The Challenge: Managing Leave Across Five Continents with Manual Processes

Established over 10 years ago, LSI Logistic Solutions is an international freight forwarding and logistics company serving customers across five continents. As the company grew, its approach to managing employee leave—a single, annual calendar tracked in Excel—began to show its limitations.

As Michael Lyke, Director at LSI Logistic Solutions, noted, the Excel system was functional but highly manual and "open to errors." The key pain point was the limited capacity for detail and the lack of real-time visibility, especially for a team that relies heavily on remote work. The manual nature of the process made proactive resource planning difficult and risked unnecessary delays.

LSI Logistic Solutions needed a modern solution that could eliminate manual data entry, automate calculations, and provide instant, accurate visibility to managers and employees worldwide.

The Solution: Seamless Integration within Microsoft Teams

LSI Logistic Solutions sought a solution that would integrate natively with the tools their team already used. Their online search led them to LTAPPS Time Off, specifically because it was designed to install and operate seamlessly within Microsoft Teams.

The most critical features that cemented their decision were:

• Clear Visibility: Providing an instant, week/month-based view of resource availability.
• Automatic Calculation: Eliminating manual tracking and the risk of errors in calculating leave balances.

The implementation was straightforward for employee onboarding. Although initial setup of the custom approval workflow presented a slight challenge when their internal reporting structure changed, the LSI team quickly adapted.

The Results: Enhanced Transparency, Speed, and Accuracy

Since deploying LTAPPS Time Off, LSI Logistic Solutions has fundamentally transformed its leave management process. The Director summarized the improvements succinctly: "Transparency, speed, and accuracy have all offered improvements."

For a company with a significant portion of its staff working remotely, the shared, real-time visibility has been a major operational benefit.

"We share a lot of remote working so everybody has clear visibility of who is in the office and who is not."

This instant, accurate view allows managers to make faster, more informed decisions about project staffing and approvals, drastically cutting down on the communication lag that was inherent in the old Excel-based method. The biggest overall benefit has been moving away from the manual process, providing a robust, centralized platform for all employees.

Looking Forward

LSI Logistic Solutions is highly satisfied with the move to LTAPPS Time Off, stating they would "recommend it to other companies, especially if others are using manual processes like we were." They also praised the support experience, noting it has been "Very good."

As they look to the future, LSI Logistic Solutions sees further value in enhancing integration with existing productivity tools, specifically asking for tighter connections to Outlook and Teams calendars, and increased flexibility for time-off scheduling beyond full or half-day increments.

LTAPPS Time Off successfully provided LSI Logistic Solutions with the digital foundation needed to manage their global workforce efficiently, replacing manual effort with a clear, fast, and transparent process that supports their continued growth.