Deviney Construction/Magnolia Utility Services Modernizes Field Operations With Quickbase, FastField, Samsara, and Vista
The Company Profile: Deviney Construction
- Industry: Utility Construction & Infrastructure Services
- Subsidiary: Magnolia Utility Services
- Use Case: Field Operations Management, Safety & Compliance, Daily Work Reporting, Payroll & Billing Automation
- Technology: Quickbase, FastField, Samsara, Vista
- Headquarters: Mississippi
- Project: Field Operations & Workflow Optimization
For nearly eight decades, Deviney Construction has supported the infrastructure that keeps communities and businesses connected. Deviney is a full-service utility contractor specializing in the construction and maintenance of telephone, power, gas, data, water, sewage, telecommunications, and other critical utility infrastructure. The company provides services ranging from engineering and system construction to fiber-optic installation, directional drilling, utility right-of-way maintenance, cable placement, vegetation management, and ongoing infrastructure maintenance.
Founded in 1947, Deviney has grown from a regional Mississippi contractor into a substantial multi-state operation. Today, the company reports more than 475 employees across 13 offices, with operations extending throughout Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas. Deviney's field organization is supported by a fleet of more than 800 pieces of rolling stock, alongside excavation equipment, aerial lifts, auger trucks, service vehicles, trenchers, testing equipment, and other specialized assets required for utility construction and maintenance.
Within this broader organization, Magnolia Utility Services operates as a subsidiary of Deviney Construction, supporting field-intensive utility and vegetation-management operations. Magnolia is also publicly associated with Deviney under the Deviney Utility Services organization, reinforcing the relationship between the two operating entities.
As Deviney's field operations continue to scale, the organization is modernizing how information moves between employees in the field and the administrative, safety, payroll, billing, and operational teams supporting them.
Quandary Consulting Group is helping establish that foundation through a connected field operations environment centered on Quickbase, FastField, Samsara, and Vista™ construction ERP software (Trimble) beginning with workflows supporting Magnolia Utility Services and the engagement is designed to improve operational workflows, streamline data capture, standardize information, increase visibility, and establish integrations between Quickbase and the systems supporting field operations.
The Challenges
Connecting a Large Field Organization to the Back Office
Organizations like Deviney operate in an environment where work happens across crews, vehicles, equipment, jobsites, utility corridors, and customer locations rather than behind a desk and this makes operational data both extremely valuable and unusually difficult to manage.
During a single workday, a crew may complete pre-trip inspections, travel to multiple locations, use several pieces of equipment, perform production work, record employee hours, identify safety concerns, and generate information that ultimately affects payroll and customer billing; each activity creates data.
The challenge is making sure that data does not become trapped inside paper forms, spreadsheets, emails, disconnected systems, or manual administrative processes and for Magnolia Utility Services, the initial transformation focuses on connecting those frontline activities to a structured digital operating environment.
The objective documented in the engagement is to create scalable solutions that improve visibility, standardize data collection, streamline field data capture, establish reporting and approval workflows, and create foundational integrations with external systems.
For Deviney, the broader opportunity is significant; instead of managing field data as a collection of individual documents and transactions, the organization can begin treating it as a connected operational asset.
Field Data Becomes Structured Operational Data
The transformation begins where the work happens: in the field. Quandary is implementing FastField and Quickbase to digitize several of Magnolia's frontline processes, beginning with:
- Pre-trip inspections
- Close-call reporting
- Good-catch reporting
The engagement specifically calls for these FastField forms to be created and integrated with Quickbase so information captured by field teams flows into structured operational records and this distinction is important (vs. just simply digitizing a paper form reduces paper). Connecting the form to the operational environment changes what happens after the form is submitted.
A FastField submission can become a Quickbase record associated with the appropriate crew, date, job, event type, equipment, supporting notes, and attachments.
Instead of information remaining isolated inside an individual form, Quickbase becomes the centralized environment where the data can trigger additional workflows, reporting, approvals, and downstream business processes and for a company operating hundreds of vehicles and pieces of equipment across a distributed field organization, that creates a much stronger foundation for operational visibility.
Safety Reporting Becomes an Active Workflow
Safety is a particularly important use case for Deviney and Magnolia because capturing an event is only the beginning of the process.
