Executive Summary

Digitization holds a lot of promise for the future of water, but it also poses a challenge for administrators managing the flood of data coming out of our drinking and wastewater systems.

Spreadsheet overload, ‘too many apps’ and uneven digitization are a big problem, particularly for compliance managers tracking increasingly complicated regulations. Wrangling that data into a workable system is the most important step utilities can take to realize their 20-year digital strategies.

This report builds on interviews with dozens of employees at ten water utilities in the United States, Canada and Australia ranging in size from 20 to 1,000 employees. The utilities did not sponsor the report or pay for inclusion—they were selected because they represent compelling case studies for how software can drive utility management forward.

Showing how getting the ‘basics’ of data management right can unlock previously unrealized operational powers, we look at how organizations like DC Water are leveraging sound data practices to overcome administrative paralysis and build the utility of the future.

Finally, we survey the next 20 years of water utility management, which promises to be shaped by everything from wastewater surveillance, to PFAS, to biosolids, to direct potable reuse (DPR)—each of which will only make getting compliance data under control more important to securing the future of water.

Foreword

As someone at the forefront of moving the needle on the future of water, I’m so excited and encouraged by the perspective and findings surfaced in ‘Building the Utility of the Future.’

There’s an enormous opportunity in our industry for community building and developing a shared understanding of the challenges our sector will face over the next 20 years. I call it an ‘opportunity’ because communicating our goals to groups outside of the water industry—particularly the legislators responsible for funding and signing the future of water into law—is a missing link that is the critical catalyst for change.

We can talk about green infrastructure, business development, and public private partnerships, and bathe ourselves in greenwashing. But until we find ways to communicate our challenges and criteria for success in a way that’s compelling and easy for policymakers to understand, that momentum is not going to happen. Until we clearly articulate the insights powered by integrated data, our sector simply won’t be able to secure the funding and goodwill needed to deploy these technologies on a large scale.

Service providers like Klir are the lynchpin of the solution here, because technology is only one leg of the stool—managing the change of people & process in this new way of working is the prerequisite for success.

It’s not that we are short on data as an industry, rather short of the right access to the right data at the right time with the right volume and quality. Only then can we turn up the heat to articulately demand what is needed to fix the wicked challenges facing water and run a successful utility over the next 20 years.

As it stands now, our industry is fragmented, few of us have a clear and compelling vision for modernization beyond engineering schematics, and most leaders are focused on technical challenges with little appetite for salesmanship or storytelling. We need to be able to connect the dots, legislate certain outcomes, and commit to making decisions about our capital infrastructure for the fiscal year based on sound data.

Cementing these standards will be impossible without a shared understanding of what our utilities must look like in the future. ‘Building the Utility of the Future’ is a crucial step towards that goal, shedding light on the various data management tools and strategies that the world’s largest utilities are using to bring water into the 21st century.

Section 1: Why Compliance Is the Ideal Starting Point for Digital Transformation

Software and the internet have transformed the way we work. Even smaller rural water utilities that lack sophisticated IT systems now use digital tools to communicate, manage tasks and report sampling results to regulators.

There’s just one problem: while other sectors have forged ahead and embraced purpose-built solutions, water utilities have been slow to adopt. It can take decades before a proven technology is considered “mainstream” enough, forcing staff to come up with their own solutions and leading to uneven digitization.

Before Denver Water underwent an IT audit and consolidation six years ago, Chief Operations and Maintenance Officer Tom Roode says the utility had struggled with “too many” point software solutions popping up across the organization for decades.

“For example, Maximo: it got started in one area, say our trades shop, or one treatment plant. And then over a 20 year period people would adopt it at a different treatment plant, or in the pump stations, and it kind of organically grew.”

This “organic” approach to choosing work or asset management software can create problems, especially when the solution your trades shop picks (Maximo) is different from the one your IT department and fleet staff pick (Workfront).

For Compliance Managers who rely on data from virtually every other department to do their jobs, the resulting patchwork of tools is particularly frustrating to work with—worse, even, than the piles of paper that used to clutter their desks.

But there’s a silver lining to the fact that so much data is piling up in our compliance departments: it also makes them the perfect entry point for real, strategic digital transformation initiatives.

Fighting Administrative Paralysis

As new criteria and guidance are constantly revised around issues like PFAS and LSLs, compliance managers find themselves sifting through more data than ever before.

Lacking a dedicated system to manage all of the deadlines, tasks and data her staff were responsible for, one Compliance Manager we spoke with at a mid-sized California utility took matters into her own hands and built an elaborate Excel “cheat sheet”—a monumental task at an organization that had more than 300 construction projects on the go at the time.

Cheat sheets are a popular stopgap at water utilities today, but using a spreadsheet as a database is time consuming, creates a silo around the individual responsible for it, and can be outright dangerous if anything ever slips through the cracks.

“It’s so hard being just one person with all the knowledge,” the Compliance Manager said. “Every project is different because they have different needs. Each project was trying to do it on their own, [but] they didn’t know regulatory compliance. There were knowledge-sharing gaps between departments.”

Data Icebergs

While it’s popular to blame silos, the iceberg might offer an even better analogy for what’s going on at utilities today.

Some crucial data might be visible at the surface, but a vast majority of the most valuable information is below the water line, hidden from view and ready to cause problems.

Icebergs aren’t limited to large organizations either. General Manager Piret Harmon, who manages a team of about 20 people at the Scotts Valley Water District (SVWD), which serves 10,700 customers across 4,200 service connections, routinely finds herself frustrated by data icebergs.

“The water consumption data is here, the water billing data is here, the production data is here, and water quality data is here. And every week there’s another report due, and it’s up to me or another person to sit down again and sort through it all. It’s a very manual process.”

At a large utility responsible for thousands of different permits, that can leave Compliance Managers overloaded by paperwork and constantly firefighting. Any single data point might be buried in:

• Spreadsheets, created by individual personnel and saved locally on their computers
• Outdated printouts kept on file
• Emails saved in an individual’s inbox
• Handwritten log sheets kept onsite
• Customer information systems

“I just couldn’t put my arms all around it, especially at the beginning of the year when it gets busy with permit renewals,” said another Compliance Manager we spoke to.

“I’d have to let our lab managers know, ‘Hey, sorry, my bad. I usually give you two weeks’ notice that I need this data, but I need it tomorrow.’”

#1 Moving Towards Self-Service

Utility customers and workers alike already live in a world filled with internet-enabled self-serve platforms—to consume their media, communicate with colleagues, and order groceries.

As Piret Harmon from SVWD points out, utilities are under increasing pressure to build experiences that are as easy to use and intuitive as the ones we encounter when ordering toilet paper on our smartphones.

“We are trying to actually empower our customers to get more things done without us. For example, why do people have to call us so we can find a piece of paper for them? Why can’t it be like, ‘no, go and browse for it yourself?’”

‍#2 Bracing for the ‘Gray Tsunami’

Water utilities across North America face huge personnel crises as a generation of experienced workers prepare for retirement, with institutional knowledge walking out the door with them.

As workers prepare to retire, it’s more important than ever for utilities to document processes and institutional knowledge so new employees can train for the job properly.

“I’ve got people about to retire, and also recent college grads. I’ve somehow gotta get these people ready for very technical positions very quickly,” one Compliance Manager told us.

#3 Getting New Infrastructure Funded and Built

The less time a compliance department spends chasing down regulatory information, the more time they have to serve internal customers and help them usher large-scale projects through complicated regulatory processes.

“[I want to] be able to better serve our other customers, like Engineering. Having more time to support them as they navigate complicated, sometimes confusing regulations would make their jobs so much easier,” said one Compliance Manager.

“If we could free up some of our time, that would allow us to give them the consultation that they need to navigate new permits for new projects. We could be a better service and have more time to help them navigate all of those regulations.”

#4 Responding to Water Quality Issues Quickly and Building Trust

When customers’ water quality is threatened and regulatory bodies are demanding up-to-date information, time is of the essence.

“We’re just beginning to dive into the world of letting customers report with web mapping applications,” says Adam McKnight, a former analyst with Halifax Water.

In the event of a water main break, rather than solely relying on calls from customers, McKnight’s department has given residents the ability to file their own reports online. It’s faster and more efficient than before.

“They pin the dropper point on the map, and we can go out and we can investigate,” says McKnight. “That becomes a part of our water main break response. That’s one emergency situation where it’s really beneficial having all the data right there.”

#5 Bringing Utility Management Into the 21st Century

Overstretched Compliance Managers might have it the worst when it comes to administrative overload, but important data is pooling across every department.

A single large wastewater treatment plant (0.8-3 million population served) can generate upwards of 30,000 data points, most of which pile up in data graveyards: employee hard drives, OneDrive, the utility’s servers, etc.

When managers look out across their organizations today, they see the tops of numerous icebergs with no way of knowing what’s underneath.

To move forward with some of the more exciting innovations in water technology like AI and predictive analytics, large utilities will need to do the hard work of taming these icebergs with a sound data management strategy. And developing objective metrics for utility performance will be crucial as utilities approach state and federal governments for more funding.

Section 2: From Asset to Event Management: Turning Software Into an Essential Operations and Maintenance Tool

Operations and maintenance leaders at water utilities are faced with a seemingly impossible task: maintain massive, complex and at times century-old drinking, waste and stormwater infrastructure, often with limited resources and a shoestring budget.

