Construction Viz

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Generate a Power BI Dashboard from Microsoft Lists in Three Clicks with Construction Viz

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Microsoft 365 Lists is a relatively new app that allows users to view and create interactive lists for managing items such as tasks, issues, and even assets for a construction project. If you have used Microsoft SharePoint Online, Lists will seem familiar since it uses the same list technology.

Construction Viz leverages SharePoint lists and libraries to store project data so you can be assured that it is always safe and available 24x7. And because both Microsoft Lists and Construction Viz both use SharePoint lists under the hood, you can interact with your lists in either application. For example, you can use Microsoft Lists to view, create reports, and interact with any of your lists without going into Construction Viz or SharePoint.

RFIs with revisions displayed in Construction Viz and Microsoft 365 Lists
RFIs with revisions displayed in Construction Viz and Microsoft 365 Lists

To access an existing  Construction Viz SharePoint list from Microsoft Lists, click the new list button and select an existing Teams site or SharePoint site to find an available list.

View of the New List menu in Microsoft Lists
View of the New List menu in Microsoft Lists

One of the great features of Microsoft Lists is its ability to quickly create a Power BI report from the list with as little as three clicks. From Microsoft Lists, if you click Integrate, select Power BI, and then Visualize the List, Power BI will assess all of your list data fields and automatically generate a configurable dashboard. With a few minor changes, you can quickly publish a powerful dashboard to report on the status of your list data, such as your Construction Viz RFI log.

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This is just one of many integrations with Microsoft 365 services that Construction Viz can leverage.

You can request a demo of Construction Viz here to learn how to get the most out of your Microsoft 365 investment to manage your construction projects.

Construction Viz Dynamic Profiles Lets You Create Targeted User Experiences

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One of the many challenges to implementing an enterprise construction Project Management Information System (PMIS) is getting the entire project team to use the system. With Construction Viz dynamic profiles, we made it so every user can have their own unique system experience, as simple or complex as needed.

How do dynamic profiles work in Construction Viz?

As a construction project owner, you might want to make two different instances of the Construction Viz interface: one for your internal team members with access to all of the project’s applications and a second for your contractor with access to only some applications. You would start by creating a new owner profile, customize the interface with your logo, project title, and a unique color scheme. Then you select all the applications you want to be activated for the owner profile.

Dynamic profile for the owner with 26 apps selected for a project
Dynamic profile for the owner with 26 apps selected for a project

Once you complete the owner profile, you next create a new contractor profile (customizing the interface with their logo, project title, and a unique color scheme), selecting only the specific project applications you want to be active for them.

Dynamic profile for Initech contractor with only three applications selected: Dashboards, RFIs, and Submittals for the same project
Dynamic profile for Initech contractor with only three applications selected: Dashboards, RFIs, and Submittals for the same project

You can further customize each profile by choosing what components (e.g., Initial Reviews, Attachments, Mapping, Images) to enable or disable within each activated application. Dynamic profiles let you target exactly what you need your team members to do in Construction Viz and create a truly custom experience depending on who is logging into your project.

Dynamic profile for Initech contractor with the RFI Initial Review by owner component disabled
Dynamic profile for Initech contractor with the RFI Initial Review by owner component disabled

With configurable dynamic profiles, you can change the entire user experience for every team member depending on their role, assignments, organization, department, or company.

How are Construction Viz dynamic profiles different than permissions?

Our dynamic profiles feature is unique because it works hand in hand with permissions. So, while you might create a dynamic profile for a contractor activating specific apps and components for them, you can still use permissions to assign team members with read or write access to content.

How can I find out more?

Construction Viz is the only enterprise-scale construction management solution for Microsoft 365. You can find out more about what makes Construction Viz different than its competitors and the available apps. To schedule a demo, click here.

Stay Legally Compliant with Microsoft 365 and the New Construction Viz Records Management Feature

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The new Construction Viz records management feature of our construction form apps builds on Microsoft 365 and SharePoint to add capabilities optimized for construction project management. Read on to learn more.

