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1. Unleashing Unifier
Christine Rowley
Xcel Energy

2. Unleashing Unifier
Solving the need for a regulated
utility to capture almost 6,000
project initiatives, prioritizing and
budgeting those initiatives and
ultimately executing around 700
projects a year

3. Xcel Energy
• Major U.S. electric and natural gas company
• Annual revenues of $10.7 billion
• Based in Minneapolis, Minn.
• Operating in eight states
• 3.4 million electricity customers
• 1.9 million natural gas customers

4. Energy Supply
•Generating facilities use a
variety of fuel sources:
–Coal
–Natural Gas
–Nuclear Fuel
–Water (Hydro)
–Oil
–Refuse
–Wind
–Sun
•81 owned generating
plants
•Capable of producing
17,000 MW of electricity
•Generate approximate 2/3
of our power
•Buy remaining power from
other electricity suppliers

5. Our Need
•Summarized by a VB
program that read each file
and created a “Master
Spreadsheet
–Took at least 8 hours to
run (if it was error free)
–No Requirement to
adhere to forms being
completed
•Capital Request Process
in Excel by Project

6. Our Need (cont.)
•Comparison of Initiation to
Execution???
•Execution of Project was
done via Accounting
Systems and
Spreadsheets
–No Standards except at
the overall project level

7. Our Challenges
• Almost 600 Users
• Over 5,000 “Initiatives”
• Geographically dispersed over 8 states
• 4 legal entities
• Varying processes in each of the different legal
entities
• O&M and Capital had completely different processes
• New ranking system for “initiatives”
• New organizational structure for engineers
• Project leads are primarily engineers
• Adherence to annual budgets – not just project budget
• Adherence to monthly forecasts

8. Solution
Except….
No Portfolio Management
Unifier

9. Ideation
• Ideation is a Business Process (BP)
• Approval / completion of BP creates shell
• Approval indicates idea is warrants further vetting
• Ideas for emergent current year projects to 20 years out

10. Phases & Gates
• Development
 Plant Approval BP Status is Approved
• Planning
Forms Flagged Completed or Other Conditions Met
• RPC
Regional Review BP Completed
• Funding
BOD Approved (Portfolio)
• Pre-Execution
Actuals Exist
• Execution
In-Service BP Completed
• Close-Out
Close-Out BPs Completed
• Completed

11. Portfolio Management

12. Portfolio Management
Ranking and Scoring
• Create integer-based pull-
down menus
–Integer value is score
–Label is user-friendly
• Create formulas to add scores
together (manipulate)
New Portfolio(s) Each Year
Caution – Cannot change
point values as it will alienate
data

13. Portfolio Management

14. Portfolio Management Features
Editable Fields:
Tab Features:
Managing to Overall Targets:
Column Features:
•Start date changes change cashflow in
portfolio (when set up properly)
•Other fields can be designated as editable
•Changes can be set to update projects
upon approval of portfolio

15. Initiation – Estimates Cash Flow

16. Execution – Forecast Cash Flow

17. Integrations
• Built data warehouse with data normalization of
financial data as part of project
• Auto loading actuals from warehouse nightly
• Beginning to load monthly forecasts directly into
budgeting system
• In Process – load budgets from portfolio manager into
budgeting system
• In Process – Auto creation of Financial system project
numbers
• In Process – Auto load in-service and completion as-
builts into Capital Asset Accounting system

18. Current Issues
• Phase is not properly populated on project log
• Portfolio Management Performance (IE8)
• Forecasting / Snapshots
• Tracking Variances
• Schedule Manager
• Permissions in Shell Details
• Auto Assignment of group membership from shell
• Cost manager template pushes (need delete)
• Cannot change point values in DE pull downs
• “George” & Performance – Self Hosted
• Cash flow switch to manual requires updating
properties

19. Lessons Learned
• Only use workflow when duration is months not years
• Simple Non-Workflow BPs are best for multiple
contributors
• Templates are awesome for managing a large volume
of projects / users
• Gates with flags has given us a lot of flexibility
• Started out with the KISS principle and we need to
simplify more – What controls are truly necessary?
• Investment in training and support was essential
• Roll-out different features of unifier slowly – Change
Management

20. Added Benefits of Unifier
• Auto document (PDF) creation at end of workflow and
auto placement into document folders
• Higher control of meeting requirements of each gate
• Added visibility by all of Energy Supply into each project
• Added O&M Project Initiation to Unifier
• Administrative BPs not originally in scope
• Several other areas in Energy Supply are asking how
they can add there processes to Unifier

21. Next Steps for Energy Supply
• Resource Management
• Lessons Learned
• Safety
• Vendor Access
• Portfolio Manager – Phase II
• Dashboards ??

22. Enterprise
Implementation

23. Enterprise
• Nuclear – Live
• Business Systems – 2013 Go Live
• Transmission – 2014 Go Live
• Supply Chain – 2014 Go Live
• Others in the queue…
–Distribution
–Gas Transmission
–Gas Distribution
–Property Services

24. Enterprise – Things to Consider
• Prefix EVERYTHING with business unit identifier
–Data Elements/Data Definitions/DDS
–BPs
• Determine how to re-Use DE’s and BPs
• Only one login can create DE’s
• Demand Management Meetings for common areas
–Schedule Manager
–Document Manager
–User Manager
–Fiscal Year, Curve Definitions, etc.
• Change Control

25. Enterprise Issues
• Need for “Enterprise” DEs
• Need for document manager to allow business specific
defaults
• Need for Enterprise views in Company Workspace

26. Questions?