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BuildingConnected is a valuable tool for companies in the construction industry, specifically their estimating and operation teams. Users …
Overview
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…
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Popular Features
- Bid creation (12)8.888%
- Plan distribution & viewing (15)4.545%
- Document sharing (16)4.141%
- Plan markups & sharing (11)4.141%
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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.…
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What is BuildingConnected, an Autodesk product?
BuildingConnected is an online preconstruction communications and bidding management platform. It heavily features a communications network and online database of and for general contractors, subcontractors, and owners. BuildingConnected is designed for functionality for each of these groups.
General contractors are offered bid management and comparison capabilities. BuildingConnected also supports historical cost and relationship tracking and real-time reporting for live projects. TradeTapp also assists with subcontractor prequalification processes.
BuildingConnected’s primary offering for subcontractors is an online Bid Board designed to enable full visibility and workflow within subcontractors’ organizations during the bidding process. The bid board features bid analytics, estimator performance tracking, and other reporting capabilities. It also allows for variable user permissions for data security purposes.
BuildingConnected provides real estate owners with access to its online network of general contractors and subcontractors. It also provides online bidding support.
BuildingConnected, an Autodesk product Video
BuildingConnected - The Leader in Preconstruction
BuildingConnected, an Autodesk product Technical Details
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
|---|---|
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
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.
Reviewers rate Bid creation highest, with a score of 8.8.
The most common users of BuildingConnected, an Autodesk product are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
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BuildingConnected is a valuable tool for companies in the construction industry, specifically their estimating and operation teams. Users appreciate how it helps them stay organized and informed during the preconstruction phase of projects. With BuildingConnected, users can easily log on each day to check for updates on the jobs they are estimating, eliminating the worry of missing important emails or notifications. This software is particularly beneficial for finding qualified and insured local contractors based on geographic radius location, which aligns with the company's business model of hiring local subcontractors. It manages the entire process from project creation to subcontractor invitations, including project descriptions, architectural drawings, and scope of work descriptions.
One key advantage of using BuildingConnected is its real-time view of subcontractors' bidding intent, allowing for easy tracking of subcontractor coverage. Contractors appreciate being able to see which jobs they are bidding on, whether proposals have been submitted, and if any due dates are approaching. The user-friendly interface makes it easy to navigate and provides a comprehensive database of contractors. The time-saving capabilities of BuildingConnected are also noteworthy, as it allows users to set up a job in minutes instead of hours, while providing real-time information on subcontractors' actions such as viewing and downloading bid packages.
BuildingConnected also serves the compliance department by helping prequalify new subcontractors. Users rely on this software to locate upcoming commercial construction opportunities, download plans and specifications, and keep bid invites organized. It is used across multiple office locations, ensuring real-time updates and easy access to project information for the preconstruction department. The effectiveness of BuildingConnected is evident in how it has streamlined bid management, trade package management, and document distribution for a general contracting company. Estimators find it invaluable for tracking bids, making comments, and staying updated on any changes within the bidding process. Furthermore, this software facilitates effective communication both externally with subcontractors and internally within the organization.
While BuildingConnected offers numerous benefits, some users have encountered issues with the trial and subscription process, which have occasionally resulted in missing bid invites and jobs. However, overall, the positive experiences and efficiency gains brought about by BuildingConnected make it an essential tool for construction companies during the preconstruction phase of projects.
Efficient Organization and Management: Many users have found BuildingConnected to be helpful in keeping track of multiple jobs at once, allowing for efficient organization and management of bid invites into different categories such as won, lost, pending, and archived.
Centralized Storage and Accessibility: Reviewers appreciate that BuildingConnected serves as a central location for general contractors to store and update files and addendums, making it convenient to access all necessary project information in one place. This feature has been praised by several users.
Enhanced Collaboration and Coordination: BuildingConnected's ability to show which contractors are bidding on the same job has been highly valued by reviewers. This functionality promotes better coordination of estimating efforts among subcontractors, leading to improved collaboration throughout the bidding process.
Integration with Microsoft: Some users have expressed the need for better integration with Microsoft, such as the ability to add the software as a calendar and make edits directly from Outlook. They feel that this would improve their workflow and streamline their project management tasks.
Missing features: According to several reviewers, there are certain features that are missing in the software. For example, users mentioned the absence of options to organize subcontractors by most frequently used and an RFI log. These features would enhance efficiency and organization within the system.
Difficulty exporting data: A number of users have found it challenging to export data to other programs and communicate effectively with customers who use different software platforms. This limitation hampers their ability to collaborate seamlessly across various tools and may lead to inefficiencies in sharing information externally.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-16 of 16)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
October 09, 2023
Overpriced & dishonest service.
- Charging for any small benefits.
- Withholding pertinent information until you pay for a subscription.
- Lack of communication after an issue has been addressed.
- In my experience, honesty and integrity with customers
- I think they need better customer Support
- In my experience, fair pricing
December 08, 2022
BuildingConnected, an Autodesk product...Easy to use and helpful for documentation.