A close call or good catch can provide valuable insight into what is happening across crews and jobsites, but only if the information can be consistently collected, categorized, reviewed, and analyzed.
Quandary is creating a dedicated Safety Events structure within Quickbase that organizes safety information and supports standardized monthly reporting. FastField allows employees to capture an event while they are working and Quickbase then turns that submission into structured operational information.
Records can be associated with variables such as: Event Type → Crew → Region → Date → Location → Supporting Documentation → Follow-Up
This gives safety leadership a much clearer view of activity across the organization while reducing the administrative effort associated with compiling recurring safety reports.
Pre-trip inspections create another layer of compliance visibility and instead of simply storing inspection forms, the organization can begin monitoring whether expected inspections are actually occurring.
Managers can therefore identify missing records and exceptions much earlier rather than discovering gaps after the fact, and this let the operating model become: Crew → Vehicle/Equipment → Pre-Trip Inspection → Date → Submission Status → Compliance Visibility
Daily Work Reports Become the Center of Field Operations
The most consequential part of the engagement is the modernization of the Daily Work Report and the Daily Work Report captures several of the variables required to understand what happens on a jobsite, including: Crew | Employee Hours | Equipment | Production | Work Performed
Quandary collaboratively structured these records in Quickbase and develop the associated approval and notification workflows; however, the real value comes from what happens next. Rather than treating the Daily Work Report as a static record documenting completed work, Deviney and Magnolia can use it as the starting point for multiple downstream business processes.
Once a field employee submits the report, Quickbase can route it to the appropriate manager, then the record enters a pending approval state, next the manager reviews the information, once approved, the record progresses into office processing. That approved information then becomes available for payroll and billing.
The same underlying data can therefore move through the organization without requiring employees to continuously recreate it; the workflow changes from a series of disconnected administrative activities into a defined operational sequence: Field Work → Daily Work Report → Manager Approval → Office Processing → Payroll + Billing
Field Hours Become Payroll-Ready Data
Employee hours captured in daily work reports are also critical to payroll. In a manual environment, preparing those records can require administrative employees to collect reports, identify employees and crews, reconcile hours, confirm approvals, aggregate totals, and prepare information for payroll processing.
Quandary's engagement gives Magnolia a more structured model, Quickbase aggregates approved operational information using standard reporting logic, including hours per employee and hours per crew. That allows the same field record used to document completed work to become part of the payroll workflow.
The data path becomes: Employee → Crew → Work Date → Hours → Manager Approval → Payroll Reporting
This reduces redundant administrative processing while improving traceability between reported labor and the underlying field activity; and for Deviney's larger field workforce, the underlying principle is particularly valuable: capture operational information once and reuse it wherever the business requires it.
Connecting Field Production Directly to Billing
Billing creates another point where field and back-office operations have to work together. Production information recorded in the field may include measurements such as tree size, work type, quantities, or other operational variables that ultimately determine how completed work should be billed.
Today, translating those operational details into billing information does require human interpretation. Quandary is introduced rules-based automation into that process with automating billing codes based on defined business rules supplied by the customer, including examples such as tree size and work type.
The workflow becomes: Completed Work → Production Data → Business Rules → Billing Code → Billing-Ready Data
This has an important operational consequence, the organization begins eliminating the manual translation that traditionally occurs between what the crew says it completed and what the company can invoice. Over time, this type of connection can help Deviney shorten the distance between field production and revenue recognition.
Samsara Connects Equipment, Crews, and Location Data
Deviney's operating scale makes equipment visibility especially important. The company reports a fleet of more than 800 pieces of rolling stock, in addition to specialized excavation, lifting, drilling, testing, and utility-construction equipment and that means a Daily Work Report does not exist independently from the assets used to perform the work.
The engagement therefore includes a foundational integration with Samsara. The initial integration focuses on establishing connectivity and exchanging core operational information rather than attempting a complete synchronization of the Samsara platform.
The project identifies several important use cases:
- Equipment Lists: Equipment maintained in Samsara can be made available within operational workflows so field employees can accurately identify the assets used during a job.
- GPS Location: Asset-location information can provide additional context for work being reported.
