Procore works great on the iPad!
Our customers have been using Procore’s construction project management software on their iPads during the weeks since the iPad’s release. Almost from the day the iPad became available, we’ve seen Procore users logging in and accessing Procore from their iPads.
We’re happy to report that Procore is as easy to use on the iPad as it is on standard laptop or desktop computers.
Procore users can combine Procore for iPhone, Procore on the iPad, and Procore on their computers to create, manage and share construction project data, no matter where they are—on whatever device they happen to be using.
Procore on the iPad provides a user experience similar to using Procore’s web-based construction project management software, but with the advantages of iPad features. The lightweight iPad offers instant-on, touch computing usability, and integrated wifi and 3G Internet access (depending upon the iPad model). Users can create, manage and share Procore project information from any location with Internet connectivity.
A recent story in CIO Magazine highlights the real-world experience of using an iPad on construction sites. The article, entitled iPad at Work on Dirty Jobs: 5 Lessons Learned, provides some real-world insight on how the iPad is helping make one construction industry services firm more responsive to its customers.
D7 Consulting’s President Joseph Daniels notes one of the advantages of using the iPad that isn’t so obvious – the ability to streamline business processes and communication as well as make a company look smarter:
“Consider this scenario: A client will sometimes ask a Quality Assurance Officer (QAO) a difficult question, putting the QAO on the spot. Instead of saying, “Can I get back to you with the answer tomorrow?” the QAO can fire up the iPad, shoot out an email (with accompanying files) to a reviewer, and the reviewer can respond with the answer.
In essence, the iPad makes D7 Consulting look like a smart firm that taps technology for efficiency, accuracy and classy presentation of reports—all in front of the client at the site. Meanwhile, D7 Consulting’s competitors still carry binders full of paper.
“We want to show people what we’re doing and how we’re doing it,” Daniels says. “Hopefully, that will lead to more work and more interest in our company.”
Our users report that using Procore improves efficiency, reduces communication cycle times, and avoids project management errors. Our goal is to make Procore accessible from whatever device our customers are using. That device can be a notebook computer, an iPhone, and now, an iPad.
Let us know if you’re using Procore on your iPad—we’d like to hear about your real-world experiences!
Do you want to show people that your company uses the world’s best construction software? Send us a quote on what you like most about using Procore for construction project management, and we’ll send you a free t-shirt to wear at your job site or wherever your work may take you.
We’ve updated the Customers page on our web site with some current customer quotes, and we’d like to add your positive review to the web page. If you have something nice to say about how Procore helps your project team work better and smarter, send us an email at support@procore.com.
We’re proud that our new Customers page includes quotes from construction firms that are both big and small, as well as from organizations including privately owned GC’s, public agencies and universities. We designed Procore’s construction software so that it is easy to use no matter who you are, where you’re building your project, or what type of construction project you’re working on.
Procore helps our customers get their projects built on-time, on budget, with a minimum amount of effort spent on keeping track of project information. That’s why our Customers page has positive quotes from ENR Top 100 engineering firms, staff at city government agencies, residential builders and commercial contractors. Procore’s construction project management software works for all of these firms, because everyone is facing the same challenges in getting their projects built.
As Procore extends our customer list to a worldwide user base, don’t be surprised if you start seeing Procore’s t-shirts being worn by some of the smartest construction project managers in North America and around the globe.
So, if you’re a Procore customer using our software for construction project management, send us a quote. We’ll send you back a Procore t-shirt as a “thank-you” gift, feature your quote on our Customers page, and link back to your web site.
Using Google Maps, the tech wizards at Procore have created a map of the location of every construction project in North America that uses Procore’s construction software. From our first project more than seven years ago, Procore has continued to grow until now Procore is almost everywhere!
As you can see from the map below, Procore’s construction project management software is used to manage projects in every US state, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
(Click on the map to zoom)
This map gives a good idea of Procore’s reach. We think the map also shows how easy it is to get up and running with web-based construction project management software. Getting client-server software installed at all these locations would have taken decades (as it has for some of the older vendors in our industry).
Most of the projects on this map joined Procore during the last year—while other construction software companies have been standing still, Procore has seen record revenues and big-time growth. The reason is that Procore’s construction software is easy-to-learn, simple to use, and a rock solid value.
Plus, Procore is hassle-free. No implementation hassles, free training, unlimited support, and we’ll get your project online the same day you sign up.
Most Procore users start using Procore on a pilot project. Once Procore proves its effectiveness, more projects are brought on board.
Looking for a world map of Procore projects? Check out the world map of Procore projects live on our web site that shows the global reach of Procore’s construction software.
