How Google Cloud Premier Partner Ancoris Innovated Their Project Time Tracking with Appogee Time

We interviewed the team from award-winning Cloud Services Provider and Google Premier partner Ancoris to discover how they’re getting on with our project time tracking software, Appogee Time Tracker!

Who we spoke to:

Dave Fenton - Vice President of Services
Gareth Harris - Google Cloud Consultant

Tell us about the process you were using before to manage project time tracking and some of the issues you were facing.

Dave: “We used a spreadsheet in Google Sheets to track projects and customers but there wasn’t a “proper” solution. It lacked consistency, and validation, and there was no reporting capability or ability to track time in multiple ways. We had no ability to measure the profitability of projects, it wasn’t scalable at all and it also wasn’t used across the business, as we all had separate processes” 

Gareth: “There were random custom calculations all over the place, it just wasn’t working for what we needed as a growing business. There was no automation or ability to properly define tasks” 

What are the key benefits of using the system? 

Dave: “One of the biggest benefits of using Appogee Time Tracker is how it can expand across the business to create uniformity across all of our teams. Onboarding the software really highlighted different working practices across departments and gave us the ability to properly define how to input data and this has elevated utilisation up to board level to review activity every month from the company. The next phase is to utilise the commercial side so we can truly understand the commercial implications such as time against budget, resource usage against plans and looking at estimates for all of these areas across new projects.

Gareth: “The use of automation is really beneficial, we don't have typos or inconsistent data input and can easily define the tasks we’re doing.”

What’s the day to day usability of the solution like? 

Gareth: “I’ve used quite a few project time tracking software tools in my career as a consultant and this is by far the easiest one to use. Most have poorly thought-out user interfaces and are tricky to get a handle on. Appogee Time Tracker was so easy to start using. We’ve had no issues rolling this out throughout the business as it’s so easy to use. It’s logical and just makes sense. I’d say it’s a great first step for anyone not familiar with project time tracking software, so any business currently using spreadsheets will really see it as a huge help!”

Dave: “On the admin side, it’s straightforward to set up too, managing the data is easy and it’s all very customisable to your needs”

What reporting do you use and how does this reporting help you and Ancoris? 

Dave: “We’re able to use in-app screenshots to see specifics that we need to, and then extract the data into the tools of our choice. Having the ability to provide access across the business for us to all see what’s going on is great in that sense. The core use of reporting for us is the utilisation of teams within the company and using the measures to inform budgets and look into areas we need to which is great for accurate analysis”

How did you find the support & service you received during the process?  

Dave: “We’ve been so grateful for the support from Appogee HR. They respond to any issues really quickly and by using feature requests we really feel as if the team listens to us if we need something.”

Gareth: “Yes, it very much feels like we’re being heard and the videos that are available and user guides are great for when we just want to quickly look up how to do something.”

Have you noticed any improvements in customer relationships/contact?

Dave: “We can see the facts of each project and then help our customers make good commercial decisions re how to get the best use of our efforts. We know who’s working with customers and provide them with evidence and fact-based discussions. This was actually recently instrumental in helping us get a significant renewal from a customer. We wouldn’t get this detail if we were still using spreadsheets.”

What’s the ‘wow’ factor about Appogee Time Tracker - how is it better than other systems you’ve used? 

Gareth: “Again, I’d have to say that the usability of the system is a game-changer. Past systems I’ve used have been fairly torturous! Appogee Time Tracker just makes sense and I’ve had no real problems.”

Dave: “It’s been easy to get a range of consultants and developers on board to use the system. So easy to roll out and people want to use it. From a management perspective, onboarding the teams has worked out so much easier than expected!”

How does Appogee Time Tracker help in your board meetings?

Dave: “Using the data from Appogee Time Tracker helps us to show utilisation stats in our board meetings. This enables us to understand the financial health of the delivery practices as well as their wellbeing since we want to make sure that people can dedicate time to personal development and other areas too” 

“The alternative of using spreadsheets would mean too much complexity and potential inaccuracy which just wouldn’t work as well”

Have you found any benefits in using Appogee HR alongside Time Tracker? 

Dave: “As we’re already a customer of Appogee HR Success, one of the biggest benefits we’ve found is that employees can use the same login, the system knows who they are and what team they belong to. So everyone logs in securely and there's no duplication of data from that point of view. It’s essentially reduced the number of systems we need which has been really beneficial.”

To find out if Appogee Time Tracker can help grow your business start your 14 day free trial or book a demo with a friendly member of the team!