UK Power Networks

The client

UK Power Networks (UKPN) keeps the lights on for millions of people in the UK, delivering the electricity across London, the South East and East of England. Their website is an essential resource for all those living in these areas, as it is the main source of information on power outages when they occur.

The challenge

UKPN and their digital agency Tangent required a support partner who could monitor and manage incidents relating to the main website and its key areas of functionality, which include the postcode power cut search function, the live power cut map, and the live power cut reporting page. There are also key forms which users can use to register for updates on power cuts.

The website is built on Sitecore 8.2, and hosted on Azure (IaaS) and required 24/7 application and infrastructure support from a team of full-stack developers. A team of incident managers were also required to support the technical team and liaise with the multiple third parties involved in resolving issues on the UKPN site. 

Customer service and satisfaction are of the utmost importance to UKPN. They track this using a Broad Measure of Customer Service survey which asks users about their experience on the site. It was crucial that our service met every expectation from the client and did not damage their very high reputation.

The solution

Just After Midnight provides 24/7 application and infrastructure support to UKPN.

Together with the agency and client, Just After Midnight developed a set of processes that were to be followed by our incident management team to resolve P1 and P2 issues, and to ensure that all other issues were escalated and dealt with by the right third parties. Our L2 team was briefed on the key functionalities of the website, and designed processes for resolving outages. Detailed runbooks and training videos were created to document these processes and ensure the whole team was well equipped to support UKPN during an incident.

Specifically, a process was put in place for the most critical business scenario: major storms. During bad weather, the UKPN website receives especially high traffic and must be updated to reflect any impact on power supplies. Just After Midnight is solely responsible for monitoring traffic and implementing the emergency storm procedure when necessary, to ensure the site remains stable and updated for users during this time. Just After Midnight started it supports during storm season in the UK, and so was ready from day 1 to ensure the emergency procedure was put into effect.

Results

• Website stability hugely improved as our team is on standby 24/7 to manage and resolve critical issues
• 6 storms dealt with expertly by the team in the first 3 months of support
• The client is happy with the team’s efforts to create a fully scalable and stable website – with each month of support the amount of downtime experienced on the site has decreased dramatically