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Table of Contents:

Project Description 3

Primary Project Goal: 5

Key Project Objectives 5

Future Project Improvements 6

Contributor Objectives 6

Environmental Scan/Literature Review: 7

Client/End User: 8

Approach/Methodology: 9

Ethical Concerns: 10

Sources: 11
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Project Description:

The residential solar industry is a relatively new one. The first residential home system

was installed in 2000. It was not until 2006 when the California Public Utilities Commission

passed the California Solar Initiative, which provided incentives over the next 10 years that

residential solar truly became affordable. Ever since the price of installing a residential solar

system has continued to drop with advanced in technology and subsidies from governments

abroad in Europe and China. Business models for acquisition of equipment, funding and

financing, and project management have continued to evolve. This has led to sales and project

models that do not follow traditional retail or construction processes and in turn created a hole in

business systems needed to help facilitate the unusual process involved in installing a residential

solar system.

In recent years the most common financing method for purchase of a residential

installation is called third party operation (TPO). Companies like SolarCity and Sunrun are the

most prominent examples of companies that have offered TPO solutions. Before its acquisition

by Tesla, SolarCity performed its own installations, that acquisition has allowed Sunrun to

become the country’s leading TPO provider, which works with independent installer “partners”.

This group of independent, small to medium business, installers is sometimes referred to as “the

long tail”.

The long tail of installers is the target market for the business that I work for. The result

is a very different business model where an installer works directly with a homeowner, but the

installation is eventually paid to the installer by the financing company, in phases as a project

completes milestones. In addition to the installer and the financier, a solar installation can also
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include an originator, and an integrator. The originator can be a company that helps to originate a

project through marketing and can sometimes help to manage a project. An integrator is a third

party that acts as a middle man, managing the process and helping a customer to find a financier,

and installer, that can also come from an originator.

The difficulty for most solar installers using business systems such as quickbooks or

another ERP is that most ERP systems are designed to work through a standard business to

customer or business to business model where goods are purchased and then paid for in full

using cash or terms. Solar installations provide a challenge in the payments being made by a

third party and in phases rather than in one bulk payment. Each payment is made upon

completion of certain milestones in the projects completion such as signed contracts, installation

of the system, approval by the utility, etc. A way to manage when payments are to be made and

the paperwork needed for each milestone is needed industry wide. Installers often manage this

process through spreadsheets and meticulous manual management. This can often lead to errors

where payments are not made and invoices not collected due to lost or mishandled paperwork.

The goal of Blue Banyan Solutions is to create a business ERP solution through NetSuite,

a cloud based ERP owned by Oracle, for solar installers that helps to enable better management

of paperwork, project milestones, invoicing, payments to be made. The scope of this project is

one piece to help accountants to manage project cash flow through a custom page that performs a

what-if cashflow analysis. This is done through a saved set of statistics, saved daily, on the

length of time it takes on average for projects to move through each milestone based on project

type (through an integrator or not), the financing type (loan, cash, TPO, etc.), and installation

state. Since contract amounts are signed in the beginning of each project, the payment for each
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milestone is predefined, which allows for a reasonable predictor for incoming project revenue.

The what-if cash flow analysis allows a user to see what happens to cash if the time between

milestone completions is decreased or increased based on operational efficiency, or a change in

the number of projects using different financing methods, or other variables.

Primary Project Goal:

The primary project goal is to create a way for accounting users of the ERP Solution to

be have a forward looking view project revenue and expenses based on milestone payments and

receivables with the ability to manipulate key assumptions and see the effect on cash coming in

and out of the business. In solar installation, this can be accomplished by looking at the interval

between milestone completion dates as these are when payment are made and cash collected

from customers/financiers. Changing the intervals can be changed through a number of

operational changes such as using different financiers, utility companies, states, cities, etc. that

are able to process paperwork quicker, and thus decrease the overall amount of time it takes to

complete an individual installation/project.

