Customer Complaint Surveillance Updates and Tools Vendor Integration and Establishing Thresholds

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Customer Complaint Surveillance Updates and Tools – Vendor Integration and Establishing Thresholds

American Water Works Association Water Security Congress

St. Louis, MO

September 10, 2012, 3:30 p.m.

(Session: Mon. 05.04: “The City as Sensor- Integrating Customer Complaint, Public Health, Physical Security Organizational Considerations”)

Corresponding Author:

CAPT Nelson Mix, PE, CHMM, US Public Health Service Officer U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Water Security Division

Co-author:

Brian Pickard, PE, BCEE, MBA

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Water Security Division Abstract

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Water Security Initiative contamination warning system pilot utilities have slightly varied approaches in implementing the Customer Complaint Surveillance (CCS) component. CCS is a key component of a contamination warning system that includes technology and procedures used for real-time detection, timely response to water quality calls, and the ensuing work management aspect of complaints indicative of contamination in water distribution systems. CCS technology (call and work management systems) relies heavily on the software vendors and integrators who enable water utilities to respond to customer and system needs on a daily basis. CCS also relies on establishing thresholds that generate alerts when unusual call volumes are reached, while still achieving a manageable number of alerts that are acceptable to utilities. Capturing call data in specific complaint categories is essential for accurate and sustainable surveillance.

This manuscript will explain how utilities can take their existing data and software and integrate a CCS approach for the purposes of water security. This manuscript will report out on decisions and feedback from participants at the AWWA and EPA hosted Vendor Integration Forum, held in conjunction with the 2011 AWWA Customer Service / Information Management Technology Conference. The status update will also cover a jointly hosted AWWA / EPA webinar in June 2011, and related work with an AWWA Taste and Odor committee. This manuscript will also demonstrate EPA-developed tools and techniques for establishing thresholds and categories of complaints related to water quality complaints that could be indicative of contamination.

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Disclaimer

Neither the United States Government nor any of its employees, contractors, or their employees make any warranty, expressed or implies, or assume any legal liability of responsibility for any third party’s use of or the results of such use of any information or process described in this manuscript, or represents that its use by such party would not infringe on privately-owned rights. This document is not a substitute for applicable legal requirements, nor is it a regulation itself. The word “should”, as used in this document, is intended solely to recommend or suggest and does not connote a requirement.

Any mention of trade names, companies, products, or services in this guidance does not constitute an endorsement by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of any non-federal entity, its products, or its services.

The contents of this document represent the opinions of the authors, and not the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Questions concerning this document or its application should be addressed to the authors: CAPT Nelson Mix, PE CHMM

US Public Health Service Officer assigned to USEPA U.S. EPA Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water U.S. EPA Headquarters, Ariel Rios Building

1200 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Mail Code 4608T

Washington, D.C. 20460

[email protected] or

Brian Pickard, PE, BCEE, MBA

U.S. EPA Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water U.S. EPA Headquarters, Ariel Rios Building

1200 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Mail Code 4608T

Washington, D.C. 20460

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L

IST OF

T

ABLES AND

F

IGURES FIGURE 1.3-1 CITYWORKS HEAT MAP OF WATER QUALITY CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS ... 8

FIGURE 1.3-2 CITYWORKS CUSTOMER COMPLAINT REPORTS OF WATER QUALITY CALLS ... 9

TABLE 2.1 EPA PILOT UTILITY WATER QUALITY COMPLAINT CATEGORIES ...10

FIGURE 2.1 SFPUC WATER QUALITY COMPLAINT TIERS ...12

FIGURE 2.2 AET OUTPUT ...13

FIGURE 2.3 TAT INPUT ...14

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Section 1.0: Updates on Vendor Integration

