Construction Viz

Project Management Perfect

project management

Managing Multiple Construction Projects with Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online

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So, you want to use Microsoft 365 and SharePoint Online to manage your construction projects? With out-of-the-box SharePoint, you will have to decide whether you will use one site per project or multiple projects per site. Fortunately, Construction Viz is flexible enough to accommodate both approaches.

Two Ways to Set Up Microsoft SharePoint to Manage Construction Projects

Before we highlight the value Construction Viz can bring, let’s look at the two ways you can setup SharePoint to manage multiple projects and the pros and cons of each approach:

Option 1: Create a SharePoint site for every project.

  • Pro: This approach ensures you wall off project data between projects and lets you easily restrict permissions to each site.
  • Con: Going this route requires more administration to update and maintain multiple site configurations and aggregate data for reporting.

Option 2: Create a single site for all projects

  • Pro: This approach makes it easier to aggregate and report on your project data.
  • Con: Using a single site can make permissions management complex and complicated depending on security requirements. You also have to decide how to define a project across all of the SharePoint assets (e.g., pages, folders, and project metadata across lists and libraries).

Unfortunately, there is no right or wrong way; the approach often depends on many factors. However, whatever method you select, Construction Viz can streamline the process for you.

How Construction Viz Simplifies Managing Multiple Projects in SharePoint

When we designed the Construction Viz Hub, we wanted to give clients the ability to manage projects the way they want in the same application within Microsoft SharePoint. With Construction Viz, you can manage a project, program, or portfolio within one site or multiple. It’s up to you!

Highlights of Construction Viz’s Multi-Project Management Features 

Simplified access management – We built our own access management solution on top of SharePoint to streamline the process of adding internal and external users to our applications. This custom solution reduces the administrative burden of permissions management.

Expanded project settings – We integrated multi-project information across all the apps within a deployment. We also made it so that project pickers and default values can be unique by application, allowing for robust configuration depending on deployment requirements.

Expanded personnel settings – We incorporated both SharePoint user and non-user management within a central location for easier access management. This feature allows for easier administration of access and distribution groups across projects.

Expanded project-specific company settings – We added the ability to assign companies to one or more projects so they can be restricted and re-used across multiple projects or a program.

Included data and reporting rollup by program and portfolio – We built data rollup capabilities and reports for one or more sites to report project status across the portfolio.

We made all these design considerations so that Construction Viz can provide you with the best way to manage your projects, programs, and portfolios in the most efficient way possible. You can learn more about the capabilities and features of Construction Viz on our website.

No PMIS is an Island: Integrating Smartsheet and Construction Viz

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It is not uncommon for organizations to use many disparate web-based project management tools on a construction project. From real estate transactions, environmental assessments, and contract awards to project scheduling, the mix of software systems used across construction organizations can span many different departments and stakeholders.  The challenge is integrating these various solutions into a single view of the project and ensuring the aggregated data is accurate, reliable, and timely.

Smartsheet is one such project management tool we often encounter. Smartsheet is used across many industries and can be a data source and reporting solution for construction information. So it made sense for our team to integrate Smartsheet with Construction Viz to allow our clients using this tool to have the best features of both applications.

While Smartsheet has an API for integrating data, our goal was to build flexible integrated solutions to solve our clients’ unique data challenges. Construction Viz can leverage SQL and SharePoint as the back-end database – with the specifics of how this works depending on the selected apps, client data restrictions, and client-specific customizations. Our Smartsheet integration solution thus needed to be flexible and scalable while offering real-time connectivity to Smartsheet for both SQL and SharePoint.

We deploy our SQL integration solution as an Azure WebJob within an Azure web app. Utilizing Azure web apps as the execution platform enables easy scheduling, automatic restarts, guaranteed stability and uptime, built-in logging, performance tracking, and nearly infinite scalability. Our SharePoint integration solution utilizes industry-standard connectivity via SharePoint’s REST Service.

Intergration Examples

SQL Integration highlights

  • A customer needed a Two-way integration with Smartsheet, so both systems are always up to date.
  • Users can use schedule data created in Smartsheet in our Construction Viz Project Tracker and a custom performance metrics application, so data needed to flow seamlessly between both systems.
  • ConstViz application extensions allow the Customer to add and remove Smartsheet Links as needed for a no-code expansion of the integration scope to new projects.
  • Integration can be scheduled daily with refresh rates that can be adjusted as needed.
  • For troubleshooting any potential integration issues, we implemented user-managed error logs.

