Introduction
Construction management software enables general contractors to exercise better control over projects. By simplifying online communication among all project stakeholders, centralising documents management and automating task management, it improves the efficiency of the project team and helps to minimise project risks and maximise project profitability.
Selecting the right construction management software that is most appropriate for you is an important business decision. You will need to ensure that the selected software meets all your critical business needs. You must do your research, obtain all relevant information and analyse how it will assist your construction teams to manage their day-to-day tasks.
There are numerous spreadsheet-based products available in the market and single purpose mobile apps. Most of these products have limited scopes and can produce duplication, inconsistencies and barriers to collaboration. They may be suitable for smaller jobs or single tasks, but have limitations when it comes to collaboration, version control, and the volume of documents and data associated with larger projects.
This guide has been prepared to assist you with the process of appraising available software solutions and to select the best solution that will help you to achieve your business objectives. The guide can assist developers, head contractors, architects, and engineers in evaluating available technology solutions and selecting the most appropriate for their business needs.
The guide is divided into four stages of the selection process:
Define your project management needs and priorities to ensure that you will select the software solution that is most suitable for your business. Create a list of the ‘Must Have Features’ that you require as a minimum.
Do a general comparison of available software solutions. The comparison should include setting up, ease of use, automatic document control, task automation, collaboration, type of system, cost, scalability, integration, mobility, offline access, customization, free trial and security. Agree on a Short List of candidates.
Carry out a more detailed analysis of the tools offered by the software solutions in your Short List.
Review the implementation and onboarding process, training and support and the software provider. Check out the references and feedback of their current users.
Stage 1. Define your objectives and priorities
Your starting point is to define your own project management needs and priorities to ensure that you select the software solution that is most suitable for you. As part of this exercise, you will need to analyse your current processes and identify the critical areas that need improvement. The following are some suggestions to help you to complete this process:
List any current problems and needs and prioritize them in order of their importance for your business. This will help you to create a list of the ‘Must Have Features’ that you require as a minimum in any software solution.
For example, if you identify defects management as an issue that is causing problems for your projects, you may decide that your selected software must offer a robust defects management tool that can capture details of any defect efficiently and accurately, communicate promptly with the party responsible for rectification, set deadlines, have automatic reminder notifications and follow up/closure action.
Using an industry-specific construction management software offers many advantages over using a generic project management software, and you will need to decide whether to use a software specifically build for the construction industry or a general project management software that is designed for use by any industry.
When making a list of your needs, ensure that you consider the future needs of your business. You may not need at present every feature that a particular software solution offers, however, you should consider what you will require in the near future. Otherwise you may end up with a software that only meets part of your needs in a year or two.
Stage 2. Comparison of available software solutions
There are numerous software platforms available in the market, offering different solutions for your business. In order to select the most suitable one for you, you can use the following factors to carry out a general comparison between the various available solutions and prepare a Short List of candidates:
You should look for a provider who can offer you simple and fast setup procedures of their software. The setup process should also be free of charge to you.
You will need to consider how easy the software is to learn and to use by your teams. More features do not necessarily mean that the selected software will help your teams by making their lives easier. It is therefore important that you select a software that not only meets your business needs, but is also easy to learn and use.
An ideal solution must have a simple interface, almost instinctive, to ensure that your team can learn to use the software quickly and with minimal disruption to your projects.
Adequate access to project data in any construction project is critical for the communication and collaboration required for manage the project successfully. Project teams and other project stakeholders require seamless project collaboration, accurate up-to-date data and instant accessibility to that data. You should look for a software that will provide a full online, real-time collaboration functionality without barriers.
For example, an important aspect to consider is what limitations the solution you select imposes on your sub-contractors. Does it require sub-contractors to follow a rigid registration process that may discourage some of them from quoting for the job? How do you maintain an orderly and fully documented working relationship with sub-contractors who prefer to operate outside your system of choice?
One of the biggest decisions in selecting a project management software is choosing the type of solution, an on-premise server or cloud-based server:
On-premise server:
This is the traditional model under which you obtain a licence to use the software and run it on your own inhouse servers. You will need to consider the following factors:
– The high capital and operating expenses of deployment, operation, support, customization, integration, maintenance, and upgrades of an on-premise server solution. Upgrades and maintenance of the licensed software are commonly available from the provider, but attract additional fees.
– In-house servers can be expensive and time consuming to setup and maintain. You will need to purchase the required hardware and software, and have them installed and maintained. Maintenance can become costly when the software and hardware need to be upgraded frequently to meet your changing business needs, as the scalability of such solution is not sufficiently flexible.
