Budapest Airport

The Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport is located about 16 kilometers from the center of Budapest, Hungary. 

The largest airport in Hungary has surpassed 16 million passengers annually, and 201.000 tons of cargo have been handled within its premises. The airport employs around 10-12 thousand people and spans 1.515 hectares (for comparison, London Heathrow covers only 1.200 hectares).

The Airport Council International (ACI) awarded Budapest Airport the title of the best European airport among those handling 15-25 million passengers, and the airport has won Skytrax's „Best Airport in Eastern Europe” title for ten consecutive years. 

When did you start using YouTrack, and why 

We have been using YouTrack since 2012. Initially, it was implemented in IT to map out ISO 20000 processes such as HelpDesk, incident management, and a ticketing system.

Later, we expanded it for task management. The system's API capabilities make it excellent for receiving data from other systems and sending data to them. We take advantage of this functionality using our internal middleware system. After 6-8 years of use, we realized its potential in business operations as well. Various implementations were carried out in different business areas simultaneously. In 2020, we recognized the potential in integrating the various YouTrack systems together, this approach provides:

• Extremely fast searching in one instance with a straightforward and logical search syntax.
• Ad-hoc reporting based on searches, with the ability to create dashboards.
• High degree of customization, such as defining new fields and making them mandatory or optional, which is why we saw potential not only for IT but also for various business functions.
• Clear definition of relationships between tickets with various link types.
• Workflow capabilities.

This process took 1.5 years. Today, the system serves over 2,000 users.

What are the key applications and areas supported by YouTrack? 

We use it in various ways. The security service uses it to log events and incidents, also operational events at the airport are recorded within YouTrack. Furhermore it supports procurement processes (supplementary processes, storing data previously managed in Word or Excel etc.), HR processes (such as recruitment), and some financial operations. Portfolio management is handled here, and currently, an event administration solution is being developed. The system also manages complaint handling.

What useful features have you found in YouTrack?

The main advantage of YouTrack is its ease of use and the ability to generate significant results quickly. Our tasks can be efficiently managed within it. We haven't encountered the limitations of the system, so we haven't looked for external solutions for specific tasks.
We have a knowledge base-type ticket, in this ticket we describe how to handle each field and what kind of data content is required to fill the fields or the projects.

Do you think there are features in YouTrack that are particularly useful for your industry?

We do not take an industry-specific approach; rather, we focus on processes. Task tracking is the most important feature.
Everyone has tasks, and we want to track them effectively. YouTrack is perfectly suited for this.

Do you use YouTrack's workflow functionality? Can you share details or examples?

Five to six developers work on writing workflows. They use JavaScript-based workflows. For instance this allows us to define which organizational unit appears in which role within a project. JavaScript-based workflows are version-controlled using our own internal version control system. We have around 100 use cases (separate projects) containing approximately 300 workflows.

We create simple, non-complicated workflows that can cover nearly any business need. We also use a custom workflow for table generation.

How satisfied are you with the YouTrack support system? In what areas would you expect more assistance for using YouTrack?

While some areas of the documentation are excellent, others lack sufficient detail. However, it is essential to familiarize ourselves with the documentation in order to truly understand the system.

We also submit support tickets to the YouTrack support team, and their responses are generally quick and useful.

Do you have any recommendations or suggestions for companies considering to useYouTrack?

There should be a willingness to a process-oriented approach, with openness to collaborative thinking. Understanding YouTrack's concept is crucial. It is advisable to create educational templates for data entry and for mapping/simplifying business logic. Users should be provided with an overview that is complex enough to be useful yet easy to understand. A bridge needs to be built between the experts and the users, so that the experts can understand and address the users' needs.

Do you have any other thoughts or experiences you would like to share?

If a task requires managing 40-50 fields, the system will become complex. In such cases, it is advisable to break the task into multiple parts or projects.