#1 most frequent
United States of America
92.2%853 installations of 925
What is BuildingConnected, an Autodesk product?
BuildingConnected is an online preconstruction platform supporting communication and collaboration with contractors, subcontractors, and real estate owners. The platform supports bid management with cost tracking and analytics, relationship tracking, alerting, and unlimited bid invitations. BuildingConnected was acquired by Autodesk in 2018.
Categories & Use Cases
Videos
Top Performing Features
Bid creation
Allows users to use bid packages or templates to quickly and efficiently create bids based off of cost estimates.
Category average: 7.8
Specifications
Construction specifications, also called specs, are the details for the work that needs to be completed in a construction project.
Category average: 8.1
Job profiles and administration
Job profiles and descriptions can be created and edited.
Category average: 8.3
Areas for Improvement
Dashboards
Users can create, customize and share dashboards, which provide an overview of the most important metrics.
Category average: 7.9
Data exportability
Data can be exported via a CSV or Excel file for further reporting and analysis outside of the tool.
Category average: 8.1
Mobile app
Users can easily access the system from the field on mobile devices such as phones and tablets.
Category average: 7.6
Who Buys & Uses BuildingConnected, an Autodesk product
#2 most frequent
Canada
3.7%34 installations of 925
#3 most frequent
Australia
0.6%6 installations of 925
Great bid Tool
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Company does alot of bid work and collaborates with customers who do the same. Needed a good software to be able to communicate and manage all of the information. We also source out work with subcontractors and needed a good way to track it. It also provides a place to distribute drawings and specifications for projects.
Pros
- Managing bid lists
- Distributing drawings and documents
- Finding subcontractors
- Collaboration between our teams and our customers
Cons
- Hard to export to other programs
- Hard to communicate with customers using other software
Return on Investment
- Allows us to track past jobs and subcontractors
- Helps us save time in the bid process.
- Helped us find new subcontractors in the installation sector.
Alternatives Considered
Procore
Other Software Used
AutoCAD
Overpriced & dishonest service.
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
After barely giving us any time for the pro trial, we've had nothing but issues. After the trial expired and we decided not to subscribe, all bid invites were coincidentally erased. Now jobs that I've already accepted are starting to randomly go missing. To me, it's almost like they are punishing our company for not wanting to pay for their awful and overpriced service.
Pros
- Charging for any small benefits.
- Withholding pertinent information until you pay for a subscription.
- Lack of communication after an issue has been addressed.
Cons
- In my experience, honesty and integrity with customers
- I think they need better customer Support
- In my experience, fair pricing
Return on Investment
- We have lost pertinent information from bids after refusing to subscribe.
Alternatives Considered
PlanHub, iSqFt, SmartBid and Procore
Other Software Used
PlanHub, Procore, iSqFt
Can't live without BuildingConnected!
Pros
- BuildingConnected maintains our subcontractor database showing prequalification status.
- BuildingConnected makes it very easy to view the subcontractor's history for access to the site and viewing of documents.
Cons
- There was a previous glitch where bid forms have been updated by subcontractors that have accessed a former version are not able to access the updated/new bid form.
- I would like to see the ability for BuildingConnected to automatically send a bid reminder to bidders at a set amount of time prior to the bid date.
Return on Investment
- Our company is able to view the number of bid responses and award percentages for each subcontractor.
- We save a considerable amount of admin time by utilizing BuildingConnected. Correspondence to all subcontractors can be concurrent rather than individually where a general note must be distributed.
Other Software Used
On-Screen Takeoff, Microsoft 365 Business, PlanGrid
A complete Subcontractor finder and Bid Proposal automated tool vital to any General Contractor working with Subcontractors Nationwide!
Pros
- Handles the entire Bidding Process from job creation to bid proposal receiving.
- Allows the upload and management of any supporting documentation required.
Cons
- Stronger Sub search for situations in which we are not creating and publishing a project within BuildingConnected. In many instances, we simply need to find a trade subcontractor immediately. We cannot waste time in creating, publishing a project, documentation, files, etc., etc.. We should have an excellent advanced search window for this purpose.
Return on Investment
- I am not part of Management to investigate ROI matrix.
Other Software Used
Microsoft 365 Business, Bluebeam Revu, Smartsheet
BuildingConnected to Stay Organized!
Pros
- Helps keep track of multiple jobs at once
- Helps sort your bid invites into won/lost/pending/archived etc.
- It is a central location where general contractors can put all their updated files and addendum
- Lets you see which contractors are bidding the same job so you can coordinate your estimating
Cons
- I like that you can download multiple files as a single zip file, but some times I want to just download multiple files as individual non-zipped files
- I wish there was better integration with Microsoft such as being able to add it as a calendar and edit from Outlook
- I wish there were analytics that tracked who won, by how much, spreads and trends from our numbers so we can be more competitive
Return on Investment
- Most general contractors enter us on their bid invite list and once we receive an email you can create an account.
- Because BuildingConnected online is free when you're invited it is a great tool for our estimators to use.
- It has helped us stay organized and coordinated, also but updating our profile has brought new opportunities.
Alternatives Considered
SmartBid
Other Software Used
SmartBid, Bluebeam Revu, AutoCAD, Microsoft 365 Business, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Project, WordPress