Construction Viz

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Construction Viz Cost Worksheet App Offers Excel Flexibility with Enterprise Control

Cost Management Tools |

As a former Project Controls Manager, I spent years living in Excel.

Like many Cost Engineers, I relied on it daily because it was flexible, fast, and adaptable to the realities of construction projects. Forecasts evolve constantly and may involve many different data sources. Teams need to adjust assumptions, update projections, analyze variances, and respond quickly as projects move.

The problem was never Excel itself.

The problem was what happened next.

Every reporting period, those forecasts still had to be re-entered into rigid enterprise systems for management reporting, approvals, and historical tracking. That created duplicate work, disconnected workflows, and too many opportunities for inconsistencies between what project teams were using and what management was reviewing.

That’s the gap we set out to close with the new Construction Viz Cost Worksheet app.

Instead of forcing teams to abandon Excel, we built a solution that works with it while bringing enterprise-level controls, reporting, and traceability into a centralized Microsoft 365 and SharePoint environment.

No more “two worlds.”

Built Around Real Construction Cost Forecasting Workflows

Construction cost forecasting is naturally period-driven, typically monthly. Each reporting period represents the team’s best estimate at that point in time.

The Cost Worksheet app was designed around that reality.

Cost Engineers can import or edit costs directly for a specific period while management gains clean, structured reporting and review workflows across the organization.

Key capabilities include:

  • Period-based cost forecasting and reporting
  • Month-over-month period duplication to minimize data entry
  • Full historical traceability for analytics and trend reporting
  • Formal review and approval workflows
  • Period locking for finalized reporting cycles

One of the biggest advantages of this approach is that historical data remains intact. Teams can analyze how forecasts have evolved over time, rather than overwriting previous assumptions and losing visibility into project progress.

That historical perspective matters. It improves accountability, supports better executive reporting, and provides a clearer understanding of project performance trends across reporting periods.

We Didn’t Fight Excel. We Embraced It.

Many enterprise software solutions aim to replace Excel entirely.

In practice, that often creates friction for project teams who still need the flexibility Excel provides for real-world forecasting and analysis.

We took a different approach.

The Construction Viz Cost Worksheet app enables teams to work in Excel while bringing structure, governance, and reporting to the broader Construction Viz platform.

Key Excel integration capabilities include:

  • Load current records from the system into a spreadsheet-like view to make changes without even needing to import a new Excel file
  • Direct Excel imports, not just CSV uploads
  • Pre-import validation in a spreadsheet view with real-time error checking
  • Smart updates that add or update existing records
  • Imported files are automatically stored in SharePoint for auditability and traceability

The application also includes the same interactive grid capabilities used throughout the Construction Viz platform, including:

  • Filtering, grouping, sorting, and searching
  • Inline edits
  • Calculations and variances
  • Show/hide columns
  • Export back to Excel

The goal was not to eliminate flexibility. The goal was to preserve it while creating a cleaner enterprise process around it.

Enterprise-Ready by Default

The Cost Worksheet app is fully integrated into the broader Construction Viz app ecosystem and includes the enterprise capabilities organizations expect from a modern project controls platform.

That includes:

  • Permissions management
  • Document uploads and remarks
  • Status and review workflows
  • PDF and Excel exports
  • Dashboards and reporting
  • Centralized data management in Microsoft 365 / SharePoint

We strongly believe Microsoft 365 and SharePoint provide one of the best foundations for configurable construction management solutions.

Most organizations are already invested in the Microsoft ecosystem. Rather than introducing another disconnected platform, Construction Viz extends the tools companies already use with flexible applications tailored to construction workflows.

That creates a better balance between usability, governance, reporting, and long-term scalability.

One System. One Source of Truth.

Construction teams should not have to choose between the flexibility of Excel and enterprise controls.

They should have both.

We designed the Construction Viz Cost Worksheet app to bridge that gap by supporting how Cost Engineers already work while giving management the reporting structure, visibility, and historical traceability needed across the organization.

One system. One source of truth. Built in Microsoft 365 and SharePoint.

Want to see the Construction Viz Cost Worksheet app in action? Contact us to schedule a demo and learn how Construction Viz combines the flexibility of Excel with enterprise-grade project controls in Microsoft 365 and SharePoint.

Get a Free Consultation

Form Analytics on Steroids With the New Form Details View

Forms |

You put all of this metadata into your construction forms; now what?

The new Construction Viz form details view takes data captured in forms and presents it in a way that you can analyze until your heart’s content. No need to export to Excel, go to SharePoint, or create a Power BI to search or report on how many pieces of equipment were on the jobsite over the past five days or how many open reviews there are for all of your submittals. In one or two clicks, you can get to your data presented in familiar and straightforward interactive grids.

