Construction teams have started relying on project photos to manage, measure and eliminate delays in project progress. Mobile applications for storing, organizing and filing digital images have also evolved. They enable construction and design firms to record project progress and increase accountability by streamlining and mobilizing project communication and documentation.

Photographs serve as a permanent record of your project’s progress, memorialize major construction milestones, and have the added benefit of acting as irrefutable evidence during disputes. Given the increasingly important role of project photos in managing construction, ARC Document Solutions introduced a Photo Management module in its most recent upgrade to SKYSITE.

SKYSITE Photo Management is designed for construction professionals allowing them to share, exchange and collaborate using photos on a single platform.

SKYSITE Photo Management offer tremendous benefits to project members.

1. Enhance efficiency

To increase efficiency construction photos must have a connection to a specific construction blueprints to provide relevance between drawings and photos. SKSYITE Photo Management enables users to:

• Pin a photo to a drawing sheet.
• View the photo associated with a specific location on the sheet.
• Access photos on both a tablet or in a web browser.

2. Easy management & controls

SKYSITE photo management helps users effortlessly manage their photo library:

• Delegate uploads of photos to other contributors and team members
• Upload, manage and host all photos in a single application
• Share, exchange and collaborate using photo content anytime, anywhere and from anyplace
• Store and save photos on personal devices for quick and easy access
• Search and filter your photos fast
• Create galleries or use a flat folder structure
• Link photos to drawings, RFI’s, and Punchlists
• Import photos from other devices in seconds.

3. Supports a wide variety of file formats

The application can store and manage JPEGs, GIFs,TIFFs and BMPs

4. Increase productivity

SKYSITE Photo Management offers quick and easy photo collaboration. You can take photos in the field, add a date and time stamp, and share them instantly, or you can sync and save them to your central database for access and analysis at a later date.

5. Manage & search

Taking a photo is easy, but finding it can be difficult when all you have to work with is a title.

SKYSITE Photo Management adds key attributes for precise and arcuate photo search. Not only are photos are associated to specific projects, but users can tag images with key words associated with a specific building, level, area, room, and description. Photo metadata are also preserved, including the GPS coordinate of where the image was taken.

6. Access and accountability

SKYSITE offers a full range of permissions to control who can take, tag, upload, or view photos and other file types.

SKYSITE Photo Management is designed for Construction Professionals to connect seamlessly. It enables project users to collaborate and communicate from anywhere by using any device using Photos as the medium.

These comprehensive functionalities serve a purpose for every project member providing accountability, transparency, time and cost saving benefit for the entire project.

Go to SKYSITE to learn more.

If there’s one question that always gets project managers to roll their eyes and express their frustration, it’s this one: “Are you behind in your RFIs?”

“Requests for Information,” or RFIs, have a big impact on the construction process. They enable collaboration between the design team and contractors to mitigate the impact and associated risks to project schedules and budgets. But no matter how well an RFI is written, or how well it is documented, it can’t move the ball forward if it isn’t distributed to the right people at the right time, and responded to with the proper sense of urgency.

Since the turn-around time of an RFI is a key driver of both productivity and the ultimate quality of a project, improving RFI response was high on the list of priorities for the SKYSITE development team.

“We built SKYSITE to help manage construction documents and files of all kinds, including RFIs,” said Dilo Wijesuriya, ARC’s Chief Operating Officer. “RFI’s are among the most critical documents in the construction process and make up the bulk of communication between teams once construction has begun.”

In SKYSITE, construction teams can create, view, review, and respond in real-time to RFIs on the cloud via their mobile devices, or on their desktop. No one has to guess who has the RFI at the moment, who was the last person to respond, or where to send it after it’s been addressed. It’s all there inside SKYSITE.

• With SKYSITE, teams are able to view and review RFIs through web and mobile-enabled devices and can add custom attributes for further sorting, filtering and searching.
• Team members receive information as it is issued and can make fast decisions to mitigate risk to project delivery timelines and project budgets.
• SKYSITE users get real-time RFI changes and status updates.
• Specs, plans, and other documents can be linked to any RFI.
• One click generates the RFI cover and compiles all attachments into a single PDF file.

