Forty‑two days. One clear goal: make home electrification feel simple for households and scale for installers and retailers. Today we’re shipping the Customer Portal built on our 42 platform (PIM + pricebook + APIs) and moving into a full review phase with flagship customers.
Below is a retrospective of what we built, how it works, what we learned, and what’s next—written in a clear, engineering‑first style.
Insert: Co‑branded portal with single address field and stepper (Eligibility → Personalise → Save), plus supporting cards for “Recommended Plans” and “Bundle Details.”
Alt text: Co‑branded energy portal showing address entry and sample results, with supporting cards for recommended plans and bundle details.
What’s shipping today
Customer Portal (co‑branded, responsive)
Mobile → tablet → desktop templates; preset sections; fast theming for partner domains.
Address → Eligibility → Personalise → Save
A calm, linear journey. Eligibility “grade” in seconds, best‑practice savings maths, and save without an account (magic‑link).
History + Quote Vault
Everything you tried, saved, and compared—reopen any quote exactly as you left it.
Savings calculator with VDO/DMO alignment
Transparent assumptions and plan rules in the flow. Numbers you can trust.
Retailer / Channel Partner (CP) capabilities
- PIM + central pricebook with postcode pricing and bundle rules (plans, solar, batteries, upgrades).
- Early Retailer/CP dashboard and bundle detail UI (responsive).
- Plan Hustler page connected to Channel Partner and Retailers APIs (list, filters, mapping, compare).
- APIs & plumbing
Multi‑tenant, API‑first portal/plan endpoints, CRM/webhook hooks, and Remote Config for safe changes.
How it works (consumer)
- Enter your address → see if we serve your area (with a readable reason if not).
- Get an eligibility grade and recommended options.
- Optional: add usage/bill to personalise; the maths updates instantly.
- Optional: Personalise further, adding home details to create uniqueness to the consumer's estimate and quotes.
- Save a quote via email (no account forms).
- Reopen via History and compare in your Quote Vault.
- Hand off to the installer/retailer with all the context attached.
Why it feels different: fewer forms, transparent maths, progress saved. No cold calls. No guesswork.
How it works (installer & retailer)
- One source of truth: products, bundles, and pricing live in the PIM + pricebook.
- Postcode pricing: rule‑based price management across service regions.
- Compliance built‑in: VDO/DMO‑aware calculations and factsheet alignment.
- Lead hand‑off with context: address, grade, usage/bill (if provided), chosen bundle.
- Syndication: co‑branded portals on your domain, embeddable widgets, CRM/webhooks, and APIs.
Result: install‑ready leads, fewer back‑and‑forths, faster closes.
Under the hood (engineering notes)
- Data & compliance
Plan sync workflow (cost calculation step, retailer filters).
Factsheet/VEFS URL pattern collection; NTC mapping structure.
Compliance docs with evidence; ongoing rule clarifications captured. - Performance & reliability
DB caching service; security hardening.
Billing monitoring dashboards; deploy notifications.
Remote Config toggles for safe behaviour flips. - Observability
Analytics for funnel, dashboards, and Telemetry wiring.
AI observability/evaluation. - Auth & transport
Magic‑link saves; integration work.
WebSocket groundwork for live UI updates. - Automation & tooling
Workflow automation on prod.
Style extraction pipeline (puppeteer‑free approach with Firecrawl/AI Studio) to speed co‑branding. - QA discipline
Rolling QA Charter; proxies; research; bug tracker burn‑down.
What we learned (the honest bits)
- Compliance is a system, not a checkbox.
VDO/DMO and plan rules need evidence, versioning, and transparency inside the UI. - Data quality drives trust.
Cleaning CEC datasheets (logos/specs/URLs), mapping NTCs, and validating factsheet patterns improved recommendations more than any single design tweak. - Mobile first isn’t optional.
Responsive templates and lightweight interactions raised save‑rates and reduced bounce. - Edge cases make or break the feeling.
Clear “No exact match” states and understandable fallbacks matter as much as happy‑path polish. - Velocity needs instrumentation.
We shipped fast because we watched the funnel (save‑rate, eligible→personalise) and latencies in real time.
What’s next (full review phase)
- Flagship onboarding
Turn on co‑branded portals with postcode pricing and savings calculator; run measured pilots. - Retailer/CP dashboard
Mature the “operate the funnel” view: saves, personalise clicks, quote acceptance, and hand‑off health. - Compliance & evidence
Finalise rule docs (with citations), tighten DMO/VDO deltas, and improve factsheet ingestion. - Agent portal & mobile
Progress the agent‑assist experience (human + AI) and define the mobile baseline. - CP sub‑views
Scoped partner views for subsets of catalogues and campaigns. - OpenTelemetry everywhere
Broaden traces/metrics to surface wins and regressions faster.
Thank you
To the team that shipped through holidays, standups, refactors, and late‑night fixes—thank you. To early partners who tested rough edges and still leaned in—thank you. This is what it looks like when product, design, and engineering pull in the same direction.
See it for yourself
We’re opening a small number of co‑branded portal slots during review. If you want install‑ready leads powered by a single PIM + pricebook + API engine, book a 20‑minute preview.
42/42 isn’t the finish line—it’s the point where real customers step through the front door. Let’s go.
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