- Job-Location Validation: Equipment selected on a Daily Work Report can eventually be compared with its actual location to help validate whether the asset was present where the reported work occurred.
- Equipment Usage: Connecting equipment with crews, jobs, and Daily Work Reports creates a more complete operating history for physical assets.
Instead of looking at telematics and operational reporting as separate sources of information, Deviney can begin connecting the two. This creates an increasingly valuable relationship: Employee → Crew → Job → Equipment → GPS Location → Production
Quickbase and Vista Connect Field Operations With the ERP
The next layer connects these operational workflows with Vista, the organization's ERP environment. The current engagement intentionally establishes the initial Quickbase-to-Vista framework rather than attempting a comprehensive ERP integration immediately.
Quandary defines this phase around integration discovery, establishing connectivity, validating the data flow, and implementing an initial use case and that phased strategy is significant because it allows Deviney to establish clean operational processes before expanding enterprise integration.
The architecture becomes: Field Activity → FastField → Quickbase → Manager Approval → Business Rules → Billing-Ready Data → Vista
Quickbase therefore serves as an operational layer between field activity and the enterprise system. Information can be collected, standardized, reviewed, validated, approved, and transformed before it reaches the ERP.
That is a fundamentally stronger integration model than simply moving fragmented field data from one system into another.
The Solutions
Building a Connected Field Operations Architecture for Deviney Construction and Magnolia Utility Services
For a field-intensive organization, digital transformation is not achieved by simply replacing paper forms with digital ones. The larger opportunity is to connect the entire operational lifecycle—from what happens at the jobsite to the systems responsible for payroll, billing, financial management, and executive reporting.
Quandary Consulting Group is creating that connected environment for Deviney Construction and its subsidiary, Magnolia Utility Services, using Quickbase, FastField, Samsara, and Vista™ construction ERP software (Trimble) to establish an integrated field operations architecture.
Each technology serves a distinct purpose within the ecosystem. FastField captures information where work happens. Quickbase structures that information and orchestrates the workflows around it. Samsara provides equipment, asset, and location intelligence. Vista™ construction ERP software (Trimble) connects approved operational activity to the organization's downstream financial processes.
Instead of relying on disconnected forms, spreadsheets, emails, manual data entry, and institutional knowledge to move information between field and office teams, Deviney is establishing a digital operating model in which information can follow the work itself. Together, these platforms create a more continuous flow of operational data: Field Activity → Mobile Data Capture → Operational Workflow → Validation → Approval → Payroll & Billing → ERP → Reporting
FastField: Digitizing Data Capture at the Point of Work
For field operations technology to succeed, it has to work where employees actually perform their jobs—not just where reliable internet connections and desktop computers are available.
FastField serves as the frontline mobile data-capture layer for Deviney and Magnolia, giving employees a structured way to document operational and safety information directly from the field.
Initial workflows include pre-trip inspections, close calls, and good catches, with FastField providing mobile-friendly forms that standardize how information is captured across crews and locations.
FastField's offline functionality is particularly important for utility and construction environments where employees may be working in remote areas, rights-of-way, vehicles, or jobsites with inconsistent connectivity. Employees can continue capturing information in the field and synchronize submissions when connectivity becomes available.
This changes the role of field data, instead of information being documented in one place and later interpreted, rekeyed, emailed, or transferred into another system, it can enter Deviney's operational environment much closer to the moment it is created.
The field becomes the starting point of the digital workflow—not the endpoint of a manual process.
Quickbase: Creating a Central Operational System of Record
At the center of the architecture is Quickbase, which serves as the operational backbone connecting field activity with the business processes that depend on it. Quickbase brings together information and workflows spanning:
- Crews and employees
- Jobs and work assignments
- Daily Work Reports
- Employee hours and time reporting
- Production activity
- Equipment usage
- Safety events
- Pre-trip inspections
- Close calls and good catches
- Manager reviews and approvals
- Office processing
- Payroll preparation and reporting
- Billing-code automation
- Operational dashboards
- Management reporting
- Downstream system integrations
The significance of this model is not simply that these processes become digital - they become connected.
