10 Reasons to get excited about SKYSITE

A lot has been said and written on the subject of cloud technology in the construction industry. Yes, there has been a definite uptick in adoption of cloud-based construction management software by construction companies. After all the technology has been widely available for some years now; and businesses of varying sizes have already moved or are moving their data, information, and infrastructure to the cloud. However, some construction companies have not yet made the transition, and some of them are still hesitantly sitting on the fence.

For those construction companies who are thinking of migrating OR have not yet migrated to the cloud platform, there is good news. There are plenty of good reasons to get excited about moving to SKYSITE™! SKYSITE™ is an integrated cloud-based construction document management solution with mobile and desktop sync applications. SKYSITE™ is designed to specifically address and improve the workflow of the AEC industry.

SKYSITE Fall Release 2015

We’re happy to announce the 2015 Summer Release of SKYSITE!

Input from our customers and months of testing has helped us upgrade performance and usability to work like you work! No other app matches SKYSITE’s ability to store, manage, mark-up and distribute your construction documents.

SKYSITE’s Fall Release is full of improvements, including:

  1. RFIs
  2. Photo Management
  3. Punch Lists

Keep reading to get the details on the 3 main new features.

1. RFI

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In construction, time is money—and saving time amounts to saving money not spent on employee hours and other potential costs. That’s why responding fast to requests for information (RFIs), quickly altering incorrect documents, and getting the right info to subcontractors and other team members is crucial, whatever the stage of the project.

With our new RFI feature, employees can streamline workflows and save time and money. Through SKYSITE 2.0’s new RFI feature, team members can create RFIs at the project level or the street level, and can distribute those documents within cloud-based SKYSITE as a link, rather than as an outside email exchange that could be overlooked by some of its recipients.

Specifications, plans and other documents can be linked to an RFI, and team members can always know the current status of these documents, while also having a thorough audit trail showing the history of the RFIs. The feature also enables addition of custom attributes for further sorting, searching and filtering of RFIs.

The Save As feature of the RFI function allows the user to collate all attachments and links in a single mouse-click. This new feature ensures that RFIs can’t be tampered with, while providing accountability among team members, since each RFI is automatically dated and time-stamped when it is created.

We added the RFI feature to better serve its clients, said James Mercado, Product Manager for ARC. “All of our SKYSITE enhancements are driven by our customers. Even though we’ve released SKYSITE 2.0, we’re still enhancing it as we go along,” he said.

While paper-based progress can take two days or more for major tasks, SKYSITE’s RFI feature eliminates costly delays, as well as employee errors, from slowing the info transfer process. Team members can create tasks, or view, review and respond to the current status of RFIs through mobile and desktop devices.

RFIs that are received can be quickly reviewed, with comments or attachments added, marked up online, and cross-referenced with other documents. Since this can be done without paper copies of documents, costs associated with printing, collating and shipping paper documents are eliminated.

2. Photo Management

PhotoManagement

ARC’s release of SYSITE 2.0, which includes a new Photo Management feature, is the culmination of a process that began in March 2015, starting with technical specification creation that was completed in June 2015. ARC’s key customers were consulted to ensure that the new SKYSITE would help simplify their work as much as possible.

That collaborative approach allowed the key clients to be the first to enjoy a 1-stop method of handling their construction documents

“A lot of them were able to get rid of consumer grade solutions they had been using, and now can use the same repository for photos, drawings and other documents,” said James Mercado, Product Manager for ARC.

The Photo Management feature provides employee accountability by streamlining project communication and documentation. Thanks to the widespread use of mobile technology, construction is quickly changing. An industry that previously had been focused on project plans to manage, measure and remove delays in projects, now is increasingly relying on photos to record, manage and gauge jobsite progress.

With SKYSITE’s Photo Management, users can store and interact through photos anytime, anywhere. The feature also is scalable, allowing workers to store and save photos on various sites, and while using different applications. Users can upload photos from a mobile device or desktop computer, and store any number of digital photos, which also can be individually tagged with details and comments. This enables employees to create inspection-grade construction photos that can serve as permanent records which could prevent litigation.

This new application also can help employees to delegate uploading of photos to other team members, and enable previewing and sharing of photos between collaborators. In addition to being able to search and filter photos quickly, users can create photo galleries. The Photo Management feature works on all kinds of digital content, including JPEG, PNG, BMP and GIF.

3. Punch Lists

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Punch Lists are crucial to successful project completions, because these lists note the tasks that must be finished to satisfy a construction contract’s terms. Since small details can easily be missed, especially on a large project, punch lists are important To Do sheets.

We endeavored to simplify punch lists and other tasks while creating SKYSITE 2.0. Utilizing ARC’s deep domain knowledge we created a system that enables project users to manage all construction related document in one place.

“One of our key clients said, ‘I want to be able to walk into a room and access the voice recorder, rather than the whole project description.’ So now, the recipient can access the actual audio recording, which makes sense, for example, if you are using a mobile device,” said James Mercado, Product Manager for ARC.

SKYSITE’s Punch Lists feature enables workers to save time by creating punch lists items from the field, which can be assigned to an employee, and tagged with a specified due date for completion. Punch Lists items can be dropped directly into a drawing, and filtered by status: open, closed or pending.

Like SKYSITE’s other new features, the Punch Lists function helps provide employee accountability by tracking all actions related to the punch lists. Progress on the punch lists also can be tracked—due dates can be monitored, and “overdue” notices automatically sent for uncompleted items. This handy feature frees employees from spending excessive time creating punch lists, while providing clarity in such lists, and streamlining the administration of the tasks associated with those lists.

Learn More about SKYSITE

The SKYSITE mobile apps are free and available now for Android, iOS, and Windows. To learn more you can attend our webinar featuring these new enhancements:

1. Tuesday, Oct 13 at 1:00 to 2:00 PM PDT.
2. Wednesday, Oct 14 at 11:00AM to Noon PDT.
3. Friday, Oct 16 at 11AM to Noon PDT.

Or you can speak to one of our construction document experts by calling the SKYSITE Customer Success Team at 1.844.SKYSITE.

New to SKYSITE? Go to www.skysite.com and get it for free.