Item: Procore
Rating: 7
Author: Kyle Ware

Implementation Rating

Luckily for Procore, there are some very user friendly tools in the RFIs and drawings tools that make Procore very easy to implement for the masses in the field. For the more technical tools, as stated elsewhere in this review, the same pitfalls of functionality realized a decade ago are still a hurdle for this platform. Some are glaring and inexcusable. Especially given the pricetag of the platform. Procore offers a long duration of implementation, and while our implementation representative was attentive and competent, there was a lack of follow through and recording of ongoing issues. It was like every day was a new day, instead of keeping a running tally of outstanding items that needed to be addressed, and updating frequently on the status of such issues.

Ease of Integration

Procore offers custom forms integration for matching the format of your existing legal documents. It is shoehorned into a very generic structure of text boxes. This is not elegant nor practical for the vast majority of general contracting firms whom all have set formats for how they make their contracts and change orders. We struggle on a daily basis to work within the confines of what Procore has implemented in the way of custom form integration. It is incomplete and everything is a workaround, but they do have integration so you can't completely discount that.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Operations department uses it. Minor interfacing with accounting department as well. It is a project management platform for commercial construction and is used as such. It has a great ability to effectively manage large volumes of data in project management for commercial construction. There are also glaring shortcomings. The reporting aspect of the software is borderline non-functional. It lacks the ability to create fundamental reports. Even screens that Procore shows within the interface itself can not be exported as a report for print or other purposes. The bidding/preconstruction/estimating aspect of this platform is very barebones and does not adequately address the task. Some basic communication tools with e-mailing are not developed. For example if the system automates e-mailing of people it rarely notifies you that it is e-mailing. You can discover who got e-mailed and when by going to a specific report that is company wide and only shows 7 day durations at a time.
There are great parts to Procore as well. The drawings and specification management tools are unparalleled. Procore possesses top notch OCR technology that equates to a decent job of automatically identifying what plan sheet or specification sheet you have uploaded (via PDF) and allows an automated way to log these sheets and keep track of their revisions. Daily logs, change orders, etc. have above average functionality within their toolsets as well.

Pros and Cons

OCR for plan and specification organization is top notch.
Robust change order generation and tracking from owner and subcontractor side coupled with DocuSign integration changes the game when it comes to change orders.
Photographs and daily log tools are simple yet robust. Anybody can pick up on how to use it instantly with little to no training.
App development across all platforms is well done and well implemented, allowing for ease of use between desktop and mobile/tablet environments.

E-mail functionality exists, but communication and accessibility of what is being e-mailed when, and how to input new e-mail addresses, is sorely lacking.
The reporting tool is just a mess and does not allow you to create most of the simple types of reports you would want to generate.
Some change order interfaces are very nuanced and restrictive. Not user friendly.
The workflows for RFIs and Submittals are disparate, and also very rigid in how they function. Not intuitive.

Collaboration Benefits

We have benefited. The ability to share all drawings and submittals to the entire team helps mitigate mistakes. This capability also makes the ability to price and approve change orders better; albeit the DocuSign integration is a critical thread that is very rough right now but makes this platform a game changer if they will fully streamline the process.

Return on Investment

Procore costs the same as another entry level employee. If you consider its ability great enough to perform as much or more of the tasks than a single entry level project engineer, then it's worth the high cost. But it has a lot of shortcomings and it is not as valuable as Procore thinks it is. It has great potential.
The efficiency in plan review and distribution is unfortunately the strongest aspect of Procore right now, despite its broad range of tools offered. There are too many fundamental shortcomings in each and every tool to make this a de-facto platform for the construction industry. Therefore, it has as many hurdles and deficiencies as its competitors, or even software like Prolog by Trimble, which is a fossil and needs to be replaced. Unfortunately the functionality of some tools like the change order process is as arcane as that platform is, but Procore doesn't even have the functionality to use Crystal Reports like Prolog does. And Procore's reporting tools are unacceptable.

Alternatives Considered

Prolog

Prolog by Trimble is a fossil. But some aspects of Procore are just like Prolog. And the reporting functions of Prolog are by far better than Procore. Viewpoint is stronger on the accounting side of job costing but this platform lacks all of the field management functions that Procore has.

Likelihood to Recommend

Middle sized companies with no IT infrastructure can be much more organized and professional. Smaller companies will not be able to afford the cost of it, as it is very expensive. Large corporations will be better suited developing their own platform in-house, as the ability for Procore to customize interfaces to suit the specific demands of a company are very limited.

My Perspective of Procore

Overall Satisfaction with Procore