Check out this article to see how Construction Viz continues to push the envelope of what’s possible in your Microsoft 365 SharePoint to help you manage your construction projects!

Introducing the Construction Viz Form Details View

Construction Viz form apps are built using a combination of components; snippets of code with specific functionality such as a document uploader, review tracking, or a media map. While there are many pre-built construction form applications, components can be assembled to deliver solutions for a client’s unique needs.

Equipment tracking in a Daily Report

Some of these components capture large amounts of data, such as each piece of equipment at a jobsite, personnel and visitors on site, observations made, bid quantities completed, and stakeholder reviews.

While every form app has its own log with the ability to create views, filter, search, group, etc., the form details view extracts data from these data-intensive components into a separate view, allowing users the ability to group, filter, search, and analyze that specific component data independent of the forms.

It’s a new level of analytics that opens up many more opportunities to extract meaning from your data in real time.

Form Details of equipment from a Daily Report

So, do you feel like you are just putting a bunch of data into forms and not getting much out? Check out Construction Viz for Microsoft 365 to actually use the data you fill out in your forms. Request a no-obligation demo to learn how Construction Viz can transform how you manage your projects.

Request a Free Demo

Spotlight: Construction Viz Risk Enterprise App

Risk Management |

Construction projects and programs are inherently risky. Loosely defined scope, unrealistic schedules, and unknown field conditions are just some of the challenges project managers face throughout the life of a project. We created the Construction Viz Risk Enterprise app to help PMs keep an eye on and mitigate potential risks.

Check out this article to see how this application will help you manage your portfolio, program, or project risks in YOUR Microsoft 365 SharePoint.

What Makes the Construction Viz Enterprise Risk App Special?

The key areas of risk management are:

  1. Identification. Identify all the details of the risk and when it is likely to occur.
  2. Assessment. Determine the risk level by probability and impact to prioritize risks.
  3. Mitigation. Identify who is responsible for mitigating the risk and what the plan entails.

Our Risk Enterprise app tracks each of the three areas above, but Construction Viz includes several unique features that make it stand out.

Multi-project risk assessment templates

Construction Viz allows organizations to create one or hundreds of projects in one SharePoint deployment. Multi-project deployments can impact how risks are managed overall. Not all risks across all projects in a portfolio or program are created equal. They might each have their unique levels of cost and schedule impact. For example, a $500k impact on a $1M project has a higher risk than a $500k one on a $100M project.

To accommodate these nuances and the unique risk impact levels requested by clients, Construction Viz includes project risk templates assignable by project. Risk level templates can have their own values, risk matrix, heat map, and risk value calculation.

Embedded apps

What if a risk becomes a change of scope to the project? You might not want to have two disconnected form logs, one for the risk and one for the changes.

In Construction Viz, you can embed any app into another app. So, you can create a Change app form while still in the Enterprise Risk form. Both form apps are automatically linked, and a complete history is maintained in each form app log.

Out-of-the-box product features

Construction Viz includes many powerful features across all apps. By default, every app includes the ability to:

  • Relate drawings and specifications
  • Create revisions
  • Send for review and approval
  • Email to project teams
  • Upload any file type
  • Generate reports that will convert all of the attachments to PDF
  • Add links

Our apps do all the above and more, all while ensuring 24/7 access to your data in your SharePoint.

If you are looking for a project, program, or portfolio tool to manage risks, you can request a demo of Construction Viz below.

Request a Free Demo

AECOM Streamlines Submittals & Document Control for Major ADOT Project with Construction Viz

Case Study |

Arizona Department of Transportation_2024 Department Logo_Tertia

Overview

  • AECOM needed a scalable document management and correspondence solution to support a major Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) highway project.
  • Lydon Solutions deployed a tailored suite of Construction Viz apps within AECOM’s Microsoft 365 environment, enabling robust submittal tracking, streamlined collaboration, and contract compliance.
  • The solution delivered immediate value with minimal customization, preserving long-term maintainability while aligning with AECOM’s unique workflows.
AECOM_2

Challenge

AECOM, one of the most recognized and successful construction consulting firms globally, needed a comprehensive document management and correspondence solution to support the largest Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) highway project in southeast Arizona’s history.

To manage the scale and complexity of the project, AECOM needed a centralized, secure document management and correspondence solution. A key requirement was implementing a robust submittal process driven by the project’s submittal register and organized by discipline.

Photo credit: Arizona Department of Transportation

Solution

Lydon Solutions partnered with AECOM to understand the project’s unique workflows and quickly configured a tailored suite of Construction Viz apps deployed directly to AECOM’s Microsoft 365 environment.

While Lydon Solutions had previously delivered a similar solution for HDR on other high-profile ADOT projects, AECOM required custom enhancements to align with its specific review and approval processes.