Curious to see how SKYSITE manages RFIs and speeds up your construction projects?

Call our SKYSITE Customer Success Team at 1.844.SKYSITE.

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

Enhance your communications capabilities using SKSYSITE’S- RFI, Photo Management and Punch Lists.

Without construction documents, building projects grind to a halt. Plans, specs, photos, RFIs, punch lists and similar documents are the primary means of communication in the industry. Managing these critical documents in paper form has always been complex, arduous and time-consuming effort.

AEC professionals who are managing documents digitally at present are compelled to use a variety of generic / consumer software solutions which come with host of other problems.

SKYSITE construction cloud has added powerful features taking construction document distribution, communication and collaboration notches higher by putting construction documents in a single, cloud-based application specially designed for architects, engineers and contractors.

SKYSITE enables seamless communication across different locations in real time. A project member can quickly and effortlessly in manner of seconds collaborate and share. SKYSITE with this release will facilitate users to avoid the cumbersome, complicated and unreliable methods of using multiple technology tools to accomplish the same tasks.

SKYSITE manages and distributes construction documents and information via the cloud and mobile devices. It was designed to create a smooth and seamless workflow for construction projects by making communication simple, easy and painless. New features include tools for managing additional document types and tasks.

Request for Information (RFI):

Speeding up responses to RFIs makes projects run smoother and close faster.

• SKYSITE teams are able to view and review RFIs through web and mobile-enabled devices and can add custom attributes for further sorting, filtering and searching.
• Team members receive information as it is issued and can make fast decisions to mitigate risk to project delivery timelines and project budgets.
• SKYSITE users get real-time RFI changes and status updates.
• Specs, plans and other documents can be linked to any RFI.
• One click generates the RFI cover and compiles all attachment into a single PDF file.

Photo Management:

SKYSITE enhances the role digital photos play in managing and measuring progress on today’s project sites.

• SKYSITE construction teams can take and tag photos and aggregate them in a single, common project directory accessible from any mobile device.
• Photos can be managed, indexed and searched quickly and efficiently.
• SKYSITE project users can collaborate and communicate on any mobile device using photos as the medium in the same workspace where drawings and specifications are kept.

Punch Lists:

SKYSITE puts punch lists capabilities where team members can work with them and prevents information silos and data redundancy that separate applications can generate during the QA/QC process.

• SKYSITE users can track lists of project issues and tasks in a single common directory.
• Issues are captured in real time, as punch lists are available from any SKYSITE-enabled mobile device.
• SKYSITE teams can monitor punch lists due dates directly from the application, assign responsibility to appropriate team members and track an issue’s current status.
• Photos and voice memos can be uploaded or linked when creating or responding to a punch-list.

SKYSITE with RFI, Photo Management and Punch Lists offers unprecedented value to contractors by further streamlining documents, collaboration and communication. Further giving boost to productivity and efficiency.

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

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.

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

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

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

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:

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.

Documents are the primary means of communication among AEC professionals. Yet, our research has found that one-third of the AEC professionals find it a challenge to access the latest set of navigate and search through the documents. A project generates hundreds thousands of documents; navigating to access precise information is a herculean challenge.

Effective project management begins with effective collaboration. And for successful project collaboration, it is important that all project members have the right set of documents.

Last month, we released SKYSITE™, our content management software, with enhanced features. One of the new amazing customer-friendly feature we have introduced is that SKYSITE™ is Hyperlinking-enabled.

SKYSITE™ seamlessly supports hyperlinks on tablets and desktops, maintaining the integrity of hyperlinks from user to user, and from platform to platform. Pre-existing hyperlinks created in other markup software remain functional in the SKYSITE cloud, and across various devices allowing customers to use different software tools interchangeably.

A project member using SKYSITE™ hyperlinking capabilities will now be able to navigate through thousands of digital document sets, quickly and easily in a manner of minutes.

SKYSITE™ Hyperlinking will make it easier for a user to find connections between plans improving collaboration with web-based markup.

