Construction Viz

Project Management Perfect

project management information system

Manage your projects in Outlook! No, really!

Project Management Tools |

Embracing new technology is often a challenge in construction. While technology can help organizations be more efficient, it is challenging to keep up with the constant changes and new systems required to do the job. To add to this dilemma, every contractor, construction manager, and owner have their own Project Management Information System (PMIS) that team members must learn to conduct business. As a result, actual construction productivity takes a hit due to additional training, double-entry, errors, and general user dissatisfaction. It's no wonder most construction organizations are hesitant to leave old faithful: Microsoft Outlook and Office.

So the challenge is, how do we make it as easy as possible for the construction team to do their job and remove the technology burden of learning and working with multiple PMISs? What if you could work in Outlook or Office entirely without ever having to log into another system?

Welcome to Adaptive Cards

With the flexibility of the Microsoft Power Platform and Adaptive Cards, we have removed the users' burden of learning another PMIS by allowing them to work directly in Microsoft Teams or Outlook. By leveraging Power Automate and Adaptive Cards technology, users can now receive actionable task-focused cards. To respond, users open a card to view the content, review a task, or respond with comments. Work entirely from email or Teams—no need to even log into a PMIS.

The Key Benefits of Adaptive Cards

You may be thinking that your PMIS already sends out emails when there are tasks due. How is this different? Adaptive Cards are the future of actionable messages and notifications. They are essentially small interactive applications.

The are many benefits to Adaptive Cards:

• Cards are responsive to any device.
• The card user interface can be simplified and tailored to perform specific tasks. Using the KISS (keep it simple) approach, we can make it easy for users to review content and respond.
• The cards can include logic to prompt questions and responses without logging into the actual PMIS and never leaving the email.
• Cards can read and write data with various systems such as Microsoft 365 or SharePoint, SAP, Oracle, etc.
• Cards can leverage Windows 10 notifications.
• Cards integrate with Microsoft Teams Chat, Timeline, and Outlook.
• Cards can leverage assistants such as Cortana or a web chatbot.
• Dashboards can be delivered using feeds from multiple Adaptive Cards.
• The cards can include security extended from native applications.

Lydon Solutions can build Adaptive Cards for any PMIS using our pre-defined templates. We even integrated Adaptive Cards into the notification system of Construction Viz, our PMIS for Microsoft 365 and SharePoint. By meeting the user where they work in Microsoft Office and Outlook email, Adaptive Cards keep users in their natural activity flow without interruption, making for more efficient and happier project teams. A win-win.

Adaptive Card for a Construction Viz Submittal Form email notification

Deploy Adaptive Cards for Your Construction Projects

Find out how we can leverage our existing Adaptive Card templates to simplify your workflows and provide team members access to project data in the applications they use every day. Contact us for a free consultation and see how we can help your organization with its digital transformation to Microsoft 365.

If you need a turnkey PMIS for managing your projects in Microsoft 365, learn more about using Construction Viz for project management.

How Construction Viz Streamlines Email Approvals

Collaboration |

Construction Viz enables your team to get more done with the tools they already know and use most. In this post, we’ll share how stakeholders can view and respond to approval workflows directly within Microsoft Outlook – all without needing to sign into any other construction project management platform.

Your construction project team already spends a lot of their day working in Microsoft Excel, Word, and Outlook. One of our goals with Construction Viz is empowering project teams to keep using their Microsoft products instead of having to learn a new Project Management Information System (PMIS). Our recently introduced Construction Viz Cost Report app is an example of this philosophy in action. In our blog post introducing the new app, we explained how the tool enables cost engineers to use their preferred software, Excel, while automatically importing cost data into Microsoft SharePoint for viewing and reporting by other team members.

Read on to learn how Construction Viz can let you leverage Microsoft Outlook to collect input and approval from team members via email without requiring users to sign into anything else.

The Problems with Typical Approval Workflows

Before talking about what Construction Viz can do, let’s review how other platforms handle the approval workflow.

