A Service Offering is a definition of a service that your company provides to its clients. This article describes how to define your service offerings in your SolarNexus account. For more background on service offerings, see the About Service Offerings help article. If you are transitioning to service offerings from legacy solution templates, we suggest reviewing How to Migrate from Legacy Solution Templates to Service Offerings.

Contents:

• Adding Service Offerings
• Service Offering Attributes
• Include Service Offerings in a Solution Template
• Control Staff Accessibility
• Example Service Offerings

Adding Service Offerings

To add a Service Offering, navigate to Resources > Service Offerings.

Add Pre-Created Service Offerings

SolarNexus provides a number of pre-defined service offerings for common services that you can copy into your account to get started. We recommend reviewing and experimenting with these before creating your own.

To copy a SolarNexus-defined service offering, click on the SolarNexus Defined tab and click the "copy" icon for the service offering you want to copy.

Click back over to the Company Defined tab and you'll see that a copy of the service offering has been added to your account.

Now you can edit the new service offering to customize it for your company. In particular, if the service offering includes major equipment items, you'll want to review the product options for each item and add or remove them as needed. The included options are intended to serve as examples and won't necessarily reflect the equipment your company sells. Note that the included product options are automatically added to your company catalog when copying the service offering.

The predefined service offerings come complete with well defined cost item pricing models. On adding the service items to your account, SolarNexus will also copy the cost items included in the service offering to your Company Catalog. If you use cost item pricing, you'll want to review the unit cost rates for the product items that are copied into your Company Catalog.

 

Update Cost Item Unit Costs to Reflect Your Company's Costs

If you want to use cost item pricing method, you'll need to update the cost items used in our pre-defined service offerings.

SolarNexus has engineered cost item models for a small number of the pre-defined service offerings. The default unit costs used in the cost items reflect one possible set of company costs, but it won't necessarily reflect your own individual company's costs for labor and materials.

To reflect your own company's costs for the cost items, use this Google Worksheet to input your own labor and material rates into the input cells. The spreadsheet then incorporates your own labor and material rates into the respective unit costs for all the cost items used in our pre-defined service offerings.

After inputting your rates into the spreadsheet, you can open your Company Catalog in SolarNexus and edit the unit cost rates for the respective cost items listed in the spreadsheet for the service offering you are using.

Also note the presence of Shared Cost Items.

Create Your Own Service Offerings

To create your own service offering, click the Add Offering button and select the category of service you want to create.

SolarNexus defines 4 separate categories of service offerings. Each defines how the service affects the client's energy use in the SolarNexus analysis. The four categories are:

• PV System - A PV system generates energy for the client.
• Storage System - An energy storage system captures energy generated by a PV system or imported from the grid, and discharges it at another time of day to serve client loads.
• Efficiency Measure - An efficiency measure reduces the client's load. Part of defining the efficiency measure is to include an estimate of the energy that will be saved. When analyzing a solution with efficiency measures, the anticipated reduction in load is applied to the customer's historic load profile (as defined in Energy Use) FIRST. Then effects of PV System and storage are applied to the remaining load. Examples of energy efficiency measures from the list above include: water heater upgrade, radiant barrier, and duct sealing.
• General Service - Any work that your company may do for a client that has no impact on the client's energy system. Examples of general services from the list above include main service panel upgrade and EVSE.

Service Offering Attributes

The table below describes the attributes that are common to all Service Offering categories, and provides some recommendations for content in each.

NOTE: Most of the property values for a service created from a service offering are available for output into documents that you generate. See Document Template Object Reference for more.