Background

The Water Security Initiative (WSI) is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program that addresses the risk of intentional contamination of drinking water

distribution systems. Initiated in response to Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9, the overall goal is to establish recommendations for the design and deployment of

contamination warning systems for voluntary adoption by drinking water utilities. EPA was charged to develop a Contamination Warning System (CWS) and use Customer Complaint Surveillance (CCS) as an alert mechanism to detect anomalous taste, odor and appearance properties in water. The cities of Cincinnati, New York, Philadelphia, Dallas and San Francisco have implemented water quality complaint categories into their CCS systems using their existing information technology (IT) and work management systems. Drinking water distribution system vulnerabilities include accessibility via commercial and residential service connections, fire hydrants, and finished water storage areas. It is impossible to eliminate all access to a distribution system, but key system components can be hardened. Consequences of contamination include adverse impacts on public health, loss of water for public safety uses, economic damages, and loss of consumer confidence. An attack using contaminants is likely to achieve multiple terror objectives. Such an attack would not necessarily have to produce casualties in order to be considered successful by an organization, reiterating the importance of having a CWS with CCS in place. An event such as water line replacement, flushing or a main break also results in customers calling routinely to the utility about their water quality characteristics. Having a CCS offers the utility real time information to pass on to callers; real time CCS

information also has a day-to-day dual use aspect that can enhance utility operations. A CWS involves the active deployment and use of monitoring technologies and strategies and enhanced surveillance activities. These activities collect, integrate, analyze, and communicate information in order to provide a timely warning of potential water contamination incidents and to initiate response actions to minimize public health and economic impacts. An integrated CWS will utilize water quality monitoring, public health surveillance, sampling and analysis, enhanced security monitoring, and CCS. These data sources, when used concurrently, should support and augment each other such that the chances of detecting a contamination incident are better than using any one information source on its own. While a CWS will ultimately be designed by the utility, cooperation with partners, including vendors and integrators, is vital to the successful adoption of the CWS.

Section 1.1: Background - Vendor Forum & Webinar

In June of 2010, EPA met with Greater Cincinnati Water Works (GCWW) personnel during a lessons learned workshop near the end of the pilot period. It was commented that if call and work order management vendors had already built in some of the key CCS functionalities, integration and configuration of CCS system would have been much less

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burdensome. Later, the CCS Vendor Integration Forum was held on February 28, 2011 to explore this possibility. The Forum was jointly hosted by EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water and the American Water Works Association (AWWA) in conjunction with the AWWA 2011 Customer Service/Information Management Technology (CS/IMTech) conference. The purpose of this Forum was to meet with Vendors and Integrators to speak with them regarding the WSI and CCS to create an open dialogue for product development.

The Forum was broken into two, 1-hour sessions. The first session provided an overview of the WSI and the CCS component, including aspects of implementing a CCS system. The second session consisted of case studies by three WSI pilot utility subject matter experts and included a question & answer session. This two hour Forum was offered as a 45 minute Webinar in June 2011; the Webinar omitted two Forum case studies.

CCS Background

A CCS system looks for anomalous patterns, aberrant signal-to-noise ratios, or deviations from the norm in either time or space. These contamination events involve contaminants with aesthetic properties not associated with a benign cause. These events are not associated with common utility water quality problems that may have similar complaint descriptions, such as rusty or dirty water, cloudy water, or water pressure. In filtering calls, it is important to recognize and filter out non-significant calls, such as those relating to rusty or dirty water, cloudy water, or water pressure. Water contamination will also likely display temporal clustering within minutes or hours of each other, and spatial clustering, both linked by characteristics of the distribution system. Implementing a CCS system provides the possible dual-use benefit of detecting anomalies in common water quality problems in addition to those associated with possible contamination incidents. CCS encompasses the customer complaint collection process, data management, data analysis and anomaly detection of customer complaints, notification of anomalies, and investigation procedures. Collecting complaints into a single location, or funneling them by using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Asset Management Systems (including email, phone calls, and web forms) is a best practice and AWWA standard.

The core functionalities that comprise a CCS component include:

A mechanism for a utility to baseline their data and establish alarm thresholds, Near real-time analysis of data using automated surveillance algorithms and code, Alert notification of anomalies, and

Easy integration with other utility IT and management systems. A New Approach

EPA is now implementing an “inside-out” approach for utilities to voluntarily implement the CCS component of a CWS. Rather than approaching utilities to modify their existing customer complaint systems using external EPA guidance documents (“outside-in”), EPA is approaching customer complaint and work management software vendors to imbed key CCS functionalities into their products for utility use (“inside-out”). This approach allows for more efficient CCS adoption by utilities since the necessary mechanisms to

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track, transfer and analyze CCS data would already be built into existing software systems. Further, in many cases the coding changes needed for vendors to implement CCS functionalities into work management software are minimal. If utilities are offered CCS capabilities as a built-in option in existing customer complaint software, it is more likely that they will adopt many, if not all, aspects of the CCS component.

Instead of re-inventing the way utilities do business, CCS should, whenever possible, be integrated into existing business models. The vendor/integrator community is the best choice to talk to drinking water utility personnel, who are deeply embedded in their existing systems and processes. Vendors can offer a more appealing product, already have most features in existing tools, and it is easier for system integrators to implement. System Integrators can offer consistent implementations, the efficiency of ‘off-the-shelf solutions’, and a lower implementation cost for the utility. This approach is also akin to the EPA Water Technology Information Cluster, which seeks to catalyze public-private partnerships for commercializing water technology.

Section 1.2: Current Status - Vendor Presentation and Survey Results EPA has developed an on-line presentation oriented towards utilities, vendors, and integrators about integrating call and work management systems into a CCS system. It is a 45-minute narrated Microsoft Power Point file with closed captioning that summarizes the 2011 Forum and highlights one case study.

Also in 2011, EPA began working with the American Water Works Association committees to help vendors and integrators understand desired CCS functionality. The AWWA Taste and Odor committee, chaired by Dr. Pinar Omur-Ozbek at Colorado State University, conducted a survey funded by the AWWA Research Foundation which included questions about CCS and customer complaint categories. Table 1.2 provides an overview of the survey sample.

Table 1.2 AWWARF Survey Results: Number of Consumers Number of Consumers Percent of Responses

< 5,000 12 5,000 - 10,000 8 10,000 - 25,000 9 25,000 - 50,000 28 50,000 - 100,000 19 100, 000 - 250,000 18 250,000 - 500, 000 12 >500,000 13 Total (n=215) 100

Presentedbelow are two of the questions related to CCS (with n = number of responses, and the accompanying results).

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1. Are you aware of EPA’s efforts to use customer complaints as an indicator of contamination in the water distribution system? (n= 132, Yes 36%, No 49%, Not sure 15%)

2. If you could reasonably implement a system or process that could perform surveillance on your customer complaints that are water quality related, how likely would you be to implement such a system? (n=130, Very Unlikely 5%, Unlikely 10%, Undecided 27 %, Likely 43%, and Very likely 15%)

The high percentage of positive responses for adoption of a water quality complaint surveillance system indicates potential demand by utilities, and may be interpreted as favorable for business development by vendors and integrators.

Section 1.3: Cityworks Case Study

The Philadelphia Waterworks Department is one of the EPA pilot utilities, and uses Cityworks as their work order management system. Cityworks offers several desired CCS features, without requiring burdensome integration. Cityworks focuses on customization, not configuration. When integrating a CCS system, there are several considerations. First, it is important to design a flexible architecture using a standardized approach and ensure that parameters (such as notification templates, notification

recipients, and thresholds) are configurable by managers. Second, it is important to leverage existing systems and capabilities, including existing applications, the network infrastructure, programming expertise, and security. Thirdly, it is important that alarm data is stored so the utility has the ability to perform a retrospective analysis. Finally, it is important to account for any time delay in receiving alerts. Questions for call and work management vendors and integrators to contemplate are in the Appendix.