Most construction project management systems on the market send an email to designated users when an approval workflow is triggered. This email has some basic information captured from the workflow and a link to view the entire item being submitted for approval directly in the project management system. To proceed, the user needs to sign in to the software platform that generated the email.

The above process is probably familiar and may seem simple enough, but it includes multiple assumptions, including that the user receiving the email:

  1. Has an active account in the project system.
  2. Can sign in to the system from the device they are currently using.
  3. Remembers their password.
  4. Is trained and familiar with the system.
  5. Knows how to navigate the system to provide their response to the correct record.

As you can see, each of those assumptions puts the burden on the end-user. If any of those assumptions turn out to be incorrect, the approval process stops dead in its tracks.

With Construction Viz, we threw out all these assumptions and designed something better.

Construction Viz Simplifies Approval Workflow Emails

We have worked with and analyzed the workflows of numerous construction companies over the years. As a result, we’ve seen that most team members who review and approve records do not need to use the construction project management system for any other reason. So why make them log in every time they need to respond to an approval request?

Knowing the above, we designed Construction Viz to streamline the review and approval process. We built a workflow using Microsoft Power Automate to email approval requests to project team members, even if they don’t have a Construction Viz or Microsoft 365 account.

Microsoft Power Automate workflow example

The email generated by Construction Viz has all the necessary information and attachments required to approve the record, as well as a linked lightweight Microsoft Form that the recipient can use to respond to the request. There is no need for them to sign into Construction Viz or any other system. The approver can review and make updates directly in the included form, and Microsoft Power Automate automatically pushes those updates back to Construction Viz. For the recipient, it could not be simpler to respond to the request, no matter what device they are using.

Construction Viz email approval form

Taking Approvals to the Next Level

Construction Viz streamlines the approval workflow process and enables team members to do more with email, a tool they regularly use throughout the day.

But what if users are not even in Outlook at all? Could Construction Viz display approval request forms in any application, or even in the notification area of a user’s mobile device? We think that would be a great feature. Stay tuned for more details on what we have planned next to do just that.

Get Construction Viz for your Team

Construction Viz is a web-based construction project management solution that you can deploy into Microsoft 365 and SharePoint. There are many advantages to this deployment model, such as having your data stay with you in your Microsoft 365 tenant. Also, you can leverage the full power of Microsoft 365 application services with Construction Viz, all with the same Microsoft user credentials.

If you need help setting up your construction projects in Microsoft 365, visit LydonSolutions.com, where you can find out more on our Microsoft 365 Managed Services and submit a no-obligation consultation request. If you prefer a turnkey, enterprise-ready project management software solution, contact us today for a free demo.

Introducing No-App, Offline Forms for Construction Viz (Video)

Forms |

Forms are an essential part of your construction project workflow. Construction Viz Form Apps let you and your team complete digital forms anywhere, on any device and even without an internet connection.

Watch our latest video to see how you can streamline your construction project workflows even when you're offline with our no-app, offline forms for Construction Viz.

Key Features of Our No-App, Offline Forms

  • No app to install: Get full access to your construction project forms right in your browser on any modern device.
  • No internet? No problem: You can edit forms without a internet connection, and then sync changes when you're back online. This allows for continuous access with the ability to make changes even in the field.
  • Full-featured construction management forms: Our library of mobile-responsive construction project forms have built-in permissions, comments, workflows, and reminders.
  • Powered by technology you trust: Construction Viz is integrated with SharePoint and Office 365.

Discover Project Management Perfected with our complete suite of offline forms designed to help you manage your projects anytime, anywhere. Contact us today to schedule a demo and receive more information about Construction Viz Apps for Microsoft SharePoint & Office 365.

Announcing the Construction Viz Blog

News |

Welcome to the new Construction Viz blog, a dedicated information hub for product news, updates, how-to guides, and more. Going forward, this will be the best place for in-depth information about Construction Viz, a powerful and flexible construction project management software solution introduced by Lydon Solutions.