In many cases infrastructure is breaking down faster than it’s being renewed, while economic and population growth puts further stress on existing systems, leading to frustrating situations for utility leaders.

As Piret Harmon from SVWD puts it, “Why are you building if you’re asking me to conserve? How is that even in the same sentence?”

With a problem so deeply rooted in physical infrastructure and engineering challenges, taming a utility’s data might not be the first solution that comes to the minds of utility leaders.

That is until you look at the way leading utilities like DC Water are managing their data—not just to cut down on administrative work, but to make the job of the operator easier, drive real change in their physical systems, and anticipate and fix asset risks before they become asset disasters.

The Typical Utility ‘Stack’

In addition to operating one of the world’s most advanced wastewater treatment plants at Blue Plains, DC Water has made significant strides in bringing all of their work into the digital sphere properly.

The utility has methodically built and adopted systems to help it decrease administrative workload, create processes that are more self-serve, and lay the groundwork for more sophisticated technologies like predictive analytics.

Like many similarly-sized utilities, DC Water sorts its systems into three general buckets:

1. Its Core Underlying Systems that manage assets and track internal work using IBM Maximo and ArcGIS, as well as payroll and finance which is handled by Oracle.
2. Its Customer Information Systems, through which it manages 130,000 metered connections.
3. Its Third Party Portal, nicknamed the ‘Plumber Portal,’ a collection of contractor-facing applications through which the utility manages programs like Backflow Inspections and Grease Abatement.

Getting as many contractors, employees and customers plugged into and using this system has been a big priority for DC Water’s IT lead Tom Kuczynski—and a big achievement.

While DC Water’s shiny, futuristic HQO headquarters has a mailroom, it might not need one for long: 70,000 of the utility’s customers have signed up for online accounts, and about 50,000 currently receive an e-bill.

Thanks to the ‘Report a Problem’ app, customers can submit issues online even if they don’t have an online account.

Dispatching plumbers for inspections is also now an entirely digital process handled through the Plumber Portal, which automatically generates and sends work orders to Maximo.

“It’s a lot more efficient for us to manage any information, and it integrates better with our core systems. So if you need a meter installed or a service connection completed, you can send us requests that automatically generate a work order in our system,” says Kuczynski.

At-A-Glance: Utilities Featured in the Report

The Disaster Response Challenge

DC Water’s IT systems faced a new challenge in September of 2021 when Northeastern DC experienced a “microburst”—an extreme climate-change fuelled weather event concentrated in one area.

“It didn’t rain at all here [in the south], but we had six inches of rain in northeast DC that caused major flooding in the area,” recalls Kuczynski.

The utility’s 24/7 helpline and ‘Report a Problem’ apps immediately lit up as numerous customers’ homes flooded during the microburst, and DC Water’s crews had to respond quickly.

Suddenly there were three groups of people sitting in three different locations who had to work closely together:

1. The pumping operations crew who sit in the pumping station right outside of HQO and run the sewer system.
2. The plant workers four and a half miles away at Blue Plains WWTP, where all of the water pumped through the system eventually ends up.
3. The customer service crews on the third floor of HQO who monitor the help line and dispatch crews.

Communication between the three groups became tricky when multiple work orders were generated for the same neighborhood or geographical area.

All three would have to rely on a fourth party, the foreman in that area, to know that those work orders were all related to the same problem and avoid sending multiple crews.

“We didn’t really have a comprehensive understanding of what was really happening across our physical collection system and our customer system: none of those systems talked to each other back before September. We needed a better way to manage that event in a more comprehensive way,” says Kuczynski.

Enter the Events Management System

Working with a local vendor, DC Water set out to build an application that would knit the information in its Core Systems and Customer Systems together into one seamless, real-time emergency response dashboard.

The result was the Events Management System, an award-winning dashboard-based application that gave operators sitting in the DC Water war room access to:

Real-time feeds that they can use to monitor the severity of an incident.

An incident tracking tool that integrated with the utility’s call center and customer information system.

Information about all crews and vehicles in the field, making it easier to allocate resources to an event quickly.

“This one pane of glass now gives you all of that information in a single view,” says Kuczynski. In the event of another microburst, crews could be dispatched and managed seamlessly using a single user interface.

“So they can say, ‘These five work orders and incidents can all go to one crew.’ And they circle and drag them (on screen) to create a work order. They can literally do what they did before in seconds compared to minutes.”

In an emergency situation where five new calls might come in by the time you’re done attending to one, that’s a game changer.

Proactive Utility Management in Action

DC Water’s experience with the EMS is a concrete example of how sound data management and connecting disparate data sets can unlock new levels of efficiency, responsiveness and insight at a water utility.

It shows how there’s a direct line between the less glamorous aspects of digital transformation—pushing customers to sign up for online accounts and building a reliable customer database, for example—and the more exciting, transformational technologies like the EMS.

Take Pipe Sleuth, another application DC Water built with an external vendor, which uses neural networks and advanced image processing to analyze photos of pipes to grade them based on condition and report potential pipeline defects.

Kuczynski says the ability to better predict main breaks could be a game changer for the utility, from both a service and a cost standpoint.

“You eliminate service interruptions to customers, you eliminate street closures, but you also reduce the cost of a repair—$50,000 for a small break vs. up to $1,500,000 to fix a 36- inch transmission main.”

Section 3: Using Better Data To Tackle The Resource Recovery Challenge

Getting rid of data icebergs and leveraging compliance and operational data for insights will be crucial for bringing utilities into the digital age properly. But how does better data management fit into the broader transformation that’s going on at water utilities today?

Let’s stick with the DC Water example a bit longer. Their push to squeeze every last bit of value out of every asset there hasn’t stopped with faster emergency response times.

Blue Drop, a nonprofit LLC spun out of DC Water in 2016 and lead by Kuczynski, has recently started generating revenue by renting out the utility’s headquarters for events, leasing surplus cell tower space, licensing its EMS and PipeSleuth software to other utilities, and selling a Class A biosolids fertilizer product called Bloom.

“You can’t keep raising prices, right? There gets to be a point in time where the cost of service exceeds the ability of the customers to pay. So you’ve got to figure out ways to do it better, faster, cheaper,” says Kuczinski.

It’s an unavoidable fact that most utilities are going to have to start looking for additional cost savings and sources of revenue to offset rate increases. For most, that means aggressively pursuing resource recovery: the process of extracting and recycling as much of what passes through a wastewater system as possible.

Better Biosolids With Better Data

Disposing waste sludge is an expensive process, and getting better at biosolids—by reducing the amount of biosolids that are thrown out and increasing the amount of Class A material that can be sold—is a huge cost-saving and revenue opportunity for utilities.

According to Urban Utilities General Manager of Resource Recovery Peter Donaghy, mapping out our water and wastewater systems and developing a better understanding of how they work using better data is one of the most effective methods we have to improve the biosolids process.

His team recently used real-time analytics to discover that the way effluent moves through the system’s pumping stations could affect biosolids quality. As they worked through the biosolids system with a fine-toothed comb, they realized sewer network operators could have a massive role in biosolids quality.

“As soon as we saw [a contaminant] coming in at the head of a treatment plant, there were a certain number of pump stations we could inhibit that could slow that process and give us time to react.”

By allowing the pumping station to slowly fill up, Donaghy’s team could buy themselves an hour or two to send a worker to that pump station to test it for undesirable effluent and potentially stave off contamination.

“Inhibiting a pump station is not something you’d think is part of managing biosolids, it’s way off in the network. Some of the guys managing those pump stations wouldn’t even know what biosolids are.”

Direct Potable Reuse: The ‘Holy Grail’ of Resource Recovery

While generating additional revenue from a utility’s assets and recycling biosolids waste is a step in the right direction, recycled water continues to loom on the horizon as the biggest resource recovery prize.

Less than a fraction of a percent of all of our wastewater is ‘officially’ recycled back into the drinking water system today. But cities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Washington D.C. already draw their drinking water downstream from wastewater treatment plants.

In fact, of the 32 billion gallons of wastewater discharge the U.S. produces every day, the National Research Council estimates that up to 20 billion might already be re-entering drinking sources downstream.

And as utilities in Colorado, Florida and California take concrete steps towards implementing direct potable reuse (DPR) technologies and new research suggests that treated water might be cleaner than conventional sources, recycled drinking water will play an increasingly large role in the future of water.

Take Los Angeles Sanitation’s ‘Hyperion 2035’ plan, which aims to transform its Hyperion Wastewater Treatment Plant—one of the largest in North America—into a fully DPR operation by 2035.

Hyperion is a colossal 144-acre facility, with a sprawling network of streets that officials often describe as a city unto itself. To move to DPR, close to half of the existing footprint of the plant will need to be rebuilt or overhauled in some way with a raft of technologies like microfiltration and ultrafiltration, new biological processes and reverse osmosis.

But to hear LA Sanitation officials describe it, Hyperion 2035 is just as much about new treatment technologies and engineering challenges as it is about building (and in some cases, rebuilding) trust in recycled drinking water.

DPR’s Compliance Challenge

As utilities pursue DPR, the legacy of anti-potable reuse sentiment and California’s doomed efforts to start introducing DPR in the 1990s looms large in the minds of utility leaders and regulators.

