Construction Viz

Project Management Perfect

Forms

Linked apps, where have you been?

Forms |

The new linked apps feature in Construction Viz allows creating any form within another form, like an action item within a meeting minute form or a change request in a risk form. Find out how this new feature can save time and improve your overall document control processes.

A need based on common real-world scenarios

If you think about the evolution of a change on a project, it might start with an issue, move to risk, get added to an RFI, and finally move to a change request to implement the change. Typically, these are all separate forms, but they are all part of an interrelated process to document and disposition a project change.

Taking a step back and looking at the entire change process, each form builds on the prior, from inception to implementation. Additional details, further justification, subsequent approvals, etc., are added at each stage of the change lifecycle.

If you can relate these separate processes together, project teams can streamline the process and build an audit trail to support the justification of the change.

Enter Construction Viz’s linked apps

With the new Construction Viz connected apps feature, you can create one or more form apps within another. For example, if you are filling out a risk form and want to generate a related change request, you can add the change request form linked component to the risk form settings.

When a user completes a risk form, the new component will show a window into the change request app where they can create one or more change requests without ever leaving the risk form. And the change request will automatically link back to the risk form and vice versa.

This functionality can be added to any form, creating a one-to-many relationship so that an entire process can be automatically related.

Linked apps are just one of the many features we have added to Construction Viz to enhance information management on a project further. You can request a demo of Construction here.

Not ready to move to an enterprise construction management system or need help with Microsoft 365? You can request a free 1-hour Microsoft 365 consultation request with our experts here.

Construction Viz for Microsoft 365 Product Demo
Webinar - September 7, 2023, 11:00 AM PST
Participate in this interactive session to share your challenges and learn more about Construction Viz for Microsoft 365.
Learn More

Improve Project Efficiency with New Schedule Views for Construction Viz

Forms |

Construction forms such as submittals, RFIs, and daily reports are tightly integrated with project schedules but can get lost among the hundreds or thousands of potential activities. To manage forms effectively, it’s not enough to just see them included in a weekly schedule report. It is essential to evaluate inquiries promptly and efficiently in real-time to address any possible schedule disruptions.

These inquiries may include the following:

  • Did the contractor adhere to the contractual obligations by submitting their documents on time?
  • Was the review of Requests for Information (RFIs) conducted within the agreed-upon deadlines?
  • Were the daily inspections conducted as scheduled?

You need a simple and quick way to answer these questions and more in your construction project management software solution. The problem is that the typical form logs found in most PMISs allow you to sort and filter on due dates, but it lacks form-specific Gantt chart views to manage deliverables.

Our new form view feature for Construction Viz solves this shortcoming.

Construction Viz gives you a clear view of your form data

With the new Construction Viz schedule views, you can visualize any of our apps in a traditional Gantt chart view accessible from within the app itself. Now, you have the best of both worlds, the detailed analysis of form data in interactive logs and a Gantt chart focused specifically on the form.

Construction Viz System Outage Request app All Items List (“Form Log”) View
Construction Viz System Outage Request app with new schedule view

Construction Viz Scheduler view sample

Customizable form-specific schedules

You can further tailor Construction Viz’s new schedule views for a specific form. For example, baseline vs. the current schedule, resources assignment, and critical path could be added to the submittal form app while not adding those features to the daily report app. And you can roll up schedule data captured in each form app into an overall master schedule.

The new schedule view keeps team leads and members focused on meeting their specific deliverable dates using an intuitive and interactive Gantt chart.

Find out more about Construction Viz features and apps for Microsoft 365 here.

Don’t Let an Outage Manage You: The New Construction Viz Outage Request App

Forms |

Keeping your entire team in the loop when planning an outage can be challenging. Effectively managing an outage event involves many more steps and considerations than just placing an activity into the master schedule to identify an outage. You must consider documentation needs and the formal approvals required to manage the event effectively.

Construction Viz Outrage Request form app

We designed the Construction Viz System Outage Request form app to capture as much information as possible to prevent an outage from negatively impacting the overall project schedule. The form app captures outage information such as start and end times, location, systems affected, justification, and work groups required to plan the outage and minimize downtime.

In addition to capturing outage-specific information, users can identify assets impacted, relate drawings, add document attachments, upload images, add links, route for review and approval, issue email notifications, and capture revisions. Also, because all Construction Viz apps are deployable into your Microsoft 365 tenant, you can add your custom Power Automate workflows. For example, you could use Power Automate to automatically update team members on changes, add Power BI dashboards and reports, and update Microsoft Teams with workflow progress.

With the Construction Viz Outage Request form app, you will be better prepared to plan and manage outages while keeping your team members in the know.

Visit the apps section of ConstrictionViz.com to learn more about our entire lineup of apps for construction project management. Schedule a free one-hour consultation here to get more information about Construction Viz or how we can help with Microsoft 365 services.

Powerful and Smart Permit Management: The New Construction Viz Permit App

Forms |

Effective permit management is one of the biggest challenges I have seen organizations struggle with during my years working on construction projects. Often, effective permit management determines whether a team completes a project on time.

Managing permits should be pretty simple: add the permit need date and issue date to a schedule, and off you go. Unfortunately, permits have a life of their own and, if not carefully managed, can have substantial downstream impacts.

The above is why our latest app for Construction Viz will be invaluable to construction project managers. Read on to learn more.

Introducing the new Construction Viz Permit App for Microsoft 365

With the Construction Viz Permit App, we wanted to focus on four areas of permits management:

  1. Planning – You can create a placeholder form for each permit type required on a project. These placeholder forms capture the needed date of when that permit must be issued so as not to affect the schedule.
  2. Filing and Issued Dates – Once you file a permit, it can get lost in the shuffle and requires constant follow-up. With the Permit app’s grid view you can filter by status, see when the permit was filed, and if it has been issued yet.
  3. Expiration Dates – Expiring permits can be a significant issue on larger long-duration projects with many permits. The Permit app lets users filter and sort the permit grid view by expiration date so that you can re-submit a permit that is due to expire in a timely manner.
  4. Notifications – Team members need to be notified as soon as possible if permit need dates are not going to be met or when a permit will expire. We’ve included our notification email component in the Permit app so that at any point in time, you can easily email all of your stakeholders with an update. Also, we can include a Power Automate workflow that checks all permit need dates in advance and makes the owner aware of the due dates and expiration dates in email and Microsoft Teams.

To extend the capabilities even further, we’ve also included, by default, the ability to assign a WBS, add links specifications, connect to the Drawings app, create permit revisions, and even add a formal review process to ensure permits are dispositioned in a timely manner. We tried to cover all bases with the new Permit app, so you can hit the ground running.

Find out more about the new Permit app or any of our other construction apps for Microsoft 365 by visiting https://constructionviz.com/apps/  or by requesting a demo here.

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

Forms |

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.

Legally-Compliant_1

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.

Legally-Compliant_2

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

Forms |

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.
EnterpriseSubmittal_2

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.