PlanSwift, by ConstructConnect vs. Revit

I use PlanSwift for all my projects - it has just cut my time by a major percentage when it comes to quantifying a blueprint. At times there are funky areas, which are just hard to calculate on paper. It also has a great tool for scaling according to the dimensions, so if a drawing is missing a scale, you can always allot a scale by giving directions and then marking the points. I use this tool to check the scale as well - sometimes the drawings say something but the scale if off and you are left with an incorrect take-off. The dimension tool is a good way to check that. We don't use it much for pricing purposes though, we have found other software which are more robust when it comes to estimation, but we can see using PlanSwift for pricing sometime in the future.

Incentivized

Revit is very well suited to creating designs and construction documents for standard buildings. Buildings that need to utilize phasing in their construction process are also well suited to this software. Revit is not as well suited to buildings that have irregular shapes or components that need to be highly detailed.

Incentivized

• Easy to use and intuitive.
• Accurate data to use for projects, allowing for a central hub for all teams to work from.
• It's a central stop from take off and plan review all the way to plugging numbers into our estimating.
• The ability to link through SharePoint, which always access from any user and location.

Incentivized

• Revit allows users to create real buildings and is very much rooted in making functional buildings.
• Revit allows users to collaborate both within their own firms and with other types of firms as well. This is particularly useful for coordinating buildings between architecture and engineering firms.
• Revit integrates fairly well with other programs such as AutoCAD and Sketchup. This allows us to bring in elements modeled in other programs into our revit models.

Incentivized

• Submittals are not user friendly in PlanGrid. In fact, this is the one feature we would like to see improved.
• Billing is based on how many users you have. It would be very nice if they would do it based on revenue or other factors such as other programs do.

Incentivized

• Versioning - Revit is not backwards compatible. This creates issues if you are working with people who are using older versions as you cannot save to a previous version. I understand why this is and I do not see this ever changing, however, Its very annoying.
• Autodesk - They are the 800 pound gorilla in the industry. The lack of competition inhibits development and it seems Autodesk has put more effort into its BIM 360 platform and Revit development has suffered because of it. I would like to see better competition so Autodesk would step up its game.

Incentivized

It's become the go to program for our takeoffs. We have tried others but this is the simplest.

Incentivized

We will almost certainly be renewing all of our current seats of Revit and will likely be adding seats as we look to get more and more of our staff trained and using Revit. The software is starting to become the standard for our projects as we move forward as more and more of our clients are requesting or accepting use of it

Incentivized

Plan Swift is a user friendly program that makes takeoffs easy to perform. Not a whole lot of knowledge or skill is required.

Incentivized

It is a professional environment, but far from easy and overly complex in many places. The system is often too deep in settings and overrides (see Visibility/Graphics in combination with linked files, filters, color overrides and view templates). I don't really like the dialog-in-dialog interface and its spartan looks. But it works well overall if you know what you are doing.

Incentivized

Never had an issue

Incentivized

Revit seems to always be available when I need it. I have not experiences an outage. There are occasions where we need our internal IT department to trouble shoot a file on our Revit dedicated server and that sometimes causes a delay however that is not a software access issue

Incentivized

Plan Swift is only as fast as your computer system and internet

Incentivized

Revit is a fairly graphics heavy piece of software. It is powerful in its capabilities but as a result it takes a lot of the graphics card, the memory, etc. For all that it can do and the specs of my computer I find it pretty good from a performance standpoint

Incentivized

I have called once needing support. I was asking about the "compare" tool to compare different versions. They told be about their desktop app and I downloaded. They answered quickly, you could understand them, and they took care of my question

Incentivized

Autodesk has always had a good support system in place. There is a massive user base for Revit, and there are thousands of forum threads and other discussions online about any and every problem that you could ever run into. For being such a large program with so many different options, there aren't many roadblocks or pitfalls that users can fall into.

Incentivized

The training was Revit Essentials and it was very beneficial. I would say that it is best to get the training right before you know you will be using Revit as learning the basis then applying what you learned immediately is the most effective and best value for your money.

Incentivized

The online training is hit or miss. I feel that its better to be live to be able to pace and ask questions to a live person as you are learning hwo to do things. Its not natural to learn Revit especially if you know AutoCAD so my suggestion is the live training

Incentivized

just know what use you want to get out of it. In our case it was just to do area take offs.

Incentivized

Implementing Revit as your main drafting software (i.e. moving to BIM from CAD) may be a tough decision if you have learned drafting. It is a different way to approach and think about developing a project. However, if you are able to adapt to a new way of thinking and get used to it by working through a few projects than it is as efficient as CAD in most areas in general and will also be both better/worse in some areas

Incentivized

Bluebeam is amazing and can accomplish any take-off needs, but you will spend much more time creating your conditions and take off items. It is not as user-friendly as PlanSwift. OST (On screen takeoff). This product is by far better than PlanSwift, as it is amazingly easy to use. However, it is much more expensive. Cloud-based takeoff software -- this kind of software is difficult for me to use because of how slow the pages load and navigate. It's hard to beat that from PlanSwift or OST.

Incentivized

Revit is used primarily for creation of contract documents and documents that need to be used to build in the field. Sketch Up is great for a quick concept sketch, but lacks the details that Revit has which are needed to construct. AutoCAD is a great tool for details as well, but does not have as many building capabilities as Revit.

Incentivized

Several of our departments can use the take off feature to assist them in their job responsibilities.

Incentivized

While I am not directly involved with the deployment of Revit, it seems that our internal IT department has appreciated the ability to increase or decrease the number of seats. I have never had an issue with the deployment if and when needed, especially regarding the availability of a set

Incentivized

• The estimators' productivity is greatly increased, I do takeoffs in less than half the time with more accuracy and detail captured.
• Easy sharing of what was taken off, I'm able to ensure everything is captured.

Incentivized

• Though implementation of Revit is usually front heavy which means a lot of effort is put in at the front end of the project, the return of investment towards the remainder of the project is really good. All the effort in decisions made at the beginning of the project pays off with Revit incorporating all the building information in the model so the team can glean from this throughout the life of the project is a major plus.
• A major negative is the many false assumptions that comes with using Revit on a project. Just like any other computer application, Revit is only a tool. It's only as good as the operators who implement this tool. Revit is not a cureall for fixing all the problems that still can come out throughout the life of a design & construction project.
• A major positive for our office involving the use of Revit is the ability for our staff from multiple offices to work on the same project central file. We don't need to maintain an expensive server. With the addition of Collaboration for Revit the entire project can be stored in the cloud for our staff to access and complete the project faster than ever.

Incentivized