It’s clear that the margin for error with DPR will be razor-thin, and building confidence in water quality and compliance data will be more important for DPR projects than it ever was for traditional water and wastewater utilities.

“The whole issue of public confidence is that very, very fragile link that keeps the system going. That’s something we are very aware of and try very hard to maintain,” says Pierre van Rensburg, strategic executive for urban and transport planning at Windhoek, Namibia.

That city built the world’s first DPR plant in 1968, which today produces purified water for the city’s 400,000 residents. Van Rensburg says that no illness has ever been directly linked to its operations in the decades since its opening.

“I think if there is ever one incident that could be linked back to the plant, the public would lose all confidence and simply refuse to use water from that source and that would severely taint our supply options.”

Conclusion

The Future of Water is Compliance

So what does this all mean for utilities? Firstly, it confirms something we’ve suspected for a long time at Klir: that many water utilities are struggling with digitization ‘basics,’ and they won’t be able to move forward with their ambitious 20 year strategies before they get them right.

As EPA and states make big strides to tackle issues like PFAS, LSLs, drought and increasing pressure on water systems, keeping up with regulations is only going to become a more burdensome process using existing tools.

At the same time, as utilities pursue efficiencies and more ambitious resource recovery projects while recycling or reclaiming more of their water, trust in the integrity of their data is only going to become more important, not less.

So how can utilities decrease the margin of error and build trust in their data? It all comes back to those ‘basics:’ building a single source of truth for regulatory data, breaking down icebergs and building certainty around a utility’s compliance data.

Wrangling water quality and permit data into a workable system and empowering Compliance Managers with better software tools might seem like a purely administrative challenge today. But it could very well turn out to be the single most important step utilities take in their digital transformation journey.

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The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

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The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

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The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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How to customize formatting for each rich text

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What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

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What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

How many people on your team are already planning for retirement? The silver tsunami cascading across the industry means that most water utilities are at risk of seeing institutional knowledge walk out the door.

The transition can put serious pressure on your team. This is especially true when it comes to permitting, as employees who carry the essential know-how for specific protocol and day-to-day operations take that expertise with them when they leave.

Fortunately, by using smart, digital tools to document that knowledge and to systemize the permitting process, you can mitigate the risks that come with institutional brain drain.

In this article, you’ll learn how technology can help capture the insights that currently live in employees’ brains so that you can develop a uniform, replicable process for managing permitting across the entire utility.

Why Continuity Planning is Critical for Permitting

When you need essential details about a specific type of permit, but the team member who knew it like the back of their hand has retired, it’s more than an inconvenience.

Not only do you have to dig up, read, and parse the details of the permit; you’re going into the job minus all the hard-earned knowledge that your former team member provided.

And the stakes are high: missing a detail could lead to costly fines, or worse, public health risks. Take wastewater discharge that falls outside of NPDES criteria, which can rack up fines up to $25,000 a day—and that’s for the first offense.

Day-to-day, gaps in institutional knowledge:

• Eat up time and energy as personnel track down key information
• Damage morale and lower internal confidence in your organization
• Lead to patchwork systems that create more chaos later on

Plus, if your organization is mired in legacy software and spreadsheets, you risk alienating a younger generation that is more comfortable working in an online environment.

Where Offline Documents Fall Short

Not all permitting systems are created equal. At many utilities, every manager has their own process for tracking permits. Permit requirements and renewals are tracked across spreadsheets, Word docs, and even on paper. Without a centralized place to see the status of all permits, it’s easy to miss something.

Here are a few common challenges of managing permitting offline:

• Relying On Memory - Whether it’s knowing the specific criteria required for a specific type of permit; ensuring you’re not running a generator overtime; or getting ahead of permit renewals, so much of the permitting process tends to rely on memory.    
• Prone to Duplications and Errors - Files hosted locally on individual computers don’t sync up—meaning, that if Employee A makes changes to a spreadsheet, they won’t be reflected in Employee B’s copy. So, either A needs to send B an update, or mistakes are going to happen.
• Lack of Transparency - If your colleague were to win the lotto and not show up for work on Monday, how would you know to pick up where they left off? Managing permitting tasks offline often means relying on a lot of guesses, assumptions, and blind trust.
• Not Standardized -Team members often create their own private documents and spreadsheets to track tasks and manage information overload. Once that team member has retired, interpreting their files can become a headache.
• Files Are Easily Lost or Corrupted - Local files are fragile. Even if you have your own in-house servers, they’re at risk of damage (natural disasters, malfunctions, negligence) or theft. If your entire organization’s knowledge base is hosted on a humming box kept in a storage closet, you’re much more vulnerable than you would be keeping your information in the cloud.

For many utilities, offline systems may work for now. But as soon as a new team member comes onboard, and needs to get up to speed, they have a massive task on their hands.

If your permitting system is leaving you at risk of missing something, it’s time to start looking at software solutions.

How Digital Permitting Software Supports Continuity

When your employee ‘Mike’ is the only one who knows how to deal with a specific type of permit, or when the status of renewals is tracked on a spreadsheet on someone’s desktop, it creates risk for your organization.

Cloud-based software can help you systemize your permitting processes, making it easier to manage day-to-day tasks, interpret requirements, and flag abnormalities—all while ensuring your team will continue succeeding well into the future.

And, since so many teams in your utility have a stake in permitting, adopting a universal system promises to save time, increase collaboration, reduce the risk of error, and create greater visibility at every level of the organization.

Here’s how software can support continuity:

Documenting Institutional Knowledge

A single, unified system can help pass on Mike’s knowledge to other team members.

When a new team member has a question about a permit, or when they need to confirm that all of the requirements are being met, they can turn to your permitting system and get the info they need. That saves time, and reduces the risk of serious errors.

Reducing Risk

When it comes to permitting, tiny oversights can have big consequences. A generator left running overnight can lead to a six-figure penalty and a damaged relationship with the regulator. Digital tools can eliminate these kinds of risks by proactively triggering alerts for deadlines, exceedances, renewals, and more.

Plus, an online system allows for increased transparency which introduces checks and balances within the team, so that one person isn’t responsible for catching every single mistake.

Managing Workflows

Managing permits means tracking tasks, sticking to standards, and creating reports. Modern water utility software (like Klir) automates many parts of the process, while setting up fail-safes to make sure everything is completed on time. Instead of always double checking that you have all the information you need, or that you’ve checked every task off a list, you can focus on managing your organization.

Simplifying Permit Renewals

With all your permitting information in one place, it’s easy to generate reports, visualize data, and plan. Rather than waiting for a tidal wave of permit renewals to roll in, a comprehensive system lets you get a bird’s eye view of the work ahead, and allocate resources as needed.

What to Look For in Permitting Software

Permitting software has the potential to make your job easier, reduce the likelihood of errors, and ensure the longevity of your organization.

But what kind of software is right for you? Here are four key criteria to look for:

Cloud-Based

A solution based in the cloud, accessible via web browser, wipes out a lot of headaches by creating a single source of truth that can be accessed anytime. There’s no need to install and update software, and it’s easy to share info    between team members without resorting to email. Plus, thanks to encryption and off-site servers, your data is secure.

Purpose-built

General enterprise software, meant to be used by a wide swath of different companies and organizations, often requires customization that’s not only costly, it often means sacrificing on functionality. Aim to use a software    that is specifically designed for your needs.

Ease of installation

On-premise software systems typically charge a large fee up front to install locally on your servers. Not only does this cost you more money out of pocket, but it slows down the entire process of getting your system up and running.

Try to choose a system that is easy to install or configure, and won’t leave you in the lurch for months as technicians work on it.

Hands-on support

When your whole organization relies on software for permitting, you shouldn’t be left to your own devices if problems come up. Make sure your software solution offers technical support from real, live humans with experience in water,    who can answer questions particular to your industry.

Get Permitting Peace of Mind With Klir

Klir lets you manage every permit detail and requirement in one place so your entire team always has the information they need. Curious to see how it works and what it can do for your team? Learn more or book a demo today.

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What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Managing permits under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) is complex and high stakes for water utilities.

Ensuring NPDES compliance at your utility is not just important—it’s critical. While some discharges are routine and controlled, others are unplanned and can come up suddenly, such as combined sewer overflows, pipe breaks, and water main leaks. Either way, under NPDES they must be properly documented and reported. Failing to meet these requirements can result in hefty regulatory fines. In some situations, mismanaging NPDES compliance could even lead to a jail sentence.

What is NPDES?

The Clean Water Act prohibits anybody from discharging pollutants through a point source (such as a water or wastewater utility), into a “water of the United States” unless they have an NPDES permit. The permit includes limits on what you can discharge, stipulates monitoring and reporting requirements, and outlines other provisions to protect water quality and human health.

Achieving NPDES Coverage in California

Managing water pollutants is a huge concern for water and wastewater utilities. In California, it's a particularly big issue.

“Unlike some other states, we don’t have a lot of water. When utilities discharge into limited receiving waters, any pollutants are more likely to have an environmental impact,” says Francois Rodigari, Director of Corporate Sustainability & Innovation for San Jose Water.

Despite this, for years drinking water utilities did not qualify for existing discharge permits—even for routine reasons.

