Managing Off-Allocation (aka Off-Quota) Periods

What are off-allocation periods?

Off-allocation periods are periods for which customer water usage may be stored separately from standard usage and may not count against a customer's allocation. This is typically used to distribute additional water (for example, water that would otherwise be lost to spillage because a reservoir is full).

A water authority can specify an off-allocation period to allow customers to use additional water without reducing their standard allocations. These periods can be created in advance, or applied retrospectively.

How do off-allocation periods work?

If your system is configured to use off-allocation periods then the process will typically be as follows:

• You create an off-allocation period for a planning group and specify the start and end date and time.
• An Update Off Allocation process runs every night. This identifies any usages that are affected by off-allocation periods and calculates the off-allocation usage using the rules for that period.
• Usages are applied to a set of usage attributes according to those rules. These attributes can be used to track and report on the various categories of usage and to adjust any remaining allocations if necessary.

How is this functionality configured?

This process is customer-specific and must be configured for you by Rubicon Water. Please contact Rubicon Water to discuss your requirements.

In general, the following configuration options are available:

• You can specify one or more different types of off-allocation period, each with their own rules.
• For any off-allocation period, you can configure a limit to the off-allocation water available. You can specify a fixed threshold, set a threshold that is proportional to a specific allocation, or specify that there is no limit to the water available.
• For any off-allocation period, you can specify how usage above the threshold is distributed. For example, it may be debited against a specified allocation.

Excluding customers from off-allocation periods

If you want to disable the off-allocation option for a customer, you can set the Payment Arrangements attribute for their property to Yes. In this case, any water supplied to that property during an off-allocation period will count against their allocation.

This feature can be enabled or disabled by setting the Process payment arrangements status parameter to Yes or No. If the parameter is set to No, the Payment Arrangements attribute has no effect.