Uniti Fiber Leverages Apps & Development Services for Expansion

Uniti Fiber is the fiber infrastructure segment of Uniti, a publicly traded Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). Uniti Fiber is a leading provider of infrastructure solutions, including cell site backhaul and small cell for wireless operators, and Ethernet, Wavelengths and Dark Fiber for telecom carriers and enterprises.

Background

“Our relationship began in 2014 when Southern Light, now known as Uniti Fiber, was using Milestones PM+ Free Edition and needed additional features and functionality,” explains Passage Technology’s Director of Sales, Betsy Hull.

Passage Technology’s Development Services Team created the needed features for Southern Light, and then customized its adaptable project management app, Milestones PM+. “It’s a great collaboration that has met their needs both within and outside of Salesforce. It has also allowed us to be their staff augmentation,” said Betsy.

Challenge: Handling Feature Requests While Integrating New Companies 

As the VP, Systems Operations at Uniti Fiber, Carrie French oversees the Salesforce system and Salesforce integration efforts for the company. As Uniti Fiber has added new companies with integration needs, her team has balanced the challenge of handling an influx of feature requests from all departments while simultaneously integrating new companies with multiple other systems.

With over 600 Salesforce users, Uniti Fiber is also in the process of converting to Lightning in their Salesforce org while supporting growth and feature requests. “We've tripled the number of Salesforce users in three years,” explained Carrie.

Solutions: Aggregating Costs & Integrating Data 

Since understanding costs is critical when you build out fiber optics, Milestones PM+ helps Uniti Fiber aggregate costs for management. Milestones PM+ helps them track costs for a build, and Rollup Helper is used to aggregate dollar amounts. They can track costs from multiple departments, and understand the monthly recurring cost savings.

Uniti Fiber uses Rollup Helper to create rollups to aggregate data for customer service case management. It allows the customer service techs to quickly see the number of sites affected in the network using count rollups from linked child records.

Passage Technology’s solutions included:

• Email-to-Case for customers and contractors
• Parent-to-Child Case flows

• Email-to-Request custom Object to manage internal Salesforce request queue
• Integration with the new billing system
• Update Process Builder and Apex custom code
• Legacy Companies’ billing integration
• Custom Calendar maintenance and custom Object clone buttons
• Clone Lightning web components

Results: Historical Data & Systems Integrated Into One Salesforce Org

Uniti Fiber has integrated multiple companies’ historical data and systems into one corporate Salesforce org. Carrie explains, “We’ve integrated several dozen systems and apps, and currently we’re focusing on our Lightning conversion.”

Passage Technology augmented Uniti Fiber’s staff and saved them time. “For example, Passage Technology’s Development Services team developed multiple email-to-case solutions for us, and that has been a huge efficiency win for our internal departments and customers,” says Carrie.

“We’ve been able to provide high-value integration solutions and valuable support through Passage Technology’s resources. They always deliver high-quality, consistent results; they are an excellent partner who has helped us meet our corporate goals. Bottom line: the relationship is a win-win!” said Carrie.

Learn more about Milestones PM+, Rollup Helper, development services.