“In some cases, the regional water quality control board fined utilities for discharge incidents, even though there was no NPDES permit available to them,” he adds. “While most drinking water utilities followed the general NPDES requirements, we didn’t have permit coverage and consequently we weren’t doing any reporting. Our utilities were at risk.”

Rodigari was Director of Water Quality and Environmental Services when San Jose Water decided it would seek out better ways to manage NPDES. His team was instrumental in developing the Statewide General NPDES Permit for Drinking Water System Discharges to Waters of the United States, which the California State Water Board adopted in November 2014. Today, all utilities in the state with 1,000 connections or more are required to apply for an NPDES permit (unless they qualify under another permit). 

Ensuring NPDES Compliance Through Best Management Practices

With a state-wide solution, it’s now easier for utilities to make NPDES permit applications. For some utilities, NPDES has also underscored the importance of building and maintaining an accessible database.

“For NPDES compliance, we have to track and report our discharges when they’re over a certain volume,” says Rodigari. “There are annual reporting requirements, too. It’s a lot of information to manage.”

To support the state’s water utilities as they navigate NPDES, the San Jose Water Environmental Compliance group also led an effort to update the Best Management Practices Manual (BMP) for Drinking Water System Releases for the California-Nevada Section of the American Water Works Association. The manual provides directions on how to minimize and handle the number of planned and unplanned discharges.

How to Handle Common NPDES Challenges:

For many utilities, moving toward NPDES compliance is part of an ongoing commitment to implementing best management practices. For others, it means taking a brand new approach to managing data and meeting reporting requirements. 

Wherever you are in the process, achieving NPDES compliance probably means your utility will be going through some changes. 

With this in mind, we asked Rodigari to share some of his team’s best practices for improving utility performance and making NPDES reporting easier.

1. An effective data management system is key to achieving ISO 14001 standards

Achieving compliance in line with ISO 14001 standards means setting up an effective environmental management system. The requirements are extensive, Rodigari says. “Most utilities are actively working toward meeting the management framework, but it remains a complex process.”

Rodigari says choosing a secure, robust compliance system to manage your utility’s data is a critical part of the ISO 14001 journey.

“As an industry, we can no longer depend on spreadsheets,” he says. “The environmental and economic risks are too great.”

NPDES reporting requires utilities to track permit obligations, discharges, reporting, and fines. With the right platform in place, you can achieve compliance, but your utility can also raise its game. “When you can visualize your data and reports, it’s easier to see the ways you can improve your utility’s performance,” he says.

2. Track Hazardous Waste Sites Assessment Data for Reporting—and Future Projects

As a 150-year-old utility, San Jose Water often learns about legacy sites through site assessments for construction, renovation, or facility retirement. 

“When we complete an assessment, we generate a lot of data about the soil and hazmat that we might not have already known existed on the site,” Rodigari says. 

San Jose Water uses this information to prepare bidding documents. “Contractors need to know about any precautions they need to take during demolition and disposal,” he says. 

If the findings require action, the utility might map the site and construct barriers to ensure runoff doesn’t migrate to another property. In other cases, the utility works with Santa Clara County and the Department of Environmental Health to propose a cleanup and remediation plan. 

Furthermore, the utility maps the sites to protect workers. “If future work will disturb the soil, workers need to know,” Rodigari says.

With more than 100 properties, San Jose Water can’t manage everything with individual engineering reports, Rodigari adds. “We need our data to be readily available and easy to retrieve. It’s critical for managers to have that information.”

3. Keep a Central Record of Hazmat Manifests

A utility is required—and has an obligation—to manage hazardous materials manifests in order to minimize liability from cradle to grave, Rodigari says. “When you have multiple entities generating and disposing of waste on your utility’s behalf, you need a system that allows everyone to report uniformly.” 

In California there are tax requirements associated with generating hazmat and solid waste. Manifests play a key role in the ability to draw an inventory and understand its fate, he adds, so it’s important to store them in a platform that is easy to query.

4.  Remove the Burden of Gathering Environmental and Compliance Data with Automated Reports and Alerts

Automating NPDES reports can lift a huge administrative burden for a utility. The first challenge, however, is making sure you have all of the relevant data in the right place.

Rodigari says it can take time to harmonize NPDES data sources, but it should be an important priority. “Across our utility, several teams generate discharges, from operations to contractors to field service. Ensuring all reports are properly filed in one platform and easy to retrieve is a best practice that can protect your utility from liability.”

For San Jose Water, fully automating all NPDES reporting is a goal for the longer term. In the meantime, the utility is aiming to collect all data in one platform, Rodigari says. And, to ensure compliance, the utility’s platform is programmed to send reminders to parties responsible for collecting data that the NPDES permit requires. “If there’s a failure to document, the platform issues an escalation. This helps managers track and follow up on missed deadlines.”

Improving Performance and Environmental Impact with NPDES Best Practices

Rodigari says he's confident that the state-wide NPDES permit has improved best management practices in California’s water utilities. For San Jose Water, that’s meant a major shift in the way the utility manages discharges.

“We’re doing a better job of ensuring water quality, including reducing turbidity, and removing chlorine prior to discharge,” Rodigari says. “We’re also minimizing water loss during discharges, and we’ve set some ambitious goals in terms of non-revenue water.”

Rodigari credits the utility’s hard work, as well as the way the industry is starting to think about data and reporting. “Making sense of our data is an important step in the path to improving our environmental impact and organizational performance,” he says. “That’s the point of NPDES.”

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Look out! It’s coming: EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Electronic Reporting Rule (catchily referred to as the “NPDES eRule”) reaches full effect on December 21, 2025. And it’s up to water utilities’ IT teams to bring them into compliance. The NPDES eRule requires water utilities to move all their reporting to a standardized, digital format, using online portals either provided by EPA or custom-created by individual states. That means no more submitting spreadsheets, docs, or PDFs by email, and certainly no more hard copy paper reporting by snail mail.December of 2025 may seem a long way off, but the NPDES eRule is broad, sweeping, and impacts every form of EPA reporting a water utility is responsible for. IT teams need to get moving now if they’re going to meet new compliance requirements on time.

This article provides all the information you and the rest of your team needs to understand new electronic reporting regulations, and bring your water utility up to date ASAP.

What Is Electronic Reporting?

For the purposes of this article, “electronic reporting” (or “eReporting”) refers to using standardized online tools or web portals to submit reports to EPA. This is distinct from submitting reports by email, which many utilities did (and still do).The NPDES eRule was published on October 22, 2015, and came into effect December 21, 2015. It’s still in the process of being implemented. It will be fully implemented on October 22, 2025.The eRule has two phases: Phase I and Phase II.Phase I of the NPDES eRule is already in effect. It only requires utilities to eReport DMRs.Phase II was slated to come into effect December 2020, but the deadline was extended. On September 23, 2020, EPA signed an extension into effect. The new effective date for Phase II is December 21, 2025.The full list of reports affected by Phase II include (per EPA’s website):

• Notices of Intent to discharge (NOIs) under a general permit
• Notices of Termination (NOTs) of coverage under a general permit
• No Exposure Certifications (NOEs) under a stormwater general permit
• Low Erosivity Waivers (LEWs) under a stormwater general permit
• Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) Annual Program Reports
• Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Program Reports
• Pretreatment Program Annual Reports
• Significant Industrial User (SIU) Bi-annual Compliance Reports in municipalities without approved pretreatment programs
• Sewer Overflow/Bypass Event Reports
• Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 316(b) Annual Reports

As you’ve probably already realized, preparing these reports is much more labor intensive than preparing DMRs. For every instance at your water utility where they exist in the form of spreadsheets or written documents, you will need to convert these documents to electronic formats compatible with new eReporting standards. The most effective way to prepare for the full, Phase II rollout of the NPDES eRule is to transition now to a compliance and reporting system that is compatible with EPA’s new online reporting systems.

What Stage Are You at in Your Electronic Reporting Journey?

In order to get a clear idea of what steps your department must take to implement new, eRule-compliant reporting at your water utility, it’s essential to complete an audit of your current system. Refer to the following categories to get an idea of where you stand, and plan the next steps you need to take to fully digitize your reporting and become compliant with eRule.

Stage 0: Cluttered Desk

Your reporting systems are tied up in a byzantine system of printouts, hard media (anything from floppy disks to USB sticks), and even the occasional quilt of Post-It notes. Completing a report means cracking open the filing cabinets of multiple stakeholders, and sometimes literally digging up old files.If this sounds like your utility, you can take some comfort in the fact that you are not alone. A surprising number of water utilities across North America are still using analog—and often disorganized—systems to store and transmit data.It comes with a lot of potential pitfalls, including:

• Hard copy data lost in transit or misplaced
• Files without backup copies being damaged or destroyed
• Significant time costs associated with manual and analog processes
• Loss of access to documents as older team members retire

If you’re at Stage 0, you’re most likely still filing reports by snail mail. You’ve got a long road ahead of you to come into compliance with the NPDES eRule. The good news is that, if you start now and get set up with a digital system that’s in full compliance with the new reporting standards coming into effect at the end of 2025, you should be able to meet the deadline.

