Contruction Software Option - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

ToniDanette · 09-09-2008, 03:39 PM

Hello everyone!

It's been very helpful reading everyones q & a's regarding construction software out on the market. I too have been on the hunt, but nothing seems to handle everything I need it to. One will handle the account, but not the scheduling or vice versa. One is online accessible, the other is not. One has great quoting capabilities, the other doesn't. Let's not even go into the price ranges of these programs.

While discussing, more like complaining to my husband, he told me we should just build the software to our specs. He's a programmer/software designer for a "very large, well known, fortune 500 company", I won't say who. Anyway, he would love to be able to build something for us contractors!

So, I have my own ideas for him, but my knowledge is moderate being a assistant to a commercial GC at this time. Anyhow, any suggestions and ideas would be appreciated. Once he's completed it, we can totally hook you up!!

Magic Hammer · 09-09-2008, 06:12 PM

Wow, that's a great offer. I wouldn't know where to begin, but I guess everyone could throw out ideas and make it a open project.
Ok, besides the basics, accounting, job costing, estimating,scheduling, CRM, I would love to have a dashboard to see all my jobs in one place.

ToniDanette · 09-10-2008, 12:02 AM

That's a great idea! I talked to my husband about this further tonight and what we think would be awesome about this whole idea is that it's software for GC's, developed by GC's. We just need to get as much input as possible. What is essential is mapping the process that a GC goes through on each project, quote, etc. I'd love to hear what other ideas you have. I'm thinking, I know for what I'm dealing with, we use sub contractors a lot on large commercial projects. Each time we award a contract to one of them, I want a "check list" of sorts to make sure I have all of the proper documentation I need for each sub. I'm wanting to have an attached, contractors agreement, AIA form, schedule of values, etc. as part of my checklist per sub. That way, I know I have everything, but I also have those docs on demand electronically and organized.

This could become a "Contractors Collalition" software!

Any other ideas??

PMI · 09-10-2008, 07:55 AM

Hi Toni,
I just called a group who has been working with a few hundred of us over the last couple of years. They asked you to check out this video and then have your husband call him. He wanted me to tell you that "He is excited about your entrepreneurial approach. However, there are a few things that you stated that are correct in theory, but are a little ahead of what can actually be used by the majority. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZye5DZCjQM. Nice to see the "coalition" thinking since it is the only way this industry will evolve.
Phil

monticellohomes · 09-10-2008, 08:23 AM

I think it would be nice to have be able to take all those documents you need from a sub, scan them and attach them to a job...so when you open up job x everything is there...if it were web based or had web access you could look at those documents anywhere via a pda or phone.

Magic Hammer · 09-23-2008, 05:06 PM

Hi Toni,

This site has a open source gantt chart program. www.ganttprojects.biz
And http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Softwa...t/Open_Source/
has a lot of stuff I haven't had time to look at!

Sarah9910 · 09-23-2008, 11:08 PM

Toni, can you send me an email? I have an idea about this. I think it's a great idea. Your email isn't in your contact info or I'd send you one.

Sarah

genegiannamore · 10-31-2008, 01:02 PM

Do you already have an idea/outline of all different parts this software is going to have? Will it do accounting and payroll? Certified Payroll? Scheduling & Estimating? Document Control (RFP, RFI, submittals, daily field reports, etc.)? I have been looking at numerous pieces of software, so that when I have time this slow season, I can demo them. You may want to do demos or even live/one-on-one demos just to see what all that software does. The more I search for just Document Control, the more software I find to choose from.

modterry · 11-13-2008, 09:11 PM

Toni, I could not find the basic tools we needed and wanted to have a web based system. Our system is divided into 4 main areas:
1) Sales & Marketing - Prospect , Leads, Clients, Prospect & Lead management , Sales and Marketing tracking

2) Projects, Bids, Specifications , Task management, Scheduling, Ordering, Change Orders, Client Access and interface, Document Management, etc

3) Administration - Administration, Subcontractor / Vendor Management / Admin Tasks ( Project, Company, Recurring ), Check Processing, Job Cost, Payroll, etc.

4) Production: Specs, Tasks, Schedule, Crew Assigments, Subs, Schedules, etc

Buildology · 11-17-2008, 06:12 PM

Hi Modterry
What is the name of your software?

hatchet · 11-17-2008, 07:35 PM

I would be more than happy to offer anything on the estimating side of it.

modterry · 11-19-2008, 08:10 AM

From : Buildology Hi Modterry
What is the name of your software?

I wrote it myself - It is browser based so it can be used on the internet. It is written in Cold Fusion using MYSQL database. I plan to convert it over to PHP over the next few months. Write me and I will go over it with you.

Terry

marc.kleinmann · 05-16-2009, 10:19 PM

Just signed up for Online Toolbox and booohoo - IE only!! Really - do they live in the stone age? Claim to be forward thinking platform developers and develop something that only works on IE - the browser with the fastest shrinking market share. Won't get my vote.

