This leading utility company has been a trusted provider of natural gas and electric energy for over a century, and currently services tens of millions of people over a 70,00-square-mile service area. They have expanded over the years to meet the growing need for energy services, with an extensive network of gas and electric infrastructure in areas that are also home to wildlife and natural resources. Protecting the wildlife and endangered species in their service area is equally as important to them as maintaining their services for customers.
Facing the challenge of necessary growth, while protecting wildlife in compliance with the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird treaty act and other state and federal codes, their biologists needed a more efficient way to track, store and relay data about nesting birds in the areas. The company decided that it needed to move away from manual data collection and automate their processes to be more efficient; enable different models of data collection; and provide broader visibility across their lines of business.
The company was working with an extremely disorganized data structure. Biologists collected data in different formats, and there was no cohesive organization of collected data that would allow it to be leveraged for broader analyses. The company decided to implement one integrated management tool, which users could utilize to collect and analyze data in one place, with the help of Apps Associates. A trusted Salesforce Consulting Partner since 2006, Apps Associates is positioned to partner with organizations and guide them through the process of applying Salesforce tools tailored to their individual business needs. In this case, the company needed a mobile solution that their biologists could use while in the field and share results with their teams across all business verticals to avoid duplicating or overlooking crucial information.
Apps Associates worked with the company to identify their areas of weakness in data management and devise a strategy to gather comprehensive models. The result was the Nesting Bird Management Tool: an application which provides users with the ability to record information on a mobile smart device or tablet in both offline and online models. It is a native iOS and Android mobile application that interfaces with the Salesforce.com (SFDC) platform, enabling users to record, review and report on nesting sites. The application is available to identified PG&E personnel on private mobile app enterprise stores for Apple and Android devices.
From conception to application, this project was completed over the course of six months. The company’s biologists are now able to review species work activity and buffer information in conjunction with the customer’s project locations. Users utilize the platform to survey, manage and report on nest sites for current or future projects. On top of the real-time benefit, the data is organized so that it can be leveraged for broader analyses, providing full visibility within and across lines of business.