Autodesk Build vs. Nitro Productivity Suite

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

I run a professional services business from home. I need to edit documents quickly and easily and with minimal subscriptions to minimize overheads. I love that Nitro is a one-off payment to get a license to the software, and you can simply upgrade to the latest version if that's what you want, but you're not obligated to. I've been using the same version of Nitro for 7-8 years now. Despite the fact the upgraded versions have a lot of great, nice-to-have features, the version I'm on still does the job.

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

• Ability to combine files SEAMLESSLY and order them around as necessary (so underrated)
• Signing not only for yourself but for others. Helpful for those who have been granted the authority to sign for VPs and directors
• Much easier to use than some other PDF viewing services

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

• Converting from PDF to Microsoft Word can be complicated at times. Some parts of a document such as tables are not converted properly.
• Sometimes it appears to be easier to save MS Word documents to PDF rather than using NPS to convert. It can be a bit slow to convert at times.
• In my view, it wasn't user friendly at the beginning.

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

We will definitely be renewing the Nitro Productivity Suite. Saves the company a lot of money for something we use everyday

Incentivized

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

For the most part, the entire software is extremely easy to navigate and use. You won't need to follow tutorials or anything for the bulk of the core features, as it's all pretty seamlessly designed.

Incentivized

It works as advertised.

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

Nitro checks all the boxes for what we need. It is fairly priced, it allows us to read and edit PDF documents, convert PDF to MS Word and convert MS Word to PDF. It allows us to combine multiple files and do all the post processing like adding page numbers and adding headers and footers

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

Every 1-2 years will do a check on current PDF options to include trialing the software. Have tried Foxit and several that seem to have failed in the marketplace. Over the last 4 years, I have always stuck with Nitro. Unfortunately, we still need to keep Adobe Acrobat (free version) installed to view a small percentage of some PDFs we receive.

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

• ROI was very quick as the license costs were so low. We purchased 8 licenses versus the initial 2 we were planning on for Adobe.
• More people were able to use the product than we initially thought due to low purchase costs.
• We haven't had any further costs to own the product after the initial purchase. We would need to purchase new licenses if we wanted to upgrade.

Incentivized