Autodesk Build vs. Foxit PDF Editor

PlanGrid performs really well in all aspects of construction from the general to the sub/trade. The platform distributes and communicates project documentation in an extremely user-friendly manner. As with most software, it is cheaper the larger the scale of the project. In situations where the project is relatively small, and the trade contracts are also of relatively low dollar value, the product can be cost-prohibitive.

Incentivized

Great for marking up depositions or pleadings with highlights, comments, and notes during case review.
Supports Bates stamping, password protection, and other features often required for electronic filing.

Built-in tools allow for quick and secure redaction of privileged or confidential information before sharing or filing. Less appropriate if you needed to work on real time collaboration or building complex form templates from scratch.

Incentivized

• Plangrid is the best SaaS I have seen for ease of uploading construction plans and automated organization of those plans.
• For companies that are not using other products for mobile access, the Plangrid mobile apps are perfect to allow people on and off site to share and collaborate in many phases of construction project documentation.
• Plangrid has a very responsive technical support team (although it is pretty much email only).
• Plangrid's website layout is easy to use and understand and allows new users to jump right in and do basic to moderate tasks without little training.

Incentivized

• FoxitPhantom carries superior editing tools over Adobe Acrobat and similar products. It allows you to modify text, images, & objects in a more robust fashion
• Integrates well with Microsoft Office products such as Word, PPT, & Excel
• Allows you to work in a nearly paperless environment

Incentivized

• The photo attachment process is a bit complicated. In ProCore (another similar software I've used), you can upload photos directly into RFIs for your reference, or into e-mails. For PlanGrid, you have to first upload the photo into the documents tab, then link them into the RFI. It's not intuitive and can add confusion to the documents tab.
• Photos can't be directly uploaded. Between different devices and colleagues, it's possible you'll get an important photo outside of the PlanGrid photo capture feature within its app. Again, it's complicated for users to use.
• In their new drawings viewer, the icons for actions do not have icons available. I had to use them all in order to understand what they meant, and I'm fairly tech savvy. I'm not sure if a new person to PlanGrid will pick up on each icon's abilities very easily.
• There's no all-in-one solution in CM, but PlanGrid is fairly barebones, and I don't believe it has any ability to connect to other software. There's no ability to take meeting munites; you can hack the field reports feature to accomplish this, but it's clear that was not the intent of the designers.

Incentivized

• I have a dual monitor setup at work and there are times when I wish that I could view pdf documents on both monitors at the same time. I have not yet figured out how to do that with FoxitPhantom as it appears to limit the user to displaying multiple pdf documents as separate tabs on the same screen. If dual screen is an option in the software, it needs to be more apparent.
• I can't think of any other desired improvements. This software really does everything that I need it to do.

Incentivized

We are at the point where we have shown our teams what is possible with this software. We cannot take it away and go back to the way we used to do things. I think that they would push back on us to give them access to something electronic. It is a good program that we will continue to use

Incentivized

Because very few editors are so easy to use and deploy backed by speed and performance. Foxit PDF is known for its speed and performance, allowing users to open and work with PDF files quickly and efficiently

Foxit's user-friendly interface is easy to navigate and use, making it a popular choice for users who are new to PDF software.

Hard to get the hang of this software, but with time it become very repetitive and easier to navigate. I have used this software for over a year now and the constant updates by Autodesk have made the software better and better to use at work. This allows me to use this tool more effectively

Incentivized

It's great tool to use for any type of business in the world and short cut the time to convert files and has other different features like I Assistant for summarizing, rewriting, and extracting key data from your documentEdit text and images, reorder, and delete pages in a PDFConvert PDFs and export to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPointEasily create, fill, sign, and send formsAdd security and password-protect PDF filesTurn scanned documents into editable, searchable PDFsCompare two versions of a PDF to review all differencesSign documents, request signatures, and track responses in real timeSmart Redact to automatically remove sensitive informationIncludes mobile app

FoxitPhantom PDF integrates very well with the Microsoft Office products, which is where I found I use this the most. It performs about as well as can be expected, without any out of place latency. Whether it be merging, deleting, editing or rearranging pages, its performance holds up even with larger documents.

Incentivized

Online chat during business hours is extremely helpful. The Plangrid staff has gone above and beyond many times to help us. One time they even offered to completely rebuild our 900+ sheet project so I could slip sheet a few old drawing revisions! This undoubtedly would have taken hours on Plangrid's end. They are always responsive and are continually improving, listening to user feedback.

Incentivized

I haven't personally had interaction with the customer support from FoxitPhantom, however based on conversations I have had with members in the organization, I was given positive feedback. Their website has a lot of information and tutorials. If you need to contact them, they are quick to respond. User manuals are readily available.

Incentivized

Plangrid, while not serving the external document distribution function, is unrivaled for internal document distribution and sharing in the construction industry. The speed at which documents are navigatable, the ability to download your projects for viewing without an internet connection, and the document mark-up and photo tools place it head and shoulders above the competition.

Incentivized

Foxit PDF Editor had the most tools that I frequently use and it had them right where I expected them. All of the others that I demoed either lacked tools I use often or were not nearly as intuitive to use.

Incentivized

• It helped us "wow" a joint commission survey in 2016 and have a successful survey because he loved how we could access plans on an iPad, check suite sizes, and didn't have to carry around huge, heavy sets of life safety plans.

Incentivized

• For a PDF software in a our company is difficult to translate the software performance into financial results. With a PDF software is a lot less obvious than an ERP of a Payroll System, but one advantage could be the savings that a lower cost of licensing would bring when it is used by a bigger number of users.
• A positive impact is the ease of use when creating and filing new hired employees, but once again, it is hard to say that it is faster than a different PDF software and even if that was the case the savings in time would be probably unnoticeable. At least one would be having a process with no hassles when creating and saving your PDF documents for your employees.
• So far no crashes. I have never heard a complain about Foxit crashing even when you have dozens of documents opened at the same time. We can't say the same when using other applications like Excel... This brings peace of mind and less frustrated users.

Incentivized