MOTB · 05-18-2009, 09:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marc.kleinmann

MyOnlineToolbox is IE only. Do they live in the stone age? Claim to be forward thinking platform developers and develop something that only works on IE - the browser with the fastest shrinking market share.

Thanks Marc for your comment. However, we are focused on the vast majority of contractors who use our site. The following is a summary of what is posted in our company forums. I agree with you that IE is loosing the share since it has the most to loose, but it is still wildly popular and it does what it has to for the average contractor business application.

To justify our decisions ....

86.6% of the last 23,000 visitors where using IE. 10.7% use Firefox and 1.7% use Safari. Chrome, Opera & Mozilla then follow. MANY Firefox visitors have indicated that they also use IE, and it is for this reason why we supported IE first. It's our belief that many contractors, having the availability of the default browser installed on a low end computer they purchase puts the real number above 90%, too high a number to ignore.

MyOnlineToolbox is a technology firm that can obviously appreciate the various advantanges of each browser. However, based on our competitive availability (FREE subscription and a low cost paid-for subscription), we tend to gravitate what the majority requires first, second, etc.

That said, we will be making our platform Firefox compatible as well as IE 8 compatible and will also throw in additional browser announcements at the appropriate time, but right now collaboration is more important based on what our customers are asking for.

To be even more specific about the browser, the breakdown of IE versions from visitors to our site is:
Version 7 is 91.72%
Version 6 is 7.76%
Version 8 is .49%

So more that 80% of ALL visitors use the defualt browser version that we currently support, plus more percentage points do not mind using it if that is the only option with an advanced cost effective solution. It's hard to ingnore a 4 out of 5 fact.

We understand if the browser is more important to you than the business functionality but each software company needs to make a choice where to put its resources, and in this price sensitive economy, we base our decisions on member requests and wait to see why we may loose potential new customers. Currently the few we loose to a browser decision is just too small to worry about it. Like some other of our customers, you can always use IE just for the toolbox and alternatives for other surfing items. Food for thought. Thanks again for your opinion.

dynahoecnst · 05-21-2009, 01:46 PM

I am looking for a software, other than Quickbooks, to do my billing in; can anyone offer me any suggestions? I am a excavation contractor that does anything that involves dirt.

moorewarner · 06-07-2009, 12:50 AM

As some one who used to run an IT department I can say this mindset is thankfully receding. If you can't code your site for open standards you really should consider getting more competent developers.

The beauty of the web is that it's *not* a proprietary platform. Microsoft has tried very hard to make it one, and unfortunately many companies have fallen for it.

The biggest (and most dynamic) sites on the net run Open Source to open standards making their on-line apps available to all comers. Google, Amazon, Ebay, Salesforce.com and on and on.

The idea of having my business data on MS (software wise) servers and being dependent on MS products to use it makes me (and most knowledgeable IT people) shudder. I speak from experience, years, of, painful, experience.

Friends don't let friends use IE, or IIS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MOTB

Thanks Marc for your comment. However, we are focused on the vast majority of contractors who use our site. The following is a summary of what is posted in our company forums. I agree with you that IE is loosing the share since it has the most to loose, but it is still wildly popular and it does what it has to for the average contractor business application.

To justify our decisions ....

86.6% of the last 23,000 visitors where using IE. 10.7% use Firefox and 1.7% use Safari. Chrome, Opera & Mozilla then follow. MANY Firefox visitors have indicated that they also use IE, and it is for this reason why we supported IE first. It's our belief that many contractors, having the availability of the default browser installed on a low end computer they purchase puts the real number above 90%, too high a number to ignore.

MyOnlineToolbox is a technology firm that can obviously appreciate the various advantanges of each browser. However, based on our competitive availability (FREE subscription and a low cost paid-for subscription), we tend to gravitate what the majority requires first, second, etc.

That said, we will be making our platform Firefox compatible as well as IE 8 compatible and will also throw in additional browser announcements at the appropriate time, but right now collaboration is more important based on what our customers are asking for.

To be even more specific about the browser, the breakdown of IE versions from visitors to our site is:
Version 7 is 91.72%
Version 6 is 7.76%
Version 8 is .49%

So more that 80% of ALL visitors use the defualt browser version that we currently support, plus more percentage points do not mind using it if that is the only option with an advanced cost effective solution. It's hard to ingnore a 4 out of 5 fact.

We understand if the browser is more important to you than the business functionality but each software company needs to make a choice where to put its resources, and in this price sensitive economy, we base our decisions on member requests and wait to see why we may loose potential new customers. Currently the few we loose to a browser decision is just too small to worry about it. Like some other of our customers, you can always use IE just for the toolbox and alternatives for other surfing items. Food for thought. Thanks again for your opinion.

This last paragraph is a complete non-sequitur, you have a web app, the *whole point* of the web is to be platform agnostic. You only feel as if a choice has to be made because you or your developer don't have knowledge beyond the MS platform and tools, and MS has convinced you that your inability to have cross platform/browser code is "just the way it is".

The truth is Ms platforms and development tