The tree belongs to the outage work order verification guide. Use it once you know a utility kept its verified restorations, to decide whose yes matters.
Access is not authority: the people around an outage event
Many people touch an outage record. Few can commit it. Sort the roles before asking anyone for anything.
| Role | What they can do with the records | Authority over licensing |
|---|---|---|
| Dispatchers and system operators | Create, update and close events and crew assignments | None |
| Outage platform administrator | Knows what is stored, for how long and what exports | None |
| Asset system administrator | Knows how work orders link to events and assets | None |
| Metering manager | Knows meter event retention | None |
| Operations director | Owns the restoration process; can describe coverage | Sponsor, rarely final |
| CEO | Decides on company data and contracts | Yes; authorizes and signs |
| General counsel or records manager | Reads contracts, privacy and security obligations | Sets the limits |
The administrators are worth naming in a brief because they make it accurate. They are not the introduction.
Decision points, in order
Walk down the tree. The introduction is whoever first answers yes at point 4, with whatever approval point 5 adds.
- Is this person on the operations floor or a system administrator? They describe records. Ask who owns outage response.
- Does this person own outage response? Usually the operations director, sometimes a vice president of operations. Ask them to sponsor, to bring in the CEO, and to say whether a platform change is planned.
- What kind of utility is it? Investor-owned, cooperative or municipal. This decides who stands behind the CEO.
- Can this person commit utility records to an agreement? The CEO, whether the utility is investor-owned, cooperative or municipal, or the company is a contractor; at a cooperative or municipal utility the chief executive is often titled general manager. Introduce them.
- Does a board, council or parent need to approve or be told? A cooperative may need its board under its own bylaws; a municipal utility may answer to a council or utility board; a subsidiary may need its parent. The CEO knows which.
How the signer changes by ownership type
| Question | Investor-owned utility | Electric cooperative | Municipal utility | Utility contractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who holds the outage records? | The utility | The cooperative | The city or its utility board | Contractor or its client, by contract |
| Who sponsors? | Operations director | Operations manager | Utility operations director | Storm or field operations lead |
| Who can say yes? | CEO, often with a parent-company officer | CEO (often titled general manager) | CEO (often titled general manager or utility director) | CEO |
| Who else may need to approve? | Parent company | Board, under the bylaws | Council or utility board, under local rules | The utility client, for its records |
| Typical counsel concern | Customer and network data | Member data | Public records rules and customer data | Client contract terms |
Contractors are a distinct case: restoration logs created during storm work may be the contractor's, the utility's or both, depending on contract. The page on utility contractor private equity covers how those businesses are owned.
Where counsel, the board or a client contract signs off
Three branches turn amber, and the partner stops at each.
Customer-linked fields. Trouble calls, callbacks and meter events tie outages to named premises and accounts. Counsel decides what is excluded or de-identified, under the utility's privacy obligations and any customer data rules that apply to it.
Network information. Device locations and feeder topology can be treated as security-sensitive. Counsel decides whether event histories need network fields generalized or removed. Insurance terms sometimes bear on this too; see data licensing and cyber insurance coverage.
Reported figures. Utilities report reliability indices from these same interruption records; Form EIA-861 collects SAIDI and SAIFI including and excluding major events. Licensing does not change what was filed, but counsel may want to know which reporting years a dataset spans.
The outage platform's own structure decides how much of the restoration story is there to discuss at all; Oracle's Network Management System user guide, for instance, covers related partial restoration events. The worked exception case shows what that structure captures.
OracleWhat stays unknown until SourceX's rights review
When the right executive agrees to talk, nobody yet knows:
- Scope: which years, event types and systems can be included once contracts and governance are checked.
- Exclusions: which customer-linked and network fields must be removed.
- Demand: whether AI labs and data users want verified restoration histories when SourceX reviews them.
- Terms: whether an offer follows.
The utility needs 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded), documented operating history, rights to license and an authorized contact. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 90% of the data is in English. SourceX licenses approved business data directly from companies for AI training and evaluation and manages the agreement, rights review, data preparation, delivery and payout. Partners sign the Channel Partner Agreement before submitting; the first valid introduction within the 90-day window is credited when the company submits a verified application, with one partner per company.
Why data rights matter explains what the review establishes. Record the sponsor and signer in the outage verification referral brief. For another verification workflow where authority and access diverge, see vendor bank account change verification. Sector pages: energy and utilities and the industries hub.
Next step
Refer a company. Earn up to $100,000. Default reward: 25% of Actual Supplier Payout, capped at $100,000 cumulatively per referred company. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
Once the operations director has named the CEO and said whether a board or council must be involved, register as a partner, check the utility on who qualifies and read the program terms before you introduce them.