How to create meters

Readings are entered for meters: every month, ky24 expects one reading of each meter that's on. This guide shows how to add meters and set them up.

Types of meters

Before you add a meter to a building, decide its type:

Both are added on the building's page. When only one apartment has a meter, e.g. a second electricity meter at the night rate, add it on the apartment's page instead: it's that apartment's own, in a column after the building's apartment meters, which other apartments' own meters with the same name, unit, icon and reading period share.

A building meter can check apartment meters, e.g. an entrance's hot water meter the hot water meters of the entrance's apartments: then ky24 compares them every month, to check their readings (see How to check apartments' meters).

Only those who belong to the building see its building meters and their readings. Residents who only belong to an apartment see that apartment's meters: the building's apartment meters it has, and its own.

Who can add meters

What you can do depends on your role in each building or apartment you belong to: a role in one building gives you nothing in another.

• A building's meters take the Edit buildings, their meters, images and members permission in your role as a member of the building: they're the meters of all its apartments, including ones you may not see.
• An apartment's own meters take the Edit apartments, their meters and members, and see their notes permission in your role in the apartment or its building.
• Only those whose role lets them edit the building choose when readings are entered.

Administrators can do all of this everywhere. If you don't see the Add meter button, ask the building's board chairman or an administrator to give you a role with these permissions there.

Add meters when you create a building

The quickest way to set up a new building:

1. Open Buildings and click New building.
2. Fill in its name and address.
3. Under Apartment meters, check the meters that every apartment has. Gas, cold water, hot water and electricity are checked to start with.
4. Click Save.

Each meter you checked becomes an apartment meter. It's called by its template's name in each user's language, and its alias is the template's key, e.g. coldWater. You can change these meters, and add others, in the building's Meters.

Add a meter to a building

1. Open the building's page, e.g. from Buildings, and pick Meters in its menu.
2. Click Add meter at the top right of the page.
3. Fill in the form (see The meter's settings) and click Save.

Add a meter to one apartment

When only one apartment has a meter, e.g. a second electricity meter, add it to the apartment rather than to the building:

1. Open the apartment's page, e.g. from Apartments, and pick Meters in its menu.
2. Click Add meter at the top right of the page. The building's apartment meters are listed there too, but they're changed in the building's Meters.
3. Fill in the form and click Save.

The meter's settings

Type

Only for a building's meters, and first on the form, as the rest of it follows the type: Building meter or Apartment meter (see Types of meters). A new meter starts as an apartment meter.

Meter

Choose what it measures from the built-in templates:

A template's meter is called by the template's name in each user's language: "Cold water" in English and "Холодная вода" in Russian. The form starts with the first template the building or apartment has no meter of yet.

For anything else, e.g. a sauna's electricity, choose Another meter…: then it needs a name and a unit of its own, and you choose its icon.

Icon

Each meter is shown with its icon next to its name: in Meters, on the readings page, on the home page and in the list of buildings. A template's meter has the template's icon, which can't be changed. For another meter, click Icon and choose one, e.g. a car for a garage's electricity. A new one starts with a gauge.

Name

Leave it empty to call the meter by its template's name. Give it a name to tell two meters apart, e.g. Cold water, kitchen and Cold water, bathroom: a building or an apartment can't have two meters that look the same in any language.

Unit

What its readings are in. Leave it empty for the template's unit, or type another one, e.g. Gcal for a heat meter that counts in gigacalories.

Changing the unit later doesn't convert the readings entered so far: change it only if it was wrong.

Decimal places

How many digits its readings have after the decimal point, from 0 to 3, as on the meter's display: e.g. 3 for a water meter that shows liters after the cubic meters, or 0 for one that shows whole kilowatt-hours. Each choice shows a reading the way it'll look, e.g. 2 (12,345.68).

Readings are entered with at most that many decimal places: with 0, a reading like 12345.6 isn't taken. They're shown with that many everywhere, e.g. 812.400 with 3, and so is how much was used. Exports write them so too, unless an export format sets its own decimal places.

