An Modern workflow for a modern telecoms industry

At Aim we are committed to discovering new and innovative ways to improve productivity. Therefore, it was imperative for us to restructure our project tracking system. Despite evaluating various project and site tracking software options, we concluded that there is currently no perfect solution for the telecoms industry.

Also, it was apparent to us that persisting with our internally developed Excel-based trackers was not a feasible solution. These trackers have consistently proven to be inefficient and demand substantial maintenance work.

Excel a dangerous single point of failure.

Similar to the rest of the telecoms infrastructure industry, The INS Group had come to rely on extensive Excel files to track each element of a project. However, using Excel to track a telecoms project is far from ideal as anyone who has used them as part of their daily workflow can attest to.

As these Excel spreadsheets grow, large excel-based project workflow and site trackers become sluggish and can result in issues when several staff members attempt to write to the same tracker, resulting in data loss.  To make things worse as the small business expands these trackers need to be accessed and edited by ever increasing number of staff exuberating the problem. To compound the issue, as the small business expands, these trackers need to be accessed and edited by an ever-increasing number of staff, exacerbating the problem.

Here are some examples of the problems encountered when using Excel-based trackers to manage telecoms projects.

1. Data Conflicts: When two or more users attempt to make changes to the same cell or range of cells, data conflicts can occur. Excel cannot determine which version of the data to keep, and it may result in data loss or inconsistencies.
2. Version Control: Without a proper version control system, it can be difficult to keep track of who made changes to the file and when. It may result in the loss of important data or the inability to recover earlier versions of the file.
3. Slow Performance: When multiple users simultaneously work on a file, it may lead to slow performance or even crashing of the application. This is especially true if the file is complex and contains large amounts of data.
4. Formatting Issues: When multiple users make changes to the formatting of the file, it may result in inconsistent formatting and make the file difficult to read and use.
5. Security Risks: When multiple users access the same file, it may be easier for unauthorized users to gain access to the file, which can result in data breaches or other security issues.

Enter AIM

Leveraging the abundance of experience and expertise at AIM, we tackled the task of replacing our unreliable Excel-based tracker with a customised application tailored initially to the telecom infrastructure industry and found that many other industries encountered the same issues. The result of this development is AIM.

The AIM Philosophy

AIM is intended to shift the industry's approach to project tracking and execution. To achieve this, we established a set of targets to evaluate if AIM has met its objectives.

1. AIM should have a clean, modern interface which makes it quick and easy for users to navigate and users must be able to easily create, modify and track workflows.
2. Ensure that everyone using the workflow can easily understand what is expected of them and to help keep them focused on the important tasks while cleanly establishing ownership of each projects stage.
3. Roles and Responsibilities are clearly defined, and milestones are established and break them down by smaller tasks which can be assigned to owner of the task.
4. Good communication is critical to a projects success so AIM must be enabler to improve in project communications. The workflow should be a platform which supports collaboration between team members allowing them to share workflows and track progress together.
5. Put key items and resources directly at the point of need and relevant to the specific task the user needs to complete their assigned task. Integration with other tools commonly used in the workflow.
6. Useful reporting and analytics to help track site progress, identify blockers early while identify areas for improvements.
7. AIM should be developed with a shift left approach to privacy and security to ensure attention is paid to privacy and security throughout the project lifecycle.
8. AIM is scalable and will be able to handle workflows of varying scale and complexity and grows with the company.

AIM does more than achieve these requirements it surpasses the required criteria and addresses the limitations of Excel-based trackers. By implementing this application, we have streamlined our processes, boosted productivity, and enhanced collaboration among team members. Moreover, we have kept the development costs low, making it possible for other small to medium-sized businesses to benefit from this innovative solution.

Look out for more details as we delve into the AIM workflow and its integrations with partners like SiteSee.

If you would like to discuss AIM, please contact us through This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

To discuss AIM, please feel free to reach out to us at sales@ aimworkspace.co.uk