Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review SmartBid is also very useful for conducting sub-contracting analysis and management simulations in the didactic field. The procedures for sharing documents are helpful, but the graphic can be improved. Many forms can be pre-filled. This helps a lot in saving time and money! SmartBid is great for exporting and/or sending single or mass emails. However, as mentioned, it would be useful to simplify some pre-construction processes and improve the overall communication
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review It's very easy to set up a job and manage who receives solicitations. You can also keep detailed notes on who've you contacted and see if they're actually downloading and reviewing the documents. You can add a confidentiality agreement clause which they must accept before accessing the documents. It then stores this information if it ever needs to be accessed. This is much cleaner and easier then sending out a NDA form and having the subcontractor return it before actually sending drawings/docs. You can send Invitations to Bid and set it up to continue sending these ITB's until the subcontractor responds. However, this can also be a negative point because once you set up a delayed ITB, it doesn't update as the subcontractors view and respond to the ITB's. So if a sub is "Not Responded" and you set up a delayed ITB to fire off every day for 5 days, and the sub responds after day 2, that sub will continue to receive ITB's for all 5 days. Uploading drawings is quick and easy. It's especially convenient if you link to one of your cloud services such as Egnyte, Google Drive, etc. The search tools are quick and easy and often very accessible from any page. Read full review Cons I have found it difficult to locate audits. Some users have issues while uploading project data. Read full review We have seen intermittent problems with notes disappearing. Ability to have more than one project bidding open at the same time/on multiple windows. Mobile apps. Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review SmartBid has an excellent support team that is always at your service. Any problem I've had (when I've even had them) has been resolved almost immediately, along with tips on how to avoid them in the future. If you're looking for a program with excellent customer service, look no further than SmartBid.
Read full review Alternatives Considered A good competitor against other similar solutions and support is excellent.
Read full review SmartBid is used by more of the contractors that we happen to do lots of work with. It has basically the same features. However, SmartBid will let subcontractors view all the jobs a general contractor is bidding, even ones we were never invited to. So it has the potential to bring more opportunities.
Read full review Return on Investment Newforma makes it easy to transfer, share, archive, and search extensive data sets in a single GUI For it to be effective, all users in a team must receive a basic training and use it consistently Adoption in the industry is good (A/E); many teams use it consistently. Learning to use it once produces time-saving in subsequent projects Read full review It is a big time saver compared to sending out individual emails. It saves time in having multiple individual databases for company contact info. It ensures that everyone is getting the same information. Read full review ScreenShots