Native integration to Corval’s ERP, Vista by Viewpoint,

…is key for leveraging the true power of mobile workforce management solutions.

Challenge

Corval initially purchased a third-party field service solution that was designed to operate independently of an ERP. However, integration with Corval’s ERP, Vista by Viewpoint, was critical to providing its technicians with real-time information, reducing its invoice cycle time, and maximizing its operational efficiencies.

After spending substantial time and resources to undertake its own project to integrate the third-party mobile field service solution with Corval’s ERP, the company continued to experience gaps in efficiencies and visibility in its service operation. Plus, Corval’s integration efforts came at a cost.

Every year Vista shipped software updates so Corval had to ensure the updates wouldn’t break the integration they had constructed. Corval budgeted $5,000 per year for Viewpoint’s Professional Services to test and troubleshoot the integration when updates came out. But integration costs didn’t stop there.

“I was spending 20 hours to shepherd the integration updating process during each cycle,” said Steve Bolton, Business Systems Analyst at Corval. “We also had to skip some updates even when we knew there were benefits to the organization because we could only manage one test and remediation cycle per year.”

Furthermore, Corval’s integration did not get all of the business results it initially set out to achieve.

Steve observed, “If we wanted to analyze work, some of the data were in the third party product and some were in Viewpoint. There was no way to run a cost versus revenue report in one application.”

Solution

Corval purchased FieldConnect’s mobile workforce solution, FieldAccess, and its field project management solution, FieldProject, for its technicians and foremen. All of FieldConnect’s solutions integrate with Vista by Viewpoint’s service management module, inventory module, equipment module, and accounting system. This enables a single database for work order management, customer management, time entry, inventory usage, and billing necessary to optimize a field service organization.

Results

By implementing FieldConnect’s solutions, Corval Group realized cost savings, improved real-time visibility, and increased operational efficiencies.

“FieldConnect eliminated more than $5,000 a year in the costs of keeping an integration working,” Steve summarized. “Having FieldConnect maintain the integration lets Corval keep up with all the most recent ERP updates, do technician profitability reporting in the accounting database, and even leverage new integrated capabilities like having technicians collect signatures from customers and consume inventory in real-time to improve our visibility of the real costs associated with our service operations.”

Since implementing our end-to-end workforce management software solutions, Corval has nearly doubled the number of its users and is evaluating additional FieldConnect solutions designed for other employees in their business.

Mechanical & HVAC contractor, James CRAFT & Son Inc.,

drives companywide efficiency and accuracy with FieldConnect

Founded in 1900, James CRAFT & Son Inc. is a family-owned and operated mechanical and HVAC contractor based in Manchester, Pennsylvania. Recognized for delivering top-quality craftsmanship, the company provides HVAC, plumbing, electric, sheet metal fabrication, service, design/build, and custom fabrication. James CRAFT & Son Inc. serves commercial and industrial clients throughout south-central Pennsylvania, northern Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and Delaware.

Challenge

As the company prepared to expand its capabilities for growth, James CRAFT & Son Inc. knew it had to streamline its field service operations and how its technicians handled work orders. According to Bill Craft, Senior VP of Service for James CRAFT & Son Inc., “Our technicians were filling out paperwork orders with the details of their service calls and returning them to the office for data entry and billing. This process was labor and paperwork intensive, and introduced opportunities for errors.” The company also experienced other inefficiencies and hidden costs. “We experienced everything from losing important documents in technicians’ trucks to passing documents back and forth waiting for approvals to maintaining volumes of files & documents. The opportunity for improvement was huge for us,” says Craft.

Solution

James CRAFT & Son Inc. turned to FieldConnect and Viewpoint®. “FieldAccess by FieldConnect and Vista by Viewpoint® transformed our manual, paper-based work order process to a completely electronic one.

Instead of managing stacks of paper work orders, our technicians are now dispatched through Vista and our technicians receive work order details on their mobile devices through FieldAccess,” says Craft.

With FieldAccess, James CRAFT & Son Inc.’s technicians have access to real-time information to manage work orders and service contracts in the field. From any mobile device, their technicians can see all work orders assigned to them, read notes related to the customer or the assignment, retrieve maps and directions, upload job site photos & video, collect customer signatures, and even email service reports directly from the site. The technicians can also record their time by clocking in and out of assignments from the field.