Construction organizations generate a significant amount of information on projects. Everything from documents to construction forms is collected, organized, reviewed, and stored day-to-day. Once final, all these various materials need to turn into records.

Microsoft defines a record as follows:

“A record is a document or other electronic or physical entity in an organization that serves as evidence of an activity or transaction performed by the organization and requires retention for some time period.”

Organizations typically preserve records for legal reasons. Having effective records management functionality built into your construction project management solution is critical to meeting compliance and regulatory requirements and avoiding offline workarounds.

Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online includes robust records management functionality by default, allowing the ability to manage the entire lifecycle of files. You can set up information management policy workflows to convert files into non-editable records based on retention codes. The same workflows can determine when files have met the retention schedules and dispose of those records. You can find out more about SharePoint Online records management here.

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How the Construction Viz records management feature streamlines compliance

Since Construction Viz deploys into Microsoft 365 SharePoint Online, you can already leverage SharePoint's default records retention for any documents generated in our platform. The new records management feature that we've added to our Construction Viz form apps complements SharePoint by enhancing its record retention functionality for construction projects. Creating a record is simple with our tool's “Create a Record” option which makes a form read-only and restricts edits to only system admins. Construction Viz captures when a user converts a form to a record to meet compliance requirements and provide additional reporting.

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Microsoft 365 SharePoint Online records management can help you manage your construction records. Find out how Construction Viz extends the capability of Microsoft 365 to manage all of your construction project records here.

Introducing Construction Viz Enterprise Submittal Form

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Submittals are staples on every construction project as a standard communication tool between contractors and the owner, construction manager (CM), or general contractor (GC) for contractual deliverables. The submittal process involves contractors completing a submittal form with the necessary metadata like project name and package, attaching the required documents, and sending it to the owner/CM/GC for review and approval. It’s a pretty straightforward process, but larger organizations have more stringent compliance, reporting, and scheduling requirements for adhering to a contractual submittal register.

We are excited to announce a new Construction Viz Submittal Enterprise Form, a variant of our standard Submittal Form, to address this need. The new enterprise form extends our lineup of existing construction project form apps.

Features of the Construction Viz Submittal Enterprise Form app

So how is the enterprise version different from our standard Submittal form app?

With the Submittal Enterprise form, we placed the submittal register at the center of the process while making it even easier for a contractor to fill out. The new Submittal Enterprise form boasts the following enhancements.

New submittal register

  • Robust, customizable register: Enter as many contractual submittal register items as needed into a configurable grid with all the metadata you need for each project.
  • Permission controlled: Only users with the correct permissions can update the register. Similarly, contractors can only view and select register items within a submittal form that you permit them to access.
  • Monitor due dates: The form app enables tracking and monitoring submittal due dates and re-occurring instances, such as monthly schedule submissions or weekly reports, for compliance.
  • Extensibility: You can customize the form to support other applications as needed, such as enabling the submittal register component to plan daily inspections or track custom specifications.
Enhancements to the submittal form
Enhancements to the submittal form
  • Easy creation: Contractors only need to select a few fields in a submittal to auto-populate the rest of the form from the register, minimizing training, reducing data entry, and ensuring data integrity throughout the process.
  • Helpful tooltips: Tooltips are available to display only the submittal register packages assigned to each contractor, further reducing errors when creating a submittal.
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The Construction Viz Submittal Enterprise form is available as a single application or bundled in a suite of Microsoft 365 applications to fit your organization’s specific needs. While Construction Viz delivers out-of-the-box applications to get you started right away, all of our applications are further customizable as needed by the client and project. Learn more with a demo and consultation today.

How Project Tracker Makes Remote Teams More Productive

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Managing your construction projects with remote team members presents its challenges. The Construction Viz Project Tracker app helps your remote project teams stay in the loop and on track.

The Remote Work Challenge

Working remotely is becoming the new normal. Remote team members need access to collaborative tools that work efficiently in increasingly disjointed environments. Using email for project communication has always been pervasive, but now it is the band-aid way to replace face-to-face team discussion.

