Proactive outage notification that tells every premise first, in its own language — even when the outage area changes
Customers hear first, in their language, and no planned notice misses the minimum.
See one case, screen by screen ↓When a planned outage is booked, three teams own three pieces of it. The control room owns the switching plan, the outage system owns the premise list, and customer communications sends the notices. When the field survey finds a switch unfit to operate and the isolation point moves, the outage area grows — and nobody tells comms. The streets added after the first notice are the ones that complain: "The text came at 3:20. The power went off at 3."
Faults have their own version of the problem. Customers get one vague message, then nothing when the estimated restoration time moves, so they call — and the contact centre agent knows no more than they do. "Power is back" goes to a whole feeder while a lateral fuse keeps a street dark, and life-support customers learn about planned work from a text. In Lumina Utilities' September figures, 1,483 of 61,800 premises were told late or not at all, and 944 of them were on streets added after the first notice.
Estimated split for one planned outage of about 1,800 premises, in working hours, by hand and with the solution.
Six agents trace, pick, draft, guard, update and read; the communications lead approves every notice.
Planned outage PO-26-1184 replaces ring main unit RMU-CR-118 on 11 kV feeder CR-04 in Cedar Ridge. Supply is off Tue 14 Oct 2026, 15:00–19:00. Friday's first notice went to 1,726 premises. On Monday morning the switching plan changed. Here is what happens next, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Noor approves every planned-outage notice at Lumina Utilities. Her home screen lists the four outages being notified now and draws Cedar Ridge as a polygon of premises, each square coloured by the channel that reached it. Inside the new area, 120 squares sit hollow with a red edge. The notice-time guard's alarm reads 120 premises not told, 6 h 00 m to the 24-hour minimum.
“I can't tell who has been told — I only know what I sent.”
The field survey found RMU-CR-118's switch unfit to operate, so Daniel revised the switching plan to rev 3 and moved isolation one unit up to RMU-CR-117. At 08:41 the affected-premises tracer re-traced the network: 120 premises added — Juniper Lane 78, Quarry Row 42 — none removed. Coloured by notice time, the map shows 1,702 told 72 h or more ahead, 24 told 24–72 h ahead, and the 120 not told at all.
Notice-time guard, 08:42: “Alarm to Noor Rahman: 120 not told, 6 h 18 m to the 24 h minimum”
The contact and channel picker chose SMS for 74, app for 26, email for 11, voice for 6 and door cards for 3, and flagged 3 life-support customers. The notice writer drafted the SMS, app, email, voice script and door card from the outage record and ran its checks: times match the record, streets match the new trace, reference and help number, reason in plain words with no equipment codes, quiet hours, length.
“The 1,726 already told get no new notice — nothing changed for them. All 1,846 get the reminder Tue 07:00.”
Languages come from the account: English 71, Arabic 33, Urdu 10, Tagalog 6. Noor opens the Arabic draft — 154 characters, 3 SMS parts in Unicode — with the same times, streets, reference PO-26-1184 and help number as the English. The checks re-run per language: Arabic for 33 premises, 3 parts allowed for Arabic.
Notice writer's limit: never states a time, street or reason that is not in the outage record.
Noor presses Send 120 notices. The run goes step by step: 26 app notices and 74 SMS, then 11 emails, 3 automated landline calls and 3 voice messages to life-support customers. One SMS to 19 Quarry Row bounces — number not in service — and the channel picker moves it to a door card. The guard closes its alarm: 1,846 of 1,846 told before the 24-hour minimum.
“Every premise told before the 24-hour minimum. 1,842 delivered · 4 door cards with Tomás Ferreira by 13:00 · 3 life-support calls with Grace Mensah.”
Grace called the first 11 life-support customers on Friday and Saturday — Peter Okonkwo's home ventilator now has a portable generator booked for Tue 13:00; Faisal Al-Amin moved his Tuesday dialysis to the morning. The three added at 08:40 are due by 11:00 today: Harun Siddiqui (oxygen concentrator, Urdu), Elena Vasquez (home dialysis) and Joseph Tan (powered wheelchair).
Rule: a personal call by 72 hours before planned work, and again if the area changes.
