Goulburn Valley Water has “Gone Live” with the Thinking Windows CRM package AquaTact. Jason Dagger has reported that the Customer and Services staff are live on the system recording all contacts from customers within the system. After two days of operation Jason reports that it is exceeding his expectations. The Goulburn Valley project team are to be congratulated on a very positive outcome.

 

Wannon Water hosted the latest AquaRate User Group at the end of July. The venue was popular and this User Group meeting turned out to be the largest one ever held. All AquaRate customers attended with the exception of Busselton in WA. The Thinking Windows staff demonstrated features found in the upcoming releases of modules interspersed with customer sessions covering a broad range of topics. Towards the end of the sessions prototype demonstrations were given on the upcoming iPhone App together with the rich AquaWeb application. The schedules for new releases were announced and this financial year will see all major components improved and upgraded. The main interest focused on the expansion of “Customer Self Help” facilities. Wannon Water were able to showcase their new premise and the new technology found throughout the building.

 

Replacing billing systems is a complex task which can give the best IT Manager significant cause for concern. Thinking Windows’ absolute commitment and professional approach to replacing Western Water’s old system has resulted in a virtually seamless transition to AquaRate. The job included significant data conversion and integrations to both internal business systems and external agency and contractor systems. The project was delivered on time and to budget. Most importantly, Thinking Windows staff worked closely with Western Water staff to deliver a product fully tailored to our current and projected future business needs. Our staff could not be more pleased with the outcome.

Peter Donlon
General Manager, Customer and Community Relations
Western Water
 

At 7am on Tuesday the 1st of March the revenue department signed onto AquaRate for the first time in the live environment. The conversion from the existing system had progressed successfully throughout the preceding week and a fully integrated AquaRate system was delivered on time. Meter reading commenced the same day and completed rounds were being received by mid-day. All aspects of the system were available for use including integration to the CRM and GIS systems.

The staff at Western Water are to be congratulated for without their dedication we could not have completed such an effort in the time allotted.

All of the staff at Thinking Windows are looking forward to working with our latest customer.
 

Thinking Windows is pleased to announce the appointment of Chris Taranto to our team.

Chris has joined the main AquaRate programming group and is keen to use the skills he obtained at RMIT completing his Bachelor of Computer Science (Application Programming). Chris has gained valuable application design knowledge completing various projects at university and we will be keen to see him apply this to AquaRate system solutions. Chris will also be able to help in cutting our commute time to customer sites as he has a Private Pilot’s licence with 5 years’ experience. 

The recent AquaRate User Group meeting held in Melbourne had the largest number of attendees yet, with new attendees from Western Water being welcomed by the rest of the group. Regular participants welcomed the input from the Western Water staff and the opportunity to network with another water corporation.

Interesting presentations were given on RF metering by Jason Rice from Bussleton Water, and on concession verification by Jason Dagger from Goulburn Valley Water.

Presentations given by Thinking Windows of new application-wide functionality were warmly received and water corporations are now looking forward to delivery of the 9.1 release of AquaRate, AquaRead, AquaStats and AquaTact in November.

Quarterly Management meetings will be scheduled and will commence in November or December.

 

 

 

Thinking Windows is pleased to announce the appointment of Kalpesh Patel to our team.

Kalpesh has joined the .NET programming group and has very strong academic qualifications. He originally obtained a Bachelor of Computer Engineering and then followed this achievement with a Master of Information Technology. Kalpesh brings some experience in scientific areas and will be a welcome addition to the .NET team. You will be able to meet Kalpesh at the User Group meeting at the end of the month.
 

Trimble USA has published a case study on Goulburn Valley’s use of the Thinking Windows product Aquire. Trimble is a leading provider of advanced positioning solutions used around the globe. The case study has been very well received and will be re-published in a growing number of industry related on-line magazines.

You can read a copy of the case study by following the link below:
http://www.trimble.com/mgis/customer_stories.aspx


To download a copy in PDF format, please follow the following link:
http://trl.trimble.com/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-501654/022501-235_Goulburn%20Valley%20Water_CS_MGIS_0710_LR.pdf
 

In March 2010 Thinking Windows was approached by MadCap to participate in a customer case study. MadCap were so impressed by our take-up of the mobility help solution they wanted to publish our results to the software community at large. Thinking Windows was successful in deploying a fully functional help system to their mobile application Aquire. Whilst other companies piloted the MadCap software the staff at Thinking Windows powered forward and produced a production ready version.

You can view the case study from the link below:
http://www.madcapsoftware.com/casestudy/ThinkingWindows.aspx 

Thinking windows delivered the production copy of Aquire to Goulburn Valley Water last week and trained the meter readers responsible for running the system in the field. The readers were also trained in the rangefinder add-on component. The final copy of the software was delivered with mobile on-line help generated from Flare the latest program from the Madcap publishing suite. 

AquaZap has been upgraded to run the Actaris Bluetooth RF Master and was totally tested at Dinner Plain. This alpine village has been completely metered with Actaris Cybles and AquaZap was used to reset the retro fitted devices. Several different hand held devices were used: Psion Workabout Pro, TDS Nomad and the latest model from Getac. Many of the installations were in cellars or behind stone walls and the RF aerial was put through its paces. The Bluetooth adaptor was also tested thoroughly in this rugged terrain and it performed faultlessly.  

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