For this project, Lydon Solutions deployed the following Construction Viz apps :

  • Document Binder
  • Meeting Minutes
  • RFI
  • Submittal
  • Enterprise Submittal
  • Task Manager
  • Transmittal

In addition, Lydon Solutions introduced key enhancements, including:

  • A new Disciplines field in the Personnel Settings and Enterprise Submittal Register
  • Automated reviewer assignment based on discipline, streamlining the submittal process and improving review accuracy and efficiency

This enhancement allows disciplines to be assigned to both personnel and submittal records, dynamically updating the reviewer lists for submittals and ensuring efficient and targeted reviews.

Photo credit: Arizona Department of Transportation

Benefits

Construction Viz for Microsoft 365 delivered immediate value for AECOM and the ADOT project team:

✅ Centralized Document Management & Collaboration

Construction Viz serves as the single source of truth for document control, facilitating real-time collaboration for all project stakeholders.

✅ Contract Submittal Compliance

The Enterprise Submittal Register enforces contract requirements, enabling tracking, targeted reviews, and schedule alignment from a centralized platform.

✅ Scalable, Client-Specific Customization

Construction Viz was easily tailored to AECOM’s unique processes while maintaining its out-of-the-box structure as the foundation. The flexibility of Construction Viz ensures consistency and long-term maintainability in contrast with other platforms that require heavy customization and create ongoing support challenges.

AECOM_logo-lg

“AECOM is using CVIZ on the Arizona Department of Transportation Design-Build project I-10, Kino to Country Club. The Lydon Solutions team made CVIZ setup and implementation seamless and continue to proactively support the project.”

— Brian Ravesloot, AECOM, GEC Project Manager

About Construction Viz

Built on Microsoft 365 and SharePoint, Construction Viz is a flexible project management platform offering modular apps tailored to construction workflows. Learn more about the features of Construction Viz and our lineup of construction apps for Microsoft 365.

Get a Free Consultation

Phase 3 of the Construction Viz Questionnaire: Now with Geolocated Photos

Forms |

The Questionnaire component for Construction Viz is a powerful and dynamic feature that you can add to any of our construction form apps to capture questions and responses. With Phase 3, we included the ability to add geolocated photos to every response! Discover how this enhancement will elevate field inspections.

Our team recently released a new questionnaire component that Construction Viz users can add to any form app to collect unique response types for each question, including text, checkboxes, dates, numbers, and locations. Phase 2 of our enhancement roadmap allowed users to include ad hoc comments to each response.

Add Geolocated Photos to Your Construction Forms

With Phase 3, you can now take photos or upload as many images as needed for each response. The ability to attach pictures is a huge benefit for field inspections or when creating a punch list, where progress or issues need to be identified and supported by photos.

LS_Questionnaire_Images

Additionally, we have connected our interactive flyout menu, allowing you to see each image in a full-screen view and add metadata such as a title, description, and geospatial location. If you don’t know the latitude and longitude of where a photo was taken or have location services turned off with your mobile device, you have the option to move a pin on a map to set the desired location to capture Lat/Long.

As with all of our Construction Viz apps, the data is stored in your Microsoft 365 SharePoint lists and libraries.

Stay tuned: we are currently working on a few more powerful features for the questionnaire component, including providing lookups as a new data type to allow users to select data, such as a building inventory, from a predefined list.

Lydon Solutions continues to innovate and deliver solutions to real-world construction challenges with Construction Viz. You can request a demo of Construction Viz for Microsoft 365 below.

Get a Free Demo

Customize Form Statuses and Notifications with Construction Viz

Notifications |

Configurable statuses and notifications for the way you work!

Every company, project, and project manager manages construction projects differently. Having unique form statuses and defining when a user receives a notification is no different. Check out this article to see how Construction Viz can adapt form statuses and notifications to your processes.

Customize Statuses and Notifications Easily in Construction Viz

Keeping your process flexible is the name of the game in construction, and this is why we built a custom form app status and notification feature in Construction Viz.

Form statuses can be different on every project, depending on the contract requirement. For example, you might want a form review status of a submittal to be “Ready for Review” instead of “Open” or an RFI status to be “Acknowledge” instead of “Review Required.” These may be slight differences, but depending on the client, they can make a big difference with regard to ball in court and turnaround time.

With Construction Viz, you can create your own statuses, identify default statuses when you create a new form, and determine which ones will trigger a notification for users to take action. We made the entire process simple and straightforward so you can set up quickly and focus on what matters: getting work done.

See our lineup of construction form apps here.

Construction Project Management Your Way

Our configurable statuses and notification features let you customize your communication workflows to meet your needs. You can find out more about Construction Viz on the features page.

Ready to streamline your construction project workflows? Discover how Construction Viz can revolutionize your project management. Request a free demo today and see the difference it can make for your organization.

Get a Free Demo