e-Builder is a cloud-based construction program management solution that manages capital program cost, schedule, and documents. It allows owners to measure and manage the capital project delivery process from planning, design, procurement, construction and operations.
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Newforma Project Center
Score 7.4 out of 10
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Newforma Project Center is web-based construction project information management software for collaboration. Users can access a drag and drop interface, relate emails to documents, markup and review designs, track meeting minutes and action items, and search across projects. It has mobile accessibility.
Well suited for the owner's side of managing multiple projects as it allows for all aspects of a project from development to closeout to be managed on one platform. Not as appropriate for a general contractor as there is better software out there. e-Builder's app is not as effective as others.
Newforma is a great tool to collaborate with large teams and between firms. It allows for great documentation of transfers, activities, and other procedural aspects of projects that require collaboration between disciplines, for example, MEP, electrical, architectural and technology. For internal use, Newforma has been great for communications tracking and archival, as well as for record-keeping of all the users in a team or number of teams. Many great options are features are unused due to a lack of training or exposure to them, for example, the graphical viewers that can preview CAD, Revit, and other formats, or the markup tool available with the desktop client.
Provide a document structure that is easy to navigate. All documents, even within a process, are stored in the document structure and easily accessed by those with the correct permissions.
Scheduling, especially with the new module is easy. It is helpful with a large organization where many hands touch projects to be able to forecast workloads (we have an in house engineering team who reviews all projects during their design phase)
Allows for easy interface with contractors and makes the submittal process more straightforward.
Newforma sits on top of our previous filing system (Windows Explorer). This was very important to us because we didn't have to change the project numbering system in order to fit Newforma's design. Also, if we were to decide we didn't like it, we could easily revert back to our previous methods.
Newforma does a great job of indexing information, making searches much easier by being able to use keywords instead of knowing the exact file location. No more traversing through countless folders before finding what you need.
Newforma keeps a read receipt for everything that you submit through it for issue tracking, and keeps an easy to read record of your workflow.
The restrictions in formatting, and sorting of information rendered, in a way, affects the reporting output.
At certain times of day, e-Builder traffic causes the loading of filtered searches to take a while. This is probably common regardless of the site or software used.
More complicated reporting has some limitation, though the program is highly efficient in assisting with simple format reports.
Simple, because have a used it for the past two years, so i'm very familiar with the particular aspects of its program that I need to accomplish my tasks.
Again, because our technical support is great. He doesn't always answer the phone but he definitely responds to emails fairly quickly. In addition, I like that he actually resolves an issue and I have yet to encounter the same issue twice. Actually, I haven't encountered many issues at all in the two years I have used the software.
While I have never asked for support myself, a Newforma representative has been in the office annually to give training seminars and info sessions on how to fully use the product. I find this essential to keep the product relevant and make sure everyone knows its full capabilities and an important part of customer support.
1. Set up the time to get training on the sytem before you go all in.
2. Listen, ask questions and actually practice using the tools and features while in class. It helps tremendously with becoming comfortable and remembering how things work.
3. Don't be afraid to mess up. They are helpful and will help resolve your issue in a timely manner
We have not compared other plans since the boss prefers this program from personal experience. But from using this program for 2 years I can see why we don't need to compare. Why fix something that isn't broken? It gets the job done, yes we might run into some issues but I feel like with all companies that can happen
