Industries
IT for electrical contractors
Dispatch that holds.
happier IT looks after the technology electrical contractors run on across Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario: service dispatch, mobile forms, estimating software and the office systems behind them. The difference from ordinary office IT is where the work happens. Your day is scheduled in software the crew reaches from a van, and your paperwork is finished on a phone with one bar of signal.
Who it's for
The four systems an electrical contractor lives in.
Dispatch and mobile forms
Tomorrow's calls, plus the deficiency lists, panel schedules and hours filled in on site. These fail quietly: a form that will not sync looks exactly like a form that saved.
Estimating. Accubid, Trimble, ConEst
Bid day has no give in it. Windows applications with particular licensing and database habits, running on the machine nobody is allowed to touch.
Prime contractor portals
Procore, Autodesk Construction Cloud, or an owner's own system. Each needs its own accounts, and each wants drawings and closeout documents in its own format.
ESA and inspection paperwork
The ESA (Electrical Safety Authority. Ontario's electrical inspection body; Alberta and BC use municipal or accredited agencies) issues permits and inspection results. Those records decide when you get paid.
What's included
What we do for an electrical contractor.
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Mobile forms that survive bad signal
Offline-capable apps where the vendor supports them, and cellular routers with a real antenna instead of a phone hotspot.
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Estimating workstations treated as production equipment
Accubid, Trimble or ConEst on a monitored, backed-up machine, patched on a schedule you approve, never during a bid.
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Portal accounts kept current
Prime contractor portals get the same joiner-and-leaver process as email, so an apprentice who left in June is not still holding a login in November.
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Apprentice churn made routine
First-years and fourth-years arrive in waves. Accounts become a written checklist with a named owner rather than something the office manager remembers.
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Email checks on the invoicing side
Email authentication, plus a rule that any change to payment details is confirmed by phone to a number you already had.
How it works
Getting started without touching a live job.
Nothing here interrupts a crew.
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Week one, we follow the paperwork
One service call and one construction job mapped end to end: dispatch, mobile form, portal, inspection record, invoice.
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Weeks two to four, the quiet fixes
Multi-factor authentication (a second check, usually on a phone, before a login is accepted) on email, a restore tested from your backups, dormant accounts closed.
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Then the van problem, properly
Connectivity, devices and app configuration handled as one piece of work, scheduled around your bid dates.
What it costs
What it costs, and what moves the number.
A range on the page beats a form.
Three things move it here: how many field users need a device rather than a desk, whether estimating runs on a server you own, and how many portals and jobsite networks are live at once. Our pricing guide sets out the models.
Field users are not office users
Some agreements charge a full seat for a foreman who opens one form a day. Ask any provider, us included, to price field and office users separately, in writing.
Why us for this
What we can show you, and what we cannot yet.
happier IT works with construction and trades businesses across Western Canada and Ontario, and electrical sits inside that.
Verifiable today: Microsoft, Cisco and CompTIA certifications, and a security operations centre, the team watching for suspicious activity, staffed by our own employees in Canada.
Go deeper
- IT for construction and trades The parent page: jobsite networks, Procore, Sage and multi-site monitoring.
- Network monitoring for construction How sites that come and go get watched from one place.
Questions
What people ask before they sign anything.
Can you make our field app usable in a van with poor cell service?
Usually, and the fix is rarely the app: the vendor's offline mode turned on, a cellular router with an external antenna instead of a phone hotspot, and photos uploading on return to signal.
Do you support Accubid, Trimble or ConEst estimating?
As platforms, yes: workstation, licensing, database, backup, and the vendor queue when something needs escalating. We are not a replacement for the vendor's own application consultants, and we will not patch an estimating machine during a bid week.
How do we handle apprentices coming and going every season?
Make it a checklist with an owner: email, the mobile app, the portals for their jobs, a device, reversible on the last day. Accounts are then ready before a first shift and closed the day someone finishes.
Where should ESA permits and inspection records be stored?
In one structured location that is backed up and restore-tested, not in a technician's email, they are the evidence a job is finished and billable, and they get requested years later. We usually put them in Microsoft 365, structured per job, with a rule that stops early deletion.
What does managed IT cost for a 30-person electrical contractor?
Field-only users are often priced lower, so ask for the split in writing.
Related
Where to go next.
Want to know what this would look like for you?
A 30-minute call. No slides, no audit fee, no obligation. We ask what is breaking and tell you honestly whether we are the right fit.