Properties	Description
Service Type	Service Type classifies the service offering. It generically describes the type of work to be done. Your company defines the set of Service Type values your company offers on the Project Data screen. A solution's scope consists of the service types of all included services. The scope is used in a variety of ways in SolarNexus. For example, you can use it to control inclusion or exclusion of certain milestones from your job processes, you can filter your views of Sales or Installs, and use it as a filter criteria for reports.
Name	The name of the service offering, e.g. Residential Rooftop PV System or EV Charger.
Description	The description is used to define the scope of work included in the service offering. It is usually shown in the customer proposal and contract. We recommend that you input a 2-3 sentence description of the labor and materials included in your service's scope of work. Do not include specific product names unless they are common to every instance of this service offering AND you don't include that product as an item (see below).
Editable	If you want users to be able to customize the name, description and list of equipment/service items included in the service offering when adding it to a customer solution, the service offering should be marked as editable. If you'd rather lock down the name, description and item list, uncheck the editable box.
Item(s)	The major equipment and service items that are included in this service offering's scope of work. While a service such as a "PV System install" may involve a host of materials and labor items, the items you define at this level for a service offering represent the key components that are typically called out in the proposal and contract, such as modules and inverters. SolarNexus pre-defines Modules, Inverters, and DC Optimizers as items for a PV System. Similarly, Storage Systems include Storage Units and Charge Controllers as predefined items. You can create your own items for each service offering. Each item in a service offering can have one or more product options from your Company Catalog for the user to select from. For a "Water Heater Upgrade" service offering, you would likely include an item for calling out the specific water heater product you want to include, and you would define the list of water heater products from your Company Catalog that the user could select from.
	Product Category / Sub-Category	Each item is a product option from the same Catalog category or sub-category. The category defines what type of product this item is. This value is automatically set when you select a default product for the service item. For example, if you navigate to the "HVAC/Thermal > Pumps" sub-category of the Company Catalog and select a pool pump as the default product for your "Variable Speed Pool Pump" service, the "Pumps" sub-category will be shown for the item, for example: Pumps   -    Pentair 011018 IntelliflowVS Pool Pump
	Default Product	You can select a default product option for each item in a service offering. Unless the user selects otherwise, the default product will be included in the quote.
	Default Quantity	This is the default quantity of products included for this item. The user will be able to edit this when adding the service to a solution (except in certain cases, like PV Modules and DC Optimizers, where the quantity is automatically determined based on the PV array layout).
	User Can Change Product Selection	If this is checked, the user will be able to select a different product option from the Company Catalog for this item when adding the service to a solution. Keep it unchecked if the default product is the only product option you want to allow users to quote for this service offering. Note: When this is checked, you may select additional products from your Company Catalog to narrow the list of product options users will be able to include in quotes for this service offering. If you don't explicitly specify additional product options, users will be able to select from your entire Company Catalog when choosing a product for this item in solutions.

Efficiency Measures

If your service offering is an efficiency measure, the editor also contains a place to input the default energy savings assumptions that the given efficiency measure is expected to provide to a given customer. A user can edit these default values when they add the efficiency measure to a solution. 

 

Pricing

Each Service Offering has its own pricing. This allows incentives to be applied to subsets of the overall solution price, and allows the price subtotals for each service to be exposed to customers (if desired). Pricing of Service Offerings may use either pricing method that SolarNexus supports.

Each new Service Offering automatically has a Cost Item group created for holding products that make up the cost item list for the service's scope of work. Only include cost items that define the direct costs for providing that service. This would be the materials and labor. Include administrative costs for each service (e.g. permitting, materials procurement, incentives admin). Do NOT include any of the products that you've defined as Items. SolarNexus will sync these product(s) from the Services to the Price when defining your client's solution.

Using Cost Items to define your service offering's price is optional. If you would rather just input a gross retail price for the service, that is also accepted as an input. Just click the edit icon (pencil) next to the Default Gross Price on the Price tab of the Service Offering.

The pricing method used for a particular client solution depends on the Solution Template that is used to create the solution in the first place.

NOTE: Cost groups added from a Service Offering are locked. That is, a User can't add or remove line items from that group when editing the solution's price. If, for some reason you need to add more cost items to a service in a solution, a user can create a new cost group for the additional equipment or labor items and then associate that new group with the desired service. More generally, those items should be added to the Service Offering's cost group(s) so that users don't need to manually add them to a solution.

 

Include Service Offerings in a Solution Template

Once you have created your company's Service Offerings, you can add them to your Solution Templates. That way, any solution created from the Solution Template will already include a copy of the service.

