CBBEL Saves Time and Money with Unionpoint Integration

Streamlining Mileage Usage Tracking

Christopher B. Burke Engineering, Ltd. (CBBEL) is a full-service consulting engineering and surveying firm committed to delivering solutions to a wide range of engineering and environmental challenges. The firm’s Illinois and Indiana-based staff is comprised of more than 300 experienced and innovative professionals who provide engineering, surveying and environmental services to clients in both the public and private sectors. Recently, the firm was successful in using Deltek Unionpoint, a cloud integration platform, to integrate multiple software applications for enhanced operational efficiency and to meet regulatory compliance requirements.

CBBEL has been a customer since 2006 and has used Deltek Vantagepoint – a project-based ERP software for professional services and financial and project management processes since 2022. To meet regulatory requirements, CBBEL needed a more streamlined way to easily invoice and track direct expenses, such as mileage incurred and daily vehicle usage charges for projects. As a part of this solution, CBBEL adopted TripLog, which stores the vehicle's location and usage and provides mileage tracking. To simplify the process and ensure data is posted to the right project, Deltek Partner SilverEdge recommended that CBBEL integrate TripLog with Vantagepoint using Deltek Unionpoint.

A&E Firm Streamlines Operations with Deltek Unionpoint

Deltek Unionpoint is an integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) solution that allows users to build, deploy and manage cloud-based integrations to and from Deltek solutions. Unionpoint offers predefined connectors so firms can get up and running without the hassle of building complex integrations from scratch. CBBEL had previously used Unionpoint to integrate Vantagepoint with UKG, a human capital management solution. At that time, CBBEL was entering personnel data into two places: the UKG system and Vantagepoint. After the integration, CBBEL was able to streamline the process with only one entry into UKG that automatically transferred to Vantagepoint, saving the team time and reducing errors from manual entry.

Building on the success of the UKG implementation and with the help of SilverEdge, CBBEL leveraged Unionpoint to integrate Vantagepoint with TripLog in 2023. After this integration, staff no longer have to manually log mileage on their timesheets. Instead, TripLog obtains data via GPS, so staff only need to associate the trip with a project number, entered in the TripLog app. The information is uploaded from TripLog automatically to the project record in Vantagepoint, making for a much smoother process, with only one point of entry. Now the data is more accurate and complete leading to a better process for determining project costs, such as billable and non-billable charges.

CBBEL has found Unionpoint an effective solution for a variety of needs, as it offers a cloud approach, is very flexible and allows for a much faster deployment. In addition, it is easy to adapt to changing business requirements, which previously involved heavy lifting to develop API code.

Advice for A&E Firms Thinking about Using Unionpoint

Building large application integrations requires a degree of commitment and understanding of the program and logic; Unionpoint makes that process much easier. CBBEL CFO Joe Elberts remarked that CBBEL has benefited from the simplicity of the Unionpoint platform. “One of the key advantages of Unionpoint's no-code/low-code platform is that even if a developer leaves the firm, the APIs created with Unionpoint remain accessible. Since the platform uses a standardized language, new developers can easily step in, quickly understand how the system was built, and make necessary changes without starting from scratch.” Joe added, “With the help of SilverEdge, we are planning more product integrations with Unionpoint in the near future.”