Going full speed ahead: How our Report Builder made an automotive manager even more successful

Surely you know the situation: You are given responsibility and want to deliver the best possible results as quickly as you can, but you keep stumbling over the performance of outdated systems in your company.

No matter how innovative your ideas are, you can’t make it happen if the software doesn’t match your vision.

That’s exactly how it felt for a manager at one of Germany’s largest car manufacturers. One of his daily tasks was reporting to department management. In the past, it was done in a time-consuming and complicated way using Excel. In addition, all changes had to be updated manually. Thus, every modification was a risk for the quality of the result.

Until the company discovered Actonic’s Report Builder: reports were now created quickly according to individual requirements. Not only does the automotive company benefit from more efficient reporting, but the manager enjoys a personal sense of achievement and more job satisfaction.

As a large, established automotive company, it is necessary to always keep track of varying prices for materials and goods per country and supplier. However, creating such sophisticated reports is time-consuming, so the manager hired an intern specifically to take care of this activity. As a result, data was cumbersomely transferred from Jira projects to Excel, merged, exported, and updated again.

As a large, established automotive company, it is necessary to always keep an overview of varying prices for raw materials and goods per country and supplier. The manual creation of such sophisticated reports is highly time-consuming, so the manager hired an intern specifically to handle this activity.

Weekly, the intern sat on a special management report. He ran a JQL in Jira, then exported it as a CSV. Then he added all the data into a special Excel sheet where different marcos were run. Often, master values had to be adjusted there, as the company dynamics were also reflected in Jira.

Screenshots were made of the charts created in Excel, which were transferred to a special PowerPoint file. Only after this step were the results to be presented to the next higher management level. Creating such a report took up to 6 hours a week.

Still, the risk of human error remained a constant factor. And what was to be done about last-minute changes? An Excel file doesn’t just automatically update several pieces of data at the click of a button.

That’s why the manager turned to Actonic. He had heard about our tool Report Builder: Timesheets and Data Analysis and asked if we could customize the add-on as an Atlassian Solution Partner.

And that’s exactly what we did. Working closely together, Actonic further developed the add-on to meet the customer’s requirements 100 percent. Now, reports on prices for different countries and suppliers are created and updated completely automatically. In individual training sessions, we demonstrated the handling of the new tool and remained in constant exchange to discuss further optimizations.

Fast delivery of error-free reports increases the efficiency and competitiveness of any company. However, what was particularly remarkable to everyone involved in this project was the highly positive user experience.

The earlier labor-intense reporting system, which was not up-to-date, prevented the company from achieving its maximum potential and the employees. In addition, a high investment of time, vulnerability to human error, and, last but not least, performance pressure due to constant updating characterized the reporting process.

“A whole new way of working and living,” is how the manager sums up his current situation thanks to Report Builder. Before implementing the tool, he could never be sure that the generated reports were up-to-date and error-free. Every change carried the risk of an error. Now, he confidently faces his manager to deliver high-quality reports on a regular basis.

The latter appreciates the immense optimization and has already spoken about the manager’s initiative in a board meeting.

The customer is one of the largest automotive manufacturers in all of Germany. Thanks to the optimization of reporting, the company can establish itself even further and focus on advancing German automotive development.

“Previously, we shared the impression of restricting not only our company but also our personal development with this way of working. As a result, we were limited in our speed of travel, so to speak. Not anymore: with Report Builder, our speed limit has been removed. Now we’re driving full speed ahead.”

“With our automobiles, we strive for perfection and innovation. Finally, we have found a smart software solution that matches our philosophy,” says the manager of the automotive company. According to him, all of his team colleagues benefit from the workload reduction and resource savings thanks to implimenting the customized Report Builder. “Previously, we shared the impression of restricting not only our company but also our personal development with this way of working. As a result, we were limited in our speed of travel, so to speak. Not anymore: with Report Builder, our speed limit has been removed. Now we’re driving full speed ahead.”

As an agile IT consulting company, Actonic developed Report Builder: Timesheets and Data Analysis. This way you will never again waste time on elaborate reporting, always keep the full overview and make important economic decisions easier.