More Office Tracker Success Stories
Office Tracker is in use by thousands of offices in many different industries. The success stories below give you a glimpse of some of our real customers (in their own words) and how they use Office Tracker to improve customer service, increase efficiency and save time and money. We look forward to your success!

Scroll down or click the links below to read more success stories:

OCI Technologies - IT technology services Clean Cuts Music - Music production company City of Del Rio - Local City Government The Christian Family Counseling Center - Counseling services ABC Solutions - CPA, Accounting Services

OCI Technologies, LLC Saves 20 Hours a Month with Office Tracker
OCI Technologies, based in Sunrise, Florida is a leading information technology and software development company that serves corporate clients around the world. Founded in October 2002, OCI Technologies’ founding partners have more than 30 years combined experience and hold numerous certifications in network infrastructure, storage solutions, database management, corporate technology training, and software development.

Business Challenge
With an emphasis on training and consulting, OCI’s success depends on a flexible and mobile workforce. The company employs contract specialists that work remotely and travel around the world. OCI needed to find a more efficient way to schedule its employees and its half dozen contractors for assignments.

With a global client base, OCI staffers traveled frequently and were out of the office – making it impossible to access schedules. In addition, clients wanted to be able to immediately access OCI staff schedules, to enable them to determine available staffers at a given time for projects.

Vice President of Operations John Hales was using Excel spreadsheets, spending up to 5 hours per week on scheduling – a very tedious process. Everyone had to email Hales their schedules and update him with changes.

Solution
To automate its scheduling process, OCI Technologies selected the new Web-based version of Office Tracker scheduling software. With Office Tracker Version 7.0, staffers could access schedules via the Web from any location -- a client’s office, an airport or even an Internet café. Today, Office Tracker is used by as many as 10 OCI staffers to manage their daily schedules – they can even use Office Tracker to book their time off, for vacations, etc.

According to Hales, “Office Tracker has saved us more than 20 hours a month of scheduling time, and enabled us to provide better client service. With the group scheduling capabilities of Office Tracker, we have a view of all of our partners and contractors schedules at all times – making it easier to schedule meetings and client assignments. We have eliminated the many emails and phone calls needed before to schedule a meeting.”

Importantly, clients are also able to access OCI staff schedules to find out which consultant or trainer is available at a particular day or time for an assignment – speeding up the scheduling process.

“Our customers really appreciate the time-saving. They can see when we’re available, which makes it easier for them to schedule the trainings,” Hales added. “We can provide much faster customer response and reduce the amount of calling back and forth to find a date that works – and that means fewer missed opportunities and happier customers.”

Office Tracker also provides a way for OCI Technologies to track work and billing.  They can easily create detailed reports based on specific information, such as the name of the employee, date range, type of project, etc. These reports include time usage information such as total minutes and hours expended, making it easy for them to calculate billing.

Return on Investment
The benefits of Office Tracker have easily justified the resources invested. “The return on investment has been huge,” said John Hales. “Our clients are happier because we can immediately schedule their projects. In addition, we continue to stay lean and efficient while growing the business. This enables us to be more profitable.”

“In addition, the Office Tracker site licensing model really made sense for us, so we are only paying for the number of “seats” and contractors and staffers can use it concurrently,” explained Hales.

According to OCI Technologies President JC Meghrian, “This single program has already paid for itself in the first month of use. The responsiveness of the Milum Corp. to make changes to our needs has created a tool that will help us immensely. We have already gained several hours per week in saved time and can accurately project where and when our people will be scheduled for work.”

“Our clients are quite impressed that we have set this program up to assist us (and them) in scheduling for their needs, added Meghrian. “It has saved all of us time and allowed us to control permissions based on need to know that keeps our internal items internal while allowing the external clients to access the things that they need. I personally believe this tool will help us grow our revenue and as a business -- it is a sound investment at a good price.”

Overall, Office Tracker has enabled OCI Technologies to grow with the confidence that they always have access to their schedules, from anywhere in the world -- enabling them to deliver superior client service.

Clean Cuts Music Gains Rock Solid Scheduling with Office Tracker
Originally founded in 1980 by Jack Heyman as a record label, Clean Cuts Music began producing music scores for a wide variety of media during the following decade. Today, Clean Cuts Music collaborates with advertising agencies, corporations and individuals to create original music, sound design and audio elements.

A variety of TV spots, radio commercials, television shows, films, web sites, CDs and DVDs are all enhanced by Clean Cuts Music, including the Under Armour TV campaign “Protect this House,” Court TV and the music for TLC’s Trading Spaces.

With more than 30 employees, Clean Cuts today has three locations: Baltimore, Washington DC and Silver Springs, MD. Each Clean Cuts Music location features a fully-equipped audio suite featuring: 64 track Protocols workstations;full automation; full mix to picture capabilities; digital beta cam; random access SFX and video.

In addition to advanced audio and video technology, Clean Cuts Music brings together a talented team of professionals, including composers, producers, sound designers and administrative staffers to support their client’s needs.

Increased Demand and Growth Results in a Scheduling Challenge
Growing and expanding to three offices became a huge scheduling hurdle for Clean Cuts. In each office, Clean Cuts Music has 12 audio suites and three video suites, all which are booked every hour. The scheduling for Clean Cuts Music is very complex, requiring not only scheduling of a studio and engineer, but many other variables as well, such as how many people are in the recording room, whether they need a special room to record original music, whether they require ISDN, and more.

Up until recently, Clean Cuts Music was using pencil and paper to schedule studio times for their clients. Whenever a schedule change was made, the firm needed to call the other two offices to alert them of the change. With this manual approach, they had growing concerns about double booking a studio or personnel, which would cause client service problems and potentially result in lost business.

Solution
To automate its scheduling process, Clean Cuts Music selected OfficeTracker scheduling software for a variety of reasons, including price, simplicity and the ability to access schedules from anywhere, even from home via a laptop. Other solutions considered, such as Microsoft Exchange, were too costly and complex, requiring a dedicated IT person to install the product and maintain it.

It was easy for the Clean Cuts staff to install and learn to use the OfficeTracker software, and it didn’t require additional hardware or an IT expert. With OfficeTracker, Clean Cuts staff is able to access their schedules from anywhere. In fact, a key CleanCuts executive recently used OfficeTracker during a snowstorm, accessing schedules from his laptop and enabling him to react quickly to changing situations. In the past, the schedules would have been locked up in the office, with no access to schedules or contact data.

According to Clean Cuts Music General Manager Paul Perret, “We are confident that our schedules are accurate – for all three offices. We no longer have to worry about double booking studios or engineers, ensuring customer satisfaction and repeat business.”

In fact, Perret stresses, Clean Cuts Music is realizing major productivity gains, scheduling appointments four times faster than before, while ensuring excellent customer service.

“For our business, excellent customer service, efficiency and accuracy of scheduling is essential,” Perret says. “Scheduling is a mission-critical activity for us, and with Office Tracker we are now confident that we have rock-solid scheduling that we can rely on as we continue to grow.”

The City of Del Rio Improves Group Communications with Office Tracker
The City of Del Rio employs approximately 450 people. Del Rio is located in Southwest Texas, bordering Acuna, Mexico. The attractions in Del Rio include Lake Amistad, Val Verde Winery, Whitehead Memorial Museum, and Seminole Canyon just to name a few.

The City Administration Office is responsible for scheduling the City Council Chambers and the Conference Room for meetings and events. Prior to purchasing Office Tracker we maintained a written log in a three-ring binder to track scheduling. This method seemed inefficient and a bit antiquated.  There were several instances in which meeting rooms were double-booked and with our limited available meeting space, that proved to be disastrous. So I began searching for a better alternative.

When I cam across the Office Tracker web site I was sold. The program was user-friendly, I was able to access a free trial version with ease and the support staff was outstanding.

This decision to implement Office Tracker was made through the Administration Office. Once I received all of the information I presented it to the City Manager and Assistant City Manager and they agreed this would be a good tool for us to implement.

Prior to purchasing Office Tracker there was no unified method of scheduling rooms, appointments, or to track absence notifications. It would be difficult to estimate the amount of time we spent scheduling the old way but I can say that with the make shift methods we previously utilized there were far too many mistakes that resulted in double bookings and missed meetings and this was unacceptable.

Office Tracker has allowed the Administration staff to coordinate our scheduling and tracking which is more beneficial that anyone could ever imagine. As an added bonus, we now use Office Tracker for all of our scheduling needs in the Administration Office. This includes the schedules of the Mayor, City Manager, Assistant City Manager, Room Scheduling, and Absence Tracker.

Office Tracker has brought our office into this century and has not only improved our operations, but streamlined them as well. The program is very user friendly and the technical support is outstanding.

Story update: Tracy recently contacted us to add on users to her Office Tracker installation. Now the Finance Department can share Office Tracker schedules with each other and see availability for rooms and other departments for meetings and events. It was easy to add up the cost savings of using Office Tracker to eliminate scheduling hassles.

Tracy L. Humphreys
Executive Secretary, Administration, City of Del Rio

The Christian Family Counseling Center Eliminates Scheduling Errors
by the Executive Director, Dr. Charlie Baer, August 2004
Front office staff in photo: Amanda, Melinda, Kim and Jennifer

The Christian Family Counseling Center is an non-profit outpatient mental health facility located in Lawton, OK with a branch office in Duncan, OK. We have 8 counselors and 1 physician on the clinical staff. The Center has been in operation since 1985.

Up until a few years ago we doing all client scheduling in a hand written master appointment book in the front office. Counselors also kept their individual schedules in personal appointment books. We had developed a complex scheduling system with limits and controls that involved many hand written notes to be passed between the front desk and the counselors. Not only were we scheduling 8 counselors and a physician, but we also had to reserve 2 play therapy rooms and a conference room, and of course keep track of which counselors were working which hours, who was taking off when, and a variety of meetings involving various staff and our Board of Directors. Of course our system was not fail safe and we were constantly battling double bookings, clients booked by the counselor but not in the master book, clients booked when a counselor was out, play therapy rooms double booked, and every other kind of problem one can imagine.
It was definitely time for us to move into the 21st century and find a networkable scheduling program that would work for our operation. Our search included numerous phone calls and emails and even one attempt at modifying a program, all of which proved unproductive. I spent hours searching the internet, and most of what I initially found was very expensive and/or designed for specific office settings unsuitable for us. It was while searching the net that I found Office Tracker.The first thing that attracted me to Office Tracker was the very reasonable price, much less than any other systems that I was considering. Plus, we could try out a demo version to see if it would work for us. The rest is history. We are currently working with our 5th upgrade and could not be more satisfied. We have reduced scheduling conflicts to virtually zero, counselors can manage their own books and the front desk can also schedule appointments. Work schedules, recurring events, room reservations, are all managed effectively and easily. The support provided in the beginning was excellent, Office Tracker support staff were always friendly, patient and helpful. The few times we have had to contact them over the years have always resulted in good experiences with timely help from a responsive and pleasant staff. Each upgrade seems to include not only technical improvements, but also suggestions from users. Office Tracker has saved us money by eliminating scheduling errors that meant lost appointment times, disgruntled clients, irritated counselors, and exasperated office staff. Office Tracker has eliminated what was once a major source of conflict among our staff and helped with office morale. It takes less time than scheduling by hand, allows much more information to be accessed for each appointment, and allows everyone instant access to their schedules. Color coding, agendas and contacts all provide versatility, and most importantly - it is a user friendly system that even computer novices can easily understand. Office Tracker has made scheduling a fairly large office a snap. It is a program that is easily mastered and reasonably priced. We've used it for about five years and highly recommend it.

Dr. Charlie Baer
Executive Director

ABC Solutions Finds "Just Right" Scheduling Solution in Office Tracker

Photos: Tiffany J. Morisue, CPA, Managing Member , Mark J. Lesser, CPA, and Amy Stallsmith

ABC Solutions is a small CPA firm located in Hilliard, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. Our primary staff includes three full-time professionals. We provide a wide range of accounting, tax, and business consulting services to small businesses and individuals. For some business clients, we serve as their "accounting department" and for others we provide consultation and training on an occasional as-needed basis. Most of our business clients fall somewhere in between those two extremes. Like many CPA firms, much of the work we do has to do with tax return preparation. Like most of our business clients, we are working hard to grow and expand.

Before Office Tracker, we used a program called Lotus Organizer. Though it was not a bad program for scheduling for multiple individuals, it lacked features that we really wanted to have. The main problem with that program that got me looking for a better alternative was that I could not mark an appointment as private/confidential and make its details "hidden" from others who had access to the group calendar. This was frustrating as the busy owner of very small business - I had to keep a separate sheet with details for such appointments. With Office Tracker, I can mark appointments as private - other staff can see that I have an appointment and the time is not available, but they cannot see the details of the appointment.

As the owner of a very small business, the research and decision was mine. I spent many hours "surfing" the Internet, reading through product features and specification to find just the right scheduling solution for our office. Some of the programs that I looked at were integrated with non-scheduling tasks that were not applicable to us. Some were just too expensive. Office Tracker was "just right" - a great combination of practical features at a reasonable price.

Since our business is small with one location and a handful of employees, the time we spent on scheduling before Office Tracker did not seem to be much more than what we spend now. However, we can do much more with scheduling than we did before. We can easily "see" what is going on with color-coding using the label feature - for us, pink indicates an out of office appointment, light blue represents an appointment in the office, and yellow indicates that one is in the office but not taking appointments during a particular time block. It is very visual - you can good a good feel for what someone's week is like without reading the appointment detail! We also find the immediate notifications via e-mail to staff of appointments scheduled very helpful. Another feature that I really like - the ability to switch between multiple "views." Two of the views that I have set up that I use the most are a "me" view that I have set up to view my schedule week by week and a "group" view that I use to view everyone's daily schedule day by day.

Using Office Tracker has cut down the amount of administrative (non-billable) time that our staff spends by an average of around 10% due to increase efficiency of scheduling and time management overall. For a 40 hour work week, that is a savings of 4 hours - 4 hours that can be spent actually servicing a client and generating revenue. With three busy professionals, that is savings of 12 hours that can be spent on client work or other essential administrative functions.

Our entire staff and the business as a whole benefit from using Office Tracker. We use it not only to schedule appointments with clients and others, but also to reserve time for specific tasks such as payroll processing which must be completed on a very strict timeline. We also use it to schedule our conference room for appointments - before Office Tracker, we did not do this and had some occasions where two of us had appointments that overlapped and each of us needed the conference room.

The key benefits of Office Tracker for us are convenience, efficiency, and ease of use. As for the latter, during peak times, we have a part-time administrative assistant who comes in to help out with phones and such. Though she is not in the office on a regular basis, she has no problem using Office Tracker to schedule and confirm appointments and to know what is going on with each of our staff. Of all of the programs that we use in the office, it is the easiest to get someone up and running with.

Office Tracker has allowed us to more efficiently and effectively schedule appointments and to manage our time overall. Being able to do so is critical to a service-type business where time is money. Unlike a retail-type business where sales revenue is primarily based on the number of units of product sold, our ability to generate revenue is based on the use of our time.