In Marlow Quay a cable fault on feeder MQ-07 took 412 premises off at 06:12, and the first notice went at 06:20 — 8 minutes. At 08:47, 296 were back-fed. 287 meters answered; 9 on Pier Street did not, all behind fuse MQ-07-L3. "Power is back" went to the 287 only, and a crew was sent to the 9.
Restoration updater's limit: never says “restored” before the premise's meter confirms supply.
At 08:50 the control room moved the ETR from 10:30 to 11:45 — the joint bay is flooded and must be pumped first. The update went to the 116 still off at 08:52; the next is due 09:52, or at once if the time moves 30 minutes. 38 calls came in about this fault, 9 from repeat callers — 6 of them between 08:30 and 08:50, when the 10:30 time was already in doubt.
“Update: the joint bay is flooded and must be pumped first. New time: 11:45. Sorry for the longer wait.”
37 replies came back to the Cedar Ridge notice since Friday: 14 "is it my street?", 5 "can it move?", 2 medical needs, 3 stop texts. The reply reader drafted an answer for each from the outage record — yes, the whole of Hollis Street is in the area — and sent the dialysis reply at 33 Orchard Way straight to priority care. Ridge Bakery's request to move the work was copied to Daniel Okafor.
Reply reader's limit: never promises a time the control room has not set.
The report writer drafts September's notice performance from the notice record: 97.6 % of 61,800 premises told before the minimum across 214 planned outages, and why 1,483 were late — the area widened after the first notice (944), no usable contact data (311), work brought forward (156), a notice sent late by hand (72). Noor sends it to Ama Boateng for sign-off.
“63 complaints in Q3 said the notice came late or never came; 41 were on streets added after the first notice.”
The same outage, seen by the five people who carry it — what an outage day looked like, and what it looks like now.
Six agents trace, pick, draft, guard, update and read; the communications lead approves every notice.
Traces the isolated section in each switching plan or control-room log to every premise — through transformers, service connections and meters — and re-traces whenever the plan changes, listing premises added and removed.
Chooses each premise's first usable channel in the order app, SMS, email, voice, door card, and its language from the account or the customer's replies; flags life-support customers for a personal call and falls back within 10 minutes when a message bounces.
Drafts every notice from the approved wording for the outage type, in plain words and in four languages — the times, the streets, the reason, the reference and the help number — and checks each fact against the outage record and the latest trace.
Computes the minimum notice time for every planned outage, counts the premises not told, alarms the communications lead at 12 h and 6 h before the minimum, and at the minimum asks the outage manager to decide.
On a fault, sends the first notice within 15 minutes of detection, an update when the restoration time moves 30 minutes or more and at least every 60 minutes, then pings the meters after each restoration step and lists the ones that do not answer as a possible nested outage.
Reads every reply and transcribed call about an outage, sorts it — is it my street, can it move, medical need, stop texts, other — drafts a reply from the outage record, sends medical needs to priority care at once and copies requests to move work to the outage manager.
Approves every notice. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask about any outage, street or notice in plain words — or say which rule to change. Every answer points to its records.
Why are 120 premises in Cedar Ridge not told?
Because the outage area grew this morning. At 08:40 Daniel Okafor moved the isolation point from RMU-CR-118 to RMU-CR-117 — the old unit's switch is unfit to operate. The re-trace added Juniper Lane (78) and Quarry Row (42). Friday's notice went to the old area only. The 24-hour minimum is Mon 15:00, so you have 6 hours. The drafts are ready in four languages.
Which life-support customers still need a call?
Three, all in the added streets: Harun Siddiqui (oxygen concentrator, 14 Juniper Lane, Urdu), Elena Vasquez (home dialysis, 41 Juniper Lane) and Joseph Tan (powered wheelchair, 7 Quarry Row). The 72-hour call has already passed for them, so they are due by 11:00. The other 11 were called on Friday and Saturday.
Is Marlow Quay really back on?
Not all of it. 296 premises were back-fed at 08:47; 287 meters answered, but 9 on Pier Street did not — they sit behind fuse MQ-07-L3. "Power is back" was held for those 9. The other 116 are still off, now expected at 11:45 after the joint bay flooded.