If you’re evaluating web-based construction project management software, you may be interested in the biggest feature that isn’t evaluated until AFTER most companies have actually bought and implemented their new software.
We’re talking about speed – meaning, how fast does the web-based construction software actually work?
Scroll down to see a chart of what we’re talking about, but here’s the background on the data:
Many prospective buyers of web-based construction project management software evaluate different vendors’ products by creating a “must have” list of features and functions. These lists include the ability to track documents, manage communications, create project schedules—standard stuff for the construction software packages in the marketplace.
What those lists don’t cover is the actual user experience of the software. In other words, what is it like to actually be the guy who has to use the construction software on the job site?
One thing we’ve learned at Procore—if the software is slow, the guys at the job site won’t use it. Ever.
Most construction software vendors make it difficult, if not impossible, for potential users to judge exactly what the user experience is going to be like. Vendors will show you all sorts of PowerPoint presentations and “canned” demos, but they’ll never let you actually get in and knock around with the software. These companies also don’t offer any kind of pilot project evaluation, because selling just one project instance of their software doesn’t make sense with their business model. Software vendors that rely heavily upon implementation and configuration charges need to sell an entire company-wide software implementation before their users even get a chance to try out the software.
The result? Many investments in construction software fail because the software is hard to use and SLOW.
Older client-server and web-based construction software technologies get slowed down by the load of simultaneous users. That’s why Procore uses the latest and greatest 21st century web technologies, not old code left over from the earliest days of the Internet.
Procore invests a lot of time in making sure our construction software has fast response times and no lag. A fast page response means our users spend less time waiting for the information they want to see. And when the software is fast, the guy at the job site is happy.
We benchmark Procore against other web-based construction management software packages. As you can see from the chart below, Procore handily beats the other vendors, even under equivalent load conditions:
The chart shows that Procore’s pages consistently load faster than any of our competitors’ pages. This is because our competitors don’t have the highly scalable infrastructure that Procore has to deal with the load of many users. In addition, Procore’s competitors use older technology that can deliver web pages under loads from multiple users, but only at speeds that are half as fast, or much worse, as Procore.
The lesson is clear: with web-based construction software, speed matters. Don’t forget about speed when evaluating web-based construction software. Make sure to ask construction software vendors if you can try a pilot project before you buy their product.
Click here to download a PDF of Procore’s Web-Based Construction Software Load Testing Chart
Does your company use iPhones or even the recently-released iPads? Is an iPhone your standard tool for business communications in the field? If the answer is “Yes,” we’d like to talk to you.
If you use an iPhone and think that a Procore app would be a good idea, we’d like to talk to you about what Procore functionality would be most useful to have on your phone. Which Procore functions would you like to use on your iPhone—would you like to review RFIs, approve Submittals, or forward contacts from a Project Directory? Take photos with your iPhone and store them online in Procore?
Apple Computer recently announced that more than 50 MILLION iPhones have been sold worldwide in less than 3 years—which means that at least some of Procore’s customers are using iPhones for their business. If you think that Procore would be great to have on the iPhone, here’s your chance to help out. Let us know what functions from Procore should be added to an iPhone app first. Procore wants our construction software to be where you are, and if that means doing construction project management on the iPhone or iPad, then we need to have an app for our customers to use.
On his blog ForConstructionPros.com, Sam Simon recently interviewed Johnnie Munger, CTO of diggerslist.com. Munger related his perspective on how the iPad can be helpful in the field for construction professionals. Munger noted how the iPad provides a highly portable device for email, as well as the fact that the iPad can display project and work portfolio photos with ease.
During his podcast, Munger was not able to give any examples of full-featured construction project management applications that are currently running on the entire Apple ecosystem of iPhone/iTouch/iPads. Aside from some pre-release announcements by vendors that have yet to demo actual working apps, the need for construction software on the iPhone and iPad remains unaddressed. Procore is considering bringing one of the first “full Apple ecosystem” apps to market, but we’d like to get actual customer input before we develop the app.
Call us at 866-477-6267, or email us at support@procore.com if you’d like to help us imagine how Procore would work on the iPhone. We’re considering building our own iPhone app, but we need your feedback on what the best features of a Procore app would be.
Procore now features a Chart View for tracking the progress history of RFIs and Submittals.
For RFIs, the Chart View allows you to view the overall Net Resolved RFIs over time. You’ll be able to see how many RFIs were opened during each month of the project, how many were closed, and what the Net Resolved RFI total was in any project month. The same analysis can be viewed for Open vs. Closed Submittals over the the life of the project.
These new views are part of Procore’s mission to help manage project information and make it usable. Paper-based systems can track RFIs, and you can also manage Submittals using your email Inbox. But if you manage your construction projects using paper files or email, you won’t be able to easily use the information that comes from your experience on each project.