Stage 1: Basic Electronic Reporting

You create, share, and file your reports (and associated data) on the computer. When filing reports or sharing information with colleagues and across organizations, you save data in the form of Microsoft Office or Excel files, or PDFs, and send them as attachments to emails.All of the digital data at your water utility is stored in-office, on employee computers, or on a shared local server accessible via intranet.Common pitfalls at this stage include:

• Lost data, as hardware is upgraded or experiences failures
• Duplicate data, in the form of multiple files stored natively on different employees’ desktops (changes to files aren’t synced, so different copies may disagree with one another)
• Vulnerability to viruses and ransomware
• Danger of sabotage or information theft. Email is one of least secure means of transmitting data online, and leaves you open to interference from a variety of bad actors, from amateur hackers to hostile foreign governments
• Information islands. An individual who relies on DIY Excel “cheat sheets” to access data or complete reports can become a weak link in an organization. When such an individual leaves on vacation or retires, even if their files are accessible, they aren’t necessarily usable by other people in the organization—leading to knowledge gaps and stalled workflows

If your water utility falls under this category, you’re one step closer than Stage 0 to meeting the requirements of the NPDES eRule. But, broadly speaking, you still have the following steps to complete:

1. Assess the scope of migrating to a new compliance and reporting system compatible with the NPDES eRule
2. Compile data from across disparate storage methods and file formats
3. Input it into the new system
4. Retrain personnel in the new system
5. Adapt workflows so that all data entry and recall and report filing are completed exclusively within the new system

Completing Step 1 should help you understand the time cost of the transition. The sooner you get started, the better.

Avoid Spreadsheet Overload With SaaS

Think you can get by on spreadsheets? Think again. Using spreadsheets as databases often creates more problems than it solves. Download the guide and book a demo of Klir today.

Stage 2: Web-based

Your water utility is already using a reporting and compliance system that is fully compatible with the NPDES eRule.This system could be:

• Fully customized. As a one-time purchase from a software company, your water utility management suite was custom-coded by their in-house engineers to meet the specific needs of your organization. Most likely, it’s locally hosted on your own servers. Changes to the software may require hiring engineers to modify the code.
• Fully configurable. The software you use was created with as many configurable variables as possible, so it can be used by a large number of utilities across a wide range of use case scenarios. It’s hosted externally, in the cloud, using standard bank-grade encryption. The software automatically updates to ensure it’s always in compliance with changes to reporting standards.

You can learn more from our article, Configurable vs. Customizable Software: A Cost-Benefit Breakdown. In either case, your system should be up to the task of completing, filing, and storing copies of reports in accordance with the NPDES eRule. If it isn’t, you should contact the manufacturer regarding updates—or else begin looking for a new software solution. If you have a system like this in place, you’re head and shoulders above most water utilities in terms of coming into compliance with new reporting standards and improving the overall performance and data security of your organization. If you don’t have a system like this in place, getting to Stage 2 should be your number one priority. It’s the surest way to help ensure you’re in compliance with the new rules.On top of that, using a web-based compliance and reporting system means:

• Data entry is easy. Predetermined forms and fields set specifically for your needs and standardized across the organization streamline the process of entering data and keeping it securely stored.
• You spend less time searching for forms and information. A searchable database with organization-appropriate tagging makes it easy to look up info when you need it. No more long email threads as you try to track down misplaced files.
• Everyone is on the same page. Whether data is hosted on a local server or in the cloud, team members are always referring and making changes to the same, authoritative file. No more out-of-sync duplicates.

To better understand the benefits of a web-based solution, check out our article, Why SaaS Makes Sense for Water Now More than Ever Before.

Stage 3: CROMERR and the Future

Even though Stage 2 should be your number one goal, there is an extra level of compliance that will soon become relevant to your water utility. The Cross-Media Electronic Reporting Rule (CROMERR) sets standards for NPDES-compliant electronic reporting systems. In particular, it ensures that all data entered is legally defensible, and includes a Copy of Record.

To be clear: It isn’t up to your water utility to apply for CROMERR. Rather, software manufacturers for water utilities must ensure their products are compliant and apply. CROMERR is not fully in effect yet. However, if you are choosing an electronic reporting and compliance system for your water utility, before purchasing one, you should either make sure it is already CROMERR-compliant, or that the manufacturer has a clear timeline for bringing its software in line with CROMERR standards.

The Time for Action Is Now

EPA’s new eReporting rules may seem like a major obstacle. And there is no denying that, for many water utilities, becoming compliant will take a considerable amount of planning and effort.But these new standards are simply an indicator of the direction water utility reporting is headed. Across a wide range of industries, fully digital and cloud-based reporting and data storage are becoming the norm. Utility reporting is no different. There are many benefits that come with bringing your water utility in line with the new requirements, including increased efficiency and less risk of data damage, loss, or theft. Even if making the transition poses some difficulties, it will pay off in the long run.

If your water utility is at Stage 0 (“Cluttered Desk”), you can save yourself a significant amount of time and energy by skipping Stage 1 and going straight to Stage 2. Plugging data into spreadsheets is a stopgap solution, at best. Eventually, all utilities will need to become NPDES eReport compliant, and that means using a web-based solution like Klir.

Harness The Power of SaaS With Klir

We believe that utilities deserve world-class software custom-built for the water industry. Ready to see how scalable, flexible, continuously improving SaaS tools can help your utility overcome its biggest data challenges? Book a demo and get a demo of Klir today.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

For utilities managing multiple programs like drinking and wastewater, cross connection control, and industrial pretreatment, bringing operational and compliance data from across the organization into one environment can be a big undertaking.

Over the years, numerous engineering, IT consulting, and software companies have developed tools to help utilities manage this process. But while they might be a step up from paper and spreadsheet-based data management, not all operational and compliance management software is created equal.

Today we’re going to explore some of these differences by comparing two platforms:

Klir

An all-in-one cloud-based operating system for water & wastewater utilities. Klir pulls compliance, sampling, reporting and more into an easy to use dashboard, cutting down on administration and record-keeping work while providing a level of organization-wide visibility unmatched by other systems.

SAMS

An operations and compliance management suite from NJBSoft built for managing water, wastewater, industrial pretreatment, backflow, stormwater, air quality and asset management programs.

Klir: A Quick Intro

Until recently, the information that operators and managers at water utilities needed to do their jobs was fragmented, dispersed across numerous systems, incomplete, or otherwise difficult to access.

Launched in 2018, Klir is the first system to bring these disparate functions together into one complete, all-in-one operating system (OS) for water & wastewater utilities.

Instead of relying on a mishmash of different systems and software, Klir brings the entire team onto one platform and pulls in data from lab reports, LIMS, SCADA & GIS to create a single source of truth for sampling activities utility-wide.

This allows operators to:

Work With Trends

See trends across the entire water system—from sampling, to permitting, inspections & more—and make decisions with clarity and confidence.

Use Automation

Automate manual tasks and data analysis that were once tracked in Excel or Outlook, from scheduling sampling runs, to interpreting sampling results, and generating regulatory reports, eliminating 1+ days of admin work each week.

Receive Alerts

Have peace of mind knowing that Klir’s automatic alerts for MCLs and non-compliance will trigger in case anything ever goes wrong, and feel confident that every sample has been completed on time.

SAMS: A Quick Intro

Launched in 2009, NJBSoft’s Sampling and Monitoring System (SAMS) began as an integrated operations and compliance solution for the Civil, Environmental and Municipal Engineering sector.

Today, the company offers seven separate ‘SAMS’ covering different aspects of water utility data management, including:

• Compliance and permit management for drinking and wastewater utilities (SAMS Water and SAMS Wastewater)
• Suites for managing industrial pretreatment (SAMS IPP), cross connection control (SAMS Cross Connection) and stormwater (SAMS Stormwater) programs
• A tool for managing Clean Air Act and other air quality compliance (SAMS Air Quality)
• A new asset management module (SAMS Asset Management)

Klir vs. SAMS: Which One Is Right for You?

While SAMS and Klir might have a lot of overlap, there are three major differences that set the two platforms apart: degree of customizability vs. configurability, how each platform handles data visualization, and collaboration tools. Here’s what each of them means for your utility:

1. Customizability vs. Configurability

Generally speaking, users get the most out of NJBSoft’s SAMS by customizing and changing the tool to fit their specific situation.

Organizations that have substantial IT and computer engineering resources have the ability to make code-level changes to SAMS, which can result in a tool that is closely tailored to a specific utility or department’s data management needs and situation.

Klir’s “click not code” approach to configurability, on the other hand, means that any user can automate processes and manage tasks without the steep learning curve.

While customizable software might offer users a more tailored approach, it’s also more expensive, both from a financial and human resources perspective.

When budgets get tight, the last thing your department needs is to sink thousands of dollars into hiring engineers to customize software you’ve already paid for. Meanwhile, configurable software is cheaper to adapt to your specific needs, and cheaper to maintain.

2. Data Visualization

We can make a similar comparison between the two platforms when it comes to another important function: pulling and synthesizing large amounts of operational and compliance data into easy-to-understand dashboards and reports.

While both platforms offer data visualization, the SAMS platform requires complex, time-consuming queries to pull operational data into dashboards.

Klir’s single-click reporting and dashboard capabilities, on the other hand, are focused on saving time and being as user-friendly as possible. There’s no need for an experienced ‘power user’ to immediately start getting value out of Klir. Powerful out-of-the-box dashboards make data more digestible for everyone, whether you’re a seasoned Klir user or using the platform for the first time.