SKYSITE™ Hyperlinking offers tremendous advantages;

* Save time, increase productivity. Click and you’re there!

* Maintain one master set and publish one to the team

* Hyperlinks carries forward; always up-to-date with versioning

* Maintain a master set in the Cloud- access your hyperlinked project document from anywhere using any device.

* Sync markups from Tablet/iPad to Tablet/iPad

Using SKYSITE Hyperlinking, a project user will get required information with few clicks. Do more, get more done and do it faster by hyperlinking a project on SKYSITE. SKYSITE Hyperlinking streamlines processes and increases efficiency.

Want to hyperlink your project? Reach out to us:

• Call 844.759.7483
• Email: info@skysite.com

One thing that never gets old in business is knowing your customers. Adhering to our business philosophy, we consistently create opportunities to listen to our customers.

Early this month, we asked over 1,000 customers, professionals in the AEC industry (general architects, engineering companies, and general contractors), about their views on challenges and trends in the AEC industry. Our survey covered from large 1000+ employee enterprises as well as small boutique firms of ten people or less. Here are the key insights.

a. TRENDS

An overwhelming majority, 93% of AEC professionals believe that increases in productivity and decreases in cost are most dependent on the adoption of new technology tools. Respondents ranked universal online access, communication and collaboration solutions, and the ability to track budget in real-time as the top three capabilities that increase productivity and reduce project cost. What are the Most Important Capabilities for Increasing Productivity and Reducing Cost?

1. Communication tools to keep project team on track (79%)
2. Online access for all project participants (69%)
3. Tracking budget in real-time (62%)
4. Intelligent scheduling needs and mobile access to project management lifecycle on any device (tied at 59%)
5. Centralizing all projects in one place (45%)

Consistent with their responses regarding the importance of their communication capabilities, nearly 50% of all respondents indicated that leading cause of project delays were the use of incorrect or faulty drawings or specifications. The survey revealed that 1 in 4 (24.14%) AEC professionals personally print 200-499 documents a week. Thus, managing a construction project with or without technology is a clear contributor to both successes and obstacles in AEC industry practices.

b. CHALLENGES

When asked to rank the top infrastructure challenges facing North America, a majority of 83% of respondents chose “Rebuilding Aging Infrastructure” as the top industry challenge, followed by “Building Clean Power Plants” (51%) and “Expansion of Projects Aimed at Securing Water” (48%). .

The Top Five Infrastructure Challenges in North America

1. Rebuilding Aging Infrastructure (83%)
2. Building Clean Power Plants (51%)
3. Expansion of Projects Aimed at Securing Water (48%)
4. Expanding on rail transit in cities (28%)
5. Building High Speed Regional Rail (21%)

c. IMPACTS

When AEC professionals were asked, what is most likely to influence the practice of architecture and construction in the coming years, a majority 72% reported use of technology as the most important issue; followed by collaboration (45%), two issues that increasingly go hand-in-hand. 40% respondents rated demographic and environmental conditions as having primary impact on the way we design and build in the future. Only 31% believed new building materials are likely to make a big impact. What will have the biggest impact in North American architecture and construction?

Changing Industry:

1. Technology (72%)
2. Collaboration (45%)
3. New Building Materials (31%)

Global Events:

1. Rising Population and Housing Needs (45%)
2. Global Warming/Energy Efficiency (41%)

CONCLUSION

The results of the survey demonstrate that industry professionals have their priorities squarely on the most important issues facing our society and economy today. Technology continues to be a challenge. And they are increasingly turning to communication and collaboration technology to address these gaps in productivity and efficiency.

For as low as $80.00 a month, you can equip your Supervisors, Project Managers, Site Managers, Document Managers, and Subcontractors with a powerful hardware and software combination that helps cut off as much as 2 weeks from all your future projects. Paper is slow. Our customers tell us the upload, organization, and ongoing distribution of paper construction documents and revisions adds on average 2 weeks to each project.

