Black Bear Energy is a leading client representative for solar projects within the real estate sector, helping commercial, multifamily, and health science building owners implement sustainable energy solutions. Managing large amounts of data is central to their operations, particularly when dealing with site lists containing up to 15,000 locations annually. Prior to adopting Dromo, Black Bear Energy faced significant challenges in handling this data through tedious, error-prone Excel-based workflows.

By integrating Dromo’s CSV importing tool into their workflow, Black Bear Energy dramatically improved the accuracy and efficiency of their data importing process, saving time and reducing errors across their projects.

Challenges

Before using Dromo, Black Bear Energy managed site data manually through Excel spreadsheets. This involved hours of tedious data cleaning, standardization, and manual imports into their database. The process was slow and error-prone, with incorrect or incomplete data frequently leading to issues downstream in their workflow. On average, each site list upload would take 2-5 hours, leading to delays and potential inaccuracies that could propagate through their entire solar project pipeline.

According to Megan Percy, Software Product Manager at Black Bear Energy, the process involved handling data that was often formatted inconsistently, with missing fields and varied address structures, which required significant manual correction before importing into their system.

Solution

In search of a third-party CSV importer, Black Bear Energy evaluated multiple options, ultimately choosing Dromo for its flexibility, ease of use, and competitive pricing. Dromo’s ability to automate complex workflows and allow developers to add custom logic at any step made it an ideal solution for Black Bear’s complex needs.

Megan explained, “Dromo really allows the developers to add custom logic to any step in the workflow, which we definitely needed due to our complex use case.”

Results

1. Time Savings
The impact of Dromo was immediate. Black Bear Energy reduced the time it took to upload site lists from 2-5 hours per list to just 10-15 minutes. This was achieved by automating many of the manual steps that previously slowed down the process.

“Now, it takes 10 to 15 minutes per site list because of all the data cleaning, AI, and custom logic that we were able to add to Dromo's workflow,” said Megan Percy.

2. Improved Data Accuracy
Before Dromo, data errors were a frequent source of delays and miscommunication. Small errors in site addresses would cause significant issues down the line, leading to mismatches in geospatial data and incorrect project setups. With Dromo’s error flags, warning features, and automated data review, Black Bear now has 98% confidence that their data is accurate upon import.

“The biggest advantage to Dromo is the error reduction. Now, with the error flags and data review, we have 98% confidence that every site entering our database is completely correct and geocoded in the right place,” Megan explained.

3. Enhanced Workflow
Dromo’s search functionality and duplicate detection helped streamline the workflow, allowing Megan’s team to quickly locate relevant data and flag issues in real-time. This new level of control over data imports significantly reduced the manual workload and freed up time for Black Bear’s team to focus on higher-value tasks.

“The search feature allows me to quickly view all matching data in one place. Another useful feature is how Dromo helps us identify duplicate records, flagging them as warnings,” Megan noted.

4. Flexibility and Collaboration
One of the standout features of Dromo for Black Bear was the flexibility it offered. Unlike other solutions that came with rigid workflows, Dromo allowed Black Bear to customize logic for their specific needs. Megan also praised the responsiveness of the Dromo team in implementing new features that her team needed.

“Dromo has been super responsive. We’ve asked them to build features, and they have. They are forward-progress driven, and I think they value us just as much as we value them,” Megan shared.

Conclusion

For Black Bear Energy, Dromo has not only streamlined their data importing process but also significantly improved the quality and accuracy of their data. The collaboration between Black Bear and Dromo has been key to the successful implementation of the tool, with features tailored to meet their unique needs. By cutting down time spent on manual data entry and reducing errors, Black Bear Energy is now able to focus on delivering sustainable energy solutions with greater efficiency and confidence.

“Dromo gave us a full solution to our need of bringing in data from spreadsheets and allowed us to add anything we needed to get to a final product in a very short amount of time for a very reasonable price,” said Megan.