Cityworks is a Commercially Available Off-The-Shelf Asset Management System which provides powerful functionality for service request/complaint tracking, work orders, inspections and reporting. In addition, Cityworks is unique in the asset management because of the Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-Centric design. The application runs within the ArcGIS framework providing users with direct access to GIS information and the ability to take advantage of Esri analysis tools within the map. This provides the ability to analyze the density and location of water quality complaints in the system based on dynamic searches filtered by a specific time range.

Citizen Complaint Tracking

Service Requests are part of the core functionality included with Cityworks. As part of the software implementation process organizations are able to define the type and number of Service Requests to be tracked. There is also flexibility in the system as Cityworks provides tools allowing organizations to develop portals for Service Requests. The Service Requests can be entered through a public interface or through an organizational intranet. Service Requests document the following fields which support CSS reporting:

Request Type, Date Initiated ,

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8 Location,

Project (association to an organizational or departmental project), Attachments (any file format), and

Custom Fields (detailed classification of water quality issue),

As part of the software implementation, user-defined fields can also be added to track additional data not included ‘out of the box’. Furthermore, expected duration times can be created to establish metrics for activities to be completed, for example, the time to process a complaint by an operator. The user-defined fields added to the workflow can also be identified in the system as required fields to ensure the capture of data.

Much of the geographic information related to the event location can be automatically populated on the Service Request, because Cityworks uses the GIS as the asset registry (see Figure 1.3-1). This includes information such as the address/location of the water quality issue and district or zone information related to the distribution network.

Figure 1.3-1 Cityworks Heat Map of Water Quality Customer Complaints

Service Requests can be applied to track the complete process or can be used to generate Work Orders and Inspections. The combination of activities are linked together and tracked throughout the lifecycle of the investigation. Cityworks also has the ability to support instances where the workflow dictates that a specific Work Order type should be related to a specific Service Request, i.e. flushing as the follow up Work Order in relation to a water quality call.

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9 Querying and Reporting

Cityworks includes a search engine which can query the system for reports of water quality issues. The search engine provides all of the fields tracked on the service request form, including the custom and user-defined fields, to build the query. These searches are dynamic and can be saved for future access.

In addition to the functionality available through the search engine, Cityworks embeds Crystal Reports within the framework. This lets organizations generate formatted Crystal Reports accessing the Cityworks database, GIS and other organizational business systems for access to users through Cityworks (see Figure 1.3-2).

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Section 2.0: Tools for Establishing Thresholds

Section 2.1: Complaint Categories and Tiers

A utility must identify water quality complaint categories and thresholds before it can integrate call or work management systems into a CCS system. The 2011 AWWARF survey contained two questions about complaint categories (with n = number of responses, and the accompanying results).

Does your facility use standard descriptors for Taste &Odor complaints? (n=131, Yes 63%, No 37%)

Most common standard descriptors used for T&O complaints: (n = 61 responses) • Earthy, musty, chlorine

• Fishy, rotten egg

• Cat urine, kerosene, algae, dirt, sewage, septic

The EPA tabulated the complaint types observed by the cities with CCS systems, which are used in conjunction with call or work order management systems. Table 2.1 presents the results for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), Dallas Water Utilities (DWU), the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD), and the New York City Department of Environmental Quality (NYCDEP).

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11 Notes:

1 - SFPUC uses these Tiers. All pilots have distinct thresholds for each category. 2 - SFPUC & DWU use the term Illness. PWD uses the term Sickness.

3 - SFPUC uses separate check boxes on their complaint form for Taste and Odor to collect the complaint, but uses the same threshold and both are in the same tier. 4- NYCDEP actually has 19 categories, but only 14 that match the table above. The AWWRF survey results indicate 4 of every 10 utility respondents do not use standard descriptors. Table 2.1 shows standard descriptors amongst utilities using CCS can be generalized into common tiers, but terminology in not consistent. While the table indicates the total categories ranges from 9 to 14, anecdotal information supports that utilities favor five to ten water quality complaint categories and too many categories are undesirable. Even though there are similar categories, no standard exists for water quality complaint categories. Feedback from vendors and integrators is that standard categories are needed for programming, and additional categories can be added if desired (though customization).

