Connection application status, answered like a parcel tracker — the step, who holds it, the expected date and what is still missing
Status, next step and missing documents, answered instantly.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Developers, builders, installers and consultant engineers ask the same three questions about a new connection: where is it, what happens next, and what do you still need from me. The portal shows a status code, not what it means. So they phone and e-mail the connection coordinators, who look each one up across the application system, the design team's queue and the deficiency notices, and answer by hand. In the demo utility, Lumina, that was 2,940 status calls to coordinators in July.
Missing documents are the other half. A deficiency notice is a PDF attached to an e-mail, and the applicant often cannot tell which item is wanted, to what standard, or where to send it. Before launch the median wait for a missing document was 12.4 days, while the design clock sat paused and the energisation date moved a working day for every day of waiting. And when the utility's own design or survey team is behind, the developer usually finds out first, by calling.
Estimated split of the 12.4-day median wait for a missing document before launch, and of the 3-day target with the solution, in days.
Six specialist agents read the record, explain what is missing and check uploads in the answer; the coordinator accepts.
Marsa Heights, Tower B (APP-20931) is a new building on Plot 418-22, Saltmarsh Quarter: 214 apartments, 6 shops, 48 EV charging bays and a new 11 kV substation, 2 × 1,500 kVA. On 29 Sep the network designer found that the load schedule left out the EV bays. Here is what happens on Tue 13 Oct, in the working solution.
Leila's screen shows applicants, consultants and the contact centre asking now, each conversation with its state: answered, upload received, handed to a person, or Lumina late and told plainly. For APP-20931 the history is the familiar one: deficiency notice DN-4471 sent by e-mail on 29 Sep, reminders on 2 and 7 Oct, and two calls from the developer, Karim Haddad.
9 Oct: “Karim called the contact centre — ‘what exactly is missing’, 7 min”
Karim has 6 open applications with Lumina, 1 waiting on him. He asks where Marsa Heights, Tower B is. The answer shows the seven steps — received 17 Aug, documents checked 20 Aug, site survey 3 Sep, network design now — and who holds it: “You — revised load schedule (notice DN-4471)”, since 29 Sep. Lumina's design clock is paused at day 6 of 10.
“Energisation is expected 11 Dec if we have it by 15 Oct; each working day later moves it by a day.”
Under the tracker, “What we need from you” leads with the document: a revised load schedule, stamped by the consultant engineer, that includes the 48 EV charging bays on drawing A-104. It lists the four things it must show — the bays with charger rating and charging control, total connected load and maximum demand in kVA, the stamp and signature, one PDF. A citation opens notice DN-4471 at the passages the answer used; the notice itself points to guide §5.2.
Never relaxes or adds a requirement — every item cites the notice or the guide.
Karim drops MarsaHeights-B_LoadSchedule_rev3.pdf, 412 KB, into the answer. Four checks pass while he watches: the 48 EV bays at 7.4 kW, load-managed to 220 kVA at peak; maximum demand 2,180 kVA, up from 1,960 in rev 2; stamped and signed by Sara Lindqvist of Arcline Engineering Consultants on 12 Oct; and it fits the planned 2 × 1,500 kVA substation at 73% at maximum demand.
“With Leila Mansour to accept — usually within the hour. You will see it here.”
Leila gets one item in her queue: load schedule rev 3, 4 of 4 checks passed. She accepts it. The assistant tells Karim straight away: network design restarts tomorrow, 14 Oct, at day 7 of 10; design due 19 Oct, connection offer by 26 Oct, and energisation still expected 11 Dec.
The document checker never accepts a document — the coordinator does.
APP-20931 now carries the whole story in order: received with 14 documents, the survey report SR-20931, the notice, both reminders, both calls, the question, the upload and the acceptance. The documents list marks load schedule rev 2 as replaced and rev 3 as accepted, and the step's clock shows day 6 of 10 with 4 working days left.
