Power BI & BIRDS for De Vries & Verburg

Fast, Flexible, and Reliable Reporting

Shortly after the start of the implementation of 4PS Construct, De Vries en Verburg initiated the rollout of BIRDS. "Prior to this, we used a small accounting program with a lot of custom reports built around it. It involved a lot of Excel work, which naturally makes it error-prone. It was also intensive in terms of version control. With the transition to 4PS and BIRDS with Power BI, we've made it much more reliable," said Van der Spek. Colleague Jan Muit, the controller, added, "We wanted to move towards an information system where we could be sure that the reports are accurate, complete, and provide the right information to the relevant employees in a timely manner."

Muit continued, "The beauty of the BIRDS solution is that we don't need in-depth knowledge of the 4PS database ourselves. In that sense, it's a 'plug-and-play' solution where data from 4PS Construct is prepared in BIRDS, and we can easily create reports in Power BI ourselves. We've divided them into five areas, including Projects, Service and Maintenance, and Processes. We can then assign them to the individuals in the organization who need and can use them." This way, those involved in De Vries en Verburg always have the data at hand to make informed decisions or quickly see where they need to intervene.

Now that BIRDS has been implemented, and the initial users have been trained, the plan is to expand Power BI usage to more people. Van der Spek shares, "The core users are extremely enthusiastic. They are eager to share their knowledge with the rest of the organization. Adoption is progressing rapidly. We have an Office 365 environment that includes Teams, which is a relevant information source for us, and Power BI has become a significant part of it. This allows us to directly share our reports with our executive team, managers, and project leaders."

The rollout of BI across the entire organization is made easier because Power BI is a multi-device solution, as stated by Muit: "The beauty of Power BI is that it is location- and platform-independent. So, we can access the data with any device - laptop, iPad, or phone. This significantly contributes to the development of management information at De Vries en Verburg."

The core user team at De Vries en Verburg received training on BIRDS and Power BI after the technical implementation. Muit explains, "First, Hillstar completed the implementation and then guided us through the dashboards and the BIRDS solution. This gave us a good understanding of 'who gets what responsibility.' This is how we also established the Service Level Agreement (SLA) with Hillstar."

What are the future plans?

BIRDS for 4PS Construct provides a standard set of reports within the 4PS environment. To gain a more comprehensive view of the organization, multiple data sources are often integrated into BIRDS. De Vries en Verburg is also working on connecting BIRDS to their HRM environment. Van der Spek explains, "We want to integrate BIRDS with our HRM environment. This would allow us to provide financial, operational, and HRM-related information in one overview to our executives, managers, and project leaders."

"The second part is the integration of HOOMCTRL with Power BI. Communication with private customers who purchase a home (buyer guidance) largely goes through 4PS's HOOMCTRL. This provides us with a lot of information that we can analyze, such as the choices people make, additional work, material choices, and more. This gives us valuable information and feedback for new projects," adds Muit. He also mentions, "On the other hand, we expect that the widespread adoption within the organization will lead to more questions from colleagues, and we can increasingly meet their information needs."

About BIRDS

The implementation at De Vries en Verburg is an excellent example of a modern construction organization that relies on data-driven decision-making. This approach is supported by the standard Power BI reports automatically populated through BIRDS. BIRDS is a solution that collects, cleans, and prepares data from various sources for visualization. Since it aligns directly with the 4PS database, BIRDS provides a complete set of usable Power BI reports shortly after implementation. Users have immediate access to 4PS reports, including Projects, Processes, Service & Maintenance, and Equipment. Additionally, Sales, Procurement, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, General Ledger, and Inventory are all included as standard reports.

Schedule an expert meeting

Joep Lugtenberg, Sales Manager.