North America · Engineering Services
Industrial Systems Consulting
“One person. One OneDrive. An entire engineering company's data.”
Zero dependency on a single personal OneDrive - field engineers fully mobile-enabled with automated workflows.
Key Results
4 live
Automated workflows
Was 100% manual email
Eliminated
Personal OneDrive risk
Single point of failure gone
Mobile
Field access
Live docs on-site via Power Apps
Real-time
Project visibility
Power BI for leadership
Tech Stack
The Situation
Industrial Systems Consulting (ISC) is a North American engineering services firm. They were technically excellent at what they delivered to clients - but internally, their operations ran on a single person's personal Microsoft OneDrive account. Project documents, client files, proposals, reports - all of it lived in one folder structure accessible to one person. If that person was in a meeting, on-site, or unavailable, work stopped. Field engineers had no way to access current project drawings on-site. There were no shared workflows, no approval processes, no visibility into project status across the team. The entire operational fabric of the business was one resignation or one hard drive failure away from a crisis.
For growing professional services and engineering firms, this is a very common situation:
- ✓
Your company's critical files live on one person's personal drive - and everyone knows it
- ✓
Field teams have to call the office to get documents because there's no mobile access
- ✓
Approval processes happen via email chains that are impossible to track
- ✓
New team members can't find anything because there's no organised shared structure
- ✓
You've been meaning to fix the "OneDrive problem" for two years but delivery always takes priority
- ✓
If a key person left tomorrow, you'd spend weeks reconstructing what only they had access to
If three or more of these describe your operation, you're looking at the right case study.
The Root Problem
- 1
All company data resided on one person's personal OneDrive - zero redundancy, zero shared access for the rest of the team
- 2
Field engineers had no mobile access to current project documents while on-site - they worked from printed copies or called the office
- 3
No approval workflows existed - everything was handled via ad-hoc email, creating delays and no audit trail
- 4
Zero visibility into project status across the team - no one knew what stage any project was at without asking directly
- 5
The single-point-of-failure risk was existential - if that individual was unavailable, operations stopped
How We Fixed It
Move the data foundation to SharePoint first
The first and most important step was migrating all documents off the personal OneDrive into a structured SharePoint hub. We designed the folder and library structure to reflect how ISC actually works - by project, client, and document type - and set up access controls so the right people had the right access. This took three weeks and was the foundation everything else was built on.
Build a Power App for field engineers
With SharePoint as the backend, we built a mobile Power App that gave field engineers access to current project drawings, specs, and documents directly from their phones or tablets on-site. They can also submit field reports, capture photos, and log work - all from the app, with data going back into SharePoint in real time. No more printed copies. No more calling the office.
Automate the four core operational workflows
We identified the four processes that were consuming the most manual coordination time and automated each with Power Automate: (1) Project onboarding - new project triggers folder creation, team notifications, and task assignments automatically. (2) Document approval - routes documents to the right reviewer, tracks status, sends reminders. (3) Field report routing - field submissions trigger review, archiving, and client communication. (4) Project status notifications - weekly digest to leadership with no manual compilation.
Power BI dashboards for leadership visibility
Power BI dashboards were built giving leadership real-time visibility into project status, team activity, document approvals, and field submission volumes. For the first time, the business could see what was happening across all projects without having to ask individuals directly.
Measured Outcomes
Automated workflows
0
4 live Power Automate flows
↑ Key win
Personal OneDrive dependency
100% - single point of failure
Fully eliminated
↑ Key win
Field engineer access
None on-site, printed copies only
Full mobile access via Power Apps
Approval process
Ad-hoc email, no audit trail
Automated routing with full history
Leadership visibility
Zero without asking individuals
Real-time Power BI dashboard
What This Means For You
What this means for growing engineering and professional services firms
The "personal OneDrive problem" is one of the most common - and most dangerous - situations in growing professional services firms. It doesn't feel urgent until it becomes a crisis. The good news is that Microsoft 365, which most firms already pay for, contains everything needed to solve this: SharePoint for shared document management, Power Apps for mobile access, Power Automate for workflow automation, and Power BI for visibility. The gap is almost always implementation, not licensing. If your operations are anchored to one person's folder structure, the fix is closer and cheaper than you think.
Next Step
Is this your situation?
Book a 30-minute call. No slides, no pitch. We'll look at your specific setup, tell you what's causing the problem, and what a realistic fix looks like - including timeline and cost range.