With Procore, this kind of project information is available with the click of a mouse. Procore lets you collect project data, search for information, find project details and analyze project history. With Procore, your team can get BETTER at managing jobs—which makes you more productive and your projects more profitable.
To learn more, call us at 1-866-477-6267, or email us at support@procore.com
Procore now offers the capability to track LEED credits on any construction project. LEED certification can increase the desirability and marketability of almost any project, and may help to set a project apart from the competition. The challenge lies in tracking all of the information and documentation that supports the award of each LEED credit.
In response to customer demand, Procore has recently rolled out a LEED credit tracking feature. Using Procore, construction managers and LEED APs can associate individual submittals, change orders, and even project emails with specific LEED points. Using Procore to track LEED credits results in LEED documentation that is assembled as the project progresses, instead of “after the fact.” Associating project documents with LEED points during the project, rather than after project completion, makes it much easier to have all the proper documentation in place when it comes time to apply for a specific LEED credit.
The construction software experts at Software Advice recently examined Procore’s LEED capabilities and have a nice blog piece that relates their findings. During their conversation with Procore CEO Tooey Courtemanche, Software Advice noted that using a construction project management software application like Procore can help to reduce project risk:
“Project management software mitigates risk. There are big financial ramifications if you fall from a gold to silver, or off the podium entirely. As Courtemanche explained to us, “Just as accounting software has become a ’source of truth’ for financial reporting, project management software is a source of truth for LEED certification.”
LEED certification is too important to a project’s value—leaving the full documentation process until the end of the project is a new source of risk that can be mitigated by using Procore. Interested in learning more about Procore’s LEED credit tracking capability? Give us a call at 1-866-477-6267, or email us at sales@procore.com.
We’ve put a lot of work into Procore’s Document Management tool this month. The result: a radically improved tool that beats the competition, at a price that others can’t touch.
One thing that hasn’t changed is that Procore is STILL the only construction project management software application to offer Unlimited Document Storage Space at no extra charge. There’s never a limit on your document storage space in Procore.
After reviewing Procore’s new features, we think you’ll agree that Procore gives you an unbelievably powerful Document Management capability. Plus, all of these new features are easy to use!
Check out the new functions that come standard with Procore’s Document Management:
Document Permissions: Set access permissions from the Folder level all the way down to individual documents. Users can have their permissions set in any combination of levels. This means a user can have full document access on one project, partial access on another, and no access to documents on yet another project. Procore lets you do all of this with just a couple of clicks.
Drawing Log: Procore has a full drawing log, so that you can automatically track changes for all your plan files. New file versions are automatically numbered in sequence during the upload process, as well as time- and date-stamped.
Watch Folders: Procore automatically sends you an email you whenever a file is uploaded or downloaded from any specified directory or set of folders that you set as “Watch Folders”.
Download History: Want to know who on your project team has downloaded a particular file? Procore’s Document Management tool gives you this information for every file, automatically.
Weekly Document Update: See exactly what new documents were uploaded this week—Procore provides this feature as a standard view.
Related To: Procore tracks how every document in your online archive is used—telling you whether a specific document was part of an RFI, a Submittal, or included in Meeting Minutes. Just look at the “Related To” detail for any document, and you’ll get the full story.
Procore: Full Featured Document Management
To learn more, call us at 1-866-477-6267, or email us at support@procore.com
Procore now gives you the ability to customize your reports and templates with a specific look and feel. Add your company logo, match your company standards for fields and layouts—it’s all easy to do with Procore.
One of the challenges with most construction project management software is that you have to use “canned” reports and layouts. With Procore, you can customize PDF report layouts not only for your company, but even for individual projects that you’re working on.
This feature can be applied to as many reports as you like, and can vary from project to project within your same Procore account. This means that if you’re a contractor working on projects for multiple clients who want to see different report layouts, Procore can do it.
Or, if you’re a construction manager who has jobs with two different general contractors, Procore can provide you with PDFs that have different logos and layouts for each project you’re working on.
Questions? Contact us at 1-866-477-6267 or send us an email at support@procore.com to learn more.
Here are two new features in Procore that were developed in response to user feedback. Have an idea for how we can continue to make Procore the best construction project management software in the world? Send us an email at enhancements@procore.com.
And be sure to check out these new features next time you log into your Procore projects:
Role Based Permission Templates
Procore now lets you use Role Based Permission Templates. This feature allows you to set permissions for a certain project role once, and have those permissions automatically apply to that role for all of your company’s projects. The standard settings for “Architect” or “Project Engineer” or any other project role can be used on all of your projects, without having to reset permissions.