TIP: We recommend only adding Service Offerings to Solution Templates that will routinely be included with the solution. Otherwise, the user will routinely need to remove a service from the solution. It's more appropriate for users to manually add less frequently used services to a solution.

 

Control Staff Accessibility

Set up the operation of your SolarNexus account so that users have only access to the service offerings that you want them to use. For example, you'll want to restrict users from using a service offering which is under development and not ready for use, or if one is no longer relevant. Also, you want to present users with the most commonly used service offering as default selection when adding a new service offering.

Activate / Inactivate

Inactive Service Offerings (and Solution Templates) are invisible to users.

For Service Offerings, navigate to Resources > Service Offerings. Each Service Offering can be activated/inactivated. There is also a checkbox on each service offering when editing.

For Solution Templates, navigate to Resources > Solution Templates. Each Solution Template can be activated/inactivated.

Service Offering Selections (Default and Use of Generic Service Offerings)

Navigate to Project Settings > Service Offerings. You can controls which service offering is selected by default when adding a service of that type (PV, Energy Storage, Efficiency, General).

You can also control whether users may add a generically defined service of that type (essentially an ad-hoc, one-off version). This is most common for General services.

Solution Template Selections

Navigate to Project Settings > Solution Templates.

Specify default value for the solution template selector.

Indicate whether users are allowed to create generic solutions using either Gross Price Input OR Cost Items Pricing

 

Example Service Offerings

We have included some examples of service offerings with suggested content and commentary about them. Feel free to copy them for use in your company's account.

 

Example Service Offering: Roof Mount PV System

Most SolarNexus companies sell PV systems. Here is an example of how to set up a PV System Service Offering for roof mount clients.

Add Service > PV System

Name: Resi Roof-Mount PV System

Service Type: Grid-Tie PV (scope value)

Description: PV Systems do not currently support a description attribute. Document templates will contain static text that describe the scope of work for PV Systems.

Item(s): PV Systems already have Modules, Inverters, and DC Optimizers as pre-defined Items. These cannot be changed, although SolarNexus does not require that a PV System include inverters or DC optimizers. You may optionally create additional items to include with your PV Systems, such as "Racking" and "Monitoring." You may preselect the default product for each item (for example, the module you always lead with), so that the user does not need to make a selection. Otherwise, the user will be available to select from whatever list of available products you define for each item in the service offering.

Price: If your solution templates use cost item pricing, we recommend adding labor and materials products to the cost item group(s) for the PV system. If you use gross price, input the default retail price into the Default Gross Price input (for PV systems, you can input a $/Wstc).

 

Example Service Offering: Main Service Panel Replacement

Many SolarNexus companies offer main service panel upgrades as a service to their client's so that the main service panel has sufficient capacity to interconnect a PV system. Here is an example of how to set up an optional Service Offering for your users to add to a client solution when needed.

Add Service > General Service Offering (has no effect on energy analysis)

Name: Main Service Panel Replacement

General Service Type: MSP Replacement (scope value)

Description: Suggested description "Contractor will replace existing main electrical service panel to provide capacity for interconnection of solar electric (PV) system." Since a client would probably be less inclined to understand what this service is, its probably a good idea to include a rational, such as "...to provide capacity for integration of a solar electric (PV) system." Note that even if we want to immediately follow the description with one or more items, its best NOT to include any text such as "Includes the following:" This type of text can be added to a service's description in the proposal or contract IF items will immediately follow.

Item(s): This service offering may or may not have any items, but we will assume in our example that an actual selection of a specific main service panel product is included (for example, "200A Main Service" or "225A Solar Ready Panel" or "400A Main Service Panel").

• Item Type: "MSP Replacement". In this case its OK for the item to share the same type as the full service offering, since the list of products available for this item are all main service panels.

Price: If your solution templates use cost item pricing, we recommend adding one (or more) labor products to define the labor to remove and replace the main service panel. If you use gross price, input the default retail price into the Default Gross Price input.

