“I can’t believe how quickly MyOVS had things up and running!”

Jane Cicinelli, VP of Human Resources, NPL Construction Company

The largest gas distribution contractor in the US, NPL Construction Company (NPL) has replaced its manual, siloed, and paper-based processes with a Business-Critical SharePoint solution from MyOVS®, providing automation, self-service, and mobility for compensation related processes for all employees across the company. The solution maximizes the value of their Microsoft® Office SharePoint® 2010 and SAP® system investments.

Business NeedsHeadquartered in Phoenix, Arizona with locations all over the United States, NPL Construction Company has been a recognized leader in the pipeline construction industry for over 40 years. In addition to natural gas pipeline construction, NPL offers a full line of distribution infrastructure services in markets throughout the United States for electric, fiber, telecom, cable TV and other utilities.

Manual Business ProcessesAs the vast majority of their 4000 employees are working at job sites across the country, communication of compensation information to their workforce was a costly challenge. NPL was spending more than $130,000 annually in printing and delivering paper paystubs to employees. In addition, throughout the year, NPL Human Resources (HR) personnel were overwhelmed with requests for reprints of past paystubs. Furthermore, W-2 tax forms were also a burden, as their payroll team had to consider ad-hoc employee requests for tax information from previous years. Keeping up with reissue requests was very time consuming.

Dependence on Highly Trained Experts All of NPL’s pay related data and payroll processes are in SAP. SAP is the primary line-of-business system for NPL for various corporate functions including Finance and

Human Resources. Only specially trained employees in those departments had access to SAP data. Field employees had to use manual methods, such as phone or e-mail to access their payroll information in SAP.

Although NPL had SharePoint 2007 in place as their corporate intranet portal platform, they had only been using it for the basic functions, such as sites, document management and collaboration. When NPL was on the cusp of upgrading to SharePoint 2010, MyOVS, a Business-Critical SharePoint partner pointed out that SharePoint can also be used for integration with backend systems, such as SAP. With SharePoint connected to SAP, NPL could maximize the value or their IT systems.

SolutionOnce NPL deployed the SharePoint 2010 environment, MyOVS deployed their Compensation module, a Business-Critical SharePoint solution that connects SharePoint with SAP while providing secure self-service for all employees across the organization. Employee paystub data and W-2 information previously accessible only within SAP are now integrated to their SharePoint 2010 intranet and extranet environments. The solution enhances the compensation workflow process via web parts that allow employees to search for and view their paystubs or W-2 tax forms.

Company: NPL Construction CompanyWebsite: http://gonpl.comCountry or Region: United StatesIndustries: Oil and GasConstructionUtilitiesPartner: MyOVSPartner Website: www.myovs.com

Company ProfileNPL Construction Company has been a recognized leader in the pipeline construction industry for over 40 years, and is the largest gas distribution contractor in the US.

Software and ServicesMicrosoft® Office SharePoint® 2010MyOVS for SAP®

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Solution Case Study

Pipeline Construction Leader Exceeds 300% Return on Investment with Automation

SharePoint CustomerSolution Case Study

Additionally, paystub data is available via an HTML5 mobile web application that is integrated to the same MyOVS components installed on their SharePoint environment. Now employees can now use their smartphones to look up a paystub. MyOVS also assisted NPL with porting their existing intranet designs to a new master page and layouts for SharePoint 2010.

BenefitsSelf-Service and Automation of Compensation ProcessesWith the Business-Critical Solution in place, the information and supporting documents are visible to all employees real-time. With SharePoint’s secure role-based access, they can verify their earnings deposit amounts by logging into the SharePoint site or on their smartphones. Employees are also empowered to look up and print their payroll-related documents themselves without having to depend on the HR department or searching through paper records at home. HR department personnel can also utilize the same tool within SharePoint to research information and compile reports.

Breaking Down Communication Siloes Across the CompanyBy bringing the critical compensation SAP data to all employees, NPL managed to improve employee satisfaction and productivity among the Human Resources and other teams. Whether one is a construction worker out in the field or a sales person on the road, all employees have access to their SAP payroll information with a familiar, intuitive, and user-friendly look and feel. There is no training needed for the 4000 employees to learn to work with the difficult-to-use backend system. Human Resources can also communicate company payroll processes and policies in SharePoint, instead of e-mailing or printing 4000 copies.

Tremendous Cost SavingsThe deployment of the MyOVS web parts in SharePoint 2010, together with a deployment of a mobile web app, effectively eliminated the need for manually printing and mailing paystubs and W-2 forms, both current and reprints, to the thousands of employees at NPL. This saves the NPL organization countless hours of taking in requests, printing, mailing, and

other related coordination. The cost savings was enormous from the saved person hours, as well as printing and postage that is no longer necessary. Significant precious resource time has been freed up that can now be allocated to other more important human capital management tasks. NPL estimates a three-year average return on investment (ROI) of 346% with an annual savings of $135,000.

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Document published 06/08/03