Key Project Objectives:

The following are a list of primary milestones that must be completed before the custom,

what-if, page can be created as they are used to collect the data that will be used in the analysis.
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The Dashboard KPI’s are created so that quick snapshots can be used by high level users to get

an idea of the trend the business is taking with regard to project processing and completion and

its effect on cashflow.

➔ A table where project statistics can be stored

➔ A script which collects the project statistics and saves them to the aforementioned table.

➔ Custom What-if Cashflow analysis page.

➔ Dashboard KPI’s showing projected cash-flow for revenue and expenses that can be run

by consumers and loaded into dashboards for improved user experience.

Future Project Improvements:

- Additional dashboard visualization through custom charts (will be built simultaneously,

but not part of this project)

- Additional variables in the cashflow analysis to allow for greater visibility into impact of

project changes.

Contributor Objectives:

- Gain experience and knowledge of javascript through NetSuite API’s 1.0 & 2.0 and

javascript asynchronous module definition (AMD).

- Gain knowledge of REST programming.

- Gain experience with software configuration management with git through bitbucket and

sourcetree.
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- Gain experience with process documentation using confluence.

- Gain experience with SCRUM management using JIRA.

Environmental Scan/Literature Review:

Customizing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) information management system for

the needs of the solar industry is not a new idea, but because the solar industry contains a varied

amount of players with different requirements and the long tail of solar installers is generally

made up of many small businesses with small budgets, they have been largely forgotten.

Some ERP systems with customizations for the solar industry do exist, but they largely

focus on larger players where the budgets are larger and more profit can be gained from a

smaller client base. Actis by Alectris is a system designed to help manage and monitor multiple

commercial or utility sized solar installations after installation is complete. Adeaca is a company

that has created a custom solution through Microsoft’s ERP, Dynamics 365, but is not solar

specific, but built for construction in general. It also is marketed towards companies that

complete large utility and commercial sized projects. Solar residential installations require

documentation and approvals that are specific to solar such as approval from the local utility to

operate a system that feeds back into the local power grid, local permitting, solar specific

financiers require unique documentation before payments are made, site audits for determination

if a solar installation would be appropriate for the residence in question, among others. The large

number of documents from multiple parties that must be accounted for and easily accessible for

review and audit make for unique needs that have not been met by existing ERP systems and

platforms. The solar industry is at its core, a small one, with many people being connected.
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This project in itself is a small piece of the overall solution and based on the specifics of

the cashflow projection custom page, and its basis on a custom project record for solar

installations makes this a completely unique project.

Client/End User:

The client and end user will be blue banyan solutions and their clients respectively. The

client will guide the kind of user experience that the end user is meant to have. As there are not

any end users yet, but will be in the coming months, some last minute changes to design may

occur. Final testing will be performed by co-workers, but eventually will be by end users.

The end users are to be solar installers that are looking for efficiencies in operation

through a better approach to project management specifically tailored to solar installation. This

includes being able to better manage paperwork required, in process, and requiring review. This

also helps different users throughout the company to better manage the chain of events and the

order in which they must happen. The project for the capstone project, the what-if cashflow

analysis, will help managers to predict cashflow coming in and leaving the business. This will

give better visibility into what types of projects result in more rapid completion, and areas of

concern that can be focused on in order to help the business to become more efficient as well as

the effect on cash coming into and out of the business should efficiencies improve. This can be

used to decide on the return on investment for potential purchases for things such as design

software, hiring additional people, etc.

Blue Banyan solutions will use the what-if cashflow page as a selling feature for the

custom solution being built for solar installers. If completed well this will help to entice
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additional customers to sign up which brings in additional revenue to the company through

implementation and rates for continued service.

Approach/Methodology:

The approach for project completion through blue banyan solution is SCRUM based and

uses sprints in two week intervals using a suite of apps from Atlassian software including JIRA,

confluence, and bitbucket. The scripting that must be used to complete the project is done with

javascript APIs from NetSuite and Oracle SQL.

