The Location Profile is used to collect data from an the end user that describes their Residential Home or their Business. The information in the Location Profile is used to provide energy insights. For example, a breakdown of energy consumption into a list Energy Usage Categories or a list of personalised energy tips in the Energy Advisor.

Setting up and maintaining a Location Profile is key to ensuring the Eliq platform delivers the most accurate energy insights from the end user’s perspective. Eliq creates and maintains profiles based on the country and type of location (residential or business), helping end users easily understand and complete their Location Profile. The more data users provide, the more accurate their energy insights will be.

It is essential to strike a balance during the onboarding process—while asking too many questions may cause users to abandon the app, gathering sufficient information is necessary to deliver meaningful value, engagement, and understanding once onboarding is complete. Eliq offers several features and use cases that support a smooth onboarding experience while encouraging users to add more data, thereby enhancing the insights provided.

The profile information collected from end users can also be used to gain a better understanding of your customer base.

Note: There is another feature in the Eliq Platform called Home Profile , which has similar purposes and use cases as the Location Profile. However, the Location Profile endpoints have replaced the Home Profile endpoints, and the Home Profile feature has been deprecated. While Home Profile endpoints are still supported, they should not be used in new applications. The Location Profile feature and its endpoints, as described below, improve upon the Home Profile by adding support for both residential and business locations, versioning of location profile values, and improved API implementations.

Note 2: To assist existing apps in migrating from the Home Profile to the Location Profile endpoints, Location Profile types are automatically set to “residential” when a profile is created via the Home Profile endpoint.

How does it work – Introduction

A Location Profile is customised for each country to ensure that the questions asked and the options presented to the end user are relevant to the types of homes and appliances commonly used. Location Profiles can also be configured per customer upon request.

Customising the Location Profile for a customer is done in collaboration with our Data Science team to ensure that the content and properties are correctly integrated into Eliq’s algorithms, which provide energy insights.

The result is a profile tailored to each location, helping end users quickly and easily input the correct information, maximising the value of the app both during the onboarding journey and throughout the app’s continued use.

Business or Residential profile/type

The Eliq Platform provides energy insights to both Residential Homes as well as for Businesses. In order for the Eliq platform to provide the right insights to each location, the Locations Profile type needs to be set.

The location profile type can be either residential or business and can be set through the POST locations/{locationId}/profile/type by asking the end user to select, in an app, if the location that they are onboarding is either Residential of Business. It will also be possible to set the profile type through the Eliq Data Management API in order to remove the need for the end user to set the location profile type in an app.

Setting the Profile Type for a Location will determine if the end user will be asked to fill in a Residential Home Profile or a Business Profile in an onboarding journey where the questions asked are quite different. The Profile type will also determine which insights are returned in the Insights API for each Location. For example, the endpoint GET location/{locationId}/euc will return Energy Usage Categories for both residential and business locations but the results will vary depending on whether the profile type is set to business or residential.

By default a locations profile type will be set to undefined

Dynamics – dependent_properties

A Location Profile can be dynamic in an app, with the questions an end user encounters changing based on their previous answers. For example, if an end user selects that they live in an apartment, the subsequent questions will be relevant to apartment living. Certain options, such as heating types or questions about a pool, are skipped as they are not applicable to apartments. The dependent_properties object is optional and determines the logic for the dynamics of each question. It contains a list of keys that must exist for the current location to determine whether a question should be presented to the end user.

If an end user updates or changes their profile in the app after onboarding, the dependent_properties logic should continue to be applied, guiding the user to add any new information affected by the changes. If a new home profile question is added to the Home Profile Configuration, it will automatically appear for new users during onboarding.

Great onboarding – required_for…

A good onboarding experience is essential for any app. Key profile questions need to be completed to ensure the end user receives valuable Energy Insights that depend on those questions. At the same time, it’s important to balance the time spent in the onboarding flow with allowing the user to explore the app and add more data later.

Some profile questions include a tag parameter, which may contain values such as required_for_euc_to_work (required for Energy Usage Categories to work) or required_for_sh_to_work (required for Similar Homes to work), or both. These tags indicate that the profile question is necessary for one or both features to return insights for the user’s location.

It is recommended to use these tags in the onboarding flow to ensure the end user completes enough home profile questions to see results. This approach guarantees that the minimum required questions are answered, allowing for a user experience where other questions can be optional or skipped entirely during the onboarding process.

For each country, Eliq provides Location Profile configurations designed to create the best possible energy insights experience for end users. Profiles can be adapted, and the content, as well as properties such as required_for... and dependent_properties, can be configured to suit your needs. Please contact Eliq for any configuration requests.

API

Detailed information on how to implement the Location Profile including API request or response calls and possible errors can be found in the API Reference Documentation for the Location Profile. Below is an overview and explanation of what each Location Profile endpoint is for.

Get and Set Location Profile Type

Then Get Location Profile Type and Set Location Profile Type endpoints are used to get or set the Locations Profile Type which will determining whether the location is a residential home, which should receive residential energy insights from the Eliq platform, or if it is a business location, which should receive business energy insights. A location must have a set profile type value in order to receive the correct Location Profile for the user to fill in relevant questions.

Get Location Profile Questions and Values

The Get Location Profile endpoint returns profile questions, options for the end user to select or fill in, dependent properties for dynamic questions, and any already existing values (if the user has provided any previously).

Add New Location Profile Values

The Add New Location Profile endpoint is used to add new location values for a question and store them in the Eliq platform. It is used both for adding new values and for updating existing ones. For example, if an end user onboarded via the app and initially reported that four people live in their home, this value would be posted to the Location Profile using this endpoint. If the number of residents changes to five, the new value can be posted to the profile. The from parameter will determine the date from which the change is valid. The earlier value will remain in the Location Profile, providing a history of the home’s profile values.

Update Location Profile Value

To update or change existing values with specific dates in a Location Profile, the Patch Location Profile endpoint is used. This allows apps to enable end users to edit when a value is valid from and to update the location’s history.

Delete Location Profile Value

Use the Delete Location Profile Value endpoint to delete a value from a Location Profile that should no longer apply. This can be used to remove an unwanted change or to remove an unnecessary entry.

Get Location Profile Completion

An updated profile is crucial for providing the best insights. To help users understand whether they have completed all necessary profile information and if further details could improve the accuracy of energy insights, the Get Location Profile Completion endpoint can be used. This shows the user, within the app, a percentage of how many profile questions have been completed. It can also be used to encourage users to complete their home profile and reach “100% done!” (see the use case below).

Use Cases

Setting the Location Profile Type

The above screen showcases the question asked during the onboarding flow in where an end user is asked to fill in the Location Profile Type. This screen is shown if the value returned from the Get endpoint is undefined. The end user needs to be choose if the Location is a Residential Home or a Business ( residential or business). The chosen result is then Posted to the Eliq platform.

The next step is to ask the platform for the Profile Questions to allow the user to add information about their home or their business.

Standard Swedish Residential Profile, with required/not required

A set of questions in an onboarding flow for a residential location showing examples of questions that have required_for_euc_to_work or required_for_sh_to_work.

Additional questions in the onboarding flow of an app for a location with a residential location profile type. These questions that are not required for EUC or Similar Homes.

Intro and outro

Examples of how you can introduce residential profile and explain why it’s important.

Profile Completion Card

If you want a shorter and smoother onboarding it could be a good idea to let users only answer the required question in the home profile. In this case we have used the home profile card to let users complete the full home profile later. The Profile Completion card makes sense to have even if all profile questions are filled in so that the end user can see and feel satisfied that they are 100% complete with filling in their profile.

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