The ewz district heating information tool FIT
The starting point
The Problem
Anyone wanting to know whether their property could join an energy network, and what that would cost, phoned ewz or sent an email. The answer was put together by hand, with the price worked out in Excel. On top of that: an information tool drawing on third-party geodata and a shared design system goes out of date by itself as soon as one of those foundations changes.
The Solution
Today prospective customers do it themselves. The tool checks the address against the energy network areas, calculates the connection price and, on request, produces a draft contract with everything ewz sales needs to process it. The platform is kept current continuously rather than renewed in jumps.
The implementation
From the address field to the draft contract, embedded in the ewz website:
Five steps to a draft contract
Check the address, request a connection, calculate the price, receive the price, get in touch. The address entered is validated and located against official swisstopo data. If it falls inside an ewz energy network, the tool leads through the matching steps.
Price calculation per energy network
The connection price follows from the property's heating and cooling demand. Three energy networks calculate it online; for the others the tool leads to the documents. In Altstetten-Höngg the higher of the heating and cooling connection counts, elsewhere the sum of both.
A building block in the website, not a separate island
The tool is a micro frontend component inside the ewz CMS and can be placed on any page. The address search field is also available on its own, as an entry point from a subject page.
Operated by the City of Zurich, maintained by ewz
The application runs as a container on the City of Zurich platform. Through a back office with single sign-on against the ewz IAM, staff upload geodata, metadata and pricing formulas themselves.
Measurable outcomes
Self-service for prospective customers, and a platform ewz keeps in its own hands:
From phone call to self-service
Check the network area, calculate the connection price, request a draft contract: what used to run through phone calls, emails and an Excel calculation, prospective customers now do themselves. Because the draft already holds every relevant detail, ewz sales processes it considerably faster.
Platform maintained without interruption
Third-party interfaces and the design system change constantly. Over ten months: 20 releases, two swisstopo interface changes absorbed, and the design system kept current.
Modern technologies
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Talk to us
Michael — A tool that gives prospective customers a reliable answer — and stays maintained when the foundations change. Michael will be glad to advise you.