A new electricity meter starts with 0 and every other meter with 3. You can change it later:

• More decimal places change nothing: the readings so far get zeros at the end, e.g. 812.4 becomes 812.400.
• Fewer decimal places round the readings and replacements entered so far that have more, e.g. 812.456 becomes 812.5 with 1. The form says how many will be rounded before you save. Rounding them is changing them, so it takes the Edit readings permission, and outside their months' reading periods, the permission to edit the building. The log records it.

Alias

What export formats call the meter: with the alias cw, {{ cw }} in a format is its reading. Use letters, digits and _, starting with a letter or _, and not the name of a field of export formats, e.g. month. A new template's meter starts with the template's key, e.g. coldWater.

The meters of an export's row can't share an alias: a building's or an apartment's meters, and an apartment's own meters together with its building's apartment meters. You can also leave it empty: then formats can't use the meter, but CSV files still have it.

The alias is the meter's item code in Merit Aktiva too: the Merit Aktiva (Excel) format writes its readings under it, e.g. KV1 (see How to import readings into Merit Aktiva).

Apartments

Only for apartment meters: the apartments that have one. All of them are chosen to start with, and apartments added later have it too. Leave out the ones without it, e.g. apartments without gas: their rows of the readings page have no field for it.

Click Apartments to choose them:

• Click an apartment to check or uncheck it. To change a range, e.g. 21 to 40, click 21, then hold Shift and click 40.
• Type in the search box to find apartments by number, or by a range: 21–40 (or 21-40) finds 21 to 40, and 1-5, 12 finds 1 to 5 and 12. Select all found then checks or unchecks all of them.
• Select all checks or unchecks every apartment.

The button shows what's chosen, e.g. 1–20, 25 and 21 of 48. The apartments can change even once the meter has readings: an apartment's readings are kept, and come back when it has the meter again. The switches in an apartment's Meters turn its building's apartment meters on and off there too.

Apartment meters it checks

Only for building meters: the building's apartment meters it's compared with, if any, e.g. Hot water, m³ for an entrance's hot water meter. Check several when they count what it does between them, e.g. the electricity meters at the day and the night rate. None are checked to start with. Every month, what it counted is compared with what these meters counted together in the apartments it measures, to check their readings (see How to check apartments' meters). Leave them all unchecked for a meter that measures only the building's own use, e.g. its stairwell lights.

Apartments it measures

Only for building meters that check apartment meters: the apartments whose use goes through it, e.g. those of its entrance, chosen like the apartments above. None are chosen to start with, and at least one is needed. Apartments without any of the meters it checks are fainter.

When readings are entered

• Any day: readings can be entered and changed whenever.
• Certain days of the month: e.g. from the 20th to the 25th. When the last day is the smaller one, the period ends in the next month: from the 25th to the 5th means that September's readings are entered from September 25 to October 5. The form shows this month's dates as an example.

On other days, only those who can edit buildings can enter, change or delete the meter's readings.

After you've added a meter

• Readings. From now on, its readings are entered on the readings page, where its type puts it (see Types of meters).
• Order. The arrows next to a meter move it up or down its list, which is the order of the readings page's columns.
• Changing it. The pencil button edits a meter. Once it has readings, its type and what it measures can't change anymore, as its readings would mean something else: add another meter instead. What a building meter checks can always change, and so can its decimal places (see Decimal places).
• Replacing it. When a meter is replaced with a new one, keep it and enter the replacement on the readings page: the new meter's readings start again from 0, and the usage stays right (see How to enter a meter replacement).
• Turning it off. When a meter isn't read anymore, edit it and switch off Readings are entered. The readings page leaves it out, but its readings are kept, and come back when you switch it on again.
• Deleting it. Deleting a meter deletes its readings too, which also takes the Delete readings permission. To keep them, turn the meter off instead.

A building or an apartment can have at most 20 meters: each is a column of the readings page.