NOTE: What about option of Derating Main Service Breaker? We suggest that you make this part of the AC Interconnection work for the PV system service offering, rather than made as part of the MSP Replacement. AC interconnection ALWAYS happens for your PV system- so its an option whether there is a new panel or not.

 

Service Offering: "Seasonal Energy Efficiency Package"

In this example, we create an Efficiency Measure service offering. It is a package of items whose sum total energy savings are modeled together as a single energy savings on the client's seasonal loads. The benefit is simplicity of the offer and the energy modeling. There is only one service.

Add Service > Efficiency Measure

Name: "Seasonal Energy Efficiency Package"

Service Type: "Seasonal Efficiency Package" We want to be able to quickly find which projects have a seasonal efficiency package, even though we don't necessarily know what is included in the package. The Items that are included below can each have their own service type so that

Description: "Contractor will supply materials and labor to upgrade the efficiency of seasonal (heating and cooling) loads of the client's home." Note that this description does not call out the specific items included, as we will enumerate each of them as items in the service below. Although the items will likely be listed immediately below the Description when included in the proposal or contract, we DO NOT include the words "Includes the following items." We leave that out because it can be included in the document template IF and ONLY IF the items should be listed after the Description.

Item(s): The service offering includes multiple items:

• Item Type: "Attic Radiant Barrier"
  • Example Default Product: Provider = "RadiantGuard," name/model = "UltimaFoil-breathable", Qty [x] Ft, with possibly other product options of varying price.
• Item Type: "Duct Seal"
• Item Type: "Duct Insulation"
• Item Type: "Attic Insulation"

For each of the above items, there must be at least one product defined in the Company Catalog to represent the item. For each item there may be more than one product that the user could select from.

Price: If your solution templates use cost item pricing, we recommend adding one (or more) labor products to define the labor to remove and replace the main service panel. If you use gross price, input the default retail price into the Default Gross Price input.

 

Service Offering: Add Third Party Contractor's Amount to Your Solar Contract

Occasionally, you may have a customer needing additional work related to their solar project being done by a third party contractor at the same time as the solar. For example, they may need roofing or other electrical work that you company does not offer. You can incorporate this other work into your proposal and/or contract as an "ad-hoc" service. Here's how we recommend doing this...

1. Create a new "Other Service" Service Offering
2. Input a placeholder name and description. The user will edit these fields to reflect the individual instance when used, e.g. "Third Party Contractor Work"
3. Go to Price screen
4. There is probably no need to input any gross price since the user will input that when building a solution using Gross Price input method.
5. However, you should add a new Cost Item Group, and input 0's for all indirect cost markups so that SolarNexus add profit or overhead to this third party service.
6. Save group.
7. There is no need to add any cost items.

Then when using:

1. On services screen, add Other Service > "Third Party Contractor Work"
2. User clicks Edit, and changes the name and description, clicks Save
3. User goes to Price screen,
   1. If using gross price input, simply type in the total for the third party contractor work in the corresponding field.
   2. If using cost items, find the cost item group for this other service and click the "+" icon to add an item. Instead of selecting an item from the Company Catalog, create an ad-hoc item. User inputs info to reflect the other contractor's work, makes unit "ea" and inputs the total for the third party contractor's amount.
4. Save Price
5. If the new item qualifies for any incentives, such as the Fed ITC, be sure to check the box for this "Other Service" as qualifying for the incentive before you Analyze.

While you wouldn't actually don't need to pre-create an service offering for this, however, that would mean that the user would need to edit the cost item group and set indirect costs to 0, which they wouldn't be able to. 

 

Service Offerings vs Product Packages

If your company offers packages of products (for example, "Gold, Silver, or Bronze Efficiency Packages"), those should NOT be represented as Service Offerings. Since these packages can be made up of multiple service offerings, you should create a Solution Template for each package that includes the appropriate set of service offerings within each solution. This approach allows you to define different service offerings for each level of customer solution (Gold, Silver, or Bronze). This way the scope of work still represents the different types of services you are providing within each solution - which is potentially very important to your milestone process definitions (can have individual steps based on the services offered).