Blue Banyan Solutions development for the solar success project is currently being done

using SCRUM with 2 week long sprints due to the long period of time it takes for full regression

testing it takes to QA each story. This process starts in confluence where discovery is done and

documentation is made. Once the story has been fully documented a JIRA ticket, with a type of

story, is created and added to the sprint during sprint planning meetings. If the ticket is made and

it is determined during sprint planning to be insufficient, additional grooming may be required

and time is dedicated during every 2 week cycle to groom incomplete stories. Each story or bug

JIRA ticket goes through stages of “To do”, “In Progress”, “QA”, and “Pending Deployment”.

All of these stages must be completed with documentation in order to be marked completed

during the current sprint.

A github account has been created through atlassian as well called Bitbucket. Branches

can be made for each ticket being worked on. Methodology for how repositories and tickets are

worked on is generally left up the preference of each developer, although nearly, if not, everyone

creates branches for each feature (JIRA ticket) being worked on and then creates local
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repositories for each branch being used. While, as a group, forking branches has been discussed,

it has not been utilized by anyone at present. Currently the branches created with the names of

the tickets allows for automatic links to be created between Bitbucket and JIRA showing

branches with current pull requests and status.

Custom scripting in NetSuite is done through two javascript API’s developed by NetSuite

specifically for this purpose. They are called SuiteScript 1.0 and 2.0. NetSuite began in 1997 and

SuiteScript 1.0 has been in use for much of that time. In 2015 SuiteScript 2.0 was made available

for general use by NetSuite developers. SuiteScript 2.0 uses the asynchronous module definition

(​AMD​) API to allow the user to access objects and methods within the system. It is expected at

some point in the future NetSuite will stop supporting SuiteScript 1.0 and any scripts that exists

will be required to be re-written in a more current SuiteScript API version and thus when

possible it is preferable to re-write existing 1.0 scripts into 2.0. Documentation for SuiteScript

can be found on NetSuite’s website for (and only accessible to) users called SuiteAnswers and in

API documentation​ for SuiteScript 2.0.

Ethical Concerns:

As technology and data in general have become more widespread, the consequence has

been destruction of long standing companies that refused to change. Netflix, amazon, itunes, and

uber have all been blamed for the downfall of their competition. One area that has not been

looked at with at a granular level is the long term impact of mass use of residential solar. It is not

uncommon to hear about the loss of revenue by large power companies like PG&E, but little
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attention has been given to the granular challenges that installers face on a day to day basis

because the installers are small, dispersed, and lacking in representation.

A possible side effect of better visibility into the project management process is

highlighting of areas in solar installation that are causing projects to stall as customers wait for

paperwork to be completed and/or permission to operate. This could come in the form of cities

that do not prioritize permits for solar installations, utilities that take months to give permission

to operate, or financiers that do not process and make payments on time. This in turn will cause a

reluctance to work with certain companies or cities that drag out the process and thus payments

for the installers.

This tool, as it is designed, helps a small business to look into the average time it takes to

achieve milestones, the effect on incoming and outgoing cash flow, and what would happen if

the average times shrink or grow. These improvements are likely to come in the form of

reluctance or outright refusal to work with players unwilling to complete their end of the process

in a timely manner. For installers that are under contract to complete projects within a given

timeframe in order to receive payment, timely action is imperative. This could mean taking less

work in a certain area because of a challenging utility company, discontinuing work with a

particular financier, or no longer taking work in a particular city. Residential solar is a relatively

young industry with an innovative and different business model that does not fit in well to

established business software traditionally used to provide business analytics and inefficiencies

within the industry have been allowed to slide by as a result.

As the industry matures, the data does become more readily available, and the pressure to

achieve metrics and quotas becomes possible, the reluctance to work with certain companies or
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in certain areas could make residential solar unaffordable or nearly impossible to attain because

there are no installers willing to do the installation. Additionally, this could help to perpetuate

cycles of poverty in areas where cities are not funded well enough to have efficient and timely

processing of paperwork or performance of inspections. Given that many of these areas of

inequitable poverty fall into areas populated by minority groups, this could also exacerbate the

inequality between the rich and non-rich as well as minorities.