Pulling data into reports is a similarly painless process. With a single click, operators can generate compliance reports that are instantly ready for submission to state and local regulators.

Overall, Klir’s fully configurable platform offers a simple yet comprehensive solution for all users to set up their dashboards, notifications, and forms, making it easy to visualize important information such as inspection outcomes, compliance status, and sampling results at a glance.

3. Collaboration

SAMS internal collaboration and communications tools are limited, forcing teams to handle most project management work outside of the app. If you’re looking for a tool that prioritizes project management functionality and other automation-enabled collaboration tasks, you should consider Klir instead.

Klir provides a single collaborative platform that paves the way for more proactive, collaborative programs, offering an internal chat and reply functionality, user tagging, and commenting, turning the platform into a single channel for collaboration and project management across the organization.

Conclusion

While SAMS’ operations and compliance management tools might meet the needs of power users with substantial IT and engineering resources, Klir’s out-of-the-box, user-friendly approach makes it the clear favorite for the average program manager.

1. Klir’s focus on configurability cuts down on the substantial time and effort users must invest in customizable platforms like SAMS.
2. Klir’s intuitive, user-friendly interface and query-free dashboard interface makes it the more powerful tool out-of-the-box. Users with little to no experience using the platform can immediately start creating data visualizations and generating reports for regulators.
3. Klir’s focus on project management and in-app communication also makes it the clear choice for utilities and programs looking for a single tool to encompass all aspects of program management.
4. Klir is committed to providing your utility with continued personalized support throughout your entire journey, including a dedicated Klir Customer Success Manager and a comprehensive change management plan to make the transition as seamless as possible.

Operations And Compliance Management For Everyone

Interested in learning how to get configurable dashboards without a computer science degree? Learn more about how Klir can cut down on administration and recordkeeping work, create new opportunities for collaboration, and provide a level of system-wide visibility unmatched by other water data management systems.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Over the past 30 years, the amount of data wastewater treatment plants typically generate has increased exponentially. Systems for storing and organizing that data have struggled to keep up.

In many cases, water utilities have come to see the sheer amount of data on file as a liability rather than an asset: something that needs to be constantly monitored, corralled, and inevitably pushed to the side.

However, as some researchers have noted, that massive pile of data overwhelming your water utility has the potential to become a goldmine.

When data is organized and shared effectively, it becomes a powerful tool for upgrading the efficiency and performance of your wastewater treatment system, anticipating disturbances before they happen and adapting to stricter standards of compliance.

The Explosive Growth of Water Treatment Data

One study showed that a single large wastewater treatment plant, serving 800,000 to 3 million people, can generate up to 30,000 data points. These include everything from sampling data essential for reporting compliance and meeting environmental regulations, to GPS coordinates, call logs, field notes, and more.

Such a large volume of data has an impact on individual personnel. For example: a single employee at a large water utility is often responsible for overseeing more than 40,000 backflow prevention devices, each of which generates annual inspection data. The system used to organize such data has an enormous impact on that employee’s day-to-day job, affecting their ability to share information, file reports, and ensure compliance.

On its own, the overarching project of compliance—particularly tracking permits—represents an enormous task. One water utility uses Klir to manage over 3,000 permits, a task that would be daunting without Klir’s fully configurable data management systems.

As Lluís Corominas, a researcher at the Catalan Institute for Water Research, writes:

Plant operators have an overwhelming stream of data at their hands, which is very difficult to process and analyze in a timely enough fashion to allow for better understanding or proper decision-making.

The earliest tremors of this explosion of data generation can be traced back to the 1970s, when one of the hottest topics at international wastewater treatment conferences was data collection from sensors.

The sensors being used were adapted from other industries and ill-fitted for use in wastewater treatment systems, but attendees were already discussing the best ways to automate the collection and management of data in their plants.

The same report lists four primary reasons why managing water treatment data (referred to as information, control, and automation [ICA]) has since become such an enormous task:

• Effluent quality standards, which became more demanding and complex
• Economic factors, which encouraged water utilities to develop automated, money-saving compliance management tools that generated more data than prior solutions
• Plant complexity, one of the most important driving factors, which increased as methods of water treatment advanced
• Improved tools, such as advanced remote sensors, which generated more data for water utilities to manage

With such a large amount of information to deal with, one of the most important tools at a water utility’s disposal is data centralization.

The Importance of Data Centralization

Utilities are increasingly data-rich but information-poor. As Corominas notes, a large number of utilities have become host to “data graveyards,” massive stores of data that cannot be easily navigated or accessed.

The data graveyard is a sort of invisible weight burdening a water utility, demanding resources to be maintained, causing a constant drain on time and money, but rarely producing outright catastrophic effects.

Individuals may be forced to enter the graveyard on a regular basis, in order to dredge up information for the sake of renewing permits, for instance, or to confirm the status of different backflow devices. But each of these is simply a slow, laborious task–one that creates drag on standard processes without ever pushing them to their breaking point.

The cumulative effect of the data graveyard may be huge, but it’s difficult to see. That’s especially the case when pieces of it are owned by different individuals and teams, or scattered across multiple disconnected databases.

If the cumulative effect of a data graveyard is difficult to grasp, its potential for good may be even more elusive. Your water utility could have a huge amount of data on hand that might be leveraged to speed up and improve processes, anticipate problems, and plan for the future. But so long as it’s a fragmentary mess and a headache to access, its potential is impossible to realize.

The first step in converting your data graveyard to a goldmine is centralizing it. Bringing all your data together in one place, under one administrative dashboard, lets you assess its potential.

The best tool for the job is a comprehensive software as a service (SaaS) solution. Learn more about why SaaS makes sense for water.

Once your data is centralized and easier to navigate, it’s ready to be mined.

Gold Mining for Data

To push the metaphor to the breaking point, once you’ve converted your data graveyard into a goldmine, it’s time to start mining for gold.

“Mining for gold,” in this sense, means converting raw data into information—becoming both data-rich and information-rich. The biggest opportunities for leveraging data into information fall under three categories: machine learning, improvement of remote and real-time monitoring, and increased collaboration.

The Increasing Promise of Machine Learning

Increasingly, machine learning shows potential to have a huge impact on how water utilities leverage their data to improve operations.

Machine learning is, in brief, the process of using computers to analyze large amounts of data, discover patterns, and use those patterns to make predictions, solve problems, and answer questions.

Already, machine learning has been applied to water utility data in order to track the spread of COVID-19, reduce energy usage, and detect compliance violations.

Machine Learning and Wastewater

By testing wastewater samples, infectious disease experts are already able to predict upsurges in COVID-19 infections three to seven days before standard swab testing does the same.

That makes wastewater a window into COVID infection rates among particular populations—provided you have the tools to examine the data accurately.

While current systems for monitoring COVID via wastewater suffer some gaps in information—partly due to reduced detectability in people who have been vaccinated—machine learning has shown promise when it comes to predicting upsurges and tracking COVID’s spread.

What’s more, similar techniques can be used to track other viruses, such as norovirus and polio. You can learn more from our article on wastewater-based epidemiology.

Improving Remote and Real-Time Monitoring Capabilities with Water Data

COVID-19 lockdowns around the world fast-forwarded a general trend, across many industries, towards remote-first work policies. The lockdowns also drove home just how important it is for organizations to be able to access and manage their data remotely.

In this sense, water utilities were ahead of the curve: Many utilities already remotely manage thousands of infrastructure assets using sensors, controllers, and transmitters.

That remote capability is wasted, however, if data is fragmentary—stored natively on a variety of different media (harddrives, thumb drives, backup devices, etc.), accessible only by particular teams or individuals.

Even utilities who stored data in a centralized fashion on their own local servers faced problems when moving to remote working arrangements, as personnel encountered technical barriers to accessing the organization’s intranet from offsite computers.

A cloud-based SaaS (i.e., Software as a service) is the best solution for utilities that want to make their data available to all relevant personnel, regardless of their locations, at all times.

With the help of such a system, a water utility can:

• Cut down on work-related travel and site visits
• Put in place more accurate and effective alert and notification systems
• Shorten response times when issues arise
• Scale new operations quickly across the organization
• Respond nimbly to staffing shortages or future lockdown situations

Get More Value out of Your Wastewater Compliance Program

Curious about how technology can help your utility tackle NPDES and other wastewater-related compliance challenges for good? Download the guide and book a demo of Klir today.

How Water Utilities Can Use Machine Learning to Reduce Their Electric Bill

In Singapore, the Ulu Pandan Water Reclamation Plant used machine learning to analyze its operational data, and were able to reduce aeration energy usage by 15%.

Instead of using reactive control mechanisms, which adjust wastewater treatment processes in reaction to changing nutrient levels, flow rates, etc., the machine learning algorithm in use at Ulu Pandan creates predictive models, making fine adjustments to the system earlier than it would otherwise.

Effectively, the automated systems at the treatment plant spend less energy playing catch-up with changing conditions—opting, instead, to literally “go with the flow.”

Detecting Violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) With Machine Learning

In theory, some water treatment facilities are more likely to violate the CWA than others—there’s just no way to know which ones. Unless you apply machine learning to the task, that is.

