Field operations
Field software for an energy storage company
One app for service requests, work orders, site visits and reports, with a person approving each job.
By Amalgam
Reviewed by Ryan Ward4 min read
The short version
- An energy storage company that runs its own sites asked us for one app for service requests, work orders, site visits and reports.
- We mapped the work, then built a clickable prototype where a person approves each work order and issues each report. The client is reviewing it now.
An energy storage company that builds and runs its own sites asked us to design one app for the work that keeps those sites running.
That work is service requests, work orders, site visits and reports. We’ve finished the first stage, discovery and a clickable prototype, and the client is reviewing it now.
What they asked for
Requests reach them by phone, by email or as an alert from the equipment itself. Each one has to become a job, reach the right technician and end in a report their clients can rely on.
They wanted one place for all of it, from the first call to the finished report.
How we mapped the work
We started with discovery, before drawing any screens. We went through how jobs move today: who picks up a request, who decides it needs a visit, what a technician needs on site and who signs off the report.
Approving a work order and issuing a report are a person’s calls, and the app had to make that plain.
We drew the route one job takes, and then built the prototype around it.
The route of one job
In the prototype, every job follows the same five steps.
- Request. A job starts with a phone call, an email or an alert from the equipment.
- Work order. A person approves the work and assigns a technician. Nothing goes to a site without that approval.
- Site visit. The technician records readings, photos and notes against the job, on a phone.
- Review. Anything unresolved stays open instead of being marked done to tidy the list. An open item sends the job back for a return visit.
- Site report. A person issues the report. Once issued, it’s locked, so the record stays as it was on the day it went out.
The app gathers the evidence and keeps it in order around those two steps. It doesn’t take either of them.
What we left out on purpose
The app reads what the equipment reports and shows it next to the job. It never sends anything back to the equipment, and it doesn’t control anything on site.
Where it stands
Discovery and the clickable prototype are done, and the client is reviewing them now.
If it goes ahead, the next step is a production pilot on real sites, with real jobs. We haven’t run a pilot yet, so we have no results to report.
We’ve left the client unnamed and show no screens from the prototype. The drawing above is ours, redrawn from the route alone.
What other operators can take from it
None of this is special to energy storage. If you run field crews, a few things carry over.
- Map the route of one job before you design a screen. Most disagreements show up on the map, where they’re cheap to settle.
- Mark where a person decides, and keep that decision with a person. Here it was approving the work and issuing the report.
- Let open items stay open. A list that looks finished but isn’t turns into a second trip to the same site.
- Lock what you’ve issued. If a report can change after it goes out, nobody can rely on it.
- Start with software that reads from your equipment and leaves it alone. Build trust in the record first.
