EMDESK Classic for Horizon Europe and H2020

Specialized management software for European research projects. Integrated and secure tool for collaborative proposal writing and effective project management in Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020.

EMDESK Classic is a web-based collaboration and project management application developed specifically for European research projects funded under Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 (H2020). The integrated and secure platform supports the entire project life cycle.

Take full control over your project with EMDESK Classic, the certified all-in-one software solution designed specifically for the administration of Horizon Europe and H2020 research projects.

One central tool – test-drive our new EMDESK for successful collaboration in Horizon Europe

Are you ready to start your own projects with EMDESK? Begin with a 30-day free trial and enjoy all our features with no obligations. Join 20.000+ happy users working with EMDESK and manage your projects more efficiently. Or contact us – our team of experts is ready to help!

Proposal Preparation & Writing

Proposal mode allows you to draw up a project plan, elaborate your proposal and, if necessary, make changes to the plan data later. These functions are free of charge, and you can use them before the official launch of the project.

Project Implementation & Reporting

Implementation Mode allows you to monitor project progress and project plan data. With these functions, it is easy to report on the costs, efforts, and deliverables for H2020 projects.

Collaboration

Collaboration functions facilitate communication within the consortium. They are included in the EMDESK Classic Implementation Mode for H2020 and can be purchased for Proposal planning with Proposal Pro licenses.

Proposal Preparation & Writing

Calculate project budget fast and flexibly

With EMDESK Classic, calculating and fine-tuning of the budget of H2020 projects becomes simple, accurate, and consistent with ready-to-use budget templates and calculations.

Scalable to any project size, the project budget and European Commission funding rates are calculated instantly on any changes. You can analyse numbers in several dimensions, such as budget and funding per project or partner, per activity or cost category. You can even set up the budget calculation for unique project specifications.

Structure and modify workplan in easy and simple way

Using EMDESK Classic for H2020, the project workplan can be re-designed into a dynamic Gantt chart to give an overview of all elements of the plan and facilitate significantly both its structuring and its finalizing.

So that, you may create a detailed project workplan and simply move elements around until you finalize the plan structure. With a few clicks, you can create subprojects, work packages, tasks, schedule milestones, and attach deliverables. Define timing, activity types, work packages, and task leaders, and work together on detailed work descriptions.

Manage project partners and related financial data

Thanks to the collaborative approach of EMDESK Classic, each partner can easily get connected to the project planning. This strengthens project commitment and increases understanding within the project.

Manage your partners easily and invite collaborators to supervise their organizations, contributions, and resources. For each partner, you can identify potential customers, allocate person-months for tasks, or set up individual financial parameters. Adjust as required: whether the partner needs standard or adapted funding rates, or if he prefers special indirect costs.

Plan and allocate staff efforts using dynamic resource matrix

EMDESK Classic includes a detailed resource planning matrix that gives a complete overview of the planned resources and helps to allocate project personnel amongst partners, work packages, or activities.

You can also assign staff efforts to different personnel cost rates per partner. Staff efforts and personnel cost rates can be used to calculate automatically the respective personnel costs. The resource planning matrix instantly responds to changes by updating all relevant tables. All changes are highlighted, so you can track them for the transparency.

Arrange direct costs with advanced cost planning

The advanced cost planning feature of EMDESK Classic makes it possible to itemize the budgeting of direct costs and subcontracts per project partner, both for the work package (WP) and for the activity.

Choose to allocate costs, such as Travel or Equipment to a specific WP or across all WPs of the same activity (RIA, IA, RTD, MGNT, etc). Plan in detail by breaking budget items into expense categories, make notes, and provide a justification for the planned costs. And as everywhere in EMDESK Classic, the coordinator can successively lock the costs of each partner.

Switch between project plan versions and export project data

EMDESK Classic provides an opportunity to save versions of Proposal or Description of Action (DoA) and keeps them on a file, so it is easy to switch between older and newer versions as needed.

You can create as many versions as you like, and continue working on a copy of any of them at any time. You can also export the project plan to a nicely formatted document that reflects any changes in the project. The document is provided in Office Open XML (DOCX) format and is ready to be opened and further edited in all major word processing tools like Microsoft Word.

Work together on the Proposal & DoA

Avoid time intensive emailing and document consolidation

With the Part B editor you can work on the structure and content of the Proposal or DoA. No need to circulate and consolidate document versions.

Start with a H2020 proposal template and edit the structure and contents to your project needs. Various users can work on different sections at the same time. The automatic edit lock features prevents others from overwriting current work – making sure users work on the latest version. Still we track changes made, so you can revert back to any previous state.

Based on the project plan, you can insert auto-generated tables (e.g. Work Package List, Budget Overview Table) into the document.

Your work can be export to a Word-file at any time to continue editing.

Project Implementation & Reporting

Get instant overview of project progress, deadlines, and deviations

Knowing where the project stands is possible with the dynamic Gantt chart of EMDESK Classic, which instantly at any time shows the project plan, progress, and all deviations.

As a project member, you can easily check the progress of any task or see how far the deliverable has been completed. The entire consortium is able to track the current progress by simply clicking on a work package, task, deliverable, or milestone to see further details, such as actual status, used person-months, responsibilities, and much more.

Control and analyse efficiently project budget and resources

Controlling functions of EMDESK Classic make it possible to get a complete overview of the H2020 project budget against actual costs as well as of planned resources against actual ones.

You can quickly get an overview or breakdown data of the budget and actual costs for any available dimension. Also, you have an opportunity to track and analyse the planned person-months vs. the actual reported person-months. A clear interface with bar charts lets you monitor the staff resources in total or for each partner, and in several dimensions.