In 2018, researchers from Stanford demonstrated that machine learning could be used to predict the likelihood of particular water treatment facilities violating the CWA. In theory, with that information, inspectors could be sent to the facilities most likely to be in violation of the CWA, rather than to facilities with a very low likelihood of being found non-compliant.

As their paper in Nature Sustainability demonstrates, using such a system can double the number of violators caught, while allocating inspection resources more effectively.

There’s also an element of deterrence at work: the researchers theorize that, if water treatment facilities know their data is being monitored and that a machine learning algorithm will be able to anticipate any future violations, they will be more diligent, working harder to ensure violations never occur at all.

Improving Collaboration with Centralized Water Data

Machine learning and the rise of the distributed workforce are both exciting aspects of water utility data management. In fact, they could have a major impact on the future of how water utilities operate.

But organizing and centralizing data has the most immediate impact upon a water utility’s most valuable resource: its people.

When data is accessible to all personnel, across all teams, collaboration becomes more fluid, easy, and intuitive. It’s easier for engineers, compliance professionals, operations management, and other stakeholders to take advantage of the utility’s vast store of data, and use it to everyone’s benefit.

Ready to Turn Your Compliance Data Into an Asset?

Klir’s compliance tracking tools help utilities get more out of their data while cutting down on administration and record-keeping work, create new opportunities for collaboration, and provide a level of system-wide visibility unmatched by other water data management systems. Learn more and book a demo today.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Whether it’s cross connection control, industrial pretreatment, or sampling, tracking regulatory compliance across the different programs and departments at a water and wastewater utility can be a massive undertaking.

Operators need access to a variety of data points to budget, plan for, and manage these challenges effectively, and many have turned to dedicated compliance tracking software to fill the gap.

While these tools are a step up from spreadsheets and post-it notes of the past, they aren’t perfect. Operators looking for a single tool to manage all aspects of compliance might find some of them outdated or limited in functionality.

Today we’re going to explore these tradeoffs by comparing two separate compliance tracking solutions:

Klir

An all-in-one cloud-based operating system for drinking water & wastewater utilities—and more. Klir’s inspection tools help utilities run more effective backflow, FOG and industrial pretreatment programs while cutting down on administration and record-keeping work.

SwiftComply

A compliance management tool offering backflow prevention, FOG management, and industrial pretreatment solutions.

Klir: A Quick Intro

Launched in 2018, Klir is an all-in-one operating system for drinking water & wastewater that brings your entire team onto one platform, pulling in data from lab reports, LIMS, SCADA & GIS to create a single source of truth for compliance utility-wide. This allows operators to:

Work With Trends

See trends across the entire water system—from sampling, to permitting, inspections & more—and make decisions with clarity and confidence.

Use Automation

Automate manual tasks and data analysis that were once tracked in Excel or Outlook, from scheduling sampling runs, to interpreting sampling results, and generating regulatory reports, eliminating 1+ days of admin work each week.

Receive Alerts

Have peace of mind knowing that Klir’s automatic alerts for MCLs and non-compliance will trigger in case anything ever goes wrong, and feel confident that every sample has been completed on time.

SwiftComply: A Quick Intro

Launched in 2016, SwiftComply began as a tool to help utilities manage FOG programs. In 2019, the company acquired XC2, a specialized backflow program management software vendor, which it began to replace with a newer updated tool called SwiftComply Backflow.

Today SwiftComply offers modules for FOG, backflow, and industrial pretreatment, stormwater, and customer management, building on its strengths in FOG and pretreatment and offering users powerful features like real-time compliance data monitoring.

Klir vs. SwiftComply: Which One Is Right for You?

SwiftComply and Klir have a lot of overlap, but there are four big differences between them that are worth keeping in mind when considering whether they’re the right fit for your operation: scope, collaboration, pricing, and data ownership.

1. One Tool For Everything

SwiftComply might work well if you already use it to manage your cross connection control data, and it might also work if you’re a solo operator looking for a tool dedicated to managing your backflow program alone.

But if you’re looking for a truly all-encompassing tool that plugs into the rest of your operation—including sampling, customer management, resource recovery and more—you might consider using a tool like Klir instead.

Klir’s commitment to building one unified platform for water utility management means it avoids the pitfalls commonly associated with legacy software suites—including duplicate data, overlapping processes, multiple licenses, uneven product development, and lack of cross-app integration—while ensuring that your team can be trained and brought onto a single, unified system.

2. Pricing Tailored For Growth

Another major difference between SwiftComply and Klir is pricing: the former follows a usage-based pricing model, whereas Klir offers personalized pricing based on a utility’s needs.

To most operators new to water data management software, a tool like SwiftComply can seem as good as “free.” There are no flat licensing costs, and if a utility does not upload any data to Swiftcomply, they don’t pay anything.

But while the financial barrier to entry might be low, usage based pricing can also work against you, discouraging use of the tool in general.

Going with a predictable, tailored fee like Klir’s means that you can keep a rapidly growing population’s drinking water safe without the surprise of a massive bill.

Klir focuses on enabling the utility to grow with its city, rather than penalizing it. If you’re keen on software that is as easy to use as it is to budget for, consider Klir.

3. Collaboration

SwiftComply provides users real-time data to monitor compliance. But like other legacy systems, it doesn’t include internal collaboration or communications tools, forcing teams to come up with their own off-platform solutions (usually email).

If you’re looking for a tool that does more than just monitoring, especially project management and other automation-enabled collaboration tasks, you should consider Klir instead.

Klir merges multiple data sources and processes into a single collaborative platform and paves the way for a more proactive, collaborative, and resilient water management program. Directors can independently access every aspect of the water management data—including compliance and sampling–with an easy-to-use executive dash dashboard, freeing-up the time of their subordinates and empowering them to get the data they need in an instant.

Klir allows teams to manage all of their tasks within the app, offering an internal chat and reply functionality, user tagging, and commenting, turning the platform into a single channel for collaboration and project management across the organization.

4. Privacy and Data Ownership

As utilities move more of their data from physical logbooks, spreadsheets and calendars into the digital sphere, who exactly has access to—or even outright owns—that data can become murkier.

One big concern for utilities who work with private inspectors and contractors on functions like  backflow is ownership over inspection data. With SwiftComply, third-party inspectors own the data that they enter into the system. With Klir, the utility has full ownership of inspector data.

Conclusion

Despite SwiftComply’s strengths in cross connection and FOG program management, Klir’s all-encompassing, user-friendly approach to data management makes it the clear winner for utilities looking to manage all of their programs out of one system.

1. Klir’s focus on creating a single source of truth for all of your utility’s programs—from sampling and compliance to industrial pretreatment—provides program managers with the data and confidence they need to make important operational decisions.
2. Klir’s straightforward pricing structure makes it easier to budget and doesn’t penalize users for increased usage.
3. Klir’s focus on project management and in-app communication also makes it the clear choice for utilities and programs looking for a single tool to encompass all aspects of program management.

Operations And Compliance Management For Everyone

Looking for a simple, straightforward compliance tracking tool that you can use straight out of the box? Learn more about how Klir can cut down on administration and recordkeeping work, create new opportunities for collaboration, and provide a level of system-wide visibility unmatched by other water data management systems.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

As you explore software options for your water utility, you’re bound to run across the terms customizable and configurable. While at first glance these terms may seem interchangeable, they have completely different meanings.Customizable software can be modified with the help of a software engineer. Configurable software can be adjusted and fine-tuned by the end user. That’s the most basic definition—but the differences go deeper.Understanding how customizable and configurable software options differ, and the pros and cons of each, gives you the power to make the most effective choice for your utility. In the long term, that saves you time and resources, smooths out bumps in the compliance and reporting process, and improves your bottom line.

Configuration vs. Customization: A Deeper Dive

Configurable software is adjustable within certain parameters set by the developer. Customizable software is, in theory, infinitely adjustable—so long as you have the resources to hire a developer to change the code for you.

The Chair Metaphor

Think of enterprise software as an office chair.

Your configurable office chair lets you set its height, increase or decrease lumbar support, adjust the tilt of the seat—just about anything you need to make it “just right” for whoever is using it.

However, you can’t take it apart. If you wanted to make really fundamental changes—like adding a lever-activated footrest—you’d be out of luck.Your customizable office chair is different. Sit in it for a moment, and you’ll realize there’s no way to adjust the height, the lumbar support, or the seat tilt. All of those are set by the manufacturer, with the aim of making the chair as comfortable as possible to the most number of people.

Good news, though: This chair can be taken apart. You just have to pay someone at the company that manufactured it to come over to your office and make the changes. Or, you may be able to hire a freelance chair engineer to take care of it instead.

Both types of chair, configurable and customizable, have their benefits and drawbacks. Climbing out of the chair metaphor and returning to enterprise software, that’s what we’ll cover below.

Configurable Software: Pros and Cons

The benefits of configurable software have to do with reduced cost and ease of maintenance, while the drawbacks have to do with hard limits on how much the software can be adapted or changed.

