Project as a “task” in Microsoft Outlook
This is how Urs Brun describes the project controlling procedure before introducing ZEP. He is project manager for IT infrastructure projects at large Swiss companies and is also responsible for administrative support for systems engineering projects. For this reason, he is also responsible for the implementation and operation of ZEP at ITRIS Maintenance AG. He explains: “As part of our projects, we support many different customers with projects with a wide variety of sizes and formats. These range from temporary projects lasting several hundred project hours to ongoing technical support as part of co-sourcing by our customers. Especially with the last project format, billing is based on hours worked, which is why proof of work that is as accurate and complete as possible is required. ”
“Acceptance among employees is very high and results in significantly higher accuracy in time recording. ”
Urs Brun
Project manager
In previous practice, this meant that employees usually had to record their working hours once a week — the ITRIS employees are on site at the customer's site most of the time. The associated high cost of manually comparing the hours worked with the agreed or calculated hours in the form of Excel spreadsheets meant that employees saw this as an unpopular and annoying task, which of course had a direct negative effect on the accuracy of the time recording results. Urs Brun remembers: “This made project controlling extremely difficult. ”
“ZEP is really well received by employees and is used extensively. Project controlling is significantly facilitated by the extensive evaluations. For example, I receive a notification when a project has reached a certain threshold, e.g. 75 percent of the agreed hours, and can take appropriate action. ”
Urs Brun
Project manager
Time recording requirement: No paperwork!
At the beginning of 2015, the decision was finally made in favour of the ZEP solution — time recording for projects — from provantis IT Solutions. The web-based solution has been on the market since 2000 and offers project-oriented companies a complete solution for the areas of time recording and reporting, travel expenses, project management and controlling, and invoicing. The solution is offered in both cloud computing and on-premise operating models. At ITRIS, they opt for the latter.
ITRIS Maintenance AG has been using ZEP for a year now. The system is highly accepted by employees. Urs Brun confirms: “ZEP is really well received by employees and is used extensively. Project controlling is significantly facilitated by the extensive evaluations. For example, I receive a notification when a project has reached a certain threshold, e.g. 75 percent of the agreed hours, and can take appropriate action. ”
Intelligent integration with third-party applications thanks to SOAP API
Thanks to the SOAP API available for ZEP, ITRIS also succeeded in intelligently integrating the Excel-based quotation system used in the company, the CRM system from ITRIS Maintenance AG and time recording.
Urs Brun explains: “The offers created in our quotation solution can be transferred directly to ZEP with the individual calculated services via the SOAP interface, where they are also enriched with customer data from our CRM system, which is also imported via the API. The individual items in the offer are then presented as individual processes in ZEP and can thus be “processed” and documented by the employee. ” In addition, the offer and additional documents relevant to the project are stored in the ZEP process. The employee therefore has all information about the project available anytime and anywhere at the push of a button.
