Reliable and stable
User report from Ecologic Institut gemeinnützige GmbH
The decisive factors for working with Projektron BCS are above all the reliability and stability of the software - since the introduction of BCS, there have been no performance problems. By using BCS, we have been able to consolidate the system landscape and there is no longer any duplicate data storage. This significantly reduces the effort for system and data maintenance.
Think Tank for Environmental Research
Ecologic Institute is a transdisciplinary research organization that focuses on environmental research. In addition, Ecologic Institute researchers produce policy analyses and provide consulting services.
As a private, independent research organization and think tank, Ecologic Institute is dedicated to addressing relevant, socio-political issues in sustainability research and to contributing new findings to environmental policy. Ecologic Institute was founded in 1995 as a non-profit limited liability company (GmbH) and works on a knowledge-driven rather than a profit-driven basis.
Among the 100 employees from more than 20 countries are geologists, biologists, political scientists, lawyers and sociologists with broad know-how in environmental topics. Clients include the European Commission and the EU Parliament, German ministries, agencies and authorities.
Projects at Ecologic Institute are always interdisciplinary and carried out jointly by service teams and scientists in the matrix organization. Senior scientists are responsible as coordinators for certain topics; they are the central contact persons, for example for calls for proposals. Projects carried out last from a few months to several years, such as the AQUACROSS project, which advanced the application of ecosystem-based management for aquatic ecosystems, supporting the timely achievement of the EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy and other international conservation targets.
In this context, an assessment framework has been developed and tested within AQUACROSS that takes into account the full range of interactions within aquatic ecosystems, including human activities. In addition to such research projects, the institute handles numerous organizational, consulting and service projects.
The selection of project management software
A new PM software was primarily intended to provide transparency and help maintain an overview of the numerous and diverse projects. In addition, an outdated software for company calendars, vacation requests and expenses was about to be replaced, as it no longer met requirements, was no longer being updated for this reason and continued operation would have entailed high costs. The HR team used this replacement to introduce its own software requirements.
Use of Projektron BCS
We have been using Projektron BCS productively since 01.01.2014. Joint workshops and administration training accompanied the introduction of the software. In addition, reports were adapted and tickets with adjustments and changes were successively implemented using the modular principle.
All employees immediately used the calendar and user accounts, later expense management, ticket system and acquisitions were added. Today, employees mainly work with the calendars and the expense management, the acquisition team enters acquisitions and assigns keywords thematically. Coordinators filter job postings and corresponding applications. All employees use time recording, and performance records are generated via a report. For this purpose, projects are created with their master data.
By attending the administration training we were able to do many configurations ourselves, for example we added additional fields for all personnel data. We were able to map a salary overview, salary history, children's sick days and a so-called pension ramp (delayed retirement age at 67) with the help of Projektron's technical customer support.
We also customized our own statistics for the HR and finance teams, for example on staff turnover, sick leave, age distributions and other reports for HR management.
We modified the resource management to make it usable for booking conference rooms and to get an overview of free and occupied rooms. Our IT team uses the ticket system. In doing so, we benefit from synergy effects and save costs.
Decisive for working with BCS in our company are above all the reliability and stability of the software - since the introduction of BCS there have been no performance problems. By using BCS, we have been able to consolidate the system landscape and there is no longer any duplicate data storage. This significantly reduces the effort for system and data maintenance.
Conclusion on Projektron BCS
As an IT department, we are very satisfied with the operation of Projektron BCS, but also with regard to the application and GUI.