But there’s a better, faster way. Using SKYSITE, the most cost-effective construction app for General Contractors, Specialty Trade Contractors, Designers, Engineers and Architects, you start projects faster and finish close outs lightning fast. SKYSITE is like adding a virtual Project Manager to your team. SKYSITE guarantees that everyone is on the latest set and not building from outdated construction documents. ARC now offers you the ability to avoid large up-front capital expenses, pass on the expense as a reimbursable project cost, and lease to own the latest iPads ARC will even help organize and upload your first project and even train your key managers on how to use SKYSITE. Your project delivery will speed up, you’ll experience less rework, and add hard dollars to your bottom line.

Download the PDF for more info: IPadLease

Contact a Rep

Call: (925) 658-9018

Email: info@skysite.com

Don’t have SKYSITE? Get it for free.

Summer Coverage

Sustainable Business

Construction Industry Says Clean Energy is a Priority

Construction Executive

Technology and Software Rundown: Webinars, BIM Scheduling and Big Data Summit

Chief Executive

How a Mid-Market CEO Is Using the Cloud to Make a Once Dying Business Thrive

Construction News (Newsletter)

Riding the Cloud

ForConstructionPros

Video: SKYSITE Mobile App Helps Construction Contractors Collaborate in Real Time

ConAppGuru

The Construction Tech Roadshow Report

AGC of America: TechBrief

The Need for Industry Cloud Solutions in the AEC Community

Construction Canada

Riding the Cloud

TMCNet

AEC Study Shows Ongoing Need for Cloud Solutions

Total Circulation: 183,714

AEC Cafe

How AEC Professionals Can Create a Flexible, Mobile Workflow

Construction Specifier

AEC survey focuses on technology in the industry

ConAppGuru

The Five Workflows for Apps in Construction (Plans)

Asking the right questions can be a disruptive agent, could redefine an entire thought-process, redirect a team or a company’s focus. It serves as a pointer, aiming us in the direction of the answer. It serves us well in making the right decisions.

It is imperative to ask questions that drives you towards making an optimal decision. Buying a solution is no different.

In our earlier blog, we mentioned that cloud technology has made adoption easy, quick, simple and affordable. Cloud and mobile technologies simply provide unprecedented value!

Today, almost every AEC player irrespective of size is working on some form of technology solution. There are a plethora of solutions in the market today. Hence asking the right questions is important. We discussed three questions while choosing a solution- who owns the data? Who can access the data? How secure is the data?

Continuing our conversation I am going to talk about more questions to asking while considering a solution.

How long has the vendor been around?

A typical construction project can last for years, and you want to make sure you have a partner that will be with you throughout it and beyond. Important questions to ask include: Do they have a legal team and can they fight for you in the event of litigation? Can they stand up to the discovery requests from larger companies?

How do they migrate the data out if necessary?

You want the flexibility of a company that can seamlessly migrate your data out of their system and into another one while preserving one of the most important aspects of your data: versioning. A typical document can have more than 100 versions for a medium sized project and potentially many more for a large project. If you need to look back at a document from 10 years ago, you’d much rather view 1 document over 100 documents.

What is their business continuity posture?

The successful vendor has to be able to guarantee 99% uptime while the product is running, as even 1% of downtime costs construction projects huge amounts of time and money.

What kind of IT infrastructure is the solution provider employed is the solution hosted on the third party infrastructure like Amazon, Google or Microsoft? If the solution is hosted on their own cloud check whether they have disaster recovery sites and how easily shift things around if one of their sites goes down.

Continuous product development?

Consider a company like Apple. When you buy a laptop, you know you’re getting a software product inside that is constantly being reviewed and updated. Just as this expectation is important to consumers, it can be vitally important to the software used on a project. If that software only runs on the current version for last one or two years, it won’t last the test of time. Check out the track record of the product and ask about the development pipeline or product roadmap before committing.

Product support and service?

Remember, buyers now don’t just buy a product; they buy a relationship and a service. Make sure you have good and reliable service available throughout the lifecycle of the product. Consumers have options and construction companies should as well.

By asking these questions, rest assured you are going to make the right decision.

Go to www.skysite.com to learn more.