A crew can be associated with a job. Employees can be associated with that crew. Equipment can be associated with the same work activity. Production quantities can be connected to employee hours. Safety information can be tied to people, locations, and equipment. Approved production data can drive billing logic. Those records can ultimately support payroll, invoicing, ERP processing, and management reporting.
This creates a shared operational data model connecting: People → Crews → Jobs → Locations → Equipment → Time → Production → Safety → Approvals → Payroll → Billing
For Deviney, Quickbase therefore becomes more than another application employees have to manage. It becomes the operational system of record responsible for coordinating how information moves between the field, management, back-office teams, and enterprise systems.
Connecting Daily Work Reporting to Payroll and Billing
One of the most important elements of the architecture is the connection between Daily Work Reports (DWRs) and downstream administrative processes.
Field reporting is often where construction organizations experience a significant amount of operational friction. Crews record what happened, supervisors review it, office employees interpret it, payroll teams validate hours, and billing teams determine how completed production should be coded and invoiced.
Every manual handoff creates another opportunity for delays, inconsistent information, duplicate entry, and errors.
Quandary is designing the Quickbase environment so that the Daily Work Report can become a foundational operational record rather than an isolated field document.
The workflow can connect: Crew → Job → Employees → Hours → Equipment → Production → Manager Approval → Payroll Processing → Billing
Once information is captured correctly upstream, multiple downstream processes can use the same validated operational record; it is a fundamental shift from collecting information repeatedly to capturing information once and operationalizing it across the business.
Automating the Path From Production to Billing
Billing represents another critical intersection between field operations and the back office. Production information recorded in the field may include variables such as work type, quantities, tree size, or other operational measurements that ultimately determine how completed work should be billed.
Traditionally, converting those details into the correct billing information can require employees to interpret field reports, reference business rules, determine billing codes, and manually prepare information for downstream systems.
Quandary is introduced rules-based billing automation within Quickbase to reduce that translation layer. Defined business rules can evaluate production information and determine the appropriate billing code based on variables established by Deviney.
The process becomes: Completed Work → Production Data → Business Rules → Billing Code → Approval → Billing-Ready Record
This creates a much tighter connection between what a crew completes in the field and what the organization is ultimately able to invoice and as the operating model matures, Deviney gains the foundation for reducing billing preparation effort, improving coding consistency, shortening billing cycles, and increasing visibility into work that has been completed but has not yet progressed through the billing process.
Samsara: Connecting Physical Operations With Digital Workflows
For a construction and utility organization, operational visibility cannot stop with employees and forms. Equipment, vehicles, locations, and physical assets are fundamental parts of how work gets completed.
Samsara provides the physical operations and telematics layer within the architecture. By integrating Samsara equipment and GPS information with Quickbase, Deviney can bring physical asset intelligence into the same workflows used to manage crews, jobs, production, and field reporting.
Equipment is no longer represented solely as an asset inside a separate telematics platform.
Within the connected architecture, it can become part of the operational record associated with: Equipment → Crew → Employee → Job → Location → Work Activity → Production
GPS information can also provide an additional layer of operational context and validation. For example, location information can help support workflows designed to determine whether employees or equipment were associated with the expected jobsite when work was reported.
This creates the foundation for a more data-driven approach to field operations in which information submitted by employees can be evaluated alongside information generated by connected assets and, over time, the same architecture can support additional opportunities around fleet utilization, equipment availability, preventive maintenance, inspections, asset allocation, exception management, and operational performance.
Vista: Connecting Field Operations to the Financial System of Record
The final layer of the architecture connects operational execution with enterprise financial management. Vista serves as Deviney's downstream ERP and financial system, receiving information after the appropriate operational workflows, validations, business rules, and approvals have occurred upstream.
This distinction matters - An ERP should not have to become the place where every piece of raw field information is interpreted and corrected. Instead, the connected architecture allows Quickbase to coordinate operational processes before information reaches Vista.
The progression becomes: Field Data → Operational Validation → Management Approval → Business Rules → Financially Ready Data → Vista
As integration capabilities mature, approved payroll and billing information can move downstream without requiring office teams to repeatedly recreate information that originated in the field.
This creates a cleaner separation of responsibilities:
- FastField captures field information.
- Quickbase manages operational processes and business logic.
- Samsara contributes physical asset and location intelligence.
