Applications

Asset Management
How well do you track your assets?
PAT provides organisations with a solution to centrally manage, within one database, all of its assets, such as IT hardware and software, without the overkill or cost of an infrastructure tool. Information about an asset, for example, its location, cost and maintenance history can be recorded in customised data structures, which are defined to suit an organisations specific requirement, and can cater for any combination of asset types. PAT’s comprehensive audit and history functions further enhance the systems ability to allow users to track assets and maintain an accurate inventory.

Business Continuity
Is your DRP plan integrated?
PAT provides organisations with a one-stop solution that enables them to develop and maintain comprehensive and customisable web-based Disaster Recovery Plans, for total business continuity. Organisations with sites worldwide can maintain central control of the plans, whilst delegating maintenance to numerous business units. Tasks that need to be dealt with before, during and after a disaster can be assigned and tracked. All members of Disaster Recovery Teams can enter, update and report any data that is related to the Disaster Recovery Plan, to ensure that critical business functions can be recovered in a phased order of priority, along with the resources that business functions require in order to operate in each phase. [Return to top]

Business Planning
Does your projects portfolio reflect your key business drivers?
PAT’s business value solution is an economic assessment and measurement framework that has been designed to help an organisation align IT solutions with business imperatives and then quantify the direct financial benefits of those solutions in order to demonstrate the business value of IT. [Return to top]

Read more about PAT's business value solution

Collaboration
Can you share data and documents over the web, both within and beyond your own organisation?
Use PAT to track actions and manage appointments and diaries. Maintain message boards and discussion threads. Use PAT's powerful search capabilities to find matching data, identify ownership of projects and tasks, and locate useful documents. [Return to top]

Compliance Management
Will you be caught out by compliance obligations?
With increasing pressure on organisations to ensure compliance with regulations, governance codes, accredited process and supervision at all times, having visibility and instant access to the necessary management information and processes has become one of the highest priorities for businesses. Lack of clarity in this area can result in serious business and financial implications. The PAT compliance management application developed by Specialist Compliance Services, aims to consolidate, process, present and distribute this vital information to the people who need it, whenever and wherever they can most benefit from it. This not only ensures enterprises can demonstrate corporate compliance at all times, but make more effective use of this information to reduce costs; increase the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of their business processes and minimise business risks. [Return to top]

Click here to read more about PAT and Compliance Management

Configuration Management
Can you automatically generate release notes for data and code changes?
PAT has built-in version control and document management capabilities, as well as a comprehensive history tracking function and audit trail. Managers can see exactly what changes have been made, when and by whom. In addition, it is possible to track who has viewed each item and when it was last looked at. PAT's configuration management solution integrates change requests, help desk logs, data and code changes and releases with powerful query and reporting tools. [Return to top]

Customer Account Management
Do your Account Managers know what your customers asked your Help Desk this morning?
PAT's customer account management solution enables the integration of contact and sales management information with customer support and project management. Users can see, on a single screen, recent phone calls, current projects and their status, and any support logs and how they are being dealt with. [Return to top]

Departmental Management
Are you managing your department cost-effectively?
Inefficiencies, and therefore, unnecessary costs, often arise within departments. PAT can be configured to solve the organisational problems that concern your department and are crucial to the efficiency of it. It can provide a structured approach to all of your departmental projects and processes, and a single point of access to documents and information for everyone within the department, regardless of their location. [Return to top]

Document Management
Can you find your key documents?
PAT’s built-in document management solution provides access to documents from anywhere in the world, subject to PAT security. Documents can be stored and retrieved 'in context' so that links with activity-related data, such as projects, are maintained. Document versions are managed through PAT’s 'check out/check in' function and, because all linked documents are stored in the PAT repository, access is guaranteed, storage costs are reduced and key documents are easily backed up. Optionally, PAT users can search for key words in the entire document repository. [Return to top]

Due Diligence
Do you want to reduce the cost of your due diligence processes?
Conduct, or prepare for, a due diligence survey using PAT’s embedded best practice templates and checklists. Use PAT’s action management capability to control the process, whilst keeping a history of responses, documents, risks, contract clauses, actions, and authorisations within a secure, but collaborative, environment. This solution provides templates to take you through every stage of an IT evaluation, merger or acquisition, but its unique flexibility means that it can be configured to fit your process. [Return to top]

Encyclopaedia
Do you have a single reference source?
PAT provides organisations with a 'one-volume', fully searchable reference solution that can capture and manage both structured and unstructured information. Much of a working day can be spent looking for that single piece of crucial information. You know the information is there somewhere. Did you save it as a spreadsheet or was it part of an email? PAT makes it easy to find what you need, when you need it. Whether it's the name of that Chinese takeaway or the 24 hour contact number for the support desk, PAT provides a single point of access to it all. [Return to top]