Questions about this application since 29 Sep: 2 phone calls, 11 min of coordinator and agent time · 1 e-mail · 1 question to the assistant.
Faisal Noor of Cedar Lane Homes calls about water at Cedar Lane Villas, APP-20518. Ruth sees the same tracker the applicant would: step 4 of 7, water main design, day 12 of a 10-day clock. Yusuf Rahman, who leads the water design team, has it, a call-back is booked for Wed 14 Oct, and water on is now expected 18 Dec — two weeks later than first given.
Suggested words for the caller: “We are two working days late on the design. Our team lead will call you on Wednesday with the new date.”
Clocks lists the 29 Lumina-held steps within two working days of their service clock or past it: 23 near, 6 past. For Cedar Lane Villas the escalation to Yusuf Rahman gives the reason — the survey batch of 22 Sep landed on one designer, with two designers on leave — and confirms the applicant has been told in every answer since the clock passed.
The rule: a Lumina-held step goes to its team lead two working days before its clock, and to the head of customer connections, Hamid Qureshi, on the day it passes.
Hana Kobayashi of Northgate Logistics Park asks whether Warehouse 3 can be energised on 30 Nov instead of 4 Dec. The assistant never moves a date, so it hands the question to Daniel with the facts gathered — works 60% complete, cable jointing booked 24–26 Nov, earliest possible 1 Dec — and a reply drafted for him to edit and send.
Date changes, charges, exceptions and compensation always go to a person.
312 applications are waiting on their applicant, grouped by what is missing. Load schedules are 41 of them; 3 are left out because their consultants uploaded a revised schedule today. Each reminder, drafted by the clock watcher from the notice and the guide, names the items wanted, the paused clock and the date at stake, with the upload inside it.
Reminder cadence: day 2, day 5, day 10 — then the coordinator calls on day 12.
The same applications, seen by the developer, the coordinator, the consultant engineer, the contact centre and the head of customer connections — what their week looked like, and what it looks like now.
Six specialist agents read the record, explain what is missing and check uploads in the answer; the coordinator accepts.
Before any answer, confirms the person asking is a named contact or registered consultant on the application, or a Lumina contact-centre agent asking for a named caller.
Reads the application's milestones, notices, reminders, calls and team queues, and builds the tracker: steps done with their dates, the step now, who holds it and for how long.
Turns a deficiency notice into what is missing, to what standard and why, in plain words — leading with the document wanted, with the drawing or guide section behind it.
Gives the expected date from the step's service clock, the days held and the works programme, with its basis and what would move it.
Reads a document uploaded inside an answer against the notice, the checklist and the application's own figures — such as maximum demand against the planned substation — and shows each check to the applicant before sending it to the coordinator.
Checks every open step every hour: sends missing-document reminders on their cadence with the upload inside, and escalates a Lumina-held step to its team lead two working days before its clock and to the head of customer connections on the day it passes.
Accepts documents and answers handoffs; the team lead acts on escalations. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Coordinators and team leads ask in plain words — or say what to change in how the assistant answers. Every answer points to its records.
Which Lumina-held steps will pass their clock this week?
23 steps are within two working days of their clock and 6 are already past it. The largest group is water main design: Cedar Lane Villas (APP-20518) is 2 working days past and Northgate's fire main 1 day past, both on the same designer since the 22 Sep survey batch.
Remind everyone still missing a load schedule
41 applications are waiting on a load schedule. I left out 3 whose consultants uploaded today, so 38 reminders go now, each listing the items from its own notice and with the upload inside it.
Why did Karim keep calling about Marsa Heights?
He called on 5 and 9 Oct. Notice DN-4471 named the load schedule, but the second call was “what exactly is missing” — the notice's point about the 48 EV bays on drawing A-104 was in the third paragraph. In the assistant's answer it is the first thing he reads, with the upload under it.
What do applicants ask that the assistant hands to a person?
