Construction Viz

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Construction software

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.

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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

Construction Viz Questionnaire Phase 2 and Beyond!

Forms |

After building a truly dynamic questionnaire feature into Construction Viz, we quickly followed up with the ability to add comments to every response.

Check out this post to see how this small but super helpful feature provides even more flexibility to the Questionnaire component and see what's coming down the pike!

New Construction Questionnaire Comments Field Enhancement

Questionnaires need to be as dynamic as possible. Based on client feedback, users wanted the ability to add comments to each response to provide further explanation. For example, when completing an inspection report, the inspector might indicate a non-compliance issue per their observation checklist and use the new comments feature for that specific response to further elaborate as to why.

The comments can be printed to PDF with the form using the report wizard. As with all Construction Viz apps, the tool automatically saves the data to the client's Microsoft 365 SharePoint site.

A Preview of the Roadmap

We have several more exciting enhancements on the roadmap that will add even more features to the questionnaire component very soon, including:

  • Adding photos to every response, including geospatial data. This enhancement will make collecting punch-list items a breeze.
  • Sorting through and finding photos quickly with a new image view that displays all photos added to a questionnaire, complete with metadata.
  • Pulling data from a centralized list with a new lookup response type. This feature will enable organizations to establish standard lists, such as a set of inventory materials that you can assign to each response as you complete it.

And that is just a small preview of what's to come. Stay tuned for more updates.

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

Location, Location, Location: Add Location Data to Images and Video with Construction Viz

Media |

It’s handy to know where photos and videos are taken in the field, especially when filling out a daily or inspection report. Check out this article to see how Construction Viz can enhance your experience with its robust geolocation features.

data to construction images

Geolocating Images and Video in Construction Viz

Adding images and videos to a field report is a must for documenting project progress and identifying defects. Knowing where the photos or videos were taken helps to provide additional metadata and context.

Construction Viz can automatically and manually geolocate each image or video using a simple but effective mapping UI. To start, Construction Viz automatically geolocates files using the following logic when uploading the photos or video:

  • If the device location is enabled, Construction Viz uses the device's latitude and longitude as the location.
  • If location data is not available for the device or files, Construction Viz uses the project's latitude and longitude for location.
  • If no project, device, or file location is available, then a location in the middle of the U.S. is used as a starting point.

Moving the Location Pins

While assigning a default latitude and longitude for images and videos is a big time saver, Construction Viz also includes an interactive geolocation feature where users can move a pin to the exact location on a modal map. This custom geolocator can be especially handy if no existing latitude and longitude data is associated with the files, and you are back at the office completing your report.

Finally, to make this feature as flexible and easy to use as possible, Construction Viz provides three options to update files:

  1. Upon uploading an image or video from the device
  2. From within the uploaded grid view of all files
  3. Using the flyout menu

So, depending on your preference, there is an approach that will fit your work process.

Ready to streamline your construction project workflows? Discover how Construction Viz can revolutionize your project management with built-in image and video geolocation, as well as other powerful features. Request a free demo today by filling out the form below, and see the difference it can make for your organization.

New eSignature Feature for Construction Viz 

Construction Viz, Project Management, Project Management Tools |

As construction organizations move from paper processes to web-based project management tools, the adoption of electronic approvals has been mixed. Clicking an approved button that registers your account name and date is standard in most construction management systems. However, some organizations and specific forms still require digital or wet signatures. While several electronic signature tools are on the market, their ease of use and cost can be a deterrent. We added a free and easy-to-use digital signature feature to Construction Viz to capture signatures in any of our forms. Read on to discover how our simple signature feature might address your challenges. 

Several signature solutions are available for SharePoint, including the new built-in SharePoint eSignature subscription service that will be available soon. The benefit of these tools is that files that receive signatures never leave your Microsoft 365 tenant, ensuring your data remains secure and in your control.  

Leveraging these eSignatures through SharePoint is great but does require additional subscription costs and administration. What if you want something simpler and at no extra cost?  

Construction Viz eSignatures Feature for Construction Forms

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With the Construction Viz eSignature feature, signatures are available on any form in the review components. For example, say you want an inspector to sign a daily report digitally. We can activate eSignatures in your Construction Viz settings to automatically add eSignatures to all your daily report forms. 

Since this new eSignature feature is built into Construction Viz, we included additional controls such as: 

  • Only the user assigned the review can sign their signatures. 
  • If a user is removed from the reviewers, their signature is removed as well.  
  • Administrators are restricted from signing on behalf of a user.  
  • eSignatures are available on any Construction Viz form! 
  • eSignatures print in form reports! 
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Our new eSignature feature is perfect if you need a simple, free solution within Construction Viz. You can find out more about Construction Viz by requesting a demonstration here. 

Construction Viz Task Manager 2.0 – Gantt Charts Coming to Task Management

Project Management, Project Management Tools, Scheduling |

The Construction Viz Task Manager app for Microsoft 365 delivers a simple yet powerful way to track and report on project tasks. It is a stand-alone application in Construction Viz but can be integrated into any other application, such as RFIs, Submittals, or Meeting Minutes. With the latest update, we’ve moved the needle significantly on project task management to include scheduling, checklists, and sub-tasks!

Read on to find out more about how our updated Task Manager app can help you organize and track tasks for your projects.

What is New in Construction Viz Task Manager 2.0

We built the Task Manager so that team members have a 360-degree view of project tasks. The Task Manager includes the following views:

  • Dashboard – Displays charts of key metrics with drill-down capability.
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  • List – Provides a log of all tasks with filtering, grouping, and search.
  • Board – Displays a Kanban view for updating the status of tasks.
  • Calendar – Plots tasks on a familiar calendar with today, day, week, month, and agenda views.

With the latest Task Manager release, we are extending the functionality to include lightweight scheduling. So, if you are looking for a three-week look ahead project schedule tool or prefer a Gantt chart-style view of your tasks, we’ve got you covered.

This release includes the following updates to the Task Manager app:

  • Schedule View – A new view that displays all tasks in a familiar Gantt chart schedule. The schedule includes scheduling controls to filter and change displays.
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  • Task Schedule component – We added a scheduling component to the task form for managing start and finish dates, times, all-day events, and durations.
  • Task Checklist component – We added a checklist component to the task form to track items needed to complete the overall task. The checklist allows for drag-and-drop ordering, auto-assign completed by, and completed dates.
  • Sub-task component – We added a component to the task form to add sub-tasks to a task. Sub-tasks include fields for the required by date, forecasted completion date, status, and percent complete.
  • Visual alerts – We updated the mouse-over tooltips and added color indicators across views to display late and incomplete tasks. These visual alerts will help project teams stay on track.
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While these updates are significant, we are just getting started. We plan on further extending the scheduling capabilities of the Construction Viz Task Manager app, including dependencies and resource management. Stay tuned as we continue to deliver a leading-edge task management solution with Construction Viz for Microsoft 365!

Sign up today for a no-obligation demo to learn how Construction Viz can help your organization manage your construction projects more efficiently.