Turning Scattered Tracking Into Full Visibility - A SQUAN Case Study

This is how the SQUAN team configured Katapult Pro to give 150+ users full access to project workflows, job statuses, and permit progress across various clients and thousands of poles every month.

At a Glance

Company	SQUAN - national telecom engineering and construction firm
Role	Shawn Browning, Senior Engineering Manager
Scale	1000s of poles per month
Primary Use	Data collection, make ready engineering, underground design, and project management
Key Result	Complete team visibility into permit status and job progress was the "biggest time saver" for the operation

The Challenge

SQUAN’s engineering team didn’t have a volume problem. They had a visibility problem.

Processing thousands of poles every month across more than a dozen active clients generates a staggering amount of data. Thousands of photographs. Hundreds of job packages that need individual attention and tracking. Permits moving through different stages with different utilities on different timelines.

And that’s just for the pole engineering piece. In addition to Katapult Pro, SQUAN’s team relies on a combination of ArcGIS, Salesforce, and other project management platforms to manage the full breadth of their service offerings.

The result was predictable for anyone who’s managed high-volume OSP design work: things got lost. People didn’t know the process. When the pressure ramped up, the team moved fast, but without clear visibility into where jobs actually stood, quality took a hit.

"We were a year and a half behind because projects just got lost."

— Shawn Browning, Senior Engineering Manager, SQUAN

When opportunities heated up elsewhere, the team moved on only to learn later that some of the previous work never got tied up in a tidy bow.

They tried the obvious fix. Spreadsheets. Assign someone to keep it updated. But with this many people and this many projects, it never stuck.

"We’ve done the whole spreadsheet thing. It was never accurate, and that’s how things got lost."

The core issue wasn’t effort or talent. It was that no tool in their stack was designed to track OSP engineering workflows at the scale SQUAN operates.

The Solution

SQUAN’s team uses Katapult Pro across every client for field data collection and make ready engineering. Now, they’ve configured project management tools inside the platform to maintain full transparency on all their active projects.

The key configuration: setting up the platform so that anyone on the team can check the status of any project or permit, for any client, at any point in the process. No phone calls to Shawn. No digging through emails. No waiting for a weekly status meeting. Now, any user can check the status of a project or permit at a glance.

Three capabilities made the difference:

1. Universal Status Visibility. Every job, every client, every step - visible to anyone who needs it. Field crews, project managers, and leadership all operate from the same source of truth without hiring someone to check each job every day.

   
   

2. Standardized Engineering Workflows. Every project has a codified process that can be followed, from field collection through delivery. Users progress each job through its necessary steps, and the workflow itself enforces the sequence so nothing gets skipped.

   
   

3. Workflow Structure That Fits OSP. Unlike generic PM tools built for software sprints or marketing campaigns, Katapult Pro’s workflow management tools are built around pole attachment processes. Status tracking maps to the actual stages of OSP engineering, not abstract task boards.

   
   

The switch to Katapult Pro in 2024 also solved a hardware headache. SQUAN’s previous data collection setup relied on specialized devices that broke regularly and took a long time to be serviced. With Katapult’s photo-based approach, a broken camera can be replaced same-day from a retailer like Best Buy.

"You break a camera, you go buy a new one and you’re back to work."

The Results

Operational visibility at scale. Thousands of poles monthly across 10-15 clients, all tracked in one platform. The team went from scattered processes where things “got lost” to a system where anyone can check job status instantly.

Time savings on status tracking. Shawn describes the permit visibility as the “biggest time saver” for the operation. 

Team adoption and satisfaction. Unlike tools that require constant enforcement to use, SQUAN’s team embraced the platform across 150+ active users.

"We have 150 users in there on a daily basis. I love it, and most of the people in there love it too."

Expanding the platform’s footprint. SQUAN recently moved underground design work into Katapult Pro, designing custom workflows with SVG icons and tailored attributes. The field crews who made the switch haven’t looked back.

Why It Matters

SQUAN’s story isn’t just about data collection or engineering efficiency. It’s about an engineering team that recognized a gap in their operations and found a solution inside a platform they were already using.

Many engineering firms adopt Katapult Pro for field data and make ready design. SQUAN went further, turning the platform into the connective tissue that holds their pole engineering work-in-progress operation together. Along the way, they’ve been a terrific partner and helped us shape the roadmap for what we build next.

"Everybody seems to know the program and wants to make it better. That’s why I share so much."

For engineering firms managing similar volume and complexity, the lesson is clear: the tools you already have might solve problems you haven’t asked them to solve yet. SQUAN started with data collection, expanded into project tracking, and now runs underground design workflows through the same platform. Your next operational win might already be sitting inside your existing stack.

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