Operating since 1935 and headquartered in Pineville, Louisiana, Cleco Corporation serves approximately 290,000 retail electric customers. In 2018, the utility initiated a GIS replacement project to supersede a homegrown Delphi/Pascal system that was integrated with Schneider Electric ADMS. It was decided that Cleco would move to the Esri platform and utilize SAP for the financials to streamline processes across the business.
The requirement was to integrate design and estimating systems with SAP’s work management system to produce a comprehensive central design and work management solution in ArcGIS Enterprise. Cleco also desired to maintain integration to their operational ADMS.
GIS/SAP Project Team
The GIS replacement and SAP integration project team was made up of multiple industry experts. IBM was responsible for SAP Data, Vesta Partners led the SAP implementation team, and Schneider Electric maintained the Cleco ADMS integrations. UDC came onboard initially to support the SAP interface by making the necessary changes in ArcGIS Enterprise to meet Cleco’s business needs.
UDC’s role in the Cleco GIS/SAP project expanded to include:
- Consulting and training on new software decisions and architecture
- Lead requirements workshops to determine the correct workflow
- Work with Cleco and Vesta Partners to develop integration requirements
- Develop standalone tools for GIS data extraction and import from SAP
- Implement and configure ArcFM Designer, Geodatabase Manager custom action handlers, Workflow Manager for Designers, Session Manager for GIS Analysts, and system performance monitoring
Specifying a Design Tool
Since Cleco had not decided on a design tool to be integrated to SAP Work Management, UDC met with the Cleco team to review both the current and new environments and tools. Based on group discussion, Cleco determined ArcFM Designer was best design tool for the job. A key factor contributing to this decision, Cleco was already using Schneider Electric’s ADMS. Implementing ArcFM Designer at Cleco would support zero data latency communication between the GIS and ADMS.
UDC implemented ArcFM Designer through a series of requirements workshops, configuration workshops, and custom code solutions. UDC was also responsible for the GIS side of the integrations including sending and receiving messages to SAP.
Specific ArcFM Designer and integration solutions provided by UDC included:
- Custom workflows for Workflow and Session Manager
- Custom action handlers for Geodatabase Manager
- GIS to SAP Synch – only sends features that were edited within the session or design being posted
- GIS to SAP Finalize – executed after the successful posting of a session or design
- Integration to SAP import and extract standalone tools
- GIS Data Extraction for SAP
- GIS Data Import from SAP
UDC collaborated with the Schneider Electric team to make sure that the configurations and customizations would not cause issues for the existing ADMS integration.
Project Approach
Numerous teams worked on the multilayered project simultaneously to have all projects ready for testing by August of 2018. From this point, the UDC/Cleco team worked towards the 2019 completion date in a phased approach, testing and adjusting along the way. This approach had several advantages:
- Get the design tool stood up while waiting on Compatible Units (CUs – used for designing new builds with cost included) from SAP and data to be ready for testing
- Let the users play in a sandbox with ArcFM Designer and identify necessary customizations/extensions
- Ability to test as soon as the data was ready
- As CUs became ready, ability to import and test them in the design tool, as well as test the integrations
Project Benefits
The GIS Replacement and SAP Integration project has provided multiple benefits for Cleco. The biggest return on investment comes from moving to Esri’s System of Engagement. The new system provides a streamlined design, construction, and workflow process. Designs created in GIS can be exported directly to ADMS.
Through integrations to SAP, Cleco now has a single point of entry for all asset information. They can build a design, request the cost from SAP, update the design, commission the design, etc… all from a single unified enterprise system.
For an update on Cleco’s journey, see our client conversation and view the joint GeoConX presentation.