– In-house servers have a data storage limit, and upgrades can be costly. Quite often companies are required to upgrade their hardware and to purchase new computers in order to maintain compatibility with the required updates of their licenced software.
– It can be more complicated for sub-contractors and other project stakeholders to access the on-premise network because of how servers are setup for security purposes. In addition, dedicated in-house servers typically only support certain operating systems and often have compatibility issues with older software, and installed solutions are only available on the computers where they were installed.
Cloud-based Servers:
This software model is based on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted by the provider. One of the biggest selling points for cloud-based software is the potential to reduce IT hardware and support costs by outsourcing hardware and software maintenance and support to the Software-as-s-Service (SaaS) provider. It is worth considering the following points:
– With this solution there is no maintenance cost. Also, as the cloud-based software requires no hardware, you don’t have to worry about the capital cost of acquiring, installing and maintaining the system.
– Cloud-based software also gives you the advantage of fast and easy deployment. It is simple and almost instant to deploy. On-site technical IT staff are not required to setup the system and no hardware is needed.
– It offers an infinite storage space without the hassle of requiring upgrades and additional servers when your business scales up or needs more data storage.
– Cloud-based tools can be accessed anywhere, at any time, with any Internet-connected device. Anyone can be given access to the software from any remote location to receive the information they need. Many cloud-based software solutions also offer mobile apps for iOS and Android devices.
For all these reasons, cloud-based server solutions tend to have many advantages over the on-premise server solutions.
You should only pay for your users that need access to the software. The most cost effective solutions are based on a monthly subscription fee per user. You should also look for providers who offer you a contract with a short cancellation provision rather than having to commit yourself to a long term contract that will be difficult to terminate if it no longer meets your needs.
Another important point to look for is that your consultants and sub-contractors should be able access the software to work on your projects for free.
Scalability is very important for any growing business. You do not want to test, customize, and train your teams on a software only to find out a short while later that your business has outgrown it and that you will need to replace it. Look for a software that is scalable in design and can easily grow as your business grows at minimal cost to you.
Top-quality construction management platforms offer integration capability with other systems that you may be using, such as accounting, estimating, budgeting, scheduling and business development. You should investigate whether the platforms you are reviewing offer the flexibility to integrate with other systems.
Mobile technology has changed the landscape of communication, both at a personal level and for business purposes. For a multi-location industry like construction, mobility is becoming an indispensable fact of life that keeps the contractor’s office teams connected with the site teams, and both connected with other project stakeholders.
You will need to ensure your selected system provides an online access through any smart mobile device to retrieve real time project data from any location and at any time. Your teams must have the ability to review, edit and share up-to-date project information with other stakeholders instantly.
Many job sites are situated in remote locations with no Internet connection, and some project management tasks need to be performed offline. Your selected software must offer offline accessibility to project data and synchronize all changes made offline when the respective devise is back online.
Most construction management software solutions offer customization for workflow, templates, integrations, and reporting for an additional price. You will need to determine your customization requirements (if any) before purchasing the software in order to avoid unexpected additional costs.
A demonstration of the potential solutions enables your team to get a feel for system and decide whether it is appropriate for your business. This will also get your team members involved in the selection process, making them more likely to use the software you select. The demonstration must clearly cover how the solution will meet your identified business needs.
Professional software providers will let you try their system for a short period free of charge. This will allow your user teams to decide whether the software is a good fit for your project and business needs.
You must ensure that the security of the software you select will provide adequate protection for your commercially sensitive proprietary information. The following are some important security measures that your selected software provider should have in place:
– All information uploaded to the software must be stored in a storage facility not publicly accessible. The storage facility should carry certifications and evaluations for ISO 27001 certification (Information Security Management).
– Physical storage should be co-located in geographically redundant data centres that comply with Uptime Institute’s TIA 943 III standard.
– As your data and objects get stored the server RDS must be encrypted automatically using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256 as a minimum.
– The provider’s website should not use any obfuscation and all document contents must be stored in unique URLs. Files should not be stored with their titles to prevent anyone from guessing the names of files.
– The links to individual files must be maintained to prevent database security breaches. Encryption key should not be stored but immediately discarded after use.
– Details of credit cards and payments must be fully protected and credit card data must be passed on directly to the secure payment gateway used by the software provider. The provider must carry an SSL certificate in place.
– A good indication of adequate payment security is when the provider maintains PCI DSS compliance to the highest security standard set by Visa and MasterCard, under which the website is audited daily to eliminate vulnerabilities. Data is encrypted with Thales devices to offer the highest level of protection available.
Stage 3. Evaluation of tools offered
You have now carried out a general comparison between the various available solutions and prepared a Short List of candidates. The next stage is to do a more detailed analysis of the individual tools offered by each of them in order to select the one that will help you to manage your work volume and project complexity. You should consider the functionalities offered by following features:
– Set up and manage an unlimited number of projects.
– Support multi-project and multi-department programs.
– Controlled user permission system – control the access level each user can have.
– Define and assign user roles.
– Control access within a project.
– Prioritize tasks.
– Assign tasks to anyone in your address book. Your contacts can respond via email.
– Add a due date and set reminders and the system will automatically notify them when tasks become overdue.
– Notify the related contacts when a task is ready to be reviewed.
– Add a checklist & attachments to tasks.
– All related contacts can add comments to a task to keep things moving.
– Set your scope of works and receive quotes back in the correct break-up.
– Invite your own sub-contractors to price your works or send out an EOI Request to other sub-contractors listed on the software’s network (if any).
– A Scrumboard gives you a snapshot of where your sub-contractors are with their quotes.
– Your sub-contractors receive documentation via email and price your tenders at the click of a button on the email – no system registration is necessary.
– Tender reports are put together automatically to give you a comparison of prices.
– Estimators can hand over awarded projects to the construction team with all documents, tender packages, quotes and correspondence.
– Unlimited document storage.
– Support for all file types with a cloud-based viewer for DWG, PDF, DOC, XML, and images.
– Easily add or supersede multiple documents at once with document Drag & Drop zone.
– Version Control – Automatically associate and link new versions of plans to old with Auto-match tool.
– Share Access to your Document Folders with anyone in your address book (with option to edit or to view only).
– Consultants with access can easily update your document folders to save you time. All new documents are sent to you for approval before updating the register.
– Additions or changes to documents will automatically be transmitted to your team, tender contacts and others with access to the related folder.
– All your external contacts can receive and download all project documentation directly from their email notifications – no system registration is necessary.
– Create and send a Project Instruction Notices on any smart device.
– Send a copy of a Project Instructions to your team members.
– Attach plans, mark-ups, photos and other attachments to Project Instruction Notices.
– Recipients of your Project Instruction Notices can download and respond to your notice via email.
– All related contacts can add comments to a Project Instruction Notice via email or through their accounts (if any) with the software provider.
– View, share or export Project Instruction Notice Reports and produce a summary report to provide a high-level view of your Project Instruction activity.
– Take a photo or video of your site and upload straight to your Project Account on any smart device.
– Organise your project photos & videos in to albums and sub-folders.
– Give access to your albums to anyone in your address book.
– You contacts can easily download shared media straight from their email notification – no registration is necessary for them.
– Automatically send new photos & videos to contacts with access to your albums.
– Upload as many photos and videos to your albums – there is no storage limit.
– After adding your plans you can view them on any device.
– Easily zoom in and out of different sections of your plans.
– You can use all Planview functions on any touch screen.
– Rotate plans the right way.
– Use the colour, pencil, shapes and text tools to give your plan mark-up context.
– Share your mark-ups with anyone in your address book to download straight from email notifications – no system registration is necessary.
– Get real-time forecasts of weather on site from the closest available weather station.
– Log all services, deliveries, visitors and back charges for the day on any smart device.
– Take a photo, add a mark-up and attach any additional documentation to your diary entries.
– Save time on data entry by copying all diary entries from one day to another.
– Search for any term across your site diary and navigate to a specific entry from your search results. Results can be exported in to a Site Diary report.
– Easily add general notes for the day and include any related photos or attachments.
– Create a meeting group to easily navigate and track a set of interrelated meetings.
– Keep a record of all attendees and apologies related to your meeting.
– Easily add sections, minutes and any related attachments with any smart device.
– Assign your actionable items to anyone in your address book.
– All meeting attendees and apologies will receive a copy of the Meeting Minutes document via email – no registration is necessary for them.
– Keep track of all unaddressed items to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
– Send RFI’s to anyone in your address book. Companies working on your project can also send you RFI’s at no cost.
– Send a copy of an RFI to your team members.
– Attach plans from your document register or add mark-ups, photos and any other attachments to RFI’s to ensure clarity.
– Automatically notify recipients when an RFI becomes overdue to ensure a prompt response.
– All recipients can respond to RFI’s via email – no system registration is necessary.
– All related contacts can add comments to an RFI. Reply via email notifications or through their account (if any) with the software provider.
– Log and distribute defect items on any smart device.
– Add photos and mark-ups to give your defect items visual direction and ensure they are actioned promptly.
– Create and assign defect items and the system will organise them into a Defect Notice per Company.
– Consultants working on your project can easily and at no cost add and distribute defect notices to your team to action.
– After recipients update an item ready for review, you can mark it complete or incomplete and add your electronic signature on any smart device.
– View, share or export Defect Notice Reports. You can also produce a summary report to provide a high-level view of your Defects activity.
– Create unlimited inspection templates or import from Excel.
– Assign inspection items that require action to related contacts and the system will organise them into a Safety Notice per Company.
– Safety inspections are designed specifically to be mobile friendly and can be used with any smart device.
– Take a photo and add comments to safety inspection items to ensure the accuracy of records.
– Add your electronic signature and distribute a copy of the Safety Inspection report to all related contacts.
– View, share or export Safety Inspection Reports. You can also produce a summary report to provide a high-level view of your inspections across the project.
– Log and distribute safety concerns from any smart device.
– Add photos and mark-ups to Give your safety items visual direction and ensure they are actioned promptly.
– Create and assign safety items and the system will organise them into a Safety Notice per Company.
– All related contacts can add comments to a Safety Notice via email or through their accounts (if any) with the software provider.
– After recipients update an item ready for review, you can mark it complete or incomplete and add an electronic signature with any smart device.
– View, share or export Safety Notice Reports. You can also produce a summary report to provide a high-level view of your Safety issue activity across the project.
– Relay changes to the scope of works quickly on any smart device from the office or on site.
– Add your variation item’s quantity and rates and the system will calculate the related totals for you.
– Attach plans from your Documents Register or add mark-ups, photos and other attachments to Variation Notices to ensure clarity.
– All related contacts can add comments to a Variation/Change Order via email notifications or through their account (if any) with the software provider.
– Approve, partly approve or reject a Variation/Change Order and add your electronic signature on any smart device.
– View, share or export Variation Reports. You can also produce a summary report to provide a high-level view of your Variation/Change Order activity across the project.
– Create and send a Delay Notice on any smart device from the office or on site.
– Send a copy of a Delay Notice to your team members.
– Attach plans from your Documents Register or add mark-ups, photos and other attachments to Delay Notices to ensure clarity.
– Recipients of your notices can download and respond to your notice via email – no system registration is necessary.
– All related contacts can add comments to a Delay Notice via email notifications or through their account (if any) with the software provider.
– View, share or export Delay Notice Reports. You can also produce a summary report to provide a high-level view of your Delay activity across the project.
– Use your original Practical Completion date as a base and the system will automatically calculate a new completion date as EOT days are approved.
– Select working days per week as per the contract to ensure days claimed are relevant.
– Include the reason for EOT, the impact on the construction programme, mitigation performed and a response date to ensure EOT notices are comprehensive.
– Select your claimed EOT days in bulk using the date range picker. Claim full or half days and exclude days that are not in your working week.
– All related contacts can add comments to an EOT via email notifications or through their account (if any) with the software provider.
– Approve, partly approve or reject an EOT notice and add an electronic signature on any smart device.
– Include all related back charge information and cost details, and advise recipients if the back charge amounts are to be deducted from the next progress payment.
– Send a copy of a Back charge Notice to your team members.
– Attach plans from your document register or add mark-ups, photos and other attachments to Back charge Notices to ensure clarity.
– Recipients of your Back charge notices can download and respond to your notice via email – no system registration is necessary.
– All related contacts can add comments to a Back charge Notice via email notifications or through their account (if any) with the software provider.
– View, share or export Back charge Notice Reports. You can also produce a summary report to provide a high-level view of your Back charge activity across the project.
– Send Non-conformance notices to anyone in your address book from the office or on site.
– Send a copy of a Non-conformance to your team members.
– Attach plans from your document register or add mark-ups, photos and other attachments to Non-conformance notices to ensure clarity.
– Automatically notify recipients when a Non-conformance becomes overdue to ensure a prompt response.
– All recipients can respond to Non-conformance notices via email – no system registration is necessary.
– All related contacts can add comments to a Non-conformance notice via email notifications or through their account (if any) with the software provider.
– Order materials from your suppliers from the office or on site with any smart device.
– Get confirmation of your purchase order from your suppliers via email – no system registration is necessary.
– Attach plans from your document register or add mark-ups, photos and other attachments to your Purchase Order to ensure clarity.
– All related contacts can add comments to a Purchase Order via email notifications or through their account (if any) with the software provider.
– Log delivery dockets and delivered quantities of items to the job site.
– View, share or export Purchase Order Reports for the whole project or for a specific supplier. You can also produce a summary report to provide a high-level view of your Purchase Order activity across the project.
– Import cost data provided by the client.
– Manage budget changes based on user-defined criteria.
– Generate reports showing actual vs. budget costs.
– The ability to import spreadsheets with financial data.
– Provide summary for each project and total for all projects.
– View the most recent schedule from the field.
– View schedule by day, week, month or traditional Gantt view.
– Sort tasks by status; completed, in progress, and critical.
– Ability to import from MS Project, Primavera, Suretrak, and other major scheduling tools.
– Access to real-time accounting data and project cost information.
– Ability to integrate with leading accounting systems or in-house accounting system.
– Track contracts, variations/change orders and expenses against budgets in real time.
– Forecast estimated cost at completion.
– Create and send a General Correspondence notice from anywhere in real time on any smart device.
– Send a copy of a General Correspondence to your team members.
– Attach plans from your document register or add mark-ups, photos and other attachments to General Correspondence Notices to ensure clarity.
– Recipients of your notices can download and respond to your notice via email.
– All related contacts can add comments to a General Correspondence Notice via email notifications or through their account (if any) with the software provider.
– View, share or export General Correspondence Notice Reports for the whole project or for a specific Company. You can also produce a summary report to provide a high-level view of your General Correspondence activity across the project.
– Your external contacts can respond directly to project correspondence sent from your account via email – no system registration is necessary.
– All correspondence sent from your account includes your Project Name and subject to ensure that project information can be easily grouped.
– Your contacts can access parts of your project or give status updates online by clicking related buttons in your email notifications.
– You can choose to receive a copy of emails generated from your account for your own record.
– Your contacts do not need to follow a system registration process. They can respond to you or request information via email.
– Professionally designed emails sent from your account is branded with your Company logo and project details.
– Access permissions are role-based, configurable to the individual user level on a specific project.
– A single user can have different permission levels within different projects.
– Permissions can be managed at the project level.
– Project administrators can add multiple users to a project at the same time.
– Project administrators can define what information users can view based on permission levels.
– Administrators can reassign work from one user to another.
– Project administrators can grant access permission for view only to specific project stakeholders (e.g. sub-contractors) or view and edit permission to other project stakeholders (e.g. architects and engineers).
Stage 4. Implementation & Support
Buying the right construction management software that is most appropriate for your company is a significant business decision. However, finding the software that has all the features relevant to your business is only the first part of the decision. You must ensure that the onboarding, implementation and ongoing customer support of the software will be timely, effective, and client-centric.
The software you select must be easy to use and not too complicated to understand and implement. A good gauge of usability is the implementation and training time. The longer it takes to implement a software and begin training your teams, the higher the probability that it is not intuitive enough or easy to use. Look for a software with an implementation schedule and an onboarding process that will have you up and running quickly with little or no disruption to your projects.
The software provider you select must have a clear implementation strategy with measurable targets and timelines. You should be provided with support documentation and training sessions for your teams free of charge.
You must ensure that your users’ enquiries will be answered promptly and efficiently by experienced people who understand the intricacies of the software and can communicate clearly to solve your teams’ problems quickly.
Make sure that any required training and customer support are free of charge to you (some providers charge for training and customer support).
In addition to reviewing the software as a product, you should also consider the reputation and track record of the software provider.
Customer testimonials provide the best indication of customer satisfaction with the product and with the provider. Read customer reviews of the software and, better still, speak with one or two of the current customers using the software. The following are some of the areas you may want to cover during your review:
– How long did the implementation take?
– Has the performance of the software met customer expectations? If not, what were the weak points?
– Has the system always been reliable and available when needed?
– How functional are the features? Are they easy to navigate?
– How often are new features introduced?
– How helpful is the provider when you have a problem, and how knowledgeable and responsive is their service team?
Look for a software that is being improved with new features and product updates continuously. You should receive product updates seamlessly without having to pay for them or purchase the latest version of the software.
User feedback is a good indicator of the software development progression. Look for a client-centric provider that aligns the development of new features and improvements with users’ feedback.
Comparison SaaS Vs. On-Premise
Two popular deployment models for software solutions are Software as a Service (SaaS) and On-premise. This section aims to provide a comparison between SaaS and On-premise solutions, highlighting the key differences.
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