Results

Since FieldAccess tightly integrates with Vista, all of the technicians’ data is immediately captured and stored in the ERP. This eliminates duplicate data entry and accelerates invoicing for faster speed of payment and revenue recognition. What’s more, technicians and service managers can manage parts, materials, and inventory better with FieldAccess. Technicians can quickly locate parts and supplies they need and assign them to work orders from their mobile devices and generate purchase orders with proper authorization. “Equipping our technicians in the field with the information and tools they needed to get their work done significantly reduced the disruptive phone calls between our field techs and dispatchers,” says Craft.

Thanks to FieldAccess by FieldConnect and Vista by Viewpoint®, James CRAFT & Son Inc. has access to up-to-date information from dispatching and work order completion to service contract management and invoicing. The company also gained complete visibility into its service operations. “As a progressive-thinking company, leveraging field service management software streamlined our operations by eliminating paper work orders, minimizing administrative tasks & data entry, and reducing service to billing time,” says Craft. “This has positively impacted our productivity, efficiency, and accuracy allowing our management team to clearly see the business value.”

“Equipping our technicians in the field with the information and tools they needed to get their work done significantly reduced the disruptive phone calls between our field techs and dispatchers.”

HVAC Contractor Improves Service with RealTime Workflows Using FieldConnect

Admore Air Conditioning Corp., based in Yonkers, New York was first incorporated in 1946 and has since been providing Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning service to customers in the New York and New Jersey areas. The company is owner-operated and completely hands-on in all aspects of construction, installation, maintenance, and servicing of HVAC systems.

According to Justin Gibb, Service Division Manager at Admore Air, the company sought to improve efficiencies and track work more effectively. That’s what led Admore Air to choose FieldConnect, a mobile workplace platform that provides anytime, anywhere access to information and resources, which allows organizations to enhance customer and employee engagement. A major advantage to Admore Air is that FieldConnect integrates directly with Vista by Viewpoint, which the contractor uses as its ERP solution. “We wanted to be able to send work orders electronically to move away from relying on paper work orders,” he says. “We didn’t have a service management system in place that would allow us to do that.”

Gibb explains how workflows are now a smooth process for the 17 employees using FieldConnect: “The solution made work flows more efficient. Invoices aren’t getting missed and times are being logged properly.”

He adds, “The biggest advantage of using Field Connect is getting real-time information to the eld and back from the field, instead of having to wait for paperwork orders to come back in the office. It’s all real-time, so anytime a field technician enters information into a work order, we can see it on our end in the office instantly.”

Being able to connect immediately and reliably is also an advantage for Admore Air. “Having work history on site is huge. If a technician’s on-site, they can see what calls we’ve had there in the past, and have a sense of history on any repairs that were done there to help expedite the process of repairing a unit.”

Speed and time savings are other bene ts that the contractor has realized. Gibb offers an example: “Faster invoice turnaround has helped expedite our billing process. It’s easier to document activity without losing any paperwork, so that helps us in that we don’t have to write off as many invoices.”

Gibb also appreciates that it’s an easy process, saying, “It’s very user-friendly, and the data in FieldConnect automatically goes into Vista by Viewpoint, so no duplicate data entry is required. It’s all real-time and accurate.

Maxson Adopts New Technology to Address Mobile Workforce Efficiency

• By implementing a field service management solution, Maxson Associates is experiencing improved efficiency and massive reduction in paper-based processes.
• The company can now verify completion of service calls in real time and kick off the invoicing process immediately, reducing the billing cycle substantially. Invoicing now occurs in
  days, rather than weeks, or months.
• Maxson accomplished the goal of giving their technicians more time in the field servicing customers, rather than coming to the office to deliver paperwork.
• The payroll process has become way less paper-intensive and now gets completed in about half a day, down from three days.
• The efficiency gains have had an overall positive impact on revenue generation. While they haven’t done a formal ROI calculation, Maxson Associates’ last four months have set records for amounts invoiced.

Expanding the Technology Footprint 

Maxson Associates is a family-owned, third-generation business based in Charlotte, North Carolina, offering life safety, space management, and smart day lighting solutions that allow for safe, flexible, spaces for buildings. Based on the deep experience throughout the organization, Maxson is uniquely qualified to successfully tackle some of the most complicated design projects, where other companies cannot. 

For over 60 years, Maxson has made the servicing of their customers a paramount priority. The company’s mobile workforce is on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, ready to assist clients on an emergency repair basis, as well as the more typical scheduled planned maintenance. 

