Utilities Engineering Consultancy
100 people
Manchester, Valencia and Islamabad
- Team time tracking
- Costs tracking
- Profitability
Ready to streamline your time tracking?
Using time tracking to improve pricing estimates and profitability

About DACI
DACI is a specialized engineering and design firm that focuses on consulting and designing a diverse range of contestable network infrastructure projects for electric, water, and gas utilities across the United Kingdom.
Since its establishment in 2016, DACI has experienced significant growth, developing a strong track record with numerous licensed network operators throughout the country. The company has expanded to three branches located in Manchester, Valencia and Islamabad.
Their team of highly skilled engineers possesses extensive experience in planning and designing adaptable network infrastructure projects. Their portfolio includes projects ranging from private properties to notable locations such as the Natural History Museum of London and Legoland.
Finding the right tool
At the core of their success is Adam Fraser, the technical manager who led the company's seamless transition to an innovative time-tracking solution. Timeneye has revolutionized how they monitor project hours, ensuring every endeavor remains profitable and efficient.
"In the early days, we were drowning in a sea of Excel sheets," Adam recalled. "We relied on them for both project and time tracking. However, we soon discovered that this method was far from efficient. Our coordinator would spend an entire week sifting through these sheets, making the data practically useless. It was completely unsustainable!".
Adam was referring to a time when the team was composed of 50 people. Now, the team has grown to 100 employees, of which 60 are engineers working on hands-on projects in the three different branches.
“At that time, we reached a breaking point where we realized we needed to adopt a better system to keep track of our projects. As a result, the company decided to implement Microsoft Planner, and Timeneye emerged as the obvious choice for time tracking because of its seamless Microsoft Planner integration” Adam recalls.
When asked about the main benefit of Timeneye, Adam responds, “We are using the Power BI integration to link Timeneye and Microsoft Planner together, allowing us to view the job description, our quoted costs, purchase orders, and profitability. I must say, it’s incredibly easy to integrate Timeneye with Power BI! I don't have any coding experience, but I was able to download the connector and connect the two platforms without any issues. It worked like magic!”
Elevating the company standards
"Another significant benefit of using Timeneye is that I receive weekly reports directly in my inbox. This allows me to monitor whether the design office and the engineers are accurately tracking their time," Adam explains. "Ultimately, this helps ensure that we are pricing our projects correctly."
In addition to keeping the team aligned with their personal tasks, Timeneye serves another important role—providing realistic estimates for the future. "As a company, we never really had any KPI to support our decisions. However, for the past 12 months, we have been collecting data to understand our current situation. Next year, the company will set realistic targets for all the managers based on this information. Up until now, it has been very difficult to hold people accountable to targets when there was no data to back them up!"
Improving pricing estimates and profitability
For Adam and his team, Timeneye has become an indispensable ally. "While we typically don't use our time reports for client billing, for those extensive projects spanning from 6 months to 2 years, Timeneye is invaluable for cost tracking. Over such durations, our pricing may fluctuate, and these reports are essential in justifying any necessary price adjustments for our clients. With Timeneye, we can transparently present who contributed to the project and the hours invested. This level of transparency is something our clients truly value."
Operating in a fiercely competitive market, DACI is growing, and its rates are rising accordingly. Access to profitability data is crucial, enabling them to make informed strategic decisions.
"Typically, we set a fixed price for our projects, which means profit margins can vary. As a company, striking the right balance to maintain overall profitability is key. That's why Timeneye is essential for monitoring our internal costs and hourly rates," Adam explains. "Our projects range from major undertakings like the Natural History Museum of London or solar farms and battery storage to single services for individual homes. The scale of our projects is vast, and that's where Timeneye proves invaluable."
“One of the most significant commitments”, Adam remembers, “is the HS2 project, the UK's high-speed railway. With government involvement, numerous meetings were mandatory, making the Outlook calendar integration crucial. Our engineers could effortlessly log their hours, ensuring no time slipped through the cracks and every minute was accounted for."
Onboarding the team
When asked about the team's response to adopting a new time tracking tool, Adam Fraser shares, "The biggest hurdle was transitioning the entire company from Excel sheets to Microsoft Planner. Fortunately, Timeneye's seamless integration with Microsoft Planner meant we didn't have to spend much time explaining its functionality—it's incredibly user-friendly."
He adds "When onboarding a new employee, I conduct a brief training session to demonstrate how to use Microsoft Planner and Timeneye together. It's so straightforward that I've never needed to train anyone twice." Adam highlights another remarkable benefit after using Timeneye for over a year: employees have become focused and better at prioritizing their daily tasks.