Bug report from our first Saving Session, November 15
It’s Octopus tradition to share a ‘bug report’ internally when something goes wrong. This time, we wanted to share it with you.
Directly as our first Saving Session ended on November 15th, a message reading ‘We couldn’t retrieve your readings’ inadvertently appeared online for anyone who took part . This wasn't correct: it takes at least 12 hours to get hold of your readings. But it caused a fair bit of stress for customers who'd just done a really awesome thing to help the grid. So we wanted to explain what happened.
After the incredible response to our first saving sessions event, a few of you may have seen a confusing message on your dashboard, saying that we couldn’t retrieve readings from your meter for the session.
This wasn’t actually the case, and I wanted to take a second to explain what we’d done wrong and how we fixed it right away after you pointed it out.
Here's what some people spotted on their dashboard after the Session:
Did anyone else get the clock of doom? @SavingSessions @OctopusEnergy pic.twitter.com/RF52HXIVw9
— Sarah Go Green💚 (@sarah_go_green) November 15, 2022
What should have happened once the event ended was for our dashboard to go into “calculating” mode. This is the thing you’re now seeing, as it takes us a bit of time to retrieve your readings and crunch the numbers to generate OctoPoints. Instead, there was an incorrect check in place in this logic. This check meant that, while the machine was checking if it should go into that “calculating” state, it performed a check to also ask if there were missing readings on the event.
Our system was sending a message to our dashboard saying that there were missing readings, which was technically true (clever octobot!), but it’s not something our dashboard should worry about until after the event has finished and been calculated (silly octobot!). This meant that, at the time you saw the dashboard, and indeed during any Saving Session, the check for the calculating state shouldn’t be worrying about the existence of missing readings.
As soon as you spotted it and let us know, we adjusted that check to ensure that it doesn’t happen again in future sessions. We also sent out a tweet to show you what you should, and would soon be, seeing, and emailed to confirm it as well.
Big, huge Saving Session Sorry from us. This is what you were all supposed to see when your first Session ended.
— Octopus Energy (@OctopusEnergy) November 15, 2022
We've *NOT* missed your meter readings – you'll get your results within 48 hours and we're getting this incorrect message fixed ASAP. pic.twitter.com/N2pAldbfIt
Every Session the tech team is moving fast to make the experience even better - some of us were even taking part too, and had the lights off coding in the dark!
We’re massively grateful for your understanding and patience as we keep improving it and letting us know when we’ve gotten it a bit wrong. We really hope you enjoyed the first Session (and your newly earned OctoPoints), and we can’t wait for the next event!
Published on 17th November 2022 by:
Hey I'm Constantine, welcome to Octopus Energy!
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