The new normal of remote work puts even more burden on project managers. Not only do they have their core responsibilities, but now they often find themselves assuming the role of data entry clerks collecting project information from many different sources to update excel spreadsheets.

Without in-person meetings or the ability to stop by someone’s desk for a quick update, project teams need to embrace a new paradigm to make remote work more efficient.

Construction Viz Project Tracker as the Remote Work Productivity Solution

Wouldn’t it be nice if your team could make their updates directly in an easy-to-use web-based work management application, thereby allowing your project manager to focus on analyzing and forecasting project progress? No more wasted time on data entry and online meetings.

The Construction Viz Project Tracker app puts the team at the forefront. Project Tracker has enough detail that each stakeholder can quickly provide scope, schedule, and budget updates for their tasks. The app displays project milestone statuses in an intuitive stop-light dashboard.  Updates are made by simply filtering on your tasks and clicking on the status icon.  Team members automatically receive email alerts when tasks are due. They can get directly to their tasks with interactive configurable dashboard views, minimizing the need to chase down and follow-up with responsible parties.

The Project Tracker has been successfully used to manage multi-million dollar programs across many different disciplines. In one program alone, a client used it to manage over 6,000 projects and almost 400,000 activities, spread across seven functional teams.

Find out more about how the Project Tracker and our suite of collaborative apps can help you remotely manage project teams by scheduling a no-obligation demo and consultation today.

Construction Viz Feature: Flexible Workflow Management

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Construction projects can be very unique, not unlike the work processes supporting them. It's not uncommon for workflows to remain "fluid" through most of a project lifecycle as scoping requirements change, team members join, and the parties involved agree to work processes. This inherently dynamic nature of construction projects is why we designed Construction Viz to be as flexible as possible.

Construction Viz lets you work the way you want, with pre-configured ad-hoc workflows built into each app. And you can further customize your workflows by leveraging the power of Microsoft 365 Power Automate. No other construction project management software gives you so much control over how you get your projects done and delivers solutions right in your own Microsoft 365.

Construction Viz workflow features

Workflows are critical for managing projects in a project management information system (PMIS). Project teams use them to route forms for review, populate fields based on conditions, and email content for review and approval, to name just a few examples.

So what workflow features does Construction Viz offer?

Out-of-the-box workflows – You get access to ad-hoc workflows with Construction Viz on day one. Pick a reviewer, assign a due date, and send it off for action.

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Email notifications – You can send automated actionable emails to a single reviewer or a group of reviewers. A complete email history log ensures your emails are never lost.

System notifications – Every user you assign as a reviewer receives a notification alert within the Construction Viz Hub with actionable drill-down capabilities.

Form due dates – Based on priority, you can automate standard Target Due to ensure adherence to contract requirements.

Ball in court – Every form log includes a ball-in-court displaying each reviewer's status so you can analyze the data across all records.

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Dashboards – Dashboards display every record by status and by each reviewer so you can quickly identify bottlenecks.

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Reports – Outstanding response reports provide formal documents you can export to PDF, Excel, Word, etc.

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Microsoft 365 Power Automate integration – Power Automate is Microsoft's enterprise workflow solution for Microsoft 365. Construction Viz deeply integrates with Power Automate allowing users to create custom workflows and add them to any of our apps, extending the capabilities and providing unlimited possibilities. Here are a few examples:

  • Automating complex Construction Viz team review and approvals based on form conditions
  • Integrating Construction Viz data with Microsoft 365 services such as Outlook, To Do, Planner, Excel, Teams, and even external systems like SAP and Oracle.
  • Automating Construction Viz Power BI report creation and distribution
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Check out my previous blog article, Your Flows, Your PMIS: Power Automate & Construction Viz, for more information about how Construction Viz and Power Automate can turbocharge your construction project workflows.

Learn more about Construction Viz

Construction Viz is all about choice, and it is the only construction management software platform built for Microsoft 365 and designed around how you work and where you work. Find out more about Construction Viz and how we can help you manage your projects with a free, no-obligation consultation and demo.