SharePoint Integration highlights

  • A customer needed a simple One-way integration with Construction Viz, which allows Smartsheet to access document libraries.
  • Ability to handle large daily data loads as Construction Viz program sites may include up to 6,000 projects.
  • An integration approach that overcomes Smartsheet API limitations:
    • The Smartsheet API limits automated file attachment uploads to 30MB
    • The SharePoint online attachment limitation is 250MB
    • We built a solution to log oversized files into Smartsheet in the appropriate locations and hyperlinks back to the original SharePoint files for retrieval via other methods

Smartsheet is one of many integrations into Construction Viz (SQL and SharePoint) that we have built. From Oracle P6 to Arc GIS, we understand the client’s need to centralize data to manage large-scale construction projects. You can find out more by requesting a consultation here.

Capture Construction Project Reviews and Approvals on Just About Everything!

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Construction projects involve owners and contractors submitting, reviewing, and approving information throughout the project’s life cycle. It’s a complex web of information transfer, often time-sensitive, and requires a well-documented e-paper trail to avoid legal issues.

For some projects, the review and approval process needs to be more granular than just the form, set of documents, or a drawing set level; it needs to be down to a single document page or an individual drawing sheet.

That level of detailed review tracking is why we created the Construction Viz Review Comments Matrix and the Contractor Response Matrix components. These components work in tandem to ensure detailed comments and approvals are captured at the right level of detail to improve communication, avoid delays, and prevent future claims.

For example, you might want to capture internal owner/CM team comments on each page of a contractor’s project management plan attached to their submittal. Also, you might want to keep some comments internal, while others you might want to share with the contractor.

Review Comments Matrix component

With the Review Comments Matrix component, your team can add comments for each individual page of the attached project management plan. The component automatically logs all saved comments into an interactive grid not visible to contractors.

Suppose you need to share comments with the contractors. In that case, you can select the comment(s) and click Finalize Selected, making those comments available to the contractor in the Contractor Response Matrix component and denoting that comment as a final comment.

Contractor Response Matrix component

The Contractor Response Matrix component displays only those comments needing a response from the contractor.

The component captures the ongoing back and forth exchange between the owner/CM and the contractor in an interactive grid complete with comment-specific statuses. The contractor just needs to click edit next to each comment and add their response.

What happens to the comments if the contractor needs to revise and resubmit the form? In the case of a revision, the component automatically includes all previous comments in the form revision, ensuring the complete history is always available for reporting.

These two components combine to provide that extra level of review capability that can help improve turnaround times and minimize communication issues. As with any Construction Viz components, they can be added to any form, turned on or off, or modified as needed. This functionality is excellent for Submittals and RFIs to ensure contractor responses are tracked and given a formal status before the overall form submission is accepted.

Get a demo of Construction Viz

Construction Viz is the only enterprise-scale construction management solution available for Microsoft 365. You can learn more about what makes Construction Viz different from its competitors and the available apps on the Features and Apps pages. To set up a demo, click here.

Visualize Your Project Data in a Calendar View with Microsoft Lists and Construction Viz

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We recently shared how you can generate a Power BI dashboard from Microsoft Lists in three clicks with Construction Viz. Here is another handy tip for using the two applications together. 

To recap, the Microsoft Lists app 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. 

Using Microsoft Lists calendar view in Construction Viz 

Microsoft recently released a new Calendar view for Microsoft Lists. It's a nice feature that allows you to visualize your list data in a familiar calendar UI. 

Because Construction Viz and Microsoft Lists both utilize Microsoft SharePoint lists and libraries under the hood, this new feature can provide a nice calendar view of project data, such as all of your RFIs by the submitted date and the target due dates. Check out a preview in the animated graphic below.  

CV_Lists_Calendar-View

You can find out more about Microsoft Lists here.  

Want to manage your construction projects in Microsoft 365? 

Using the Microsoft Lists calendar view is just one of many integrations with Microsoft 365 services that Construction Viz can leverage. Construction Viz empowers you to manage construction projects in Microsoft 365. Better yet, Construction Viz is available as standalone apps, allowing you to combine the specific features you want into a project management tool that is perfect for you and your workflow.  

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.

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.
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.