Introducing Vendor Portals for Asset Integrity

The first step in a user’s journey with CIM is onboarding data into the software application, allowing it to be integrated and analyzed. Before that can happen, however, the data must be received from an outside party/pipeline integrity service provider and then reviewed to ensure it meets certain requirements. With CIM’s new vendor portals, this process is streamlined. 

With CIM’s optional vendor portal, an approved outside party can upload inspection data directly into the platform, thereby alleviating the pipeline operator of this task. Once the data is uploaded, it’s validated in real time by the software to ensure it meets the specifications and quality standards set by the pipeline operator, saving them valuable time.  

The OneBridge team is excited to announce that they’ve built TWO different interfaces for pipeline integrity contractors to upload their data into CIM, one that optionally integrates with the Assessment Planning process within CIM and one for internal corrosion inspections, as part of CIM’s Internal Corrosion module.

Vendor Portal

The upcoming optional vendor portal is a dedicated module within CIM, designed specifically for companies offering integrity services to pipeline operators. It serves as an efficient, modular interface for service providers to deliver assessment results to their clients through the CIM platform, eliminating the need to set up the company as a full-scale CIM user. The portal was originally developed to create an efficient workflow for onboarding and ingesting inline inspection data, but will expand to other types of inspection results in the future.

This portal replaces a manual process currently in place. Typically, pipeline operators receive inline inspection results through a variety of inefficient and inconsistent methods i.e. email, flash drives, shared drives, etc. From receipt, the data then needs to be checked to ensure it meets formatting requirements and other quality standards. This is typically performed by visual spot checking or Excel macro. Only then can the data be analyzed.

This new portal now streamlines the process of receiving inspection data by allowing data to be uploaded directly from the inline inspection company. The data is then validated in real time to ensure it meets the pipeline operator’s standardized formatting requirements. If differences are found, the uploaded results are rejected, and feedback is provided to the user. This ensures that the pipeline operator only analyzes inline inspection data that has been quality assured/controlled (QA/QC’d), eliminating any back-and-forth that ultimately occurs when receiving results, especially from a new inline inspection service provider. 

Some key functionalities of the vendor portal are:

• Allows ILI company users to securely log in and upload report data
• Facilitates the validation or QA/QC process for uploaded data and provides feedback indicating a pass or fail status, along with any necessary fixes that are required for a successful upload.
• Restricts ILI company to only adding reports to existing assessments within CIM
• Supports various file types
• Assigns attributes to each uploaded file, which allows for searching and filtering, based on said attributes.
• Ensures data privacy and security by restricting access to vendor-specific data and functionality only.
• Enables communication between vendors and internal stakeholders, as necessary, through notifications and alerts:
  • The pipeline operator is notified when a report has been processed, so that they can either approve or reject it.
  • Vendors receive notifications and alerts regarding the status of uploaded data and assessments.
    

This optional vendor portal is currently available to select customers and will become commercially available soon.

Figure 1: Vendor Portal home

Figure 2: Vendor Portal ingestion

Figure 3: Vendor Portal validation

Internal Corrosion Module

As part of the functionality of the Internal Corrosion module within CIM, various data templates can be populated by pipeline integrity companies and uploaded directly into CIM via a secure portal. Internal Corrosion, CIM’s newest module, enables pipeline operators to comprehensively manage the threat of internal corrosion through the integration of various data sets from monitoring and mitigating activities. This allows operators to analyze and identify data trends, as well as record any actions taken as a result of this analysis.

Types of inspection data that can be uploaded into the internal corrosion module include corrosion coupon results, corrosion inhibitor/biocide reports, results obtained from inspecting product samples as well as checking the gas quality/composition, specifically to determine corrosive constituents, a fairly new requirement (Gas Mega Rule Part 2) for US operators of gas pipelines per 49 CFR 192.478. Like the main CIM vendor portal, this portal restricts access, allowing only data to be uploaded and ensuring that data is properly recorded in the uploaded templates.

This vendor portal is available to all customers with an Internal Corrosion module subscription.

Figure 4: Internal Corrosion module vendor templates