Construction Viz

Project Management Perfect

Sharepoint

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.  

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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. 

Generate a Power BI Dashboard from Microsoft Lists in Three Clicks with Construction Viz

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Microsoft 365 Lists is a relatively new app that 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.

Construction Viz leverages SharePoint lists and libraries to store project data so you can be assured that it is always safe and available 24x7. And because both Microsoft Lists and Construction Viz both use SharePoint lists under the hood, you can interact with your lists in either application. For example, you can use Microsoft Lists to view, create reports, and interact with any of your lists without going into Construction Viz or SharePoint.

RFIs with revisions displayed in Construction Viz and Microsoft 365 Lists
RFIs with revisions displayed in Construction Viz and Microsoft 365 Lists

To access an existing  Construction Viz SharePoint list from Microsoft Lists, click the new list button and select an existing Teams site or SharePoint site to find an available list.

View of the New List menu in Microsoft Lists
View of the New List menu in Microsoft Lists

One of the great features of Microsoft Lists is its ability to quickly create a Power BI report from the list with as little as three clicks. From Microsoft Lists, if you click Integrate, select Power BI, and then Visualize the List, Power BI will assess all of your list data fields and automatically generate a configurable dashboard. With a few minor changes, you can quickly publish a powerful dashboard to report on the status of your list data, such as your Construction Viz RFI log.

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This is just one of many integrations with Microsoft 365 services that Construction Viz can leverage.

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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.
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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.