Case Study

How Blackfoot Communications Increased Operational Efficiency & Enhanced Service Quality With Itential

Seventy years of connecting Montana communities. 60 workflows and 15 JSTs deployed in 3 months. Provisioning compressed from days or weeks to minutes – with the integration depth to make legacy infrastructure programmable.

Challenge

Aging infrastructure restricted to TLS 1.0. New Metaswitch features blocked by hours of manual XML reverse-engineering. Network engineers stuck on routine work while fiber expansion and feature rollout waited.

Solution

Itential’s data transformation turned XML payloads into callable objects. Low-code workflows put Metaswitch, SIP, Calix, Adtran, Fortinet, and HubSpot under one orchestration layer – with weekly CS guidance from day one.

Impact

60 workflows and 15 JSTs in 3 months. Days or weeks of provisioning down to minutes. Caller ID and new service features shipped. Engineers freed for strategic work. Time-to-billing and time-to-value both accelerated.

The Challenge

Manual Workloads & Legacy Infrastructure

Blackfoot Communications has connected homes, businesses, and communities across Montana for more than 70 years. Like many service providers running long-tenured infrastructure, they hit the wall that legacy stacks build for you: aging systems made innovation difficult, and manual workloads kept the team stuck on routine work.

The specifics made it worse. A legacy provisioning platform was restricted to TLS 1.0, creating security vulnerabilities and making it difficult to communicate with modern applications. To extend what the physical infrastructure could do, Blackfoot invested in Metaswitch – but deploying new features required hours of manual XML manipulation, with engineers reverse-engineering APIs by analyzing web calls and reconstructing payloads to make calls programmatically. To power fiber expansion, modernize legacy infrastructure, and drive innovation in rural connectivity, Blackfoot needed an orchestration platform that could bridge old systems and new – and unlock the features Metaswitch made possible.

Blackfoot didn’t need another script library. They needed an orchestration platform that could turn legacy XML APIs into callable services, integrate with the systems they already ran, and let a lean team build production workflows fast. Itential was the answer.

Why Itential

Why Blackfoot Chose Itential

Blackfoot needed a platform that could handle the messy realities of legacy XML, integrate with the vendor mix they already ran, and let a lean team build production workflows fast. The seven criteria that mattered came together in Itential.

Why Itential Fit the Blackfoot Stack

Bridging legacy XML APIs and modern automation requires more than another script library. Blackfoot chose Itential for seven reasons – from data transformation depth to the enablement model that made three-month time-to-value possible.

XML-to-Object Data Transformation

Itential’s XML-to-object data transformation was the architectural breakthrough – turning legacy Metaswitch payloads into structured objects that workflows could actually consume. The gap between legacy systems and modern automation closed at the platform layer instead of being patched on top of brittle scripts.

Low-Code Workflow Canvas

Drag-and-drop workflow building put production-ready automation in the hands of network engineers – not just developers. The same canvas that handled SIP provisioning handled HubSpot ticket integration, with modular components reused across services instead of one-off scripts per task.

Out-of-the-Box Integrations Across the Stack

Open source integrations across Blackfoot’s stack – Fortinet, Cisco, Adtran, Metaswitch, and more – connected through one orchestration layer. The integration tax that blocked rollout of new features disappeared, and the team built end-to-end services instead of stitching together vendor-specific tooling.

Customer Success From Day One

Weekly enablement sessions with Itential’s customer success team, hands-on training, and key resources – the partnership model that turned platform adoption into measurable outcomes in three months. Speed to first value wasn’t an accident; it was the product of structured enablement.

Scalable, Governed Automation

Workflows scale as Blackfoot’s service portfolio grows. The same platform that handles today’s Metaswitch and SIP provisioning is positioned for tomorrow’s features, with change controls and detailed logs that grow with the automation footprint – not against it.

Modernized Security Posture

Replacing TLS 1.0-restricted provisioning tools with modern API-driven orchestration closed real security gaps. The same orchestration layer that delivers new services also strengthens the security posture the legacy stack was undermining.

Maximize Existing Tools, Don’t Replace Them

Existing tools and infrastructure investments don’t get retired – they get unlocked. Itential maximizes the value of what Blackfoot already has by orchestrating across it, turning sunk cost into a foundation for fiber expansion, BEAD broadband initiatives, and the future use cases ahead.

Part and parcel of what I love about the solution is, it’s been really hard to find solutions that translate data from XML into objects that actually do real work.

David Maedche

Software Network Engineer, Blackfoot

The Solution

How Itential Works for Blackfoot

Itential is in production across Blackfoot’s network operations – driving Metaswitch voice and data provisioning, SuiteSolution Caller ID enablement, SIP provisioning, modem and OLT deployment, device upgrade and validation, license audits, and ticketing integration. One orchestration layer across the vendor mix Blackfoot already runs.

Data Transformation Across Legacy APIs

Itential converts XML payloads into structured objects that automated services can actually act on – enabling workflows to send and receive payloads to Metaswitch and other systems without manual reverse-engineering. The breakthrough that turned weeks of feature deployment work into hours.

Low-Code Workflow Builder

Drag-and-drop workflow building enables rapid creation of modular, scalable workflows. Engineers – not developers – build production-ready automations across Metaswitch, SIP, Calix modems, Adtran OLTs, and more.

Out-of-the-Box Integrations

Open source integrations with Fortinet, Cisco, Adtran, Metaswitch, and others accelerate API integration with third-party systems – less custom development per integration, faster time to value across the whole stack.

End-to-End Orchestration

End-to-end orchestration integrates seamlessly with existing infrastructure, enabling the efficient delivery of new services leveraging solutions like Metaswitch. Workflows span devices, vendors, and systems as one governed sequence.

Scalable & Governed Automation

Automation expands while maintaining change controls and detailed logs – increasing network capacity to handle higher service volumes, peak season traffic, and the higher-value services Blackfoot wants to offer.

Enablement Partnership

Weekly guidance sessions with Itential’s customer success team, hands-on training, and key enablement resources – the partnership that turned 60 workflows and 15 JSTs into a three-month outcome instead of a three-year project.

The Outcome

The Business Impact of Network Automation

Operational efficiency, service quality, and delivery speed all moved in the right direction at the same time – the outcome Blackfoot was after, delivered in the first three months of production.

60

Workflows in 3 Months

Workflows deployed in production across Metaswitch, SIP, modems, OLTs, device upgrades, audits, and ticketing.

15

Reusable JSTs

Reusable JavaScript Tasks built alongside the workflows – the modular building blocks that compounded the team’s capability.

Mins

Provisioning Cycle Time

Provisioning time for new services compressed from days or weeks to minutes – the headline efficiency gain.

New

Features Shipped

Caller ID and other new Metaswitch features unlocked – the service quality improvements legacy XML used to block.

From Manual Workloads to Service Velocity

Time to billing accelerated. Time to value compressed. Engineer productivity boosted without increasing workloads. The network can scale with the business – and the legacy stack stopped being the reason innovation waited.