OVERVIEW
When Pittsburgh Water decided to modernize its work order/asset management system, it faced a challenge familiar to many utilities:
“How do you modernize your operations without breaking the plumbing behind the scenes?”
Pittsburgh Water had a long-standing integration between SAP and its legacy work order platform, Spry Mobile. The integration worked - but offered little visibility, required manual intervention when failures occurred, and wasn’t built for scale. Moving to Cityworks presented both a technical challenge and a strategic opportunity: replicating critical functionality while building a more resilient, intelligent integration layer.
Enter Spatial DNA, an integration partner for the next chapter of its modernization journey
1. Replicating the Familiar, Reimagining the Foundation
Pittsburgh Water’s priority was continuity: work order and customer communication flows couldn’t stop modernization. The new SAP - Cityworks integration had to replicate core legacy functions; from work order creation to customer notifications but also eliminating operational blind spots that had existed for years.
“We already had an integration with SAP. What we needed was to replicate it - but smarter this time,”
shared with a member of the Pittsburgh Water team.
Alongside SAP integration, Pittsburgh Water also sought to preserve and enhance its customer texting capability. This wasn’t just a rebuild, it was an upgrade to the utility’s digital nervous system.
2. From Black Box to Active Monitoring
In the old world, integration was invisible - until it broke. With no monitoring in place, the only signal that something was wrong came from frustrated users or stalled workflows.
With Spatial DNA’s active monitoring, Pittsburgh Water gained real-time visibility into integration health, making it possible to identify and address issues proactively. Before, we didn’t know there was a problem until someone told us.
Now, we can see what’s happening - and act before it becomes a disruption. ”
This shift from reactive firefighting to proactive oversight marked a major operational leap forward.
3. Unexpected Wins: Texting Transparency and Confidence
Some benefits of modernization only reveal themselves after go-live. For Pittsburgh Water, one of these was better insight into customer texting through Twilio. Where text failures were once a mystery, now the team can quickly pinpoint problems — wrong numbers, landlines, unreachable customers — and take corrective action fast. Another win was less technical but equally powerful: confidence.
“Just knowing we have an ongoing relationship with Spatial DNA gives our team peace of mind. It’s not a one-time setup anymore — if something changes, it gets addressed. ”
This “integration as a partnership” model gave Pittsburgh Water a new agility to support future integrations, including an upcoming SCADA integration, without being held hostage to long change-order cycles.
4. Tackling Technical Complexity with Precision
Behind the scenes, the SAP–Cityworks integration involved serious engineering finesse.
• Status change synchronization was a key pain point — ensuring every update made in one system flowed accurately and in sequence to the other.
• “Rapid-fire” updates caused multiple triggers in seconds, overwhelming the old integration. The new solution implemented sequencing and queuing logic to keep data consistent.
• Status mapping was carefully engineered to preserve business rules while accommodating new workflows.
These refinements transformed what had once been a brittle connection into a resilient, flexible integration layer.
5. A Model for Modernization: Partnership in Motion
What set this project apart wasn’t just the technology — it was the collaborative delivery. Spatial DNA and Pittsburgh Water worked iteratively through sandbox testing, live issue resolution, and structured feedback loops to get the integration right. This partnership model created a strong foundation not just for this project, but for future integrations as well.
“It’s not just an integration. It’s a framework we can build on.”
With SCADA integration on the horizon, Pittsburgh Water is now positioned to move faster, not because the plumbing is invisible, but because it’s smart, monitored, and adaptable.
6. Leading the Way in Digital Utility Modernization
Pittsburgh Water's journey illustrates a critical truth for modern utilities:
Digital transformation isn’t always about flashy apps or front-end interfaces. Sometimes, it’s about making the pipes behind the pipes smarter. Through thoughtful replication, modern architecture, and collaborative delivery, Pittsburgh Water has built a foundation that strengthens today’s operations while unlocking tomorrow’s possibilities.
Key Takeaways
Digitally Connecting Work, Assets & People at Pittsburgh Water
About Pittsburgh Water
THE CHALLENGE
Pittsburgh Water's legacy work order and asset management processes were heavily dependent on disconnected platforms and manual intervention. Their previous work order system (Spry Mobile) already had SAP integration, but modernization required replicating core functionality while improving stability, monitoring, and scalability.
Key pain points included:
THE SOLUTION: SPATIAL DNA PLATFORM
Pittsburgh Water implemented the Spatial DNA Platform — a managed cloud integration layer purpose-built for municipal IT ecosystems.
Key components:
| Component | Functionality | Impact |
| SAP ↔ Cityworks Bidirectional Sync | Real-time service order sync, structured comment handling, duplicate feedback loop prevention | Consistent work order data across systems |
| Twilio SMS Alerting | Action Manager triggers SMS to field teams in real-time | Faster issue response, better coordination |
| Inventory Sync | Boolean field split for SAP/nonSAP, nightly delta updates | More accurate material tracking |
| Test-Driven Development | Staged records, rapid-fire scenario testing | Increased integration resilience |
| Mobile Platform Strategy | Unity vs. Cityworks mobile evaluation | Future-proofing field enablement |
QUANTITATIVE IMPACT AND ANALYTICS
| FOCUS AREA | BEFORE INTEGRATION | AFTER INTEGRATION | OBSERVERD/ EXPECTED IMPROVEMENT |
| Integration Monitoring | Reactive (incident-driven) | Proactive monitoring with alerts | Reduced detection time from hours/days → minutes |
| Texting Transparency | Minimal error visibility | Twilio error reporting | ~20–30% improvement in identifying unreachable customers (e.g., wrong numbers, landlines) |
| Work Order Sync | Delays due to manual escalation | Real-time SAP↔Cityworks sync | Significant reduction in status discrepancy occurrences |
| Deployment Speed | Traditional integrations took 9–12 months | Delivered in 4 months | 60% faster time-to-value |
| Support Flexibility | Rigid one-time setups | Managed service with change agility | Near-zero downtime for new request types |
Note: These analytics are based on integration timelines, system capabilities, and operational improvements described by the Pittsburgh Water team.
Lessons Learned
Outlook: SCADA Integration
While SAP and Cityworks formed the foundation, the next phase involves integrating SCADA data into:
This positions Pittsburgh Water as a digitally mature utility, ready to scale its integration layer for future use cases without the overhead of one-off projects.
Stakeholder Voice
“Spatial DNA didn’t just connect our systems - they delivered a living integration that supports how our teams work, respond, and serve the city every day.”
— Pittsburgh Water Stakeholder
About Spatial DNA
Spatial DNA Informatics Inc. specializes in connecting complex, siloed systems for municipalities, utilities, and public sector agencies. Their Spatial DNA Platform offers plug-and-play integration across ERP, GIS, asset management, CRM, and SCADA environments—with prebuilt automations, managed services, and operational improvements described by the Pittsburgh Water team.