Implications of increased data gathering and process efficiency are still only theoretical,

the actual outcomes will have to be seen as progress continues. If it does turn out to be the case

that utilities or municipalities dragging their heels is a problem serious enough that businesses

avoid them to increase profitability, it will need to be taken to court or solved through legislation.

In order for there to be any progress in helping additional groups to get solar installations, data

must be gathered to present as evidence and the need for better, specialized systems remains.

Project Scope:

Timeline/Budget

Blue Banyan Solutions works in 2 week long sprints with the use of Atlassian tools JIRA
to manage stories and epics within each sprint.

Timeline for deliverables is as follows:

Sprint 6​ (completed 3/28) 80

● Create cashflow statistics custom record population script in SS2
● Update project statistics custom table fields
● Update reporting used for populating fields in scripts, deleting records to use new fields
● Update reporting to handle upsert records for that day if they already exist.
● Update cash flow kpi for potential customer demonstrations
● Data cleaning so test data will be realistic in demo/dev environments
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Sprint 8​ (ends 4/25) 10

● Technical debt - fixing ID’s to match changed names

Sprint 9​ (ends 5/9) 40

● Custom What-if cashflow analysis page. (created via script)
● Add charts for cashflow data
Sprint 10​ (ends 5/23) 40
● Add submit button and data recalculation to script
Sprint 11 ​(ends 6/4) 30
● Dashboard KPI’s showing projected cash-flow for revenue and expenses that can be run
by consumers and loaded into dashboards for improved user experience.

Resources Needed:

All resources needed are provided as part of employment. This includes permissions for

JIRA, NetSuite, NetSuite API Documentation, and hardware such as a laptop. Office and internet

connection provided by the employee.

Milestones:

The milestones for this project are needed in order so that it can be completed. This starts

with the custom table (known in NetSuite as a custom record) to hold the project statistics and

the script to populate the table. This is followed by the reporting the calculates the future revenue

and expenses for the existing project pipeline for the next 0-30, 31-60, and 61-90 days. Then the

custom page with html elements required for the script needed to populate it. At the end is

dashboard charts and key performance indicators that are required for users to be able to easily

access the data.

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Risks and Dependencies:

Risks that could potentially delay this project’s completion are NetSuite downtime, last

minute scope changes, or design flaws that come out during development. Team members are

readily available for unforeseen complications any day during work and timely communication is

expected.

While each milestone is dependent on the previous for completion, the entire project is

nearly independent from the rest of the overall solution with the exception of the project record

itself. The table holding the statistics and reporting used to populate it depend on project data

being available. The following pieces: the script to convert the reporting into project statistics

records, the custom page, the table for the custom page records, and dashboard charts and key

performance indicators are dependent on on the project statistics record being completed and

having relevant data to use in calculations.

Final Deliverables:

Final deliverables are the same as the milestones. While the end goal is the what-if

analysis custom page, all pieces leading up to it are expected to be completed before the final

product.

Usability Testing/Evaluation

Initial testing is a shared responsibility between the developers and analysts as time

allows. This is completed as part of the sprint process for individual stories. Each story cannot be

marked as complete unless it has been tested by another team member. For complex situational
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based testing, use cases are written up in confluence for each scenario to be marked as complete.

In this case however, there are no scenarios aside from entry of erroneous data to the what-if

analysis that could change the outcome.

Additional regression testing is completed using test scripts that create test data and

mature projects which are reviewed by analysts for errors. Currently, there are no customers

using this product and it is expected that in the future. additional validation will be provided by

end users.

Sources:

“Amd Javascript Module Loader.” ​Why AMD?​, requirejs.org/docs/whyamd.html.

Mond, Allison. “SolarCity Is No Longer the Top Residential Solar Lease Provider in the US.”
Greentech Media​, Greentech Media, 15 Nov. 2017,
www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/solarcity-is-no-longer-the-top-residential-solar-lea
se-provider-in-the-us#gs.Ezf9HI8.

“The History of Solar.” ​The History of Solar​, US Department of Energy,

www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pdfs/solar_timeline.pdf.