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Working in scientific and high-compliance environments often means managing several moving parts at once. Time entries, project stages, areas of responsibility, and documentation must be tracked precisely. This is difficult when the number of interrelated items increases and your system can’t handle that complexity.
Our client was using spreadsheets to try to manage it all. But spreadsheets weren’t built for this level of detail. They introduced risks instead of helping reduce them.
They are a provider of nuclear infrastructure. They design, develop, and deliver high-stakes projects involving sensitive environments and clients. Their work must be traceable, compliant, and transparent at every stage. It’s not just about getting things done; it’s about being able to prove how and when they were done, and by whom.
That’s where their main problem started. Their system for tracking time and managing projects wasn’t keeping up with the complexity of their operations.
When they first approached EVX Software, their issue was specific but far-reaching. They were using Excel to track time entries. It worked at a surface level, but once they needed to break those hours down by area, task, project phase, or expertise, the spreadsheet became unmanageable.
This was especially problematic given their involvement in Research & Development, where multiple interlinked projects often run in parallel and are managed or executed by different teams. Tracking progress across these efforts required more than a flat list of entries; it required structure, consistency, and traceability across variables.
Worse, the spreadsheet setup was introducing errors. Not intentionally, but because the structure wasn’t designed for this kind of work. A single mistake could lead to gaps in billing or incorrect internal reporting. For a company operating under strict oversight, that wasn’t acceptable.
They needed to classify project work in ways that made sense to them, and they needed those classifications to drive accurate reports. Spreadsheets couldn’t give them that.
EVX Software didn’t ask them to change how they work. Instead, we made it possible for them to continue using their terms and categories inside a system built for project control.
With EVX Software’s Dimensions, they were able to classify their time entries and tasks by Area, Project, Project Type, Project Status, Client or Stakeholder, Supplier, Rate Schedule, Level of Expertise, and Hour Type. All were using the same language they were already using internally.
This structure was already built into EVX Software. The only work was configuring the values to match their needs. This meant the system adapted to their organization, not the other way around. Once their data structure was in place, project management became more consistent and easier to scale.
Migrating old data from Excel took time, but that was expected. The inconsistencies in the spreadsheets had to be resolved to ensure accuracy. For new projects, the setup was straightforward and quick.
Once they began working inside EVX Software, new needs came up.
They needed more visibility and control around task relationships and milestones. The way their projects were structured, certain subtasks had to be completed before parent tasks could close. This wasn’t about a better to-do list. It was about enforcing the right order of execution and being able to prove that work happened in the right sequence.
To support that, EVX Software accelerated development on Milestones and Task Dependencies. Tasks became more than just units of work. They now had rules and context. Milestones were made visible in the task list view, with sortable columns and fields that let their teams interact with the data instead of just reading it.
They needed a deeper view of how time and costs were adding up. They started with our existing reports on time entries and project status. That was useful, but not enough. What they needed was to see the cost at the task level, across all projects, compared to the original plan.
We built a custom report for them. It showed every task with time entries, the hours and associated costs, and how that compared against the project’s initial budget. This gave their team a clearer view of how their projects were progressing financially and where adjustments might be needed.
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Once their structure was in place and the reports were configured, the rest came naturally. The transition from Excel to EVX Software took effort, especially for older projects, but the result was a consistent, accurate, and auditable system for managing their work.
That was more than ten years ago. Today, they still use EVX Software to manage complex scientific projects involving multiple clients, different funding sources, and strict documentation requirements. The system gives them the control they need without forcing them to change how they work.
They moved from long spreadsheets that required constant oversight to a purpose-built system that supports detailed project management without losing context. For organizations where mistakes have serious consequences, that clarity matters.
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