United Utility Eliminates 40+ Hours of Weekly Manual Work Across 7 Divisions with Power Apps & Power BI.
Say Hello To United Utility
United Utility manages end-to-end electrical construction projects across the United States — field crews on job sites, back-office teams processing billing, payroll, and safety compliance, coordinated across all operating divisions with different rules, rates, and union agreements.
Weekly Financial · By Division
Safety Observations · 30 days
Recent Timesheet Submissions
| Division | Foreman | Work Order | Hours | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chester | R. Alvarez | CH-2481 | 42.5 | Approved |
| Plaska | M. Kennedy | PL-1195 | 38.0 | Approved |
| Coastal | T. Nguyen | FPL-3320 | 40.0 | Pending QA |
| East Dixon | D. Woolverton | EV-0882 | 44.0 | Approved |
One Platform. Four Outcomes.
Every decision we made during delivery traces back to one of these four goals — and every KPI on the executive dashboard proves them out.
Unify All Divisions
Chester · Plaska · Coastal · East Dixon · SES · B&B · Williams — and more onto a single interface.
Automate Payroll & Billing
Union hall logic, rate tables, and approvals — calculated automatically, fully auditable.
Real-time Leadership Visibility
Power BI dashboards replace days-old spreadsheets for every operational metric.
Scale Without Hiring
Manage $50M+ in field operations without adding back-office headcount.
A $150M Field Operation Running on Spreadsheets & SharePoint Workarounds
United Utility had built 30–40% of their Power Apps infrastructure themselves — but a patchwork of citizen-developer apps, unstructured data, and zero Power BI visibility was creating payroll errors, billing delays, and a complete blind spot on field performance across 7+ divisions:
- Everything lived in disconnected Excel files and SharePoint — manual reconciliation took hours every week.
- Division-specific payroll (Chester union hall rules) was calculated by hand — error-prone and impossible to audit quickly.
- Leadership had zero real-time visibility — decisions made on data that was already 2–3 days old.
- One internal IT person, zero Power BI expertise — existing apps risked becoming an un-diagnosable bottleneck.
| Foreman | WO# | Hall | Hrs | Rate | Gross |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R. Alvarez | CH-2481 | IBEW 654 | 42.5 | $58.20 | #REF! |
| J. Pike | CH-2500 | IBEW 98 | 38.0 | $61.05 | $2,319.90 |
| M. Ortiz | CH-2517 | IBEW 654 | 44.0 | $58.20 | #N/A |
| S. Carter | CH-2530 | IBEW 98 | 40.0 | $61.05 | $2,442.00 |
| L. Hayes | CH-2544 | IBEW 654 | 36.5 | $58.20 | $2,124.30 |
| T. Brooks | CH-2559 | IBEW 98 | 45.0 | $61.05 | #VALUE! |
Our Solution
- Foremen now log time, units, and work order in the DFR app in under 5 minutes — data flows directly to billing tables.
- A custom payroll logic engine handles union hall rules automatically — correct, auditable, and instant for Chester division.
- Leadership opens a Power BI dashboard — live data across all 7+ divisions with role-level security, no waiting.
Weekly Financial Report
Recent DFR Submissions
| Division | Foreman | Work Order | Hours | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chester | R. Alvarez | CH-2481 | 42.5 | Approved |
| Plaska | M. Kennedy | PL-1195 | 38.0 | Approved |
| Coastal | T. Nguyen | FPL-3320 | 40.0 | Pending QA |
Manual Customer & Crew Registration Was a Repetitive, 60-Hour Bottleneck
Crew onboarding, equipment transfers, and work order creation were all handled by hand across multiple systems — with every new division making the problem exponentially worse:
- Crew roster data was manually keyed across SharePoint lists, Sage 300, and payroll sheets — high risk of mismatches.
- Equipment allocation lived in scattered files — no single source of truth for what was deployed and where.
- Employee and equipment transfers required a multi-system manual update dance that ate hours per change.