Choosing the permission option to ‘Save This User’s Settings as a Template’ or ‘Load an Already Created Template’ will create or apply a role-based permission. This new feature makes it quick and easy to set up additional projects in Procore, without having to enter the same set of permissions for each project.
Improvements Made to Meeting Minutes Tool
Cost codes can now be assigned to Meeting Items, which makes it possible to quickly review your meeting notes to find items related to a specific cost code. In addition, Procore now send reminder emails out for overdue meeting items, notifying the assignees when meeting items have passed a pre-set due date without being those items being closed. This helps to make “meet and forget” a thing of the past!
To learn more about this feature, contact support@procore.com or call 866-477-6267.
Procore users can now easily keep track of meeting agendas and minutes right in their Procore projects.
With Procore’s new Meeting Minutes tool, a meeting agenda can be quickly created and distributed to all project team members using email. Once the meeting has been held, the agenda can be converted with a single click into the minutes for that meeting. Comments and notes on the actual proceedings can be added to the minutes, and then the completed record can be distributed to all meeting participants. Open items from a single meeting can be carried forward to the next meeting, and meetings can be related to each other. So, if a weekly job site meeting needs to have a recurring topic, that topic can be carried forward from one meeting to the next.
This feature is available in the Enterprise Edition of Procore, for no extra charge.
Procore is excited to announce that we’ve released a FREE version of our construction software. Are you curious about how Procore can help your construction business, but you’re not quite ready to jump into one of Procore’s more powerful construction software offerings? Procore’s Free construction software is made just for you.
When we say “Free”, we don’t mean just for 30 days. With Procore’s Free Version, you don’t ever have to pay a dime. And, as always, you can still try any of our more powerful construction software offerings free for the first 30 days.
Procore’s Free construction software is limited to one project and three users, and you can use it for as long as you like for no charge. The Free version of Procore includes 250 MB of photo and document storage, so it’s great for pre-construction and small projects. When you’re ready to upgrade to construction software with more features and functionality, just click on the link in Procore and you’ll be upgraded in a flash. All of the data, photo and documents that you have in the free version will still be available for use once you’ve upgraded your project to a paid version of Procore.
To get started with your Free Procore project, click here to go to the Procore pricing page.
Do you have questions about how to use Procore? We’re now holding daily online question and answer sessions that can make you a Procore power user.
You can attend these sessions from any location with a phone and Internet connection. The phone is used to take part in a group conference call, and the Internet connection makes it possible for you to view and take part in screen sharing on your computer. You’ll be able to watch as a member of our Procore Support team walks you through the exact steps needed to answer your particular question. Plus, by listening to the questions other people have and watching their screen sharing session, you can pick up valuable tips and tricks on how to manage your construction projects with Procore.
Procore’s online Q&A sessions are held every day at either 11am or 1pm PST (depending on which day of the week you’d like to attend). In order to obtain a dial-in number and meeting code, call Procore at 1-866-477-6267, or send an email to support@procore.com.
Do you use RSS to keep up with information? We’re wondering because there’s a debate in the technology industry about using RSS, and we’re not sure which side is correct. The question is about whether the “business world” is ready to move from email to RSS as a standard form of communication.
The most recent statement comes from Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist who writes a well-known tech industry blog. Fred recently wrote:
“When the soccer moms, myspace kids, construction workers, and grandmothers can use RSS, commercial email will give way to RSS. Because RSS is a lot better.” (emphasis added)
Do you agree? Ever heard of RSS? Use it to keep up in your day to day work? Let us know by replying in the comments.
The reason we’re asking is that we’re always looking for ways to make it easier to use our application. For example, most Procore users get information into their project site by using email. With Procore, you can reply to emails without having to login to your project. We also make it easy to use email to add digital photos to projects, file documents in the archive, or add items to the project daily log.
Many Procore clients like to use our “Phone In Your Daily Log” feature, which they find even easier to use than email. The feature does what it says—you call a number, say the name of your project, and then dictate a message of up to 30 seconds. The message is transcribed and entered into the project’s daily log as a text entry. Simple.
Thanks in advance for your input.
Procore customers are noticing a significant speed improvement to the application this week. The improvement came about due to some database tuning that was performed by our engineers. The goal of the tuning was to decrease data query times in order to improve Procore’s page load times.
At Procore, we are constantly working on items that we call “invisible improvements.” We define invisible improvements as things that make Procore work better, without requiring our users to change the way they work. In some cases, this means speeding up operations. Another favorite I.I. is to actually remove buttons or screens that few (if any) users seem to be using. In our opinion, faster is better and, in many cases, less is also more.
We hope you enjoy the speed improvement.