Schedule and monitor progress for timely completion of deliverables

The extensive deliverable management tool of EMDESK Classic gives an opportunity to track the preparation of deliverables, work documents, and milestones, and thus helps to achieve project results on time.

You set the deadlines and assign responsible users for each step of the process to ensure effective collaboration and timely submission. The system notifies the person in charge and invites him to report the current status of the deliverable. Then the exported report consolidates the latest status input by each user per deliverable to give a complete overview of the work done.

Receive standardized descriptions of progress reports

The progress reporting function of EMDESK Classic makes it easy to collect the required work progress descriptions for each reporting period in a standardized format from work package (WP) leaders.

WP leaders are notified on time and redirected to the progress reporting page. Here, WP and task leaders can work together on their descriptions of progress, create drafts, or mark texts as final. Updates and changes become automatically visible and are instantly included in the exported reports, so you do not need to worry about consolidating versions or corrupted documents.

Track quickly and easily staff efforts and costs

EMDESK Classic comes with both a staff effort reporting feature and a cost reporting feature designed for H2020, which is a simple and intuitive way to record and track staff efforts and costs spent on a project.

In line with their in-house records, partners can report the total person-months spent on the project, work packages, or tasks for each specific period. The cost reporting interface provides partners with a central point for recording their actual costs when they occur. Instead of tracking costs item by item, you can also simply import them from a .csv template.

Export in one click the project data to Interim or Periodic Reports

The automatic report generator of EMDESK Classic extracts all progress descriptions, reported actual costs, spent resources, and other dissemination or cooperation data, as well as related information from the project plan (based on the H2020 reporting template).

For any given reporting period, you can export the current status of the project to an Interim or Periodic Report that is consistent and in line with the official guidelines and always reflects the latest update in the project. The document is provided in Office Open XML (DOCX) format and is ready to be opened and further edited in all major word processing tools like Microsoft Word.

Collaboration

Manage and share securely cdocuments without restrictions

EMDESK Classic provides you with a secure repository for online document management and sharing:

  • Get unlimited storage for organizing and sharing documents.
  • Define specific permissions for folders or documents.
  • Track document versions and check out/in documents.
  • Make documents accessible to the public via a public sharing link.
  • Assign documents to related project items.
  • Receive email digests on activities in the document manager.

Use calendar to track events related to projects

With EMDESK Classic, your consortium gets a shared project calendar, so that everyone can track all project events in one place.

  • Organize and schedule quickly and securely project events.
  • Let all project members get an overview of project events and stay on the schedule.
  • Get automatic mail notifications of new, upcoming, or changed events.
  • Receive automatic reporting of past events as Cooperation events in the relevant Interim or Periodic Reports.

Organize your project members into groups

EMDESK Classic has a group administration function that allows you to organize project members into different groups and mailing lists:

  • Use groups instead of individual users to define permissions, assign deliverables, or invite participants to an event.
  • Use groups as mailing lists – each group you create automatically gets a unique email address.
  • Assign individual privileges to group members for sending and/or receiving mails.

Pricing

Proposal Preparation Pro – 199€ / 6 months

Use the standard Proposal mode for your Horizon Europe projects for free without limitations and upgrade to the Proposal Pro version to enjoy a wide range of collaboration tools and unlimited support (all new proposals come with a 30-day free trial of the Proposal Pro).

Project management phase – 20€ per organization / month

Subscription fee depends on the number of partners and the project duration. A minimum order of 5 partners and 12 months applies, subject to official project duration. Unlimited users, webspace, and email support included.

Horizon Europe – the largest EU Research Framework Programme

Horizon Europe and Horizon 2020 (H2020) is the multiannual EU funding programme aimed to support and encourage research projects during the period from 2014 to 2020. It is the largest Research and Innovation Framework Programme in the history of the EU with a budget of almost €80 billion.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between EMDESK and EMDESK Classic version?

EMDESK Classic is a project management application, available since 2008 and designed for H2020 projects. In 2019, we introduced a more generic, more powerful project and work management solution for research and innovation projects – the new version of EMDESK. It helps large teams across organizations to organize and collaborate in co-funded projects while keeping maximum control and transparency.

I’m an EMDESK Classic user. What happens to my current subscription?

Nothing will happen to your EMDESK Classic subscription – no changes or actions are required for existing subscriptions. You will be able to use EMDESK Classic as long as needed, without limitations. We will provide the same quality of services as before, including updates, maintenance, and support.

Are there any additional or new costs for my subscription?

No. There will be no additional or new costs for your current subscription.

Can I extend my EMDESK Classic subscription? 

Yes, as long as needed.

Can I order EMDESK Classic for my H2020 project?

Yes, please contact us.

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Will you provide maintenance and support for EMDESK Classic?

Yes. We will provide the same quality of services as before, including updates, maintenance, and support.

Can I switch my EMDESK Classic subscription to the new EMDESK?

Yes. You have an opportunity to switch to the new EMDESK, however your data will not be automatically transferred there. You will need to create a new project using the new EMDESK and transfer the relevant data manually. Contact support to help you switch. 

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Can I try the new EMDESK?

Of course. You can try the new EMDESK for free. Simply sign up and start with a free trial that includes all the features.

Is my data automatically transferred to the new EMDESK?

The new EMDESK is a new software with great features, but there is no way to automatically transfer your data from the Classic version to the new one. You will need to set up your project in the new EMDESK and transfer the data manually. 

We can help you transfer the data for a charge. Please contact us and we will be glad to help you find the right solution for you.

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