Smart meter installation verification software with photo and GPS evidence

Why verification matters more than speed

A rollout's numbers are only as good as the jobs behind them. When an AMISP reports 1,000 installs for the week, the DISCOM is taking that on trust until something goes wrong: a consumer complains they never got a meter, a meter never commissions, or an audit finds two jobs with the same serial.

Most field teams are honest. Verification is mostly about the other problems: a technician who closed jobs from the depot to beat a target, a supervisor who batch-approved a day's work without opening it, a typo that sent a serial to the wrong account. The aim is a record you can stand behind, without accusing anyone.

What gets checked on every job

Photos with timestamps. Before-and-after photos of the meter, plus the seals. The photo fields can be made mandatory in the form, so a job can't be submitted without them.

Location, and how precise it is. Each job records a GPS fix with its accuracy, so a reviewer can tell a precise fix from a rough guess. PIEBENCH also tracks GPS accuracy per technician over time, so a pattern of poor fixes stands out.

Location checked against the record. If the service points came from billing with coordinates, an auto-approval rule can compare the job's GPS fix with the service point's stored location, and approve or reject the job automatically depending on the result. The rules are configurable: they can match any value captured in the field against any existing property of the record, so location is one example among many. Auto-approval rules are part of the Pro plan.

The meter itself. The serial is scanned from the barcode, which removes most transcription errors. If a serial already exists in the project, the job is refused. That one rule catches copy-paste mistakes and recycled photos before they reach commissioning.

Seals. Seal numbers have their own fields and their own photo, because a seal is often the first thing checked when a meter is suspected of tampering later.

Your own checks. Every AMISP and DISCOM has its own idea of proof: a consumer confirmation, a photo of the meter box, a reading on the old meter. Because the forms are configurable, any of these can be added as a required step without going back to a developer.

Scout records the GPS position and its accuracy with every job, so the office can check the meter is where the record says.

How the review works

1. The crew submits. The job leaves the phone with all its evidence attached, or waits on the phone until there is signal.
2. It lands in the approval queue. Supervisors see pending jobs with their photos, location and serials in one place.
3. Approve, or reject with a note. A rejection carries a note saying what is wrong, such as "seal photo unreadable" or "final reading missing". The technician sees the note in the app and knows exactly what to fix.
4. Rules handle the routine. On the Pro plan, auto-approval rules can pass jobs that meet your criteria, so supervisors spend their time on the exceptions instead of clicking through clean jobs.
5. Approved means verified. The approval status stays on the job, so the number you report can be the verified number, not the submitted one.

Paying installers for verified work

Many AMISPs pay installation agencies, and agencies pay crews, per meter. The fairest basis for that is a meter that passed review, not one that was merely submitted.

Because every job carries an approval status and is tied to a technician, a team and, where you use them, a contractor, PIEBENCH holds the data you need to count verified installs per agency for a period. Filter approved jobs by contractor and date in Smart Views to get that count.

Catching problems early, not at month end

A verification process that only runs at the end of the month finds problems after they have multiplied. In PIEBENCH, rejections are visible the same day. Smart Views can show rejections by crew, so if one crew's rejection rate climbs on a Tuesday, a supervisor can be on site by Wednesday.

Attendance closes the loop. Selfie and GPS check-in shows who was actually in the field, and stationary-agent detection flags a technician whose phone has not moved for a long stretch during working hours.

Accountability without the blame

Everything above leaves a trail. Each approval, rejection and edit is recorded in an audit log, and access is split across seven roles, so a crew member can't approve their own work. When a dispute comes up months later, the answer is a lookup, not an argument.

Plans with approvals start at $199/month; auto-approval rules are part of Pro. See pricing.