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Question 1: How can I get my usage data into m3ter?

We’ve built our platform to handle high volumes of usage events, and we encourage customers to send us rich, granular usage data, because this allows us to provide you with more flexibility and value from your data once it has been ingested. There are two generally available methods of sending usage data to m3ter - API and File Upload. 

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API

Our ingest API is the primary mechanism for ingesting usage data. It’s built with scale and flexibility in mind, allowing up to 1,000 measurements in each API request.

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File Upload

If your existing systems and data flow better suit uploading a file containing usage data, perhaps at the end of a batch operation, we offer a file upload service. Make an API call to generate a temporary upload URL, then upload your file; we’ll do the rest, and any errors are reported to you via the normal Alerts service.
Other Options? Other options are currently in beta, such as the m3ter Ingest Agent - see Question 6 below. Please ask your m3ter contact for more details in usage data ingest options with m3ter.
More Details?

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Question 2: What should I do if data was not ingested due to network issues?

There are many reasons measurements might get lost or duplicated on their way to the m3ter platform, so a key quality of the m3ter ingest service is that sending a measurement is an idempotent operation within a 35-day window. This means that if a measurement with the same UID arrives multiple times in that timeframe, we will only ingest it once. If you’re unsure whether a network connectivity issue or application crash affected measurements being sent, resend them with their original UID. We’ll de-duplicate, only store the missing ones, and will generate an event so you can confirm. When dealing with short-lived usage events, we recommend putting the events on a queue such as Amazon SQS or Azure Storage Queues within your environment, then read from that queue when sending it to the m3ter API. This adds a layer of protection against data loss because of network or software issues.

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Question 3: What if I need to change an Account code?

Although changing Account codes is possible to allow for corrections, be aware that because usage is submitted using the Account code you need to properly coordinate sending usage to the current Account code when changing it. We therefore recommend not renaming Account codes once usage has been sent.

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Question 4: Can I reuse an old Account code for a different Account?

Yes, but we recommend that you don’t do this. Account codes should generally be a unique, immutable identifier for the Account, for example a customer ID in your system.
More Details? See Managing Accounts - Best Practices for more on the implications of deleting and recreating Accounts using the same Code.

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Question 5: Should I send PII in the usage data?

No. Do not send personally identifiable information (PII) in the usage data. Use an anonymous unique identifier that you can map to individual information in your CRM.
More Details? See Sending your Data to m3ter.

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Question 6: Can you fetch my usage data instead of me submitting it?

Yes. Our Ingest Agent can poll external systems and submit it to the m3ter API. Various sources and formats are supported out of the box, but we can also help develop custom collectors should one be required.
More Details? See the Getting Usage Data into m3ter topic for more on working with our Ingest Agent.

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Question 7: Is it possible to delete or modify usage data?

Measurements are immutable once ingested, but it’s possible to make adjustments to correct aggregated data by submitting corrective measurements (either positive or negative). 
More Details? See Using Timestamp to Submit Usage Data Adjustments and Dates for Usage Data for more information.

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Question 8: Can I export my data?

Yes, you can view, filter, aggregate, and export usage data via our Data Explorer (v2) in the m3ter Console, or via the API. In the future, we shall introduce additional features enabling you to export larger volumes of data.
More Details? See Data Explorer (v2).

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Question 9: What happens if I need to add fields to my Meter or remove them after I’ve already sent data?

If you send measurements containing data that you have not configured in your Meter yet, we will still store the data. When you create a Data Field with the same code field, it will become available.  Removing a Data Field from a Meter does not delete the existing measurements, but it becomes unavailable for other m3ter features.

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Question 10: What happens if I attempt to send usage data for a Meter that doesn’t exist?

You might plan to set up a new product and have already done some testing in your sandbox or UAT m3ter environments. If you attempt to then perform some testing for the new product in your production environment and submit test data for a Meter that doesn’t yet exist, this usage data will be rejected. This will not cause any issues or break anything in your production environment but the usage will have to be resubmitted once the Meter has been created and set up.