524 questions in 30 days, 12.4% of the total: date changes 38%, charges 24%, exceptions 21%. One recurring question — “is a capacity increase a new application?” — is answered in guide §6.1 but not yet in the approved answers.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
Steps and their service clocks, reminders, escalation, and what the assistant may say and to whom are settings, chosen by the utility.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Network design service clock | 10 working days | Set per step: documents checked 3 · site survey 10 · network design 10 · connection offer 5 · energisation 2; works by programme — single homes, rooftop solar, EV charging and water each have their own table |
| Missing-document reminders | 2 · 5 · 10 | Day 2, day 5, day 10, then the coordinator calls on day 12 · or 3 · 7 · 14 |
| Upload inside every reminder | On | On · Off — the applicant uploads into the answer, not into an e-mail |
| Escalate a Lumina-held step to the team lead | 2 days before its clock | 1 day · 2 days · 3 days before the clock |
| At the clock, tell the head of customer connections | Hamid Qureshi | On · Off |
| Dates as “expected”, with their basis | On | On · Off — never a promise; the planner confirms works dates |
| Say plainly when Lumina is late | On | On · Off — with the team lead's name and the call-back date |
| Name Lumina staff beyond the coordinator and team lead | Off | On · Off — when off, designers and surveyors are named by team, except on a notice they signed |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data (Lumina's starting figures: 2,940 status calls to coordinators in July, a 12.4-day median wait for a missing document) · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our arithmetic, inputs shown ($207K = 1,810 fewer calls a month × 12 × $9.54 a call, at contact-centre cost, so a floor; the days split is our estimate) · “typical” = published figures (E Source, 15-utility contact-centre benchmark: about $9.54 a call and ~15% lower satisfaction for each extra contact; US DOE, via PV Tech: over 90% of interconnection applications received are deficient). Regulatory context: in Great Britain, the Electricity (Connection Standards of Performance) Regulations 2015 set guaranteed connection timescales, with payments to the customer when they are missed. Lumina Utilities and the developers, sites, applications and people named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
It answers where-is-my-application questions from developers, builders, installers and consultant engineers in plain words. Connection Application Status Assistant shows the steps done, the step now, who holds it and since when, and the expected date with its basis — and when the step is waiting on the applicant, exactly which document is missing and what it must show.
Six agents answer each question. The access check confirms the asker is on the application; the status reader builds the seven-step tracker from the milestones; the deficiency explainer turns the notice into what is missing; the date forecaster gives the expected date from the service clocks. The document checker reads anything uploaded in the answer, and the clock watcher sends reminders and escalations.
Yes. In the working solution it answers for new buildings and substations, single homes, rooftop solar, EV charging and water mains, each with its own steps and service clock table. Questions come in through the applicant portal, e-mail replies and the contact-centre desk.
The answer and every reminder say exactly what is wanted, from the notice and the guide, and the applicant uploads it inside the answer. The document checker shows each check while they wait, and the coordinator accepts it with one click, which restarts the clock. In the demo data the median wait fell from 12.4 days in July to 4.1 in September, against a target of 3.
No. Dates are always “expected”, with their basis and what would move them, and works dates come only from the planner. A request to move a date, a charge question, an exception or a compensation question goes to a coordinator with the facts gathered and a reply drafted.
Only the people named on it. The access check runs on every question; consultants see only the applications they are registered on, and contact-centre agents answer for a named caller. To anyone else it never confirms that an application exists.
Yes. The agents read, explain, check and remind, but never accept a document, change a date, waive a requirement or quote a charge that is not in an issued offer. The coordinator accepts documents and answers handoffs, and the team lead acts on escalations about Lumina-held steps.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your connection guide, service clock table, document checklists, notices and a sample of applications — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own applications first.
Complete or deficient in minutes, not days.
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1-min demoWe'll run Connection Application Status Assistant on a sample of your own applications, notices and connection guide.