Equinox Software Design Corporation

30th Anniversary

Scalable, flexible, powerful.

CROW is an enterprise-class software solution designed to reduce operating costs, streamline business processes, and enforce higher standards in outage coordination, scheduling, logging, switching, reliability analysis and work safety. CROW is meant for generation, transmission or distribution utilities, reliability coordinators, balancing authorities, independent system operators, power pools and cooperatives.

CROW is for:

  • Generation
  • Transmission
  • Distribution
  • Balancing
  • Reliability Coordinators
  • Independent System Operators

Make weighted decisions with less effort and more confidence.

CROW is designed with flexibility in mind.

An administrator or a grid operator can quickly move around to oversee large volumes of data. They can also make fine adjustments to display precisely what is necessary for a task, required by a policy, or a current system status.

CROW is meant for a wide range of professionals: outage coordinators, power grid dispatchers, power line technicians, protection, control and safety engineers, control centre staff and corporate management. The CROW production workflow helps them to communicate effortlessly, making decisions quicker and with more confidence.

Stay in control with complex data flows.

CROW improves data quality by standardizing the lookup values and validation rules. A manager or an operator work more efficiently with the CROW intelligent data input form templates. A user friendly clutter-free user interface offers a compact and easy to read data display, keyword search and a contextual navigation.

A centralized database enables quick searches for accessing the data, while a hierarchal system of roles and permissions makes it secure, reliable and easier to manage. A scalable application architecture allows manipulation of a dataset of any size up to several thousand records at a time. Cross-platform automated notifications make sure of continuous and secure exchange of system messages and alerts between all designated members of a workgroup, whether they are in a control room or on a remote site.

Complete control of outages and event logs at your fingertips.

The CROW software family consists of cross-platform desktop and mobile clients based on a flexible architecture. While serving slightly different purposes, all clients offer comprehensive and configurable production workflows and business rules, and feature simplified and intuitive user interfaces. CROW also contains a fully-featured standards-based API to allow integration to upstream and downstream systems.

CROW software family:

  • CROW Web
  • CROW Client
  • CROW Mobile
  • CROW API

Introducing the CROW family members.

CROW Web

CROW Web offers a lightweight, powerful, responsive and multi-platform interface which is HTML5 compliant and runs in any modern web browser without needing any required extensions or plug-ins. CROW Web retains its full functionality and portability while being accessed using anything from a powerful control room multi-screen workstation, to a small laptop used in the field or on a remote site.

CROW Client

CROW Client is the Windows desktop client that has a powerful, flexible and responsive user interface and the ultimate set of available features. CROW Client can leverage the additional capabilities provided by the host operating system. The desktop client is aimed at power users: control room operators, administrators and managers. CROW Client has the most comprehensive and customizable view of the data along with a rich toolset to manage and manipulate it.

CROW Mobile

CROW Mobile is designed to work responsively in Apple iOS and Google Android compatible devices. Carefully preserving and extending essential functionality along with the intuitive user interface, CROW Mobile captures the power and flexibility that CROW offers. CROW Mobile is designed for users that need to work on the go, in remote locations, or anywhere they need to be instantly notified about important system changes.

CROW API

The CROW API is a dedicated web services Application Program Interface, implementing the open XML SOAP standard. CROW API is used for system-to-system access, such as CROW to CROW connections, EMS/SCADA, or other reporting or data exchange applications. CROW API is flexible enough to meet any integration requirements, with powerful and secure data exchanging capabilities.

CROW offers limitless workflow possibilities.

CROW comes preconfigured with a set of carefully tailored functional components. Each of them can be configured and customized to fit precisely into the business model of your company.

CROW essentials:

  • Outage scheduling and coordination
  • Electronic logging
  • Switching orders
  • Change requests
  • Work permits and safety
  • Report builder
  • Reliability analysis
  • Role permissions

Discover CROW essentials:

Outage scheduling and coordination

The comprehensive Outage Scheduling component helps a user to carefully plan and schedule outages while coordinating multiple approvals and notifications, including features to help manage the issuance and return of permits and clearances. Even though forced outages are not planned, the Outage Scheduling module can help coordinate the outage with notifications and structured switching orders.

Electronic logging

The Electronic Logging component is used for the recording and management of logged events, which can cover a wide range of recordable information. It is based on a configurable and customizable framework, which permits the creation of new types of logged data in addition to those that come preconfigured. Integrated with the most powerful of its features, CROW’s Electronic Logging module is one of the most comprehensive logging solutions available.

Switching orders

The Switching Orders component allows users easily create a switching sequence that can be associated with a planned or a forced outage in order to improve work safety.

Change requests

When security rules prevent certain users from making changes to the outage request (for example when it's been approved), the Change Requests component allows those users to request changes. Authorized users can review the clearly highlighted changes and decide if the requested changes are acceptable. If approved, the requested changes are applied to the original outage request.

Work permits and safety

The Permits component allows users to request the permits and clearances required to safely perform the work related to an outage. The requester may be validated against a database of authorized users and the permit may follow its own approval and issuance workflow. Permits may also be cross-referenced with switching orders.

Report builder

The Report Builder component offers a variety of integrated settings and filters to prepare comprehensive reports on outages or logged events. A report can be printed, exported or sent to workgroup members by email or as a notification attachment. The report settings and filters can be saved and re-used to build future reports and can even be scheduled for regular automatic preparation and delivery.

Reliability analysis

The Reliability Analysis component provides protection analysis and statistical coding for forced outages on the electric system. This function is fully integrated with forced outage logging, and provides protection-zone based follow-up for forced outages. It also provides the source data for system reliability reporting.

Role permissions

The Role Permissions component assigns a specified set of responsibilities, access levels and code-of-conduct accordance to each member of a workgroup quickly and effectively. Role definitions can also inherit the properties of other roles, allowing for the ease in set-up of a hierarchy of privileges.

Keep your enterprise in touch with important outages and events.

The embedded CROW notification system integrates deeply with all components and modules and makes sure that every relevant stakeholder is kept informed instantly.

CROW offers:

  • Universal data exchange
  • Stakeholder communication
  • System notifications

CROW is designed for easy and secure data exchange.

As there are often systems that CROW needs to both source data from, as well as feed data to, the CROW Web Services API is utilized in these scenarios and is well suited to the task. An open API architecture allows CROW to integrate with third party systems easily and effectively. Typical uses are for system-to-system access, such as CROW to CROW connections, equipment and inventory sources, HR, EMS/SCADA or reporting applications.

CROW notifications are always at your service.

The CROW integrated notification service can automatically send instant messages privately and securely to a single person, within a dedicated workgroup or a system-wide. Role Permissions help to direct notifications to their recipients. The notifications in the CROW Mobile client allow an operator or a field technician to always be in touch with recent additions and updates.

CROW means trust and reliability.

For over 25 years, CROW has helped more than 1,000 organizations, including small to large electric utilities, reliability coordinators, independent system operators, power pools, cooperatives, and their associated member utilities with the important task of coordinating outages and logging grid events.

Find out how CROW can help your organization.

With its relative ease of use, rich functionality and impressive extendibility, CROW shows a much deeper potential for your outage management and logging needs than it may seem at first. Contact us today and learn how the CROW software family will fit perfectly into your operation's needs. Our consultants would be happy to assist you in your CROW evaluation, helping to find the best solution for your business needs.

Contact us today