Pros of Configurable Software

• Lower Initial and Lifetime Costs – Because configurable software doesn’t need to be customized for each user, it’s cheaper to develop and deploy on a per-user basis. Those savings are then passed on to the customer. Since configurable software doesn’t need a computer engineer to make updates to code or perform maintenance, the cost of keeping it running is less than that of customizable software.
• Straightforward Scalability – In many cases, the capabilities of configurable software can be expanded by upgrading to a more advanced pricing package, or by purchasing an additional package that integrates with the current software. In the case of customizable software, making such changes typically requires paying engineers to change code. That costs more money, takes longer, and requires more administrative back and forth.
• Guaranteed Compatibility With Updates – Once an engineer changes software code, that software may no longer be compatible with upgrades from the original developer. So, even if you’ve managed to change the software to suit your needs, you may not be able to get updates essential for maintaining security and performance. When you use configurable software, none of the changes you make as a user alter code. Your software is always ready to be updated, and often does so seamlessly and automatically.
• Lower Cost of Cloud Hosting Is Passed On to End User – Cloud-based enterprise software is gradually overtaking locally hosted software in popularity, thanks to ease of maintenance and the reduced cost of hosting. Both configurable and customizable software can be hosted in the cloud, but only configurable software benefits from multi-tenant hosting. Multi-tenant hosting allows one instance of a particular application to run, while serving many users, each of whom has their own particular settings. Customizable software can’t do this, because each version of the app is different for each customer. A technical detail like this may seem like it would only be relevant to a software developer. But it affects your bottom line: the reduced cost of running multi-tenant enterprise software in the cloud gets passed on to you, the customer.

Cons of Configurable Software

• ‍A Definite Limit on Expandability – Configurable software is only configurable within limits set by the developer. If you require a high level of customization—beyond what the vast majority of users is looking for—you may find yourself constrained.
• ‍Too Many Options – Highly configurable software may present a huge swath of options to the user, making it adaptable to many different uses. For some, this can be overwhelming and difficult to navigate, compared to customized software that has been built for one specific use by one specific organization.

Configurable Software Tools Purpose-Built For Water Utilities

Klir brings all of your utility’s mission-critical data together in real time, so you can run a more efficient and sustainable organization. Book a demo of Klir today.

Customizable Software: Pros and Cons

While customizable software is more expensive than configurable software, and adapting it to your needs may be more arduous, it may still be the right choice for organizations with highly specific needs.

Pros of Customizable Software

• ‍Can Be an Easy Switch if You Already Have Engineers Working for You – If you already use a customizable software platform, but you’re upgrading to a new one, there’s a chance you already have in-house IT specialists or computer engineers working for you, or that you’ve developed a working relationship with contractors familiar with software in your industry. In that case, the cost of making necessary code-level changes to software may be less expensive or complicated than it would be for an organization that didn’t have these resources—making the cost-saving advantages of configurable software less significant.
• ‍Potentially Limitless Customization – If you have a unique set of circumstances that sets you apart from everyone else in your field, you may need a software platform that can be considerably altered to suit your needs. While configurable software is typically designed to meet the needs of a diverse set of customers, there are some cases where the options available to you just don’t fit. In that case, customizable software may be your best bet.

Cons of Customizable Software 

• ‍Expensive to Develop and Deploy – As covered in the Pros of configurable software section above, customizing software to suit your needs costs you (or the developer) considerably more than purchasing configurable software and adjusting its settings.
• ‍Potential for Getting Locked Into an Older Version – Since there is typically no guarantee that customizations you make to your software will be compatible with future versions, you may not be able to access updates from the developer—putting you at risk of performance issues or even security breaches.
• ‍High Cost of Maintenance – Changes to customizable software that may require hiring a computer engineer can be handled in configurable software by changing settings, upgrading your pricing package, or purchasing a new package from the developer. The result is a higher bill and more work to employ the services of an expert.
• ‍Need for Greater In-house Technical Expertise – Even if you hire an experienced engineer to make changes to your customizable software, you aren’t off the hook in terms of tech knowledge. Communicating your needs to an engineer, and communicating their feedback to stakeholders in your organization, requires a certain amount of familiarity with technology and the software development process. That may be a small amount, if your engineer is particularly good at communicating and the changes you’re requesting are fairly straightforward. Or it could be a large amount if neither is the case. Whereas configurable software is designed to be as user-friendly as possible, customizable software, by its nature, requires some background in tech, and a willingness to get “in the weeds” when it comes to technical matters.

Why Configurable Software Makes Sense for Water Utilities

If it seems like configurable software is—for most users, most of the time—the best choice for the majority of users, that’s because it is. But a few factors make configurable software the higher value option for water utilities in particular.

Every Water Utility is Different

The water utility of Juneau, Alaska has different needs from the water utility of El Paso, Texas. But each requires a software solution that can be adapted to fit its specific situation. Configurable water utility software like Klir is designed with such differences front of mind, so it’s a complete solution for every user.

Your Bottom Line Matters

When budgets get cut, the last thing you need is to sink thousands of dollars into hiring engineers to customize software you’ve already paid for. Configurable software is cheaper to adapt to your specific needs, and cheaper to maintain.

You Can Give Feedback on Changes That Matter

The developer of your configurable software didn’t personally alter the code to your specific needs, but that doesn’t mean they ignore their clients. All successful enterprise software platforms got where they are because they listened to their customers’ feedback while planning updates and new features. To take Klir as an example, we’re continually fielding suggestions and new ideas from our clients, so we can keep delivering a product that suits their needs while providing the most configurability possible.

Harness The Power of Configurable Software With Klir

Ready to see how configurable software can help you build a more resilient, streamlined and effective water utility? Book a demo and get a tour of Klir today.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

Software as a service (SaaS) has transformed the way we build businesses, organize information and communicate with other people, but the water sector has lagged behind. Most utilities continue to use desktop-based legacy software to manage everything from compliance data, to assets, to customer billing and spatial data. For a sector known for its conservative approach to technology and limited budgets, it’s understandable that utilities would be slow to embrace these tools. But SaaS applications present water and wastewater utilities with a unique opportunity to budget more effectively, improve internal processes, and buy tools that are uniquely tailored to their needs.Here’s why and how utilities can fully take advantage of this exciting new wave of technology and services.

What is SaaS?

If you’ve ever used tools like Dropbox, Shopify or Salesforce, you’ve used Software as a Service (SaaS) applications. They’re delivered to the customer through a web browser interface via the cloud, are continuously and automatically updated, and are provided to the customer on a subscription basis. These tools have transformed the way we use software, making it accessible to anyone with an internet connection, easier to maintain and improve on the developer’s end, and also faster to deploy for the organization. Today they play a crucial role in the modern workplace, particularly at large organizations where implementing new technologies and bringing users up to speed with new tools can be a challenge. But for water utilities in particular, SaaS presents a few crucial benefits:

1. Ease of Configurability and Integration

How 'configurable' something is refers to how easy it is to adjust and tailor an existing piece of software without altering a single line of code. The more configurable a system is, the more adjustments the user can make. SaaS applications tend to be highly configurable, making them cheaper and easier to use than custom-built software.Software integrations bring together different kinds of software to produce a single, well-oiled, unified system.Integrations don’t just save you time: they allow your system to do things that individual software modules simply wouldn’t be able to do by themselves, like pull data into dashboards, generate and submit reports, mine large datasets for interesting insights, and more.Many SaaS applications boast powerful integration capabilities, making it easier to seamlessly integrate them into your existing processes.When it comes to the water sector, configurable SaaS with powerful integration capabilities presents an exciting opportunity. Gone are the days of using applications built for other industries with a raft of features you don’t need. With SaaS tools like Klir, utilities get all off the functionality they need, and nothing they don’t need.

2. Continuous and Automatic Improvement

By their nature, SaaS tools are easier to update and improve. Instead of getting bogged down in manual patches or updates, developers can simply push them to the cloud, with little to no involvement needed from the end user. On the developer’s end, this makes it much easier to build ambitious roadmaps and continuously improve. While users enjoy uninterrupted access to their tools, developers can monitor how they’re using them in real time and make adjustments on the fly. Instead of improving reactively, developers can adopt a proactive approach to making the product better, anticipating users’ needs even before the user does. It's also important to note the service element of SaaS. Many developers today will go beyond what customers normally expect from a support team, using customer success teams to continuously liaise with and work on the product with customers to facilitate quick communication and iteration. With SaaS, developers and customers will often work together as partners to set priorities, shape the product roadmap, and build a product that is truly responsive to the end user's needs.

3. Pricing Is Simpler, More Flexible and Easier to Predict

Many traditional pricing models for software require you to pay for both a license up front, and also any maintenance, technical support, new versions and upgrades the developer releases down the line. If you plan on using that software for a while, those upfront and recurring costs can accumulate quickly and unpredictably. SaaS solves this problem by rolling all of those costs—support, maintenance, upgrades, patches, new releases, etc.—into a single subscription fee, simplifying and making your costs more predictable. Not sure you need all of the functionality of the full version? SaaS pricing also makes it easier to pick exactly what you need out of a software solution without paying for what you don’t with by-the-feature pricing. This can be especially useful if you aren’t sure yet how many users on your team will be using a particular app, or how much your use of the app might scale in the future. When it comes to SaaS, the name of the game is flexibility and speed. Buy and use exactly what you need, deploy it in your organization quickly, and let the developer take care of the rest.

Harness The Power of SaaS With Klir

We believe that utilities deserve world-class software custom-built for the water industry. Ready to see how scalable, flexible, continuously improving SaaS tools can help your utility overcome its biggest data challenges? Book a demo and get a tour of Klir today.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.