The Procurement Manager at one of Canada’s largest Engineering, Procurement and Construction firms discusses how using OnTrack Project Manager has made a difference in the way they do business, and discusses the value OnTrack brings to his clients’ oil and gas projects. His insights are summarized here.

What problem were you trying to solve, that led you to investigate project management software? 

We wanted to get all our reporting in standard formats, and to get reports on demand. All our monthly reports include cost reports to the clients so a key driver was the strong cost reporting.

Why OnTrack Project Manager?

We selected OnTrack because it was the best fit and the price was reasonable for the value. They have had a presence in Calgary for years and are well known in the oil and gas project community. I had experience with OnTrack previously with other companies so the implementation and start up was particularly easy in this case. Several of our clients and subcontractors use it, so it was familiar and we knew it worked.

OnTrack takes an approach we compare to a Swiss Army Knife –integrated modules that “talk to each other” and take you from RFQ / bid evaluation through to expediting and warehousing in one system - and can take data from feeder systems. Do you use the whole system or just certain modules?

This is a good project management system when used as a whole, but there are areas with any company that don’t get into the system for what ever reason.  Our system is used for cost reporting, purchase orders, activity reporting, some scheduling in regards to meeting shipping dates and planning. We use the whole system with several clients, and there are others where we do not pay their invoices, so in that case we don’t use the financial module – we use what we need to accomplish the deliverables for that project.

What distinguishes OnTrack from other “project management” solutions?  

With cost reporting, engineering no longer has to keep excel spreadsheets. Cost reports are part of the system. A single point of data entry allows less duplication and fewer errors and it means a lot less time spent finding out where you are.

Enterprise Planning Systems like SAP are often used for procurement. Why not use an accounting /financial system to do project procurement, and project cost? 

Two reasons:  the initial cost of the software and the start up costs are exorbitant. And even once they are in use they can’t provide all the reports needed nor do third party billing.  Implementing OnTrack took about two weeks, and once it was implemented it was easy to use and we got all the information we needed from the system quickly.

Sometimes systems will work well for a single large project, or a few smaller ones, but bog down when you start to fill them up with data. What types of projects are suited to OnTrack Project Manager – can you run multiple projects against a single database without having it slow down or fall over?

We use OnTrack on small, medium and large projects, and all of them within a single database hosted by OnTrack Engineering.  We use OnTrack on SAGD projects, pipeline, gas plant, pump stations and conventional oil projects.  All our projects in Canada are running in OnTrack. We haven’t encountered any performance issues.

Given that no solution is perfect and all software applications have bugs or problems from time to time, what is it like getting support?

The implementation and start up services were simple compared to other software implementations I’ve been involved with, and only took days - and OnTrack’s forms and reports were best practice so they did not need to be reworked to meet our needs. We haven’t needed a lot of help but when we have, service has been good. Because they have a local office when we do run into an issue they’ll send one of the programmers or techies in at night to fix the problem so it doesn’t impact our daily operations. And if we run into a bug, since they host the software for us they can just have a look at our problem and troubleshoot it right away.

How would you rate OnTrack in terms of incorporating your suggestions and your clients’ requirements in product development?  

This system has the permissions and safe guards such that our clients can feel safe they are getting the information they require and it’s secure.  Client suggestions are passed on from us to OnTrack Engineering, and acted upon. For instance we found materials control was not as robust as it could be for our very large projects, so OnTrack modified that module for us. They have worked with us to add or enhance elements to improve the system for our use.

As we know, there’s a resource crunch in engineering today, with many engineers reaching retirement age and a lot of younger folks coming on board. How does this system support the needs of your company as it relates to engineers who are still gaining work experience?

A major benefit is that it’s easy to learn and use, and training - internal or from OnTrack Engineering -  is available and easy to follow. There’s good context sensitive help within the software, and they have self training on line or they’ll come to our sites to train. People want to use OnTrack as it’s not as process driven and rigid as other software.  You are only forced to fill out certain fields. It’s intuitive – the work flow makes sense. And because the permissions are set at such a level – the ability to read or write in any field or even see various areas can be allowed or turned off – we can give everybody just enough permissions to let them do their job and keep them from being dangerous.  

How has OnTrack Project Manager added value to your / your clients’ projects?

The highest value to us is in the ability to generate accurate, secure standard reports in a single system. With an integrated system, data entry is the only point where there can be an error as opposed to having manual reports. 

At OnTrack we try to incorporate best practices in the application by using our own and our clients’ experiences to improve new releases. How important is it to you to have a system that has that kind of project controls experience backing it up?  

That experience went into the development of the software; it was critical when the system was being developed that it could draw on strong experience in project controls. And when the odd time comes that we need someone to address a concern that may arise, it’s good to know that the team at OnTrack has been on our side of the desk, and understands our concerns. They want us to be successful using the software.