Outsource, Partner and Contract Management
Do you know who all of your suppliers and service providers are?
Can you instantly see all of the review dates, key terms, key performance indicators, service level agreements, and have immediate access to the current underlying contract and schedule? PAT’s outsource, partner and contract management solution brings this critical information under control and provides the summaries, analysis and reminders of coming events that are essential for any CIO or Programme Manager. [Return to top]

Click here to read more about PAT and Contract Management

Portfolio Management
Can you rank your projects by costs, benefits and ROI?
PAT's portfolio management solution enables you to analyse a portfolio of projects according to a range of different criteria, such as user department, geographic location, impacted system or key resources required. Highlight poorly performing projects and search for all projects matching specific criteria. [Return to top]

Click here for further information on portfolio management

PRINCE2™
Are you looking for a complete ‘out-of-the-box’ programme and project support solution for PRINCE2™?
This solution is designed to animate and extend the flexibility and capabilities of PRINCE2™ by allowing project teams, managers and third party suppliers to communicate more effectively in a distributed environment. PAT supports all PRINCE2™ components, processes, products and project roles. [Return to top]

Professional Services Automation
Can you match key skills to your resource requirements?
Use PAT to report and balance workloads and optimise staff utilisation. Record budgeted and actual staff hours at project and task level. Embed your key processes and methods within PAT. Use PAT workflow and electronic authorisation to reduce bottlenecks and improve performance. [Return to top]

Programme and Project Management
Do you manage your programmes and projects effectively?
PAT provides a flexible structure to support Programme and Project Managers in the day-to-day management of their work. The standard PAT Project Management structure supports Programmes, Projects (which may contain sub-programmes and sub-projects) as well as Tasks and Milestones. These may be entered manually or imported from MS Project©. The Project Management structure also supports Actions, Issues, Risks, Assumptions, Change Requests, Off-Specifications and Budget Data. As with all PAT structures, the user may extend existing structures or add new structures freely. [Return to top]

Click here for further information on PAT's programme and project management application

Process Management
Are you introducing a new process, or do you need to manage the deliverables, stages, authorisation, quality or conformance within an existing process?
A PAT solution can be configured to reflect your process stages to enable actions, documents and forms to be embedded and shared. With process stages and elements tailored to particular groups, you can make the process relevant, whilst maintaining the integrity of the whole. [Return to top]

Quality Management
Are you having problems implementing your quality management processes?
PAT's document storage, history tracking and comprehensive audit trail ensures a full record of all versions and changes is maintained. The "ownership" of all items within PAT encourages accountability for quality and completeness. Use templates to automatically generate the correct data structures and documents that are required for particular types of project and tasks. [Return to top]

Requirements Management
Are you managing the preparation, ownership and delivery of your requirements?
One of the major causes of excess IT spending is inefficient requirements definition and management. A PAT solution can be configured to provide your organisation with a structured requirements management process that constructively calls for all stakeholders to communicate, collaborate and validate requirements. [Return to top]

Resource Management
Could your resources be deployed more effectively?
Managing resource pools in a multi-project environment can prove problematic. PAT provides capabilities, within a centralised database, that allows managers to accurately monitor and control resources at several levels. PAT can record skills, training, evaluation outcomes and a complete history of all roles undertaken. If required, skill matching can be used to define sets of skills and then to identify resources capable of undertaking a role or to identify roles that would suit a given resource. In addition, PAT Timesheets can be used to record time against planned and actual activities. [Return to top]

Click here for further information on resource management

ROI & Governance
Are your governance processes supported effectively? Are you maximising your return on investment?
For a CIO, ensuring conformance to regulatory and other standards is becoming more critical than ever. PAT enables you to manage key policies, measures and processes without the need for an onerous administration overhead. Establishing governance policies, tracking progress, ensuring effective ROI evaluation and managing conformance and improvement, are no longer an optional for the CIO or anyone responsible for governance. [Return to top]

Risk Management
Are you managing your business and project risks, and their potential impact?
Use PAT's risk management solution to track risks and the actions that are required to mitigate and manage them. Attach related documentation and identify and prioritise risks across the organisation, or for a programme or portfolio of projects. Highlight risks for review at a specific group meeting. [Return to top]

Support and Help Desk
Are you looking for a highly visible help desk solution?
Log and track support or help desk calls. Make the status of calls visible to your customers and account managers over the web. Track problem resolution, identify support bottlenecks and manage resources. Search your PAT knowledge base for matching problems to review potential solutions and for related project and implementation information. [Return to top]

Test Management
Can you tie your test to your code and your business requirement?
PAT provides a comprehensive test management solution, which facilitates collaboration across QA and development teams and provides an integrated framework for planning, executing and managing your entire testing lifecycle process. [Return to top]