Construction Viz

Project Management Perfect

Sharepoint

The new Construction Viz Questionnaire component provides even more choice

Project Management Tools |

In construction, questionnaires are essential for gathering qualitative and quantitative information on a project. As a project manager, you want your field team to use questionnaires to report on various construction activities including, but not limited to, job site safety, project progress, quality control, identification of issues and defects, and adherence to specification and contractual requirements.

For those using Construction Viz, you may already be familiar with our standard Area of Work (AOW) component which allows you to create ad hoc questions in the Daily Report or Inspection forms. Field personnel respond to the AOW questions through set yes, no, and N/A response fields. While the functionality of the AOW component has worked great for documenting and reporting on field activities and project progress, we wanted to give our clients even more flexibility when creating unique questionnaires.

Area of Work (AOW) Component

Introducing the new customized “Questionnaire” component, for any Construction Viz form!

The new “Questionnaire” component expands on our standard AOW component in multiple ways:

  • Custom Deployment. Your customized “Questionnaire” component is deployed per your requirements. Name your component and choose from various response field types that will be available in questionnaires within your component, including:
    • Text fields. Capture open-ended responses.
    • Standardize responses and minimize data input.
    • Date fields. Capture key dates, such as start and/or completion dates, delivery dates.
    • Number fields. Restrict responses to numerical values to track various measurable data such as quantities, hours, cost, etc.
  • Dynamic Component Configuration. You can create multiple questionnaires within your custom component, and have full control over configuration:
    • Component Configuration. As the project progresses, you can create new, or hide old, questionnaires, and re-order the questionnaires within the component so the questions are responded to in a logical sequence of project activities, etc.
    • Questionnaire Configuration. For each questionnaire, restrict how field personnel respond to your questions by selecting from the available response field types, and configure the order of the active columns and individual questions in which they appear within the questionnaire.

New Questionnaire Component

More than one customized “Questionnaire” component can be deployed within any Construction Viz form, and each component can be uniquely customized and configured, giving you endless possibilities for gathering the information you need manage your project.

The customized “Questionnaire” component is just one of many dynamic components we have available for Construction Viz. Let us customize your construction management experience. Check out our Construction Viz features page to learn more about what’s possible. And you can schedule a consultation and demo to discover how Construction Viz can enhance your project management workflows.

No PMIS is an Island: Integrating Smartsheet and Construction Viz

Reporting |

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!

Dashboards |

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

Project Management |

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. 

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

Reporting |

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.

MS-Lists-Power-BI_3

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

News |

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.