Client Profile

Customer Name: J.F. Shea

Established: 1881

Customer Since: 2020

Employees: 2600

Sector: Construction

The J.F. Shea Co., Inc. is one of the largest privately held construction and real estate companies in the United States. The J. F. Shea Company’s activities include new-home construction, commercial construction, civil engineering, commercial and multi-family property development and management, construction materials and venture capital.

The organisation required a remote purchase order approval solution, and turned to Version 1’s Approval Express for JD Edwards. Approval Express is an add-on utility that has been designed to speed up and enhance standard JD Edwards approval processes. Approval Express works with all major standard email protocols to facilitate remote approvals seamlessly.

Challenge

Mobile Approvals for JD Edwards

An award-winning and highly regarded builder of residential communities in the United States, J.F Shea is a geographically diverse company with a significantly large number of employees (JD Edwards Enterprise One users) that travel to various job sites.

With the nature of their work, this group doesn’t necessarily need to log onto EnterpriseOne on a regular basis, however, they do use a custom ‘Extra Purchase Order’ system that was built by J.F Shea to facilitate their requests. The snag here for employees to quickly approve extra purchase orders was that the system requires non EnterpriseOne users to log in and approve Purchase Orders one at a time. The system also does not support mobile approvals, leading to a delay in overall Purchase Order approvals.

Therefore, J.F Shea turned to Version 1’s Approval Express for JD Edwards to reduce the barriers for users to approve Purchase Orders ‘on the go’ from various geographical locations and work sites. This would give their users the option of not having to log onto Enterprise One to approve their Extra Purchase Orders but still provide them with the information they need to approve or deny decision in a timely manner.

Implementation

Approval Express was implemented to process standard JD Edwards Purchase Order approval workflow messages. The new solution sits alongside J.F Shea’s standard JD Edwards system, where the Homebuilder module is utilised. As part of Project delivery, a requirement to accommodate a bespoke “Back Charge” process was identified and a small modification was delivered to accommodate attachments, related to this bespoke process, in the approver’s email. Approval Express has seamlessly integrated with J.F Shea’s current Extra PO application, which is an extension of the EnterpriseOne application.

Real Differences, Delivered

  • Version 1 implemented Approval Express for J.F Shea on time and smoothly, with no additional hardware required.
  • J.F Shea users can now approve or reject purchase orders from hundreds of geographic locations remotely on their mobile without logging into Enterprise One.
  • Purchase Orders are linked to the JD Edwards Homebuilder module and also accommodates the bespoke Back Charge process.
  • A phased approach has been utilised to release functionality across J.F Shea in a controlled manner.
  • J.F Shea has been impressed by this mobile capability for JD Edwards processes and is now exploring how this could be utilised to streamline other procurement processes within the company.

About Version 1

Version 1 proves that IT can make a real difference to our customers’ businesses. We are trusted by global brands to deliver IT services and solutions which drive customer success. Our 1300 strong team works closely with our technology partners to provide independent advice that helps our customers navigate the rapidly changing world of IT.