SMA moves systems from Sunny Portal to ennexOS
Many customers with SMA systems will have recently received an email in their inbox from 'SMA Sunny Portal’, announcing that their PV system’s monitoring will be transferred from the 'classic' Sunny Portal to the newer 'Sunny Portal powered by ennexOS'. We’d like to explain what you can expect.Recently we announced that this year SMA will switch from the existing monitoring platform Sunny Portal to a newer version with the somewhat long-winded name 'Sunny Portal powered by ennexOS', or for short: 'ennexOS'. The first step of that 'migration' has now been taken, with the announcement by email.
On May 21, customers in the Netherlands with a 'normal' solar power installation (i.e. not those with a Sunny Home Manager) received a message that in two weeks’ time their data will be available on a new site on ennexOS. This means that from the beginning of June they can log in to 'ennexos.sunnyportal.com' with the same combination of email and password as they currently use for Sunny Portal.
Did you get this e-mail in your inbox recently? Then it means your system will be migrating to ennexOS soon
Side by side for two weeks
The two platforms will then continue to function side by side for at least two weeks. This means that all new yield data from the solar panels will be updated on both Sunny Portal and on ennexOS. After this transition period, the information on the classic Sunny Portal for these sites will no longer be updated. From then on, only ennexOS will be used to display new solar production data.
The new portal has a number of advantages over the existing one. For example, it is possible to display more detailed technical measurement data for many types of inverters thanks to the 'Analysis Pro' function. Certain settings in the inverter can also be adjusted remotely. We wrote about the new platform in this news article and we will also update our FAQ pages in the near future.
The user type 'guest' will disappear
In ennexOS there are three different levels of user for each site: the 'administrator' (who has all possible rights), the 'installer' (with slightly fewer rights than the administrator), and the regular 'user'. In Sunny Portal there was also a role called 'guest', with even fewer rights than those of the 'standard user'. The accounts with the role of 'guest' will not be transferred to ennexOS. If you ever created a user with the role of 'guest' for your Sunny Portal site, you will have to create it again in ennexOS, now with the role of 'user'.
Not all past yield data is transferred to ennexOS, at least not the 'daily graphs' with the yield of individual days. This information will only be brought to the new site for the most recent 60 days. However, the monthly and annual data over the entire lifespan will all be transferred over. And even after your new site has been created, you can still look back at the past for a while on your old Sunny Portal site: it will remain up and running for the foreseeable future, but will no longer be refreshed with new data.
Once the migration has been finalized, you will see this kind of pop-up message when you log into the classic Sunny Portal
If you only use the SMA Energy App, nothing will change for you. The app remains as it was, although new functionalities will be added over time.
Why the need for a new monitoring portal?
EnnexOS (the name stands for: 'ENergy NEXt Operating System') is actually not that new at all. It has existed for many years as a monitoring portal, but mainly for large solar power installations; we’re talking solar parks of several MegaWatts, or very large solar roofs on commercial buildings. The classic Sunny Portal dates from a time when monitoring did not have to be so detailed and professional. That is why Sunny Portal eventually became mainly used for residential installations, while ennexOS was used by solar professionals.
Maintaining two different large platforms turned out not to be very efficient for SMA. Many upgrades in functionality required twice as much work. That is why they decided to merge the two platforms into one, so that the IT specialists can continue to work on them in a more focused manner. Once the migration is complete, it will free up people and resources to develop interesting new functions.
The entire operation to transfer hundreds of thousands of sites from an existing site to a new one takes a lot of effort. At SMA they do it step by step and country by country. Most countries have already made the switch (the US and Australia, among others, preceded the Netherlands), but other countries such as Belgium and Germany are still to follow. Hopefully the entire process will be completed by the end of this year.
People with a Sunny Home Manager in the system (or another communication product such as the 'WebBox' or the 'Cluster Controller') will have to wait a while before their system will be transferred. We expect that those systems will only be migrated in a few months’ time, when all the special functionalities of the Home Manager will also be ready in the new portal. As the owner of a system with a Home Manager, you may have already received an email from SMA: if you read carefully you will see that only sites without a Home Manager are currently being transferred to ennexOS. The sites with a Home Manager will follow in a few months from now.
Is there a Sunny Home Manager in your Distribution Board? Then your system will stay on the classic Sunny Portal for the time being
Change always takes some getting used to, for you as well as for us. That is why it's a good idea to check out ennexOS soon (from the beginning of June) to see if you can easily find everything you are looking for. If, after having a look, you have any questions about the platform, please let us know so that we can include them in a future FAQ article: that way everyone can get the most out of the new possibilities offered by 'Sunny Portal powered by ennexOS'.