Orion owns, operates and maintains the electricity distribution network across central Canterbury. As homes, businesses and new developments connect to the network, the information behind that work supports day-to-day decisions and Orion’s quarterly reporting to the Electricity Authority. Meeting those requirements on time depends on bringing the details of every quoted and reconciled job together.

Producing that report meant bringing job reconciliation files from SharePoint together with the corresponding information held in Orion’s CRM. Only after the two sources had been matched and shaped into a single reporting view could the Connections team begin reviewing the figures.

The process worked, but it was slow and painstaking. Several days could be spent assembling the underlying information, narrowing the window for investigating unusual figures and confirming the submission was ready. When a formatting or data issue appeared late, the business then had to trace it through separate source files as the regulatory deadline approached.

Akin Atanda, Data Engineering & Platform Manager at Orion, says the previous approach involved “several days of manual effort” and carried a risk of errors being “overlooked and compounded through manual processing”.

Those pressures meant Orion needed more than a quicker way to move data. Every figure still had to connect back to the quoted and reconciled job it represented, and exceptions had to appear early enough to be resolved. Otherwise, automation could shorten preparation while leaving the same uncertainty at the point of submission.

“The solution provides end-to-end visibility of quoted and reconciled jobs within a centralised lakehouse platform. When issues arise, the business can quickly identify the source and resolve them efficiently.”

To meet those needs, Adaptiv designed the new workflow around the way Orion already prepared the report. SharePoint remained the place where job reconciliation files arrived, while Databricks became the place where the complete reporting picture came together. Orion could remove the slowest manual steps without asking its people to adopt an entirely different process.

The workflow begins as soon as a new reconciliation file lands in SharePoint. The managed SharePoint connector in Lakeflow Connect moves it into Databricks automatically, creating a dependable hand-off between the two platforms. Once established, the same flow runs for every reporting cycle without someone having to transfer the right file at the right time.

From there, Databricks joins the reconciliation file with the relevant CRM information so the full details for each job can be reviewed together. The combined results feed a dashboard, while automated data-quality checks and exception handling identify records that need attention. Those records can be investigated and corrected before they affect the submission.

With the reporting view already prepared, Orion’s Connections team can begin each cycle by reviewing the figures, investigating exceptions and confirming the submission. Reporting preparation time has fallen by approximately 80%, replacing several days of file handling and data matching with a clearer route to the regulatory deadline.

“Automating the compilation of job quotes has enabled Orion to consistently meet Electricity Authority regulatory reporting requirements on time.”

Orion now starts each quarter from an established reporting process rather than another manual rebuild. The business has a dependable foundation for meeting its Electricity Authority obligations as connection activity across central Canterbury continues.