Johnson Controls simplifies their infrastructure, saving 3,610 hours on training enablement
In this new Do More With Less blog series, we are sharing examples of customers who have utilized Microsoft Power Platform in their organization to build applications, automate processes, determine insights and more.
Johnson Controls, a world leader in building smart, healthy and sustainable buildings, has more than 100,000 employees that require training which needs to be scheduled, tracked, measured, and analyzed. They saved 3,610 hours on backend process management and increased training throughput by 400%. Let’s see how they used Power Platform to optimize their training program.
Missing mechanism to enable training at scale
There was no mechanism in place to share or aggregate information within systems or received from trainees. Manual intervention was the default reaction. Minor, but common, errors, such as misspellings, abbreviations, and incomplete responses, added to aggregation aggravation. This also had a direct impact on low NPS (Net Promoter Score) around training. Cody Hines, Training and Quality Data Systems Manager, recognized the gaps and need for a simpler, automated process to keep up with the growth and pace.
Power Platform used to free up 3,610 hours of back-office processes
Cody started utilizing Power Apps and Power Automate to create COBALT (Central Ops Buildings Administered Learning Tracker), an end-to-end system to deploy and track training.
COBALT consolidated all data into a single Microsoft SQL server on-premises database and connected to Power Platform using an on-premises data gateway. Courses, trainers, events, locations, and survey methods are standardized in relational fashion in a Power Apps app, allowing management of scheduling and participant rosters – eliminating manual data collection. Power Platform allowed for a seamless workflow was put in place to manage training initiations, scheduling, tracking, and survey responses.
The new process leverages Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI and Outlook while extending into SharePoint and Teams. COBALT now allows Johnson Controls to handle over 60 training events per month. Additionally, having integrated Power BI they now also have a central dashboard to track completion rates, drop rates, and NPS (Net Promoter Score) with accuracy and efficiency.
The success of this new process has exceeded expectations. From better NPS ratings, scheduling, to roster completion lag – what previously required 4,870 hours was reduced to 1,160 hours, allowing employees to focus on more strategic tasks.
“Power platform has made it so easy to automate and manage processes and quantify business results that any time a new challenge comes to us, we all immediately ask how automation, reporting, and/or workflows can address it.”
– John Mendicino: Training and Quality Assurance Associate Director
Read more about how Microsoft Customer Story-Johnson Controls exceeds enterprise training expectations with scalable solution built on Power Platform
Find other “Do More With Less” stories
 | Coca-Cola UNITED Coca-Cola Bottling Company United (Coca-Cola United), used Power Platform to (a) automate on-demand shipment requests – reducing order validation time from half a day to seconds, and (b) automate a complex multi-step SAP invoicing process to handle over 50,000 orders. |
 | Equinor Equinor, a forward thinking energy company based in Norway, delivered a solution by their DigTEAM and citizen developers with an estimated annual value of over 500 million NOK (approximately $49M USD). |
VITAS Healthcare VITAS Healthcare is nation’s largest single-source provider of end-of-life care delivering meaningful hospice and palliative care to its patients and their families across 14 states and the District of Columbia. VITAS has used a Power Platform solution called “Emmy” to process 2 million patient visits – equivalent to 92% of all patient visits. | |
 | Rabobank Rabobank currently uses more than 2,500 Power Apps and Power Automate solutions. One of their solutions to support their company re-org process reduced processing time from three weeks to three minutes. Additionally, they use Power Virtual Agents for a personalized customer support experience, automating 40-50% of customer calls – equivalent to 60,000 to 80,000 calls per month. |
Additional links
100+ Power Platform customer stories
70+ Power Platform customer story videos