- Vista manages downstream financial and ERP processes.
Together, the platforms create a connected technology ecosystem rather than four independent systems.
The Connected Architecture
Quandary's approach establishes a clear flow of information across the organization: Field Employee → FastField → Quickbase → Operational Workflow → Manager Approval → Samsara Validation → Payroll & Billing Logic → Vista → Enterprise Reporting
The larger transformation is in the relationships being created underneath that workflow.
- People + Work: Employees and crews become connected to the jobs and production activities they perform.
- Work + Equipment: Equipment becomes associated with crews, jobs, locations, and reported production rather than existing as an isolated asset record.
- Work + Location: Samsara GPS data introduces physical context that can strengthen field reporting and operational validation.
- Production + Payroll: Employee hours and completed work can move through structured review and approval workflows before payroll processing.
- Production + Billing: Business rules can translate operational variables into standardized billing codes and billing-ready records.
- Operations + Finance: Approved information can move downstream into Vista, reducing the administrative gap between work performed and financial processing.
The result is a digital thread connecting the jobsite to the back office and the back office to the ERP.
Technology Partner Profiles
Quickbase: The Operational Backbone
Quickbase is the core operational platform within Deviney's field operations transformation, providing the data model, workflow automation, business logic, approvals, dashboards, and integrations required to connect processes that traditionally span multiple departments and systems.
For construction and utility organizations, that flexibility is particularly valuable because field operations rarely follow a single linear process. People, equipment, jobs, safety requirements, production, payroll, billing, and financial systems constantly intersect.
Quickbase gives Quandary the ability to model those relationships within a common operational environment. Instead of creating separate data silos for safety, Daily Work Reports, payroll preparation, equipment tracking, production, billing, and reporting, Deviney can establish shared relationships between: People + Crews + Jobs + Equipment + Locations + Time + Safety. Production + Payroll + Billing.
That common data foundation also creates a stronger environment for automation and when information changes in one part of the operation, Quickbase can use workflows and business rules to determine who needs to review it, what needs to happen next, and where the information ultimately needs to go.
For Deviney, Quickbase becomes the operational connective tissue between frontline execution and enterprise administration.
FastField: Mobile Data Capture Built for Field Operations
FastField provides the mobile field data collection capabilities required to extend Deviney's digital workflows beyond the office. Employees working across construction sites, utility rights-of-way, vehicles, and remote locations need technology designed around field conditions. FastField enables structured mobile forms while supporting offline data capture when connectivity is limited.
For Magnolia Utility Services, the initial implementation includes workflows such as pre-trip inspections, close calls, and good catches, helping standardize safety and operational reporting at the point where those activities occur.
Once submitted, the information can flow into Quickbase, where it becomes part of the larger operational record and can trigger subsequent workflows, reviews, approvals, reporting, or downstream actions. The relationship between the two platforms is intentionally straightforward: FastField captures the work. Quickbase operationalizes the information.
Samsara: Turning Fleet and Equipment Data Into Operational Intelligence
Samsara adds real-world asset, equipment, and GPS intelligence to Deviney's connected field operations environment. For an organization managing a large mobile workforce and equipment footprint, telematics data provides important context that employee-entered information alone cannot always provide.
Integrating Samsara with Quickbase creates the foundation for connecting people, equipment, jobs, locations, and production activity within a shared operational framework.
Initial use cases center on equipment information and location validation, helping Deviney establish greater context around how assets and employees interact with jobs in the field.
The long-term opportunity extends further - Once telematics information becomes part of the operational architecture, Deviney can build toward more sophisticated capabilities involving fleet utilization, equipment allocation, preventive maintenance, inspections, idle time, asset availability, location-based exceptions, and operational performance analytics.
Instead of simply knowing where an asset is, the organization gains the foundation for understanding how that asset is contributing to the work.
Vista ERP (Trimble) Extending Connected Operations Into the ERP
Vista ERP (Trimble) serves as the enterprise financial layer of Deviney's connected architecture, creating the downstream destination for operational information after it has been captured, validated, approved, and prepared for financial processing.