SFPUC Case Study

SFPUC uses a tiered system in its Consumer Complaint Alert Guide to investigate complaints. Water Quality Inspectors (WQIs) receive an alphanumeric page when any threshold is exceeded. The on-call WQI checks a Customer Complaint Integrated Display, to investigate and confirm if complaints are in the same pressure zones. If alert criteria are met, the WQI starts an investigation. If a cause for complaints is found (main break, flushing, etc.) they return to normal operations. If no cause is found, the WQI completes an investigative form and contacts the on-call water quality engineer. The engineer decides if any escalation of the event is needed. As shown in Figure 2.1

SFPUC uses four categories of complaints with different thresholds to outline its tiered CCS approach. Category 1 is for illness calls received anywhere within the city over a 24-hour period. This category has the lowest alert threshold. Categories 2 through 4 are specific to a hydraulic service area, with category 4 having the highest threshold.

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12 Figure 2.1 SFPUC Water Quality Complaint Tiers Section 2.2 Alarm Estimation Tool (AET)

After establishing complaint categories, utility personnel next need to create a baseline from which to establish CCS thresholds. Creating baseline data involves reviewing and analyzing historic data, and identifying “normal” complaint volume and setting

thresholds for alarms. EPA has created a simple tool to assist developers, integrators and utilities in analyzing their historic water quality data to establish thresholds. The AET is free and available at:

http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/watersecurity/techtools/index.cfm.

Figure 2.2 displays the AET. n Calls in 8 hrs

In the same pressure zone

Category 4 Threshold _{Category 4}

Black Particles, White Particles, Sand, Cloudy/Milky Category 3 Dirty/Discolored, or Oily/Greasy Category 2 Taste / Odor Category 1 Illness n Call in 24 hrs n Calls in 8 hrs n Calls in 8 hrs

Anywhere in the City

In the same pressure zone

Category 1 Threshold

Category 2 Threshold

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13 Figure 2.2 AET Output

Section 2.3 Threshold Analysis Tool (TAT)

Based on feedback from users of the AET, EPA developed another tool to help utilities and integrators baseline water quality complaint data. The TAT accepts several file input formats, uses various statistical approaches to analyzed data, and is a standalone program.

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14 Figure 2.3 TAT Input

The AET and TAT can produce the same results using the same dataset. Figure 2.4

displays outputs from both the AET and the TAT. Appendix 2 contains a table that compares the features of the AET and TAT.

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15 Figure 2.4 TAT - AET Output Comparison

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Section 3.0: Summary

Section 3.1: Conclusions and Looking Forward

Collaboration will continue between AWWA, EPA, utilities, and the private sector. AWWA and EPA hope to continue information sharing, and hold follow-up webinars. Additional information, lessons learned and guidance will be generated from CCS efforts as WSI pilot cities near completion of their CWS activities. AWWA and EPA are encouraging voluntary adoption of CCS activities, thereby creating demand for vendor products with built-in CCS functionality. There is a growing body of research and guidance, with new tools. A consistent offering from IT vendors & integrators provides the supply. Utilities, IT companies & experts benefit from existing pilot

implementations. AWWA and EPA have already published articles documenting CCS implementation and benefits, and are committed to promoting CCS adoption by utilities over the long term.

Observations from WSI cities & EPA seem to indicate five to ten water quality complaint categories may be ideal, and too many categories are undesirable. There are similar categories, but no standard exists for determining water quality complaint categories. Feedback from vendors and integrators is that standard categories are needed to start programming, and additional categories can be added if desired (though customization). The AWWA Taste & Odor committee has experts that can provide assistance in

standardizing water quality complaint categories for vendors and integrators.