The company utilizes cutting edge technology to solve challenges designers face to maintain building code compliance for containing smoke and fire, yet meet the demand for large open space. That same forward-thinking approach prompted Maxson Associates to evaluate and implement technology to more efficiently manage their service technicians in the field. 

The Case for Mobility 

We caught up with Bobby Richards, Service Support Specialist at Maxson, who shared some of the details that led the company to adopt the FieldConnect solution. Knowing that a field service mobility solution would tackle a range of issues, Richards describes the primary issues they were looking to address as maximizing tech time in the field instead of the office, streamlining the payroll process, and shrinking the invoice cycle time. 

The search for a solution took them down a familiar path of vendor websites, as well as asking their industry peers that had already taken the plunge. While Richards was not directly involved in the procurement process, he worked closely with their Controller, Kris Moyle, who whittled the field of three vendors down to the preferred solution, FieldConnect. 

A Spectrum of Capabilities 

Not a company to do things by halves, once Maxson Associates selected FieldConnect as the vendor of choice, they proceeded to implement almost every module available. FieldAccess represents the core of the solution, allowing the mobile workforce to access work orders, site information, and more via a phone or tablet. In addition, Maxson implemented capabilities for dispatch, a customer portal, onsite job quoting, workforce time tracking, and project management. 

With expert guidance from Moyle, the company’s Controller, Richards soon took over as the software administrator for both FieldConnect’s field service management capabilities, as well as the ERP to which it is connected. Richards describes the learning process as straightforward. “I quickly grasped the concept of what we were trying to achieve and found that the FieldConnect solution supported this new approach logically and effectively,” says Richards. 

The Rubber Meets the Road 

Now that Richards had his feet under him and a firm grasp of the path forward, Maxson soon realized serious benefits from this new technology. He describes one of the most obvious benefits that revealed itself almost immediately. “By verifying completed service calls on a daily basis, we were able to reduce our billing cycle substantially. We literally shaved weeks off the time that it took to produce an invoice previously,” Richards says of the solution. “We now invoice in days, rather than weeks, or months, since we receive completed work order information electronically, in real time. This also accomplished our goal of giving the technicians more time in the field rather than coming to the office to deliver paperwork.” 

Two other key areas that showed marked improvement were payroll and overall revenue generation. Describing a situation that we hear from many customers, the payroll process has become way less paper-intensive and now gets completed in about half a day, down from three days, freeing people up to work on other tasks and boosting productivity. As far as increasing revenue, Richards acknowledges the multiplying effect of more time for techs in the field, combined with the improved billing cycle time. The improved efficiency and massive reduction in paper-based processes has definitely impacted the bottom line at Maxson. “I haven’t calculated the exact return on investment for the FieldConnect solution,” muses Richards, “but the fact that we have set records for the last four consecutive months in amounts invoiced certainly says a lot.” 

FIELDCONNECT’S NEWEST FIELD SERVICE MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS ARE FULLY INTEGRATED WITH OFFICE 365 AND LEVERAGE POWER APPS, POWER BI, MICROSOFT TEAMS, OUTLOOK, AND MORE. WANT TO TRULY IMPROVE VISIBILITY AND COMMUNICATIONS ACROSS ALL YOUR CUSTOMER-FACING DEPARTMENTS? FIELDCONNECT IS THE ANSWER. LEARN MORE BY SCHEDULING A PHONE CALL WITH ONE OF TEAM MEMBERS HTTP://FIELDCONNECT.COM/CONTACT/

D.A. Dodd Embraces Cloud for Savings and Efficiency

Growing Success in the Midwest 

Founded in 1995, D.A. Dodd, LLC was formed as a fully bonded, insured, union mechanical contractor with licensing in both Indiana and Michigan. First established in Northern Indiana, the company began building on its success and has since expanded into Southwest Michigan and Central Indiana.  In 2007, the company opened an additional branch in Mishawaka, Indiana to serve as a home base for service technicians operating throughout the Michiana area. 

Over the years, D.A. Dodd has handled plumbing, heating, cooling, and industrial process piping jobs of all sizes. Their customer base has grown to include customers in commercial, industrial and institutional sectors. With a diverse set of clients including hospitals, private and public schools, colleges and universities, manufacturing facilities, financial institutions and major corporations, D.A. Dodd is poised for continued growth and success throughout the Midwest. 