- organized folders
- ease of downloadable construction prints
- Projects and companies are easy to find
- Could use geographic location of the project
- some kind of auto setting to archive bids after their date
May 09, 2022
Great bid Tool
- Managing bid lists
- Distributing drawings and documents
- Finding subcontractors
- Collaboration between our teams and our customers
- Hard to export to other programs
- Hard to communicate with customers using other software
March 11, 2020
BuildingConnected helps us bid
- It makes it easy to send out bid packages with just one click.
- It allows us to easily bid level returned bids from subcontractors.
March 04, 2020
One of my favorite Construction Software Tools to use, definitely the best out there for bid management
- Finding/filtering subcontracting companies by discipline.
- Managing bid lists (who is bidding, who is not bidding, who is undecided).
- Distributing/managing documents and distributing them to potential bidders.
- Exporting data to other programs.
- Integrations with other construction project management software.
February 15, 2020
Review of BuildingConnected
- The planroom is great and easy to upload.
- Get for out of town projects! Finding subs fast!
- The free version only allows you to list so many projects.
January 30, 2020
Can't live without BuildingConnected!
- 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.
- 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.
January 27, 2020
A complete Subcontractor finder and Bid Proposal automated tool vital to any General Contractor working with Subcontractors Nationwide!
- Handles the entire Bidding Process from job creation to bid proposal receiving.
- Allows the upload and management of any supporting documentation required.
- 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.
January 24, 2020
BuildingConnected is the best in the Bid-ness!
- Organization
- Internal Communication
- Bid Opportunities I'm Unaware Of
- People Reaching Out Too Often
December 25, 2019
BuildingConnected to Stay Organized!
- 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
- 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
- This software is FREE. However, it gets even better with the paid version.
- Bid Solicitation. It reaches a larger number of subcontractors, and builds a subcontractor database to utilize for every job.
- Prints reports that list all the bidders on a project and their bid status. This is great to print out before a bid to have contact information at the tip of your fingers.
- Messaging is a great way to reach the entire project for Addenda, scope sheets, clarifications, etc.
- It logs exactly when a subcontractor downloads and views the plans/specifications/etc.
- It's super easy to invite new contractors and find subcontractors who are already "qualified" in BuildingConnected's database.
- None
February 28, 2019
Utilize BuildingConnected So YOU Can Get Building!
- Invite subcontractors to price a project.
- Share documents with subcontractors interested in pricing a project.
- Keep and track internal notes of conversations so that the project team can coordinate responsibilities of communication.
- Bid leveling capabilities so that we are comparing "apples to apples."
- Making sure subcontractors' information in the system is complete and accurate.
- Tracking the history of subcontractors responses to invitations company-wide.
- Once a package has been published, you cannot go back and un-publish it.
January 23, 2019
BuildingConnected keeps me Connected.
- Keeps track of jobs bidding for me, on the website and my office calendar.
- Allows me to download plans.
- Keeps track of bidders on the job.
- The only problem I have with BuildingConnected is you have to forward your bid invites to them one at a time, I would like it more if I could send them all at one time and they sort them out. When you get 50 invites a day it's time-consuming.
January 17, 2019
BuildingConnected keeps you connected!
- Maps show where the project is.
- Shows if you have submitted a proposal
- Shows if you are late on submitting a proposal
- BuildingConnected is clearly the leader for preconstruction software.
- All of these features are dwarfed when you compare it to how incredible the customer service is. Real humans listen to every concern you have and actually make changes based on feedback. This is a fantastic program run by amazing people.
- The clean user interface makes it easy to navigate to what you need in seconds.
- Massive Sub-Contractor database makes it easy to expand your searches and coverage with ease.
- Pre-qualifications. BuildingConnected has a TON of contractors and sometimes we get somebody on there that we don't personally know. Pre-qualifying them right through BuildingConnected means they can start working for us asap.
- Some features are missing. Organizing subs by most used and an RFI log most notably.
January 11, 2019
Upgraded Costs, Downgraded Use
- BuildingConnected is very user-friendly. It's very hard to "get lost" in the system and is relatively easy for someone new to learn how to use.
- BuildingConnected has an excellent support email set up. When I have sent an email asking them to help a subcontractor get logged in - the response rate is often very quick and typically they are able to effectively solve the issue.
- Their web-based system is never down, at least not that I can remember. It makes me trust their system.
- They are somewhat pushy with wanting companies to upgrade for their paid version. While some of the capabilities of their paid version are worthwhile, we have found that our office would not use most of the features and therefore it's hard for us to justify paying for the upgraded side.
- The file system they have is overall very user-friendly, but if you happen to have a lot of files, it does not give you a count anywhere of how many files you've uploaded and so you still have to check and make sure everything has gone through successfully.
- Their Subcontractor database is built based on companies, such as our ourselves, adding companies to it. What this means is that some locations around the United States have a lot of companies listed while some have next to none. There are also no private listings so once you add the name into the system, it's fair game for your competitors to find the same ones.