An early warning system saves a utility time and money, and has the potential to save lives. A better understanding of water quality complaint prevalence also provides a dual-use benefit in that more knowledge can help improve normal operations and customer service. Off-the-shelf solutions offer low implementation cost for utilities, and cost is a key consideration when utilities are upgrading or replacing a call or work management system.

EPA has invested millions of dollars into implementing CCS programs at WSI cities. Vendors and integrators stand to benefit from existing pilot implementations in

Cincinnati, Dallas, New York City, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. In addition there is a dual-use, all hazards emphasis on improvements in monitoring and security. For tool developers, CCS functionality provides a more appealing product offering with market differentiation, easy implementation (most features are already in existing tools), and easier implementation for system integrators. For system integrators, CCS functionality provides consistent implementations, efficiency of off-the-shelf solutions, and low implementation cost for the utility. Adding CCS functionality to call and work management products will allow vendors to have their product stand out from other products in the marketplace. Finally, products and services may already have the desired features – but just need to be “re-visioned” with an eye to providing the core CCS

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17 Section 3.2: Acknowledgements

Alan Roberson, AWWA

Dr. Pinar Omur-Ozbek, Colorado State University AWWA Technical and Educational Council Becky Tamahasky, Cityworks

Sheila Garret, SFPUC

Charles Zitomer & Gary Burlingame, PWD EPA Pilot Utilities:

Greater Cincinnati Water Works Dallas Water Utilities

Philadelphia Water Department

New York City Department of Environmental Protection San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

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18 Section 3.3: References

AWWA & USEPA, Customer Compliant Surveillance Vendor Integration Workshop, March 2010.

Grabinski, Janet (DWU) and Hesner, Rex (CH2MHill), Calls Taken Here: How a Joint Pilot Project Streamlined Operational Response for Consumer Water Quality Issues, AWWA Water Security Congress, September 2011.

Martin, Tim (NYCDEP), Leveraging Existing Resources to Develop an Early Warning System for Consumer Calls, AWWA Water Security Congress, September 2011. Mix, Nelson, Consumer Complaint Surveillance - Harnessing Customer Service Technology and Procedures for Real-time Detection of Possible Drinking Water Contamination Incidents, AWWA Customer Service / Information Technology Conference, March 2010.

Mix, Nelson, The Three “C”s of Consumer Complaints in a Contamination Warning

System – Counting, Co-location, and Commonality, AWWA Water Security Congress September 2010.

Mix, Nelson, Making Informed Decisions about Customer Complaint Surveillance Alarm Rates Using the Alarm Estimation Tool, AWWA Water Quality Technical Conference November 2010.

Mix, Nelson, Using Work Management Systems as a Part of Water Utility Customer Complaint Surveillance, Cityworks User’s Conference, May 2011.

Pickard, Brian, Water Security Initiative Case Study: Deploying and Operating a Real-time Consumer Complaint Surveillance System, AWWA Water Security Congress, April 2009.

Raad, Rami (CH2MHill), Contamination Warning System Pilot Project Analysis of Customer Complaint data generated Through Work Order Management System, AWWA Water Security Congress, September 2011.

Raad, Rami, Contamination Warning System (CWS) Leveraging a GIS Based Work Order Management System in CWS Development, Cityworks User’s Conference, May 2011.

USEPA, WaterSentinel System Architecture, EPA 817-D-05-003, 2005.

USEPA, WaterSentinel System Architecture, EPA 817-D-05-003, December 2005. USEPA, Water Security Initiative: Interim Guidance on Planning for Contamination Warning System Deployment , EPA-817-R07-005, May 2007.

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USEPA, Water Security Initiative: Interim Guidance on Developing an Operational Strategy for Contamination Warning Systems, EPA-817-R-08-002, September 2008. USEPA, Water Security Initiative: Cincinnati Pilot Post-Implementation System Status, EPA-817-R-08-004, September 2008.

