Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review The Installation team is amazing. They provide clear guidance at the beginning of the process regarding what is expected and what needs to be done. The implementation manager follows up monthly with you to make sure you are on track and if you need additional help. They are very helpful and responsive in resolving issues.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review Job Costing - Viewpoint Spectrum handles job costing per project, per work order, per site, and gives us an up to date analysis of the project. HR - helps to keep all of the training certifications and HR incidents in a consistent and manageable order for all Managers to use. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Support isn't readily available. You can submit a ticket and wait days before it's picked up. Even critical issues (system outages) can wait an hour or two before someone responds. Large companies will feel limited. This product wasn't designed to handle large amounts of data, and performance seems to slow when there are more than 80 concurrent users. The new developments are limited. HR Management is less robust than a third-party product specializing in HR Management. Viewpoint Analytics is nowhere near as robust as Power BI or Tableau. Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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
Read full review The product is working for us and the cost to implement a new system does not warrant the expense.
Read full review Usability Very well thought app, easy to use and provides fast access to the project's plans (your own and your team's), improvements in the annotation posibilities and on-site report generator will be appreciatted. The punch-list report generator and the current/previous plan version compare tools works flawlessly. Haven't used the RFI's nor field report options yet
Read full review There's a little bit of a learning curve, but once you've been working in the system for a while, it becomes second nature. I would say that out of all of the other software that I've personally used, Spectrum has been the easiest one to pick up and learn quickly
Read full review Reliability and Availability I've never seen Spectrum down
Read full review Performance For the most part the product is very reliable. Since we are hosted we sometimes have connectivity issues but I would say that is more our ISP than Spectrum.
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review The support has recently changed. Last year, you could call in and get an immediate response. Now that doesn't seem possible unless you have an urgent situation with access to the software, payroll or payables. I have found that using chat or e-mail works nicely for the most part, but sometimes I feel it would be easier if someone from support would jump on our site and take a first-hand look rather than going back and forth
Read full review Online Training Our trainer was excellent and navigated the time zone differences expertly. She gave us test assignments to complete and was available for questions at any time.
Read full review Implementation Rating My only insight would be to take time in your implementation and training process; ours was six weeks from start to finish.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Read full review I have previously used Sage Masterbuilder, another construction industry software. This has been a number of years ago. The company I am working for already had Spectrum and have been using it for as long as it has been around when it was known as Forefront. Based on conversations I've had with the personnel that were here at the time of purchase, Spectrum clicked off all the boxes they were looking for.
Read full review Scalability You can grant user specific access which is nice. Project managers do not need all the same modules as Accounting. But Accounting does need access to PM modules as well
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review [In my opinion,] it takes at LEAST twice as long to do our jobs now. [I feel like] we are paranoid about something not being printed correctly because of [what I believe are] buggy text fields. [In my experience,] we still have to refer to a physical file cabinet with paper, even though a main point of switching was to go paperless. [In our experience,] screens can now be "locked", so we can't see something if our coworker is also looking at it. [I believe that] the financial hit our company took from this switch was astronomical. [In my opinion:] Beware! Read full review ScreenShots Autodesk Build Screenshots