Raise the water minimum notice to 72 hours
Done — water planned work now needs 72 hours' notice at the least (was 48). One outage is affected: Fernhill WS-26-0221 starts Thu 22:00, so its minimum is now 22:00 today. If the drafts are approved before then it still meets the rule. The new rule set is on the record.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
The minimum notice, the fault update cadence, the channels, the languages and who decides are settings, chosen by the utility. Every change goes on the record.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum notice — electricity, planned | 24 hours | Hours before supply off; below this, the outage manager decides |
| Minimum notice — water, planned | 48 hours | Hours before supply off |
| Standard first notice | 72 hours | Hours before supply off, all planned work · reminder 07:00 on the day to every premise told |
| Alarms to the communications lead | 12 h and 6 h | Hours before the minimum, for any premise not told |
| Life-support call | 72 hours | Personal call, hours before planned work; again if the area changes |
| Fault updates | First notice in 15 min · update on a 30 min change · at least every 60 min | Minutes after detection, minutes of change in the restoration time, and the longest gap while any premise is off · "power is back" sent only when the meter confirms |
| Channel order and fallback | App → SMS → email → voice → door card | First usable channel per premise, opt-outs respected · fall back within 10 min after a bounce · quiet hours 22:00–07:00 for planned notices |
| Who decides | Noor Rahman · Daniel Okafor | Approves planned notices (deputy Samir Haddad) · decides at the minimum · Grace Mensah makes life-support calls · Ama Boateng signs the monthly report |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample outage data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate: ≈ $89K = 96,400 outage contacts × 29 % repeats × ⅓ × $9.54, on Lumina's sample figures, and the split of a planned outage's notice hours · “typical” = published figures (Southern California Edison via smartgrid.gov — 30 % of outage callers call again; E Source — $9.54 per utility call; OPPD citing J.D. Power — 27 % more satisfied with five points of outage information). Regulatory context: Ofgem Guaranteed Standards, Regulation 12 (2 days' notice of a planned interruption); CPUC D.19-05-042 (public-safety power shutoff notice windows). Lumina Utilities and every person, street, feeder and outage named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Software that tells every customer in a planned outage or fault what is happening, when, on a channel they use and in a language they read — before they call. Outage Customer Communications adds six agents that trace the affected premises from the switching plan, pick each premise's channel and language, draft the notices, guard the minimum notice time, keep restoration updates going and read the replies. A communications lead approves every planned notice.
The affected-premises tracer re-traces the network on every switching-plan revision and lists the premises added and removed. In the sample case, an isolation point moved at 08:40 and the re-trace at 08:41 found 120 premises Friday's notice never reached; drafts in four languages were ready by 08:42. Premises already told get no new notice when nothing changed for them.
Yes. The notice-time guard counts down to the minimum for every premise not told, alarms the communications lead at 12 h and 6 h before it, and at the minimum asks the outage manager to decide — go ahead with door-knocks, or move the work. It never lets the minimum pass silently and never sends without approval.
The restoration updater sends the first notice within 15 minutes of detection, an update whenever the restoration time moves 30 minutes or more, and at least every 60 minutes while anyone is off. It never sets a restoration time — that stays with the control room — and sends "power is back" only to premises whose meter answers.
Every life-support customer inside an outage goes on the priority care call list, to be called by a person at least 72 hours before planned work and again if the area changes. The reply reader routes any medical need in a reply to priority care at once. In the sample outage, 14 life-support customers were on Grace Mensah's list, 3 of them added by the morning's change.
App, SMS, email, automated voice and printed door cards, in the order the utility sets, respecting opt-outs and quiet hours, with a fallback within 10 minutes when a message bounces. The sample utility notifies in English, Arabic, Urdu and Tagalog, taken from the account or from the customer's replies.
Yes. A named communications lead approves every planned notice in every language, the outage manager owns the times and the decision at the minimum, and a person makes every life-support call. The agents never edit a switching plan, never set a restoration time and never state a fact that is not in the outage record.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your customer charter or notice rules, approved notice wording, channel and language data and a sample of past outages — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own outages first.
We'll run Outage Customer Communications on a sample of your own planned outages and faults.