. |
| Unconfirmed | No preference has been set; the system uses the default load-balancing method. |
| Meter Count | The size of the utility helps you understand the volume impact of that route. |
Below is an example of the PPU Routing Preference page:
