Using the new EnergyCAP Report Designer plugin within Microsoft Excel to produce custom reports, generate dynamic charts, and perform complex energy and cost analysis.

1. EnergyCAP's Report Designer
Scott Bair
Senior Project Manager
EnergyCAP, Inc.
©2016 EnergyCAP, Inc.

2. Overview–Your Tool For Creating Ad Hoc
Energy Reports
 Ad Hoc Reporting has been the most requested feature
since 1/1/1980
 Crystal Reports, Custom Crystal Reports and Custom
Spreadsheets have always been the features requiring the
most support and customization
 Custom Crystal Reports can be costly and may only fit one
specific need

3. Overview–Your Tool For Creating Ad Hoc
Energy Reports (con’t)
 ECI has been researching and planning the best option to
provide clients with a flexible tool that can meet the following
objectives:
 Mitigate the need for custom Crystal Report
development
 Remove reliance on Custom Spreadsheets from the
EnergyCAP client-server Enterprise (ECE) version

4. General Report Designer Concept
 The Report Designer is an Excel® add-in that works by
extending Excel's powerful data model to draw on data from
your EnergyCAP database via APIs (Application
Programming Interface)
 Once the tabular information is available, you can use
existing Excel® functionality (such as pivot tables) to develop
your own charts and graphs from the available data
 Alternatively, you can make use of a library of EnergyCAP
Report Designer templates until you get the exact data and
presentation that you want

5. General Report Designer Concept (con’t)
Technical Requirements:
Excel® 2013 or higher
(64-bit installation)
Windows 7 or higher (64-bit
installation)
ECI database hosting Microsoft NET 4.5.2 framework
Access to the internet

6. API-Based Reporting from Scratch
 APIs from the EnergyCAP Online 4.x releases, form the
basis for the Report Designer (RD) functionality
(Public-facing API documentation is readily available)
https://web.energycap.com/api/docs/page/Overview

7. API-Based Reporting from Scratch (con’t)
 Drawing on the power of EnergyCAP’s evolving APIs, RD
allows you to tap into your in-house Excel experience and
expertise to build custom reports
 Our goal is to continually improve our product;
therefore, users should expect regular updates and
additions as the Report Designer plug-in and the APIs
will continue to be enhanced.
 The EnergyCAP Report Designer website will be the
one official source for RD-enabled templates to use
with Excel®, our plug-in, and Power Pivot.

8. API-Based Reporting from Scratch (con’t)
 Utility billing data, account/meter/place/rollup data, all can
be filtered by a variety of criteria, including address, floor
area, build date, place type, building primary use, and
place group

9. Installation and Setup
 A one-time Report Designer setup sequence installs the
new Excel ribbon feature that provides a portal to access
the EnergyCAP API.

10. Installation and Setup (con’t)
 During setup, the user’s credentials and database
location are stored to provide secure access to current
data
 For data security and relevance, the user’s topmost place
permissions will be honored during report generation
Download data using
these buttons
Edit the
connection
settings

11. EnergyCAP Report Designer Templates
Template Definition
 An Excel file that contains tabs/worksheets of related
examples of PowerPivot tables, charts, etc.
 Think of each tab as a
new report, many of
which probably WILL be
based off of existing
reports

12. EnergyCAP Report Designer Templates (con’t)
 Each template will have a specifically stated purpose, to give
users a sense of what data they can find and manipulate
within a given template
 Templates will only include the data needed to support the
examples (or tabs) that correspond to the specifically stated
design purpose of the given template
 For instance, an “Accounts Executive Summary
template” would not contain any place-level data/tables
in the model

13. EnergyCAP Report Designer Templates (con’t)
Examples of Report Designer Templates that we are developing:
 Setup Data –
Account/Vendors/Cost
Center
 Place/Meter Reporting Data
 Bill Processing Information
 Year-to-Year
 Setup Data – Meter/Place
 Account/Cost Center
Reporting Data
 Billing Summary
Reporting Data

14. Questions