Modernizing the Business 

We caught up with Raelene Kennedy, D.A. Dodd’s Lead Service Administrator, to talk about some of the technology that has supported that continued growth. Self-described as someone who “wears many hats,” Kennedy walked us through the process that has brought them where they are today. Given an opportunity to re-evaluate their field service software needs as they embarked on a migration from one ERP platform to another, the company decided that they needed to take steps to increase efficiency by reducing paper-based processes. Citing ease-of-use as a major attribute for their consideration, Kennedy and her D.A. Dodd’s Controller were tasked with finding the right solution to extend their new ERP out into the field. 

After evaluation of three different vendors, D.A. Dodd selected FieldConnect FieldAccess, in no small part due to an endorsement from the ERP provider. The decision came down to three critical attributes that were essential to the company – ease of use, tight integration with the ERP platform, and the ability for the application, being web-based, to run on any device. Implementation happened somewhat concurrently with the ERP implementation and was straightforward. 

Realizing the Benefits 

Once implemented, the benefits derived from the field service management solution were revealed in short order. Kennedy points to a couple that really stood out. “For starters, we cut our billing cycle time in half. We also made our payroll process more efficient by removing the paper. The tight integration with our new ERP platform has really had a positive impact on payroll, freeing people up to focus on other tasks at hand.” 

The most recent development at D.A. Dodd has been a move to the FieldConnect Cloud. Questions about hosting applications were the same that many companies ask. “Where is the cloud hosted? How is data security managed? Will it negatively impact our technicians’ ability to do their work?” Once these questions were answered and Kennedy familiarized herself with the setup process and ongoing maintenance plan, the compelling reasons that supported the move became clear.  “We saw that there would be immediate, as well as longer-term cost savings, and we no longer would have to deal with updating and maintaining the software. Expert technical resources at FieldConnect would take that off our plate,” states Kennedy. 

The migration of the solution to the cloud took less than a month and the company experienced zero downtime during the process. Just as important, D.A. Dodd’s 36 field technicians saw no changes to the application that they were using on a daily basis. When asked what she would recommend for other FieldConnect customers considering a cloud deployment, Kennedy does not mince words. “Definitely do it. 100%. The changeover was very straightforward and we feel the cost savings over the long run are more than sufficient to justify the move.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. 

Encore Electric Makes a Move to the Cloud

Encore Electric, based in Colorado, delivers on a wide array of electrical construction projects and maintenance services from multiple locations around the state. Encore has earned a reputation for high quality, innovation, and customer satisfaction throughout the Rocky Mountain region.  

Their service team offers a comprehensive post-construction service and maintenance program including 24-hour on-call support, power quality and proactive maintenance services. Encore manages their resources in the field with FieldConnect, and are leveraging the Cloud for even greater efficiency and savings. 

We spoke with Jeff Cann, Chief Strategist and CIO, to find out more about Encore’s move to the Cloud. 

How was FieldConnect hosted previously? On-premise or by a third party provider?  

Our FieldConnect environment was hosted by a third party provider. 

Why did you ultimately make the decision to move to FieldConnect Cloud?  

We did it for a few reasons. We were already comfortable with a hosted model and could see the advantages. For example, we preferred that FieldConnect keep the software up-to-date and that is easier if we are hosted in the FieldConnect cloud. It also made economic sense, as the switch from paying annual support to subscription pricing saved us money right off the bat. Making the switch also allows for future flexibility to be able to turn on other FieldConnect modules if, or when, they are needed. 

What was your experience in making the move? 

The project executed as we expected.  After a few weeks of planning and testing, we were successful in moving from our previous environment to the FieldConnect environment with a single, one-hour outage.  The most difficult part for us was coordinating the system administration resources from the prior third party environment. 

How did the move impact the FieldConnect users in your company? 

The users of FieldConnect were not impacted other than getting new features and updates, since we were a couple of minor releases behind.  We had to fix a minor reporting problem the next morning after the migration, but overall, the impact was negligible. The FieldConnect support team helped make the whole process go smoothly and were ready to make any necessary changes to keep us up and running with full functionality. 

Any cost savings that you can report so far?  

The hard-dollar cost is roughly equivalent to our prior hosting environment, but that includes the cost of additional FieldConnect Cloud licenses that we added, so it did represent a savings.  In addition, we see ongoing savings into the future, since our Information Technology team supporting FieldConnect won’t have to deal with the software upgrade process. 

What would you say to another FieldConnect customer who contemplating making the move to FieldConnect Cloud? 

If you are self-hosted or self-administering the software in a hosted environment, I recommend that you consider migrating to FieldConnect Cloud and let their engineers handle the complexity of managing the FieldConnect environment.