The Buses tab contains the following information about your fleet: Customer, Bus Name, Soft Limit, Charge Controller Ids, Gateway Serial Number, Fleet Name, Vehicle Model, Configuration, VIN, Customer, Type, and Details. Clicking on the Details icon will reveal more in-depth information about the desired vehicle. Clicking on the Manage icon will allow you to edit Depot Related Information and Vehicle Information. The Manage icon also contains information about the Telematics Gateway, Body Controller, Powertrain Controller, ESM Controller, Charge Controllers, and Battery Packs.
Clicking on a vehicle entry will populate the right-hand Bus Summary tab which has basic information about the vehicle and a map showing the vehicle’s current location.
Using the search bar, you can search for vehicles with specific characteristics. For example, typing E2-2d in the search bar will isolate buses with E2-2d configuration. You can also specify the number of vehicles shown on each page using the Show [ ] entries dropdown menu. You can download vehicle information as a CSV file by selecting the CSV button at the bottom of the page.
The Chargers tab contains the following information about your chargers: Customer, Customer Type, Charger Name, Charger Model, PCS S/N, MDJB S/N, Dispenser S/N, and OCPP ID. Clicking on the Manage icon will allow you to view Charger Information, CradlePoint Information, OCPP Server URL, and Additional Information. Selecting the Config button will reveal information about the Charger Configuration. If there is a green + next to the charger entry, it is a multi-dispenser charger. Selecting the green + icon will reveal information about the individual dispensers.
Clicking on a charger entry will populate the right-hand Charger Summary tab which has basic information about the charger and a map showing the charger’s location.
Using the search bar, you can search for chargers with specific characteristics. You can also specify the number of chargers shown on each page using the Show [ ] entries dropdown menu. You can download charger information as a CSV file by selecting the CSV button at the bottom of the page.
A Customer is a unique organization that operates chargers. Every charger is associated with a customer and every user who has access to log in to the platform is tied to a specific customer. When a user logs in, only those chargers tied to the same customer as the user are visible to that user.
Valence has the ability to create a hierarchical relationship between customers. Administrators can create a parent/child relationship between customers in a many-to-many structure.
Users with appropriate privileges can create a Customer using the Management > Customers and Users page.
To create a customer:
Log in as a user with appropriate permissions
Navigate to Management > Customers and Users
Click the Add New Customer button
Complete the Add New Customer Organization form (refer to the table below for an explanation of each field)
Click the Save button
Field | Description |
|---|---|
Customer name | Provide a unique name for the customer. This name will be used to identify the customer throughout the product. |
Customer type | This is a categorization that impacts the types of features that are possible to offer to this customer |
Feature template | Determines the list of features available for this customer. The list of available feature templates is determined by the customer type. You can select multiple feature templates and the customer is provided the superset of available features. |
Customer internal acronym | Unique short code. DIsplayed on some pages along with customer name. |
Address | Physical address for the customer. |
System of measure | Indicate metric or imperial unit of measure. This determines the unit of measure used to display distance and temperature in the product. |
Select parent | By selecting a parent for a customer, you indicate that the parent is entitled to view data from this customer. You can select multiple parents customers. |
You can create parent child relationships between customers to reflect organizational hierarchies. Parent customers can view the assets of child customers. In multi-level organizations, parent customers can view all child customer assets.
A child customer can have multiple parent customers to enable multiple organizations to view data. For example a customer representing a school district can be tied to a local Bus dealer as one parent, and the relevant utility as another parent, providing both the Dealer and the utility access to that schools data. The Bus Dealer may be a parent of multiple individual schools, and the Vehicle OEM may in turn be a parent of that and other Dealers to view many schools.
Administrators for a customer organization can manage users for their organization. The Customers and Users tab allows you to view and edit information about customer organizations and Valence users. For each customer, the tab contains the Customer Name, Fleet Name, the date when the information was Last Updated, and the Customer type. Selecting the green + icon will reveal information about the users for that specific Customer organization.
Valence offers two roles for customer user accounts: Admin and User.
The admin role provides the most privileges and provides the ability to create other users within the customer organization. The User role is a read only role that provides access to view data but not edit records.
Select Customers & Users from the Valence Menu. Click on an entry. This will cause a panel similar to the one below to appear
Click the “Add Users” button. This will cause a popup dialog to appear.
Fill in First Name, Last Name, and Email. You can use the “Address same as customer” checkbox to fill in the Address with the organization address. Alternatively, type in an address specific to the user.
Click “Done” to add the new user. The new user will appear in the list.
Adding a user will prompt an email to be sent to the new user.
The new user should click on the “Set up new password” button included in the email. This will direct the new user to the following Change Password screen.
The new user should fill in a password and password confirmation. Password requirements will appear on the screen while typing. After clicking the “Change Password” button, Valence will launch in that browser window.
Select the “Add New Admin” button from the screen to initiate the process of adding a backup admin user. The process follows similarly to the process of adding a new read-only user.
Note: it is best practice for most day-to-day operations to be performed by read-only users.
Select the “Manage” button:
To Edit: All fields except the User Email field can be edited. Press “Done” to save the changes.
To Delete: Press the “Delete” button to remove the user from Valence. This action will be followed by confirmation dialogs. Click through them. When complete, the user should be removed from the screen.