Sprague Energy Unifies Project Delivery with Smartsheet and Azure DevOps Integration

Dan Morales
May 19
4 min read

Logos of Sprague with a red and blue flag and Softwarex with a teal dotted design on a white wavy background.

Company Overview

Sprague Energy is a leading provider of energy products and solutions, delivering fuel, natural gas, and energy management services across the Northeast United States. Their IT Project Delivery team oversees all technology-related initiatives across the business, ranging from system enhancements to multi-year digital transformation efforts.

Samantha Leader, Director of IT Projects and SaaS Operations, leads the charge in ensuring that IT projects are executed efficiently across Sprague's terminal locations and business offices. Her team is responsible for managing all project artifacts, tracking development work, and communicating project progress to stakeholders.

The Challenge

Sprague’s project management teams relied on Smartsheet to manage project plans, requirements, and user test cases, while internal development teams used Azure DevOps to manage work items. However, there was a disconnect between the two systems. Project managers were unable to gain real-time visibility into development progress without manually extracting and updating data from Azure DevOps into Smartsheet.

These manual efforts were time-consuming and tedious. Project timelines, resource planning, and status reporting became cumbersome—especially when updates were needed frequently. Leadership lacked visibility into who was working on what, and how development delays impacted overall project progress. The cost of stale data wasn’t just inefficiency—it was stress.

The Solution

Sprague turned to SoftwareX's Unite platform, which includes the Smartsheet Connector for Azure DevOps to bridge the gap between their project management and development tools. The integration created a seamless connection between work items in Azure DevOps and project tracking sheets in Smartsheet, allowing updates to flow automatically and accurately.

With a single setup step, new projects now sync work items directly into Smartsheet. As a result, project managers no longer need to manually run reports or update sheets. Smartsheet dashboards now reflect real-time data from Azure DevOps, providing a holistic and up-to-date view of project health across the organization.

The Results

We went from having to do something, depending on how critical the project was, sometimes once a day, sometimes once a week… to setting it up once...I haven’t looked at the Connector in about a month and a half because it’s just running and I don’t need to....Now I can actually focus on problems that are happening with the project rather than the reporting problems that are happening with the project...Everything that we were trying to do previously has now been automated and we don’t have to do it manually.

- Samantha Leader, Director of IT Projects and SaaS Operations

Dramatic reduction in manual updates: Project managers and BAs went from updating Smartsheet daily or weekly to spending almost no time managing data syncs. Now, they simply configure the integration once at the start of a project—after that, the system runs on its own with no ongoing maintenance needed.
Real-time dashboards: Leadership and stakeholders get instant visibility into development progress updates, team assignments, and delays.
Improved confidence and reduced stress: Teams trust that the data they’re viewing is accurate, allowing them to focus on managing project risk rather than data hygiene.
Support for multiple workflows: In addition to project work, Sprague also integrated production support work (tracked as bugs in ADO) into Smartsheet—automating two high-priority reporting use cases with a single platform.

Beyond the Numbers

The success of the integration at Sprague Energy is not just about reducing manual work—it’s about enabling teams to work in the tools that suit them best while ensuring alignment and data integrity across the organization. Samantha Leader’s vision for a more cohesive, low-friction project delivery process has brought measurable innovation to how Sprague manages development and operational reporting.

By championing the integration, Samantha empowered her development teams to remain focused in Azure DevOps while giving project managers and stakeholders a real-time, holistic view of progress directly in Smartsheet. The flexibility of the connector allowed both sides to maintain their preferred workflows and project management methodologies without compromising on visibility or data accuracy.

This transformation has allowed Sprague to shift from reactive reporting cycles to proactive, insight-driven project delivery—reducing operational bottlenecks and strengthening collaboration between technical and business teams. Samantha’s leadership not only modernized how data flows between platforms but also demonstrated how thoughtful integration can elevate a team’s ability to execute and adapt.

Conclusion

By implementing the Smartsheet Connector for Azure DevOps available through Unite, Sprague Energy transformed how its project delivery team manages and reports on development work. The integration has eliminated manual processes, enabled real-time visibility, and strengthened collaboration across IT and business stakeholders.

What was once a high-stress, high-maintenance workflow has become a set-it-and-forget-it solution that scales across teams and use cases.

Take the Next Step

Struggling to keep your Smartsheet project plans aligned with Azure DevOps work? Tired of building reports manually or tracking stale data? We offer a free trial program so you can validate the integration using your own data before committing. If your team is evaluating options to bring DevOps and Smartsheet together to: