Time recording and project management with ZEP at five locations
Since the beginning of 2010, the IT service provider has been using ZEP time recording and project management software at all five locations — Pforzheim, Munich, Cologne, Münster and Karlsruhe.
“Through individual extensions of ZEP, we were able to optimally adapt the product to our needs. ”
Patrick Thoma
Head of Solution Development
Decision for ZEP time recording software
Before using ZEP, the company worked with an in-house solution that the software developers and technology consultants had designed themselves. Over time, the consulting firm expanded its locations and the number of projects increased. As a result of this development, the requirements for internal time and project recording software have also increased. The existing tool was no longer able to cope with the growing complexity. inovex GmbH was therefore faced with the decision to either upgrade its own software or look for a new external solution. “At the CeBIT information technology trade fair, we then became aware of the modular ZEP solution”, remembers Patrick Thoma, who was concerned with the selection of suitable software. “The external time recording software ZEP immediately appeared to us to be professional and suitable for our requirements”, says Thoma, who has worked for the company as Head of Solution Development since 2003. “We decided to buy the software and, due to the good price-performance ratio, immediately to buy ZEP.”, reports the IT specialist.
User-friendly tool impresses employees
The introduction of around 100 employees to ZEP took place through a web-based seminar and took around five man-days. Even during implementation, employees were impressed by the ease of use of the ZEP tool. “ZEP has a simple, logical and self-explanatory structure, so that we rarely need the manuals and program help. Only new employees initially make use of this help.”says Thoma. Thoma also regards the service provided by the ZEP support team as impeccable. inovex rates the quality and availability of Ditzinger consulting experts as “good”.
ZEP is stable
Another advantage: The IT service provider has not yet experienced any program crashes or data losses while using ZEP. “The consistency of the data and the stability, as well as the ease of use, are very good — ZEP has completely convinced us in these areas”, according to Patrick Thoma.
Mobile data collection
Due to the company and project locations throughout Germany, mobile data collection was important for the medium-sized company. In addition, this data should be centrally retrievable and controllable. The web-based tool solved this requirement: “With ZEP, we have a very good overview of our company and project locations across Germany”, praises Patrick Thoma.
Mobile data collection is also possible with ZEP: “Employees can access their travel time, hours and project records anytime and anywhere using a laptop”, according to Thoma. At the same time, the web-based application reduced the time spent by employees on data collection. “In the future, we are also planning to collect data via iPhone. This makes recording even easier for our employees.”, explains Patrick Thoma.
Tailored concept
The full-service provider uses ZEP Professional with the additional modules “Department”, “Vacation, Absences and Overtime”, “Document Generator” and “Invoice”. “Through individual extensions of ZEP, we were able to optimally adapt the product to our needs”, adds Patrick Thoma. In addition, the Provantis software is used to exchange data between PDFund CSV formats. “It would be desirable to exchange data with other programs via a defined programming interface (API)”says Thoma. In addition to this API, detailed improvements in invoicing, such as billing based on summary transactions, are recommended.