Meanwhile, the Lydon Solutions blog will continue to provide general company updates as well as thoughtful perspectives and useful tips aimed at construction project management professionals.

Be sure to join our mailing list in the footer below to stay up-to-date with both blogs!

Construction Viz – Our Journey So Far

Longtime readers of the Lydon Solutions blog know that we’ve been talking about Construction Viz since its release in 2016. To bring everyone up to speed, below is a chronological recap of posts originally published on our Lydon Solutions parent site.

2016 – Construction Viz Launches

We announced Construction Viz back in 2016 as a subscription-based construction project management solution powered by Microsoft SharePoint, SQL, and Azure.  We were pretty excited since there really was not (and still is not) anything else like it on the market.

What makes Construction Viz so different is its deep integration with SharePoint and SQL, industry-leading enterprise technologies from Microsoft that most companies already use and trust. But getting the most out of these platforms requires complicated configuration and customization. Construction Viz handles all of that, letting organizations manage their projects in a way that is fully optimized for construction teams. It includes everything project teams need, including document management, dashboards, reports, forms, workflows, and more – all available right within the familiar SharePoint environment and backed with all the power of SQL for data management and querying.

2017 – Expanding the Features of Construction Viz

We believe that every organization, project, and PM have unique needs. But too many platforms out there take a one-size-fits-all approach. The industry deserves better.

Which is why we designed Construction Viz from the ground up to be a flexible and easy-to-use solution tailored to the way you and your team do your work. Throughout 2017, we shared updates on the Lydon Solutions blog about how we were expanding and refining Construction Viz’s features:

(Even More) Powerful Reporting with SQL SSRS

Our integration with Microsoft SQL and the SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) toolkit – formerly Datazen – opened up powerful reporting and dashboard features for our Construction Viz users.

Combined Geospatial Map and Project Data

“Dude, where’s my project?” is something Construction Viz users never need to ask.  Thanks to our deep integration with Microsoft SharePoint and SQL, it is easy to seamlessly combine map data from applications like ArcGIS with project information in Construction Viz to create a robust, mobile-friendly mapping solution.

Document Editing and Real-time Collaboration Using Mobile Devices

Project teams need to be productive in the office and the field. Which is why we integrated Construction Viz with Microsoft Office Online Server. The integration enables Construction Viz users to view, edit, and collaborate on Office documents in real-time right from their mobile browser on any device.

Create and Share Custom Project Dashboards

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a well-designed dashboard is worth ten thousand. We shared how users can combine Construction Viz with Microsoft SQL Server Mobile Report Publisher to easily build and share visually-striking, custom project dashboards with their team.

2018 – Introducing Construction Viz Apps for SharePoint & Office 365

Last year we had big news with the rollout of our Construction Viz Apps for SharePoint & Office 365. The apps are game-changers for construction project management teams, allowing organizations to select and deploy only the features they need right into their Microsoft SharePoint or Office 365 environments. No other platform gives you that kind of flexibility.

Construction Viz Apps are turbocharged with React, an innovative technology used by industry-leading disruptors like Facebook, Netflix, Airbnb, and Dropbox. Building our apps with React enables us to give you all the power of Construction Viz, SharePoint, and SQL with a simple user-interface and complete freedom to choose the features that are important to you.

Our Construction Viz Apps are the full realization of the vision we had in 2016 of giving construction teams an alternative to bloated, one-size-fits-all platforms.

2019 – Big Plans for Construction Viz

Which brings us to the present. We Have Big Plans for Construction Viz in 2019, including a new marketplace to make it even easier to buy and deploy our apps, adding services to help construction organizations get the most out of Office 365, plus much more.

Our new Construction Viz blog will the place to get the latest product updates, news, and app-related announcements. So join our newsletter in the footer below to make sure you don’t miss out.

Learn More About Construction Viz – Our Powerful Construction Project Management Software

We would love the opportunity to show you how Construction Viz can transform for the better the way you and your organization manage your construction projects. Contact us today for a no-obligation demo and consultation.