Section 3.4 Web URLs

Greater Cincinnati Water Works Complaint Types see page 79 of

http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/watersecurity/upload/2008_10_24_watersecurity_pubs _rpt_post_imp_system_status_wsi.pdf

EPA (early) guidance about Complaint Types

http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/watersecurity/upload/2006_01_27_watersecurity_pubs _watersentinel_system_architecture.pdf

AET: http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/watersecurity/techtools/index.cfm

TAT: http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/watersecurity/techtools/index.cfm

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APPENDIX: Vendor Questions

Potential Questions for Call or Work Management Systems to Contemplate

 Can the system be used to receive all complaints from multiple internal and external sources at one location (hence utility is aware of all potential incidents)?

 Can the system integrate Webforms, E-mail, SMS/text, IM, and Social Media and telephone calls so that it captures all complaints (hence all complaints are available for event detection)?

Descriptive, Temporal, and Spatial Info is adequately captured:

 Can the system be configured to capture descriptive information for the CCS investigator to review such info as:

o Descriptive data for the customer complaints? o Categories of customer complaints?

o Group of specific categories for WQ problems attributed to contamination?  Can the system capture the date and time of complaints?

 Can the system capture the locations of customer complaints to enhance event detection and integrate with:

o Addresses on a map

o Admin Units (e.g. zip codes)

o Hydraulic Areas (e.g. pressure zones)

 Can the system review customer complaints volume regularly? o Monthly

o Weekly o Daily

o Twice per day o Once per shift o Hourly

 Can the system keep records of data, to help determine thresholds? o Store historical complaint data for later evaluation?

o Maintain electronic records of complaint data for later evaluation?

 How frequently can the system analyze complaints and compare to a threshold, for potential water contamination detection?

o Daily o Hourly

o Less than every 15 minutes

 Does the system have an Event Detection Algorithm with the ability to analyze over multiple time periods simultaneously? E.g.:

o A 24 hr period

o Over the course of week

o Ability to distinguish weekend from weekday complaints  Does the system have the ability to incorporate spatial analysis?

o Integrate Addresses onto a map o Admin Units

o Hydraulic Areas

 What’s the best way to change thresholds in the system? (Is the utility is dependent on computer programmers?)

o An IT person is needed to change the settings every time they need to be changed o An administrative interface for managers to parameterize settings can be created  How could the system notify utility employees of a high volume of complaints?

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APPENDIX 2: AET and TAT Comparison Table

Customer Complaint Surveillance

FEATURE Alarm Estimation Tool Threshold Analysis Tool

About the Tool

Excel spreadsheet (.xls)

Coded in MS Excel with Visual Basic macros Posted in Jan 2010

Users Manual is a ‘Tab’ in the .xls file Contains a Sample Data Tab Contains a ‘Quiz’ Tab

Stand alone software Coded in Microsoft “.NET” To be posted late Fall 2012 User Manual is a separate .pdf file Contains sample data files, FAQs User Manual may serve as a tutorial.

Inputting Data

Accepts only “Date-Time” data

User inputs data into a .xls column

Accepts a variety of “Date-Time” data formats (e.g. date, date-time, etc)

User can import a variety of file types (e.g., .txt, .csv, .xls(x), etc) and select specific columns for analysis

Descriptive / Sub-unit Analysis?

No. Date-Time analysis only. Yes. User can also opt for analysis of data by identifiers (e.g, by zip code, day of week, etc)

Scan Statistics

Scan window can be any integer Continuous/ Reset option.

Scan window must be 1,2,3,4,5,6, or 7 Continuous/ Reset option.

Statistical Analyses

None Standard Deviation (STDEV)

Percentiles (%)

Recurrence Interval (RI)

User can identify desired STDEV, %-tile or RI, and tool provides the corresponding threshold

Displaying Outputs

Graph

Table (with Date –Time)

No Graph

Table(s) (with Date-Time)