Actency connected Jira, its project repository, to AlibeeZ through our APIs. Creating an issue in Jira automatically opens the matching mission in AlibeeZ, data synchronises on its own and, above all, time is entered once and only once. At the end of each period, employees simply check their timesheet before approving it; Actency then has what it needs to trigger client invoicing where applicable.
Who is Actency?
Actency is a player in the French tech ecosystem, supporting its clients through their digital transformation challenges: cloud, customer experience, new ways of working, outsourcing, and more.
And when you deliver more than 10,000 person-days of client projects a year, you are necessarily organised and equipped. Squads, projects, iterations, releases, and then comes the moment of client invoicing.
The friction: two repositories for the same day
An organisation working in squads almost always runs two tools that describe the same working day from two different angles:
- the delivery tool, here Jira, which knows which issue, which sprint and which project the time went to;
- the management tool, which needs that same time to produce the timesheet, payroll, project margin and the invoice.
With no link between the two, employees log their time where they work, then key it again somewhere else at the end of the month. That is double entry, and its cost is not the minutes it takes: it is the gap it creates. The two versions of the same week drift apart, and the reconciliation lands at the worst possible moment: the one where the invoice has to go out.
What was connected, and in which direction
The principle is simple: Jira remains the project repository, and AlibeeZ plugs into it rather than replacing it.
- Project repository
- Jira, unchanged
- Flow direction
- Jira → AlibeeZ
- Mechanism
- Documented REST APIs
- Connector
- Built by Actency, running on a Cloud Function
- Synchronisation
- Automatic — 50 people over 3 months in under 10 minutes
- Configuration
- By the business, through a dedicated interface
- Mission creation
- Automatic, when the Jira issue is created
- Data entry
- Once and only once
- Destination
- The timesheet, then client invoicing
Synchronisation does not stop at time spent: creating an issue in Jira automatically creates the matching mission in AlibeeZ. The management repository therefore follows the project repository without the same engagement being declared twice, and without the usual lag between delivery starting and management hearing about it.
The projects each employee contributes to are shown in AlibeeZ, and the leave their managers have approved is there too. The timesheet is therefore not a blank page to fill in from memory: it is a statement already assembled, waiting to be confirmed.
How the connector is built
The connector is Actency’s own work, built on their APIs on one side and on AlibeeZ’s on the other. It runs on a Cloud Function: no server to maintain, and a workload that only costs something while it runs.
The order of magnitude shows what that allows: synchronising 50 people over 3 months takes under 10 minutes. At that speed, a full re-run stops being an exceptional operation to schedule; it becomes an ordinary move, one you can replay without blocking anything.
The second architectural choice is the one that ages best: the plumbing between the two systems is configured from an interface, by the business, not in code. That answers the reality on the ground — business cases are many and no two are alike — and it avoids the classic integration trap: a mapping frozen in a script nobody dares touch any more, and which has to be reworked for every new project.
What changes at the end of the period
The shift fits in one sentence: month-end stops being a data-entry task and becomes a checking task.
| Without a connector | With Jira connected to AlibeeZ | |
|---|---|---|
| Opening a mission | Declared in both tools | Automatic, from the Jira issue |
| Time entry | Twice, in two tools | Once, in Jira |
| Leave | Copied across by hand | Already there, exactly as approved |
| What the employee does | Reconstructs the month | Checks, then approves |
| Discrepancies between tools | To be settled before invoicing | Moot: a single source |
| Invoice trigger | After consolidation | As soon as the timesheet is approved |
This is also why the gain is not measured only in minutes saved per employee. The approved timesheet becomes a base invoicing can rest on directly, with no intermediate reconstruction step.
Why an API rather than an export?
File exports work, and AlibeeZ offers them in standard formats. But they assume someone triggers them, checks them and replays them when something goes wrong: in other words, they move the workload rather than remove it.
An API changes the nature of the link: data moves when it changes, not when someone remembers it. That is what lets a mission exist in AlibeeZ the moment the issue is created in Jira, rather than at the next run of some batch job.
What data travels, in both directions, is set out on the integrations page, and how the Jira ↔ AlibeeZ connection works in general is covered in this article.
Q & A
What kind of API does AlibeeZ offer?
Documented REST APIs.
Do other planning-tool connectors to AlibeeZ already exist?
Yes. To support our clients we have already made links available for Stafiz and Kantata.
To work with AlibeeZ, am I limited to the APIs?
No. AlibeeZ also offers exports in standard formats (CSV, flat files, and so on).
Do you want the same connector?
The connector belongs to Actency. Contact Actency if you would like to obtain their API: the company is considering turning it into a service.
If your project repository is somewhere else, or if you simply want to see what is already connected to AlibeeZ, start with the integrations page, or let’s talk about your case.
