Introduction

The Glow Invitation Functionality is an approved method for onboarding energy consumers, where the energy consumer independently signs up for a Glow application, completing the verification process themselves, and then giving the organisation consent to access their data.

An organisation can then invite that energy consumer to share their energy data with them by using the Glow Invitation functionality.

This option is designed for organisations who do not want to integrate Glow Data Service into their own front end.

High level description of functionality

Upon request, Glow will provide access to the Invitation functionality for an organisation.

The organisation captures the email addresses that their energy consumers used to sign up for their own Glow accounts.

All email addresses will be added to a single csv file.

Using the Invitation functionality tab in the Support portal, the organisation user will upload the CSV file from Step 3.

The Glow system will then trigger invitations (sent via push notifications in the Bright app and email) to all people in Step 2 who are successfully signed up to Bright, asking them to provide their permission to Glow to share their data with the organisation.

The energy consumers will accept their invitations, upon which data is automatically shared.

During the process, the organisation can monitor statuses of the invitations via the Support portal.

The energy consumer can use their chosen Glow application(s) to monitor who they are sharing their energy consumption data with and revoke their consent to share with an organisation at any point.

If an energy consumer revokes their permission for Glow to retrieve their energy data, the organisation will no longer get their data either.

Requirements for use

The Invitation functionality must be activated for an organisation by the Glow team, either upon sign up or later on, if the functionality is requested.

The organisation must also provide a logo and content for the invitation message, to be delivered to the energy consumer.

Example invitation content

The following can be added to in order to suit the organisation's needs, but needs to include the details below. The energy consumer will then be presented with what they are agreeing to underneath the narrative paragraph.

Organisation's name would like to have access to your energy consumption data so that they can Purpose of data processing. We need you to confirm that you’re happy to share your smart meter data with Organisation's name.

I give consent for Hildebrand Technology Ltd to share my electricity and gas meter consumption data with Organisation's name.
I understand that Organisation's name will use this information to understand my household and energy use over time.
I understand that I can withdraw consent at any time within the Bright App.

Status descriptions

The below table shows the list of statuses applied to an energy consumer depending on their stage in the Invitation journey.

Status field identifier	Status field description
pending-user-registration	Waiting for energy consumer to register for a Glow application - for example, Bright.
pending-user-eligibility	Energy consumer has registered on Bright, but they have not been through the Bright Verification and consent process which gives Hildebrand the information required to start capturing data from their smart meter. This means they are not eligible to accept the invitation as they don't yet have any data.
pending-invite-acceptance	Energy consumer successfully receiving their consumption data and can be/has been invited to participate. Users will receive their invitations via the Bright app.
accepted-data-availability	Energy consumer has accepted invitation, at this point the organisation can get the data via the Dev Portal, etc.
invitation-dismissed	Energy consumer dismissed the invitation (the organisation never had access to the data).
permission-revoked	Energy consumer revoked the permission from the organisation to see their data. The organisation will no longer be revoked able to get the data for this user over the API.

Using the Invitation functionality

Initiation

The organisation will navigate to the Invitation tab in the Support Portal to upload a CSV file of email addresses. Once the CSV has been uploaded, it will return a correlating CSV file with the status of each email address.

If an email address exists in a Glow application and is verified, the energy consumer is immediately sent an invitation to share their data as an email and as a push message.

Acceptance is done within the Bright app (instructions in the email User receives).

Once data has been shared, the energy consumer can see who their data is shared with, and withdraw their sharing permission whenever they like.

When a energy consumer's data is shared with an organisation, the organisation will see their data update date set to today, and the energy consumer's invitation list in the Support portal will reflect the updated status against their email address.

Ongoing management

Energy consumers' whose email addresses have been uploaded recently, or are already in the system, are listed within the Invitations / Reporting screens with their current status.

Glow's systems run a nightly process to check if there have been any status changes (e.g. accepted invitation / signed up to Bright) and that status is automatically updated on the Support portal.

When an energy consumer says ’stop sharing’ the organisation can no longer see the user, their data or their data history. Their email address will still appear in the Invitation list, but now with an Account Revoked status.

If an energy consumer asks for their Glow account to be deleted, their email address will also be removed from the Invitation list, but the list would still have their accountID for reference purposes.

Please note that Glow occasionally have people ask to be deleted - sometimes they want everything related to them deleted, sometimes they just want data flow to stop - we vary the level of deletion based on what we are asked.

CSV format

The Support portal includes a template for the CSV upload.

We’ve designed the functionality for a new list of Invitations to work even if an email address was uploaded previously. The repeated email address will be ‘ignored’ if it is already on the Invitation list from a previous upload.

Invitation Functionality

Introduction#

High level description of functionality#

Requirements for use#

Example invitation content#

Status descriptions#

Using the Invitation functionality#

Initiation#

Ongoing management#

Energy consumer consent revocation#

CSV format#

Introduction

High level description of functionality

Requirements for use

Example invitation content

Status descriptions

Using the Invitation functionality

Initiation

Ongoing management

Energy consumer consent revocation

CSV format