Tesla Energy saves 12 hours of admin each day with Emvisage

Tes­la Ener­gy pro­vi­de bat­te­ries and solar sys­tems across Austra­lia, uti­li­sing subcont­rac­tors to comple­te the ins­tal­la­tion field work. Prior to Emvi­sa­ge Tes­la were using a mix of Sales­force CRM, mul­tiple spreads­heet trac­kers, email and fil­lable PDFs to coor­di­na­te their work. But volu­me inc­rea­ses on the horizon promp­ted the com­pa­ny to look for a more stream­li­ned approach, that would allow them to sca­le wit­hout inc­rea­sing ope­ra­tions headcount.

Tes­la has used Emvi­sa­ge to auto­ma­te their workflow, impro­ve the qua­li­ty of field work and reduce back office admin, resul­ting in ter­ri­fic pro­duc­ti­vi­ty gains. The com­pa­ny has seen a 91% reduc­tion in job alloca­tion and trac­king time, a 67% reduc­tion in QA (Qua­li­ty Assu­rance) time, 30mins per job saved in post ins­tal­la­tion docu­men­ta­tion, due lar­ge­ly, to auto­ma­tion and impro­ved flow of infor­ma­tion between Tes­la and their subcont­rac­tor field teams.

Automating complex workflow with Emvisage

Tes­la no lon­ger need the spreads­heets, they no lon­ger need to remem­ber when to send emails to col­lea­gues and cus­to­mers, to con­su­me so much resource on QA, or loo­se valuable hours to ‘copy and pas­te’. Emvi­sa­ge has auto­ma­ted a lar­ge por­tion of this manual work.

It’s unusual that one sys­tem can auto­ma­te so much, especial­ly given the complex workflow between mul­tiple inter­nal Tes­la teams and exter­nal subcont­rac­tors. It’s pos­sible only because of the ext­re­me flexi­bi­li­ty and deep cus­to­mi­sa­tion that is cent­ral to Emvi­sa­ge. Our low code tech­no­lo­gy meant the sys­tem was quickly tai­lo­red to Tesla’s exact workflow, cap­tu­ring all the data requi­red through the process and cent­ra­li­sing it. This is what made auto­ma­tion fea­sible, even when the work see­med des­ti­ned to always requi­re manual effort. 

Prior to Emvi­sa­ge, 115 pieces of field and cus­to­mer data nee­ded to be copy and pas­ted from spreads­heets and PDF’s, into the Tes­la Welco­me Pack. Lots of dif­fe­rent infor­ma­tion from dif­fe­rent places, inclu­ding job pho­tos and field tech­nician details. With Emvi­sa­ge this has been comple­te­ly auto­ma­ted. The 115 pieces of data are popu­la­ted into the Tes­la Welco­me Pack templa­te, a PDF gene­ra­ted and attac­hed to a Tes­la bran­ded email, along with the ‘Cer­ti­fica­te of Compliance’. The cus­to­mer gets the email from Tes­la with a per­fect Welco­me Pack, Tesla’s compliance needs are met and no one in the ope­ra­tions team needs to lift a fin­ger. Auto­ma­ting this one acti­vi­ty has saved 30minutes on eve­ry job.

Outstanding quality, with less overhead

To ensu­re subcont­rac­tor ins­tal­la­tion work of the utmost qua­li­ty, Tes­la used compre­hen­si­ve fil­lable PDF’s, with suf­ficient detail to cover a ran­ge of pos­sible field sce­na­rios. Each job was then reviewed exten­si­ve­ly, to ensu­re qua­li­ty and compliant work. The QA process took con­si­de­rable resource, both in terms of chec­king work and dea­ling with calls from field tech­nicians. Emvisage’s deeply cus­to­mi­sed forms with in-built smarts have made it much easier for field tech­nicians to get it right, first time. The sys­tem is doing the ‘remin­ding and chec­king’ live, whi­le tech­nicians are on site upda­ting Emvi­sa­ge on their mobi­le pho­nes. The Tes­la team’s know­led­ge is embed­ded into the forms, stop­ping tho­se com­mon ‘mis­ses’ and pro­vi­ding time­ly remin­ders about a stan­dard or requi­re­ments. We call it ‘Qua­li­ty Auto­ma­tion’ and it’s reduced QA review time at Tes­la by 67%.

‘Befo­re we would spend so much time reviewing the design. Now it’s so ingrai­ned into the forms. They are no lon­ger just fields or forms, they are gui­des. It allows us to com­mu­nica­te to ins­tal­lers wit­hout actual­ly tal­king to them. Actual­ly gui­ding the ins­tal­lers, have you done this? What about this? They don’t real­ly call us any­mo­re, the­re is no need.’

Big results from automation

Quo­te auto­ma­tion has also pro­ven to be a win for both Tes­la and their subcont­rac­tors. Rat­her than using spreads­heets to mana­ge the dif­fe­rent pricing for each subcont­rac­tor, subcont­rac­tor ratecards are embed­ded in Emvi­sa­ge. Auto­ma­tion here saves time on both sides, it’s quic­ker for subcont­rac­tors to pre­pa­re quo­tes, whi­le auto­ma­ting calcu­la­tions takes manual errors out of the picture.

Ove­rall Tes­la have been ext­re­me­ly satis­fied with Emvi­sa­ge. The abi­li­ty to sca­le effec­ti­ve­ly has yiel­ded some awe­so­me results, saving the ope­ra­tions team more than 12 hours of admin work a day. Job alloca­tion and trac­king time has been reduced by 91%, from hours a day to 10 minu­tes. QA time is down by 67% and 30 minu­tes is being saved on eve­ry job through auto­ma­ting post ins­tal­la­tion documents. 

With clear visi­bi­li­ty in Emvi­sa­ge, Tes­la are dri­ving subcont­rac­tor per­for­mance and lif­ting the bar ever hig­her in terms of qua­li­ty and the expe­rience for customers. 

‘The single most impor­tant thing that Emvi­sa­ge pro­vi­des us is live visi­bi­li­ty. We can not just do it quic­ker, but we have far more visi­bi­li­ty. We can mana­ge proac­ti­ve­ly and have much bet­ter control.’

Emvisage - powerful for complex field workflow 

If you need to stream­li­ne your time con­su­ming field and back office workflow,  but it feels impos­sible or not fea­sible. It’s worth get­ting in touch, our tech­no­lo­gy can be a game chan­ger. This is a brief over­view of Tes­la’s sto­ry, but you can get the full Tes­la whi­te­pa­per here.