This approach allows the ERP to remain focused on its core financial responsibilities while Quickbase manages the operational complexity occurring upstream. Rather than asking back-office employees to manually bridge the gap between field reports and financial systems, the architecture creates a structured pathway for information to progress from work performed to work approved to work ready for payroll or billing.
As integrations mature, that creates the potential to reduce duplicate data entry, improve consistency between operational and financial records, accelerate downstream processing, and provide management with greater visibility into where work sits between field completion and financial recognition.
From Disconnected Field Processes to a Connected Operating Model
The larger value of the Deviney transformation does not come from any one application it comes from the architecture created between them.
FastField digitizes the frontline. Quickbase orchestrates the operation. Samsara connects physical assets and location intelligence. Vista extends validated operational data into the financial enterprise.
Together, Quandary Consulting Group, Quickbase, FastField, Samsara, and Vista are creating a connected field operations ecosystem designed to help Deviney and Magnolia reduce manual handoffs, improve data quality, strengthen field-to-office visibility, automate operational workflows, and create a more direct path from work performed to work approved, processed, billed, and reported.
The result is an operating model in which Deviney can increasingly answer critical questions from a connected source of operational data:
- Who performed the work?
- Where was it performed?
- What equipment was used?
- How much time was spent?
- What production was completed?
- Was the work reviewed and approved?
- How should it be billed?
- Has it reached the financial system?
That is the difference between digitizing individual processes and building a truly connected field operations platform.
The Results
A Scalable Field Operations Model for Magnolia — and a Foundation for Deviney
The initial implementation is centered on Magnolia Utility Services, but the architecture creates a broader operational model relevant to Deviney's larger organization.
The engagement itself was structured as an six-week Agile implementation, allowing Quandary and Deviney / Magnolia to prioritize the highest-value workflows, continuously develop against the backlog, perform testing, conduct demonstrations, and support user acceptance testing.
Based on the workflows that Quandary automated, Deviney and Magnolia had the following results delivered:
- 50% less administrative processing time for Daily Work Reports as manual collection, routing, interpretation, and re-entry are replaced with structured digital workflows.
- 60% faster approval cycles through automated routing, notifications, role-based assignments, and centralized work queues.
- 90% less manual billing-code translation as production data automatically maps to predefined billing rules.
- 60% less payroll preparation effort by automatically aggregating approved hours by employee and crew.
- 90%+ digital adoption across the targeted inspection and safety workflows, including pre-trip inspections, close calls, and good catches.
- 50% faster safety reporting by replacing manual monthly compilation with standardized Quickbase records and dashboards.
- 40% fewer field-to-office discrepancies as standardized forms, validation, approvals, and business rules reduce manual transcription.
- 80%+ reduction in duplicate data entry across targeted workflows because field information can support operations, payroll, billing, safety, and ERP processes without repeatedly being recreated.
- Near-real-time visibility into operational status, giving managers access to submitted reports, outstanding approvals, safety activity, equipment information, and production data from a centralized environment.
- A scalable operational framework that can extend beyond Magnolia Utility Services as Deviney evaluates additional crews, business units, workflows, integrations, and field processes.
Building a Digital Operations Foundation Across Deviney Construction
For Deviney Construction, the significance of this engagement extends beyond the automation of several individual workflows, it establishes a new relationship between the field and the enterprise.
- A pre-trip inspection becomes compliance data.
- A close call becomes structured safety intelligence.
- A Daily Work Report becomes the source for approvals, labor, production, equipment, payroll, and billing.
- Samsara adds physical-world context to those records through asset and GPS information.
- Vista ERP (Trimble) extends approved operational information into the enterprise financial environment.
- And Quickbase created the operational layer connecting everything in between.
This lead to a progression that become: Field Activity → Mobile Data Capture → Structured Operational Data → Validation → Manager Approval → Business Rules → Payroll & Billing → ERP
By beginning the transformation within Magnolia Utility Services, Deviney creates a practical environment for modernizing high-value field processes while simultaneously establishing an architecture capable of supporting a much larger utility construction organization.
The result is a foundation for more connected crews, stronger operational visibility, faster administrative processing, better safety and compliance data, and a shorter path between the work completed in the field and the business processes that depend on it.
Our Latest Projects
Services
Industries
© 2026 Quandary Consulting Group. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy