The Salesforce playbook for energy and utilities.
Energy and utilities combine assets that last forty years, regulators who audit the paperwork, customers who think about you only when something is wrong, and a workforce that is mostly in trucks. The organisations handling it well have stopped treating the asset system, the field system and the customer system as three separate worlds.
- 14 chapters
- 5 Salesforce products in depth
- 14-point readiness checklist
- 9,923 words
What's inside.
Written by our Salesforce consultants for energy and utilities. Read it start to finish or go straight to the chapter you need.
Salesforce in energy and utilities: where it pays off
6 patterns that work, and the stack we typically deploy.
The challenges Salesforce has to solve
The 6 problems a design has to solve, plus 4 methods we use on them.
Which Salesforce products fit, and how
Salesforce Service Cloud, Salesforce Field Service, Salesforce Experience Cloud, MuleSoft, Salesforce Marketing Cloud: use cases, data model and buyer questions for each.
How to implement it
Who needs to be in the room, what the first release includes, and the questions to settle before kickoff.
Moving from your current system
What moves from your current system, how to plan it, and the decisions to make early.
The systems to connect
10 systems to connect and what flows between them.
Regulation and compliance
6 rules and obligations the design has to account for.
Readiness checklist
14 decisions to make before you sign a statement of work.
What to measure
6 metrics to baseline before the build, with a worksheet.
After go-live: support and health checks
What ongoing support covers and when to run a health check.
If a project has stalled
How stalled projects get back on track, and how to get more from the org you have.
Results from our projects
1 results from Abstrakt Solutions projects.
Where the industry is concentrated, and local guides
local guides for 15 metros.
Next steps
Free assessments and how to reach a consultant.
From the readiness checklist.
Three of the 14 decisions the playbook asks you to make before you sign a statement of work. The full checklist, with the rest of the playbook, is in the PDF.
Get the full playbook →- Separate regulated and competitive linesCompanies with both regulated utility and unregulated energy services may face rules about sharing customer information between them. Design org structure, sharing and marketing consent with regulatory counsel, so a competitive offer never draws on data that must stay with the regulated business.
- Treat security as a design inputCustomer, meter and infrastructure data can be sensitive beyond normal privacy concerns. Involve the security team in design reviews, plan identity and access with single sign-on, and restrict exports. Some fields, such as medical-necessity or critical-care flags, need especially tight handling and clear procedures.
- Plan for storm and event loadService demand can spike sharply during storms or heat events. Test routing, queues and any customer-facing portal pages under peak conditions, and decide which functions pause during emergencies. A system tuned only for normal days can fail exactly when customers most need clear answers.
The Salesforce products it covers.
Each product chapter covers use cases, how the data is modeled and the questions buyers ask. Shorter versions are on our site.
- Salesforce Service Cloud for Energy and UtilitiesService Cloud gives utilities, energy retailers and cooperatives a modern service layer on top of the customer information system that holds accounts, rates and bills.
- Salesforce Field Service for Energy and UtilitiesField Service helps utilities and energy service companies plan, dispatch and document the work that happens at customer premises and along the network.
- Salesforce Experience Cloud for EnergyExperience Cloud gives utilities, energy service companies and renewable developers secure sites for the outside parties they work with.
- MuleSoft for Energy and UtilitiesMuleSoft lets utilities, competitive energy retailers and energy services companies expose their operational systems as reusable APIs.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud for Energy and UtilitiesMarketing Cloud helps utilities, competitive energy retailers and energy service providers reach residential and business customers with messages tied to their account and premise.
Who wrote it.
Abstrakt Solutions is a Salesforce Select partner based in St. Louis, with 108 Salesforce certifications, 7 Salesforce accreditations and a 4.95 out of 5 rating from 92 reviews on Salesforce AgentExchange (formerly AppExchange).
The playbook draws on the guidance we publish for energy and utilities and on 1 of our own projects.
