Overview

Silver-Owl Time & Cost is one of nine modules that comprise the Silver-Owl Business Management suite of software. It can be purchased as a standalone module or as part of the suite - each module is compatible with each other and interacts as necessary, for example time can be booked to specific "Tasks" in a Silver-Owl Project Plan, or a detailed piece of work described using Silver-Owl Workflow, etc. Leave booked here is automatically excluded from our Project Planning module too.

Why is Time & Cost recording and analysis useful?

When you have work to do, it is vital that you know when it will be finished. Building a Project Plan will help with this (you can use Silver-Owl's project planning module). However any plan is only as good as the data put into it and relies upon the accuracy of the estimated time each task will take.

Silver-Owl's Time Management module allows you to use weekly timesheets to record the time taken to complete work on your projects, by task and activity.

Analysis of this data can form the basis of a set of metrics that will help you understand the likely time certain tasks, or types of task, might take, allowing you to refine estimates over time, improving your productivity and efficiency.

Why is this relevant to schools?

Schools don't have endless budgets. Whilst some jobs will only be done once, some will recur each term or year and having a full understanding of how long each piece of work takes gives you the chance to ask "why?" and possibly find ways of reducing it, or at least planning it more accurately each time.

By analysing the time and associated cost of work across multiple projects you will be able to identify areas where improvements can be made and time and money saved, improving efficiency. You may, for example, be surprised by the amount of time spent in meetings, by analysing the "actvities" (type of work) that are done.

What makes Silver-Owl different?

• It is very easy to use, by staff or students at all levels;
• It offers Timesheets, a Timeclock and Flexitime recording, any of which can be used, or not used, to suite your establishment.
• You specify in advance the level at which time should be booked and can vary it for each "project".
• You can also specify specific "Timecodes" so that data can be aggregated and analysed, or you can use various automatically generated codes created for other Silver-Owl modules, such as tasks on a Project Plan, or stages of a Progress Report.

What does it cost?

As a guide, the list price for a Standard Silver-Owl licence for Time & Cost alone is only £45 per user, up to £220 per user for a full Standard licence covering all nine Silver-Owl modules. Depending on your requirements, we may be able to offer a special discounted rate.

The licences are a one-off cost.

There are no additional costs for hardware, databases etc assuming you have disk space to install the software and the data you record.

What are the other Silver-Owl modules?

The full Silver-Owl suite comprises nine integrated modules that can be offered separately if required. The full list of modules is:

• Project Planning
• Progress Reporting
• Minutes Of Meetings
• Action Tracking
• Workflow (including Change, Faults and Processes)
• Timesheets and Time & Cost Analysis
• Risk Management
• C.R.M.
• Information Database

Where can it be used?

It can be run on your server (or simply integrated into your network) or can be hosted at a third-party site.

It can be operated from your site or over the internet - much attention has been paid to optimising data download requirements to make response times over the internet almost as fast on your internal network.

Other key features

• Choice of simple navigation routes
• Everything is integrated, but you only use what you need
• You control who can see what data, AND who can update it
• Prevents concurrent data updates
• Optional help screens and tips throughout
• Separate, detailed User Guide
• "Retro" look means big buttons and no hidden drop-down lists. Everything you need to use is immediately available to you
• Doesn't try to "second-guess" what you mean - it does what YOU tell it!
• You don't feel like you need a degree in it just to understand it.