Release archive

With the better integration of offer preparation in the project planning, you can simply and quickly deduct offers from the project structure and ordered items from the offers.

From the project planning to the offer

Now, it is possible to add individual items of an offer from the material costs plan. In this, it is possible to take over the project structure. Personnel services offered depend on the determined external hourly rates and/or functional hourly rates.

From the offer to the order

If an offer results in an order, Projektron BCS 6.18 offers a new function for displaying these orders. For this, you have to indicate in the original offer which items are ordered. Non-ordered items are marked with the status Rejected. For example, if the order deviates from the offer, the amount of individual items can be changed later on without this having any influence on the original offer.

Improved structuring of offers

For the better structuring of offers, Projektron BCS allows for showing the hierarchy of offer items according to sub-projects and tasks.

Do your project employees also work in other projects? The new function Post resource requests with an integrated approval work flow allows you to reserve resources at an early point in time.

Send resource request to the person or place in the outlay plan

Resource requests can be directly sent to the person requested or for all in the outlay plan. Here, you can tick off the projects, sub-projects and tasks for which you want to request the allocated employees. Projektron BCS then generates the corresponding resource requests from the outlay planning. A new overview presents the resource requests posted.

Approval work flow for resource requests

If you directly send a resource request to the person, you also have to enter a person for approval. If the resource requests are directly created from the outlay plan, the software automatically enters the head of department of the requested employee as the approving person. Different status values such as planned, requested, approved and settled provide information  regarding the progress of the resource request.

A better overview of the working times of employees is possible with the new report Monthly overview which breaks down all working time bookings but also holidays and times of sickness as well as overtime and under-hours. Working times at night, on weekends or on holidays are separately listed.

The new view Current state within the working time assessment of each employee always informs the respective employee about the current holiday budget and working times in a quick and clear manner. Here the employee can decide whether the assessment shall range until a certain date, until today or until the end of the month.

The new day booking mask is attractive due to higher user-friendliness and flexibility. Everyone can compose the view according to individual preferences. For example, in case of long task lists, it is possible to only display the tasks which have been booked lastly. Bookings on tickets and appointments are now possible directly in the mask.

A new interface to the ilink TeamCall Telephony Access Platform connects Projektron BCS with telecommunications installations (CTI, Computer Telephony Integration). The connection to the telephone installation is created via the server of Projektron BCS; it is not necessary to install a special software on the client computers.

If telephone numbers are clicked on in Projektron BCS, a connection to the number is established. At the same time, Projektron BCS offers the possibility to change to the communication history of the person called or to directly enter a note regarding the call. In case of incoming calls, the contact for whom the transmitted number is entered can be searched for in BCS via a mouse click.

Projektron and BGI Solutions, a provider of web-based maps, have agreed to cooperate on CeBIT 2010 — Projektron BCS is extended by a BGI ThematicMapper component. Via this interface, the address data deposited in Projektron BCS can be visually displayed as a map. This extends the contact management module of Projektron BCS and facilitates the sales activities.

For example, if a sales employee prepares a day of presentations in Karlsruhe, Germany, such employee has the possibility to have customers and interested parties in the area displayed on the map and can then directly invite them.

Meanwhile, the interface was awarded the Partner Award at the Microsoft World Partner Conference.

Searching gets easier now: Exorbyte, a customer of Projektron for two years now, developed a fault-tolerant search function for Projektron BCS. This offers not only a suggestion list with appropriate entries but also corrects typing errors. It browses all contacts, persons, companies and projects in Projektron BCS.

it.x informationssysteme already uses the search. Managing Director Oliver Schaus is happy about the gain in efficiency:

Exorbytes BCS Suggest was installed in half a day. We could immediately use it and are surprised how much the search simplifies daily life with our customer and project data. With Exorbytes Suggest, I can search for 'Maier' and find the right 'Mayer'.

With the new field Sales price, the differentiation between external and internal prices of material costs is not possible. Material costs can also be offered for another price than the purchase price.

Whoever wants to settle tickets now has the possibility of differentiating between expenses, fixed price and mixed expenses/fixed price tickets. In case of expenses tickets, the bookings of the employees are included. For all ticket types, the costs depend on the external hourly rates.

The users of Projektron BCS can now adjust, store and reset column widths. Moreover, they can shift columns and store the new order and rest this, if necessary.

All search fields now dispose of an autocomplete function.