PlanGrid is great
Updated February 24, 2020

PlanGrid is great

Kyle Montague | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with PlanGrid

Everytime that I have needed help they have been available and were able to help me solve my problem.
We use PlanGrid to communicate information to the field. It allows us to share information with the field staff immediately. Our estimators also use it when attending pre-bid walks.

Pros

  • One of the things that we like about Plan Grid is when we receive an updated plan sheet we can upload it and have a record of the changes that have been made along the way.
  • Information can be shared in real time.
  • Our field team has all of the information that they need at their fingertips.

Cons

  • Uploading revised plans is a little cumbersome. It would be nice if you didn't have to add a new version every time you updated a sheet.
  • Sometimes the sheet number and name recognition does not work properly when adding a new job or updating sheets. There is a workaround but it would be nice if it was more consistent.
  • The cost seems a little high. It would be nice if they increased the plan limit for each pricing tier.
  • They got rid of their free version, 50 sheet limit. We used to have our estimators use this option, but now we have to pay for a subscription for a service that is only used once in a while.
  • I am not sure if the subscription cost per user is a cheaper option than paper, but it certainly saves us the hassle of getting documents printed, updated, delivered, etc.
  • The timeliness of the information being shared does certainly help us avoid rework. We seem to have fewer communication problems now.
  • It is nice to have all of the information in one program. The teams seem to like it better. However, with anything, new some prefer paper over an iPad.
BlueBeam is a program that some of our customers use as their management tool. It is a little more cumbersome than Plan Grid. We would certainly prefer using PlanGrid over other products that we have tried. Our field staff prefers to have a consistent platform to share the information. They don't want to learn different systems if they can avoid it.
PlanGrid works for almost every project that we do, large or small. We can share company specific documents that are required regardless of the project dollar value.

Autodesk Build Feature Ratings

Plan distribution & viewing
9
Plan markups & sharing
9
Document sharing
9
Issue tracking & punchlists
9
Photo documentation
9
Jobsite reports
9
RFI tools
9
Collaboration & approvals
Not Rated
As-built drawings
Not Rated
Mobile app
9

Using PlanGrid

20 - All of our field supervisors have PlanGrid accounts so that we can share information in real time. When we get revised plan pages we upload them and the field team has access to them immediately. This helps us reduce errors and communication problems between the office and the field team.
8 - Our Project Managers and Project Engineers are tasked with keeping each project account up to date. We rely on them to make sure that our field teams have the correct information at their fingertips in a timely manner. This helps us reduce errors and communication issues between the team and the office staff.
  • The biggest thing for us is the real time information sharing between the team members.
  • One of the other benefits is that it works both ways. If the field has a question about a scope issue they can snap a picture, push it to master, and the Project Manager can see what they are asking about and address it immediately.
  • We also share company specific documents that all of our field leaders are required to have access to when they are on site. We can change these documents and share to all of the teams with relative ease.
  • We have stated to use some of the other functions that PlanGrid seems to add periodically. Some of our field supervisors are using the daily logs and seem to like it better than hand writing the information daily.
  • We are starting to use it for time cards.
  • The punch list feature has saved us a few times because we were able to document damage before the punch list was generated.
  • As mentioned in the previous question we would like all of our time cards to be electronic.
  • We are utilizing the daily logs and adding photos so we can have better documentation of the issues that become disputes at the end of the job.
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.

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