Field Mobility · Outage Restoration · SAP BTP
Energy and Utilities SAP BTP SAP CATS SAP Cloud Platform Featured
How Xcel Energy put 4,000+ field workers on modern mobile tools and cut outage response time
Delivered 2023
Mindset ran design thinking with Xcel's field crews and built mobile Fiori apps that hit 90% usability, saved each worker 20+ hours a year, and won an internal Xcel Innovation Award.
By the numbers
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Usability score on the outage restoration app
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Of field users found the app intuitive on first use
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Of users liked the clarity of status updates
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20+ hours
Saved per field worker per year
Before
Manual, desktop-bound field operations
- Work-order systems required irrelevant data entry and manual status logging, slowing every outage response.
- Emergency responders went out without the information they needed, creating risk for crews and customers.
- Time entry only worked over VPN from a desktop, so field workers estimated hours and created accounting errors.
After
Mobile-first, real-time tools built around how crews actually work
- GER and EOR apps give dispatchers and crews clean outage management with near-real-time customer updates.
- Field Time Entry runs from any mobile device, no VPN, no desktop, saving each worker 20+ hours a year.
- Xcel built an internal design team to keep the momentum going, and adapted the app pattern for new use cases.
“The orders are clear, I can see why I am responding.”
Why this matters
A utility with 4,000+ field workers and 56,600 annual outage events needed tools that worked in the field, not in a conference room. Mindset ran the design thinking on-site with the crews, built Fiori apps that scored 90% in first-use testing, and helped Xcel stand up the design capability to keep building.
The challenge
Xcel Energy serves roughly 2 million gas customers and 3.6 million electric customers across eight states, with more than 4,000 field workers handling everything from routine maintenance to storm-driven outage surges. In 2019 alone, Xcel managed 56,600+ electric outages and 14 escalated storm events.
The tools those workers relied on hadn't kept pace. The work-order booking system forced crews to enter irrelevant data fields, and status and downtime information had to be typed in manually. Emergency responders went out without the response details they actually needed, which left both crews and customers in a worse spot than they should have been.
The time-entry system was its own problem. It only ran over VPN from a desktop, which meant field workers couldn't log hours from the field. The result was guesswork, accounting errors, and a process that nobody liked. Xcel wanted to fix this at the root, not just patch it.
What we did
Mindset started where the work starts: with the people doing it. The team ran SAP design thinking sessions directly with Xcel's field crews, building out personas, process maps, and concept maps to capture what was actually painful, not what managers assumed was painful.
From there, Mindset built two things. The Field Time Entry app was a Fiori mobile application on SAP Cloud Platform that let workers enter time from any mobile device in the field, no VPN, no desktop required. The Gas Emergency Restoration (GER) and Electric Outage Restoration (EOR) apps gave dispatchers and crews a clean way to dispatch, update, and complete outages with accurate data and near-real-time customer status updates.
The engagement grew from there. Mindset extended the platform with SAP-to-AWS integration for Xcel's Digital Ops Factory and handled a GER-to-GFEE migration. The team also helped Xcel stand up an internal design capability so the company could keep building consistent apps on its own. Usability testing was done remotely with real field workers who had never seen the app before, people who would tell you straight whether it worked.
The outcomes
The outage apps hit their marks in testing. Usability scored 90%, 80% of test users said the app was intuitive, and every single user appreciated the clarity of the status updates. Those aren't survey scores from a friendly audience, they came from field workers doing live usability sessions.
The Field Time Entry app saved each field worker more than 20 hours per year. Across 4,000+ workers, that adds up fast, and Xcel recognized it internally with an Innovation Award.
The Gas Emergency and Electric Outage app was written up in an Xcel Energy article and called out as a game changer for usability and innovation. Xcel then decided to adapt the same app pattern for additional use cases, which is about as clear a signal as you get that the work landed.
Recognition
- Mindset EXperts Award 2023, Best UX for EX (Cloud Field Service Project)
If we built this today
Concept · not delivered scopeField crews that brief and close themselves.
This is a forward-looking concept, not the scope we delivered on this engagement. It is the build we would reach for now, grounded in SAP that ships today.
The same field-mobility problem we solved here, getting 4,000+ crews clean dispatch info and clean status back during outage surges, is now something a Joule agent can carry inside the work order itself.
The data product
Asset and maintenance data product on SAP Business Data Cloud
A governed data product that joins work orders, asset history, and outage events into one trusted view, so the briefing agent reasons over real meaning rather than guessing from scattered systems. There is no named Intelligent Application here yet, so this stays a data product grounding the agent.
Data product on Business Data Cloud
The Joule agent
Technician Briefing Agent
Reads the open maintenance and outage work orders, asset history, and the latest network status, then drafts a crew-ready briefing and a clean status update so responders see why they are out there and what to expect. It proposes the order details and downtime entries instead of asking crews to best-guess them.
SAP S/4HANA Asset Management, SAP Field Service Management, SAP BTP · PROPOSE · Work-order processing time and status-update completeness
The Fiori app
Create Maintenance Request / Order (Joule-embedded)
The standard S/4HANA maintenance apps now carry Joule in-app, so a dispatcher or crew member can ask for the order context and get a drafted update without leaving the work order. For mobile scheduling and dispatch, SAP Field Service Management adds AI-assisted assignment.
Embedded in the Fiori launchpad.
We would mine the real dispatch-to-close process in SAP Signavio first, map the field and integration estate in SAP LeanIX, and let MIND accelerators carry the Work Manager and Fiori work you already rely on across to the new model.
What we built
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20+ hours saved per field worker per year
Field Time Entry app
A Fiori mobile application on SAP Cloud Platform that let field workers log time from any device in the field, replacing a desktop-only VPN-dependent system.
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Used by 4,000+ field workers across 8 states
Gas Emergency Restoration (GER) app
A mobile Fiori tool for dispatching, updating, and completing gas emergency work orders with cleaner data and near-real-time customer status updates.
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90% usability score in field user testing
Electric Outage Restoration (EOR) app
The electric-side counterpart to the GER app, built to handle Xcel's 56,600+ annual outage events with consistent UX and accurate response data.
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80% of users found app intuitive in first-use testing
SAP design thinking engagement
End-to-end design thinking with Xcel's fieldwork teams: personas, process maps, concept maps, rapid prototyping. Testing done remotely with workers who had never seen the app.
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SAP-to-AWS integration for operational data flows
SAP-to-AWS integration for Digital Ops Factory
Integration layer connecting SAP Cloud Platform to AWS, extending the field platform into Xcel's Digital Ops Factory.
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Migration completed as part of the multi-year engagement
GER-to-GFEE migration
Migrated the Gas Emergency Restoration application to the Gas Field Employee Experience (GFEE) platform, extending the UX investment.
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Xcel continued adapting the app pattern for new use cases
Internal Xcel design team stand-up
Mindset helped Xcel build an internal design capability so the company could keep developing consistent Fiori apps independently.
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Public presentation at industry summit with Xcel as co-presenter
UX4ERP Summit presentation
Co-presented with Xcel Energy at the 2023 UX4ERP Summit on SAP UI5 vs. Flutter and AWS vs. Azure architecture tradeoffs, drawing directly from the Xcel field mobility work.
A look at the work
