Faster estimates at Luminary

Software Agency

Australia

100+ epmployees

Key results:

Process unification

Higher estimation predictability

Less human errors

Jase Watson

Delivery Director

Apropo allows estimating complex software projects in a consistent way with consistent outputs. Plus, the templates feature allowed us to pretty much automate quoting of different services that we sell, which speeded up the quotes and reduced the number of human errors, such as accidentally overwritten formula."

What is Luminary and what's your role there?

Luminary is a digital and custom software development agency that has been estimating complex software projects for 25 years. I am working as the Delivery Director at Luminary.

Challenge: Huge spreadsheets difficult to work with by team

We've been quoting our projects using extremely advanced Google Spreadsheet files with lots of 'IFs' that were difficult to enforce and follow by less experienced team members. As a result, we were loosing a lot of time on reviewing the quotes and correcting the mistakes. We were therefore looking to address the following challenges:

Inconsistent estimation outputs - Estimating complex software projects in spreadsheets lacked core estimation fundamentals, leading to inconsistent formats and unpredictable outcomes across our team.

Time-consuming manual quoting - Building proposals for the various services we sell from scratch each time was slow and highly repetitive, preventing any scalable process automation.

Risk of calculation errors - Relying on loose spreadsheet files introduced a high frequency of human errors, most notably when team members would accidentally overwrite an active calculation formula.

Solution: Templates with predefined calculation rules

Apropo helped to solve each of them in the following way:

Standardized estimation framework - The platform provides built-in software estimation fundamentals, enabling our teams to scope out complex projects in a highly consistent way with reliable, uniform outputs.

Automated quoting via templates - By implementing structured templates, we were able to pretty much automate the quoting process for different services, significantly accelerating our entire sales cycle.

Secure and error-proof workspace - Apropo enables us to create templates with predefined calculation formulas that can't be overwritten other than intentionally. It also made managing typical projects risks much easier. As a result, the accuracy of our estimates improved.

The implementation has successfully unified our pre-sales operations, replacing risky spreadsheet workflows with a robust, predictable system that elevates our efficiency.

What are the 3 top benefits you observed?

Process unification

We established absolute process unification by bringing all our complex software estimations into a singular, highly standardized workflow.

Higher estimation predictability

Our team unlocked higher estimation predictability by delivering consistent, uniform outputs for every project scope we evaluate.

Less human errors

We observed significantly less human errors because the platform automatically handles calculations without the risk of broken formulas.

What are the 3 top Apropo features for you?

Export to Jira

The seamless export to Jira functionality allowed us to instantly bridge the gap between pre-sales and project delivery, cementing our team's internal process unification.

Templates

Utilizing rules-based templates empowered us to automate our service catalog layouts, which completely minimized manual work and resulted in less human errors.

Buffers

Apropo makes managing project risks child-easy. You simply create a list of project risks with applied formulas that add overheads to the estimates and switch them ON / OFF depending on the project specifics.

Do you recommend Apropo for other software agencies?

Absolutely. For any digital agency that has been stuck estimating complex projects in chaotic spreadsheets, Apropo provides the exact structure and automated features required to optimize your pre-sales process.