format h

Situation

format h is a dynamic digital agency that excels in creating websites, portals, intranets, and customer portals. The company offers a broad spectrum of services, including development, creative marketing, SEO, and design. With a team of over 90 professionals, format h manages projects that vary in scope and duration, from four-week online marketing campaigns to extensive six-month website implementations. Jennifer Matern, Managing Director of format h, tells us how CoffeeCup has positively impacted operations.

Challenge

Before adopting CoffeeCup, format h faced significant challenges in managing their projects. The existing system was fragmented and inefficient, relying heavily on manual processes and multiple tools that did not integrate with each other. Employees logged their hours in Jira, but these records had to be manually assigned to a project. “This process was not only cumbersome but also prone to errors and delays.” - says Jenny.

One of the primary issues was the lack of real-time visibility into project budgets. The data had to be collated from numerous Excel sheets, each feeding into the other, which Jennifer Matern described as “Excel from Excel from Excel.” This manual system made it difficult to track where budgets stood at any given moment, leading to delays in decision-making and potential oversights.

Another challenge was the manual capacity planning conducted in Excel. The Excel sheet required constant manual updates for even minor changes, and not all employees had access to this critical information, which included project hours and employee vacation schedules. This lack of transparency significantly hindered effective resource planning and project execution.

Impact

The implementation of CoffeeCup brought a revolutionary change to format h’s project management and time tracking processes. The new system provided an automated solution that significantly reduced the manual effort required in the old system. By integrating all project management functions into a single platform, CoffeeCup successfully eliminated the need for manual data handovers. As a result, the time to billing for each project is now 2-3 days faster each month.

Jenny noted, “The biggest advantage is that everything is now supported by a reliable tool, which is far more dependable than Excel.” With CoffeeCup, both project managers and individual employees could see their schedules and project allocations in real time. The inclusion of vacation schedules directly in the system provided immediate insight into available employee time, facilitating better resource management.

Finally, CoffeeCup offers full transparency in project controlling, budgets, billable time, and more: "One of the greatest benefits is the reduction in questions directed at me. Everyone can now see real-time data on project budgets and revenue generated, without needing to ask or clarify. It's always up-to-date, and if I check, I know the budget status is current and accurate."

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