Utilization Rate · Last 30 Days
| Asset | Division | Crew | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bucket Truck 412 | Chester | CH-Crew 04 | Deployed |
| Digger Derrick 87 | FPL UG | FPL-Crew 12 | Transfer |
| Cable Puller 19 | Plaska | PL-Crew 02 | Deployed |
Our Solution
We shipped a two-layer unified operations platform — 17+ Power Apps and 12+ Power BI reports — without asking the client to slow down.
Before vs After — Daily Field Operations
Before Sunflower Lab
Crew arrives — foreman manually fills Excel timesheet for each worker.
Unit counts (cables, conduit, wiring) logged on paper, transcribed to SharePoint later.
Timesheets emailed to back-office, manually entered into billing system.
Chester payroll calculated by hand using union hall rules — error rate significant.
Leadership requests status report — pulled from multiple files, 2–3 days old by delivery.
After Sunflower Lab
Foreman opens DFR app — logs time, units, and work order in under 5 minutes.
Unit data captured in-app with structured fields — zero transcription, zero loss.
Data flows directly to billing tables — back-office reviews a dashboard, no data entry.
Chester payroll calculated automatically by the logic engine — correct, auditable, instant.
Leadership opens Power BI dashboard — live data across all divisions, no waiting.
per week
DFR Apps — Daily Field Reports (7 Divisions)
BackboneBuilt separately for Duke Energy, D&D, GP Sub, FPL UG, FPL CMH, Chester, and Eversource — each configured to that division's billing rules, unit types, and crew structures.
Chester Timesheet App
Most ComplexCustom payroll logic engine handling union hall rules — which work order, which hall, which rate. Biggest technical challenge of the project.
Roster Timesheet App
Foreperson-driven timesheet submission and approval tied to crew rosters and work orders.
UU Equipment App
Real-time equipment allocation tracking — what's deployed, where, and to which crew.
Employee & Equipment Transfer
Single-workflow crew reassignment replacing multi-system manual updates.
Work Order Suite
Mass upload, % completion tracking, add-work-order, and QAQC — full work order lifecycle.
visibility
Safety Culture Dashboard
Observation volume and frequency across all divisions — safety compliance visible to ops managers in real time.
Weekly Financial Report
Consolidated labor costs, equipment costs, and work order revenue — updated weekly for leadership.
Timesheets Dashboard
Weekly overview of all submissions — flagging missing entries, approval status, and hours per work order.
Equipment Usage Report
Utilization rates across all active projects (Sage 300 export). Smarter equipment allocation decisions.
Roster with Rates Report
Crew-level labor rates and roster assignments — accurate client billing and correct rate application.
Division Reports (Plaska, Duke, FPL, GP-Sub +)
Division-specific payroll, DFR submission tracking, and B&B Resiliency reporting with role-level security.
Impact
A unified operations platform — delivered in under 60 days, still expanding because the ROI keeps paying for itself.
eliminated per week
one platform
in active use
— Chester division
Timeline
Hours Saved — Weekly, Across All Processes
The platform is still expanding — new divisions, new reports, new apps — because the ROI keeps paying for itself.
If you're running field operations, multi-location projects, or complex payroll across divisions, this story probably hits home.
Your teams are trapped in spreadsheets.
Excel was never built to run a multi-division operation. When your data lives in files instead of systems, every decision is slower, every error is harder to find, and every new division makes the problem worse.
You have Power Apps but no Power BI expertise.
A lot of operations teams have built functional apps but still can't see their business clearly. The data exists — it's just not connected to anything leadership can actually use. That's a solvable problem.
You're trying to scale without hiring.
The pressure to grow revenue without growing headcount is real. Automation is how you do it — but only if it's built right, with your actual business logic baked in, not bolted on.
Manual processes are your operational ceiling.
Every hour spent on data entry, manual payroll, and chasing spreadsheets is an hour not spent on the work that actually grows the business. You don't need to accept that.
Are You Ready to Automate Operations Across Your Divisions?
If your teams are still relying on Excel, email chains, and manual payroll — there's a faster, more accurate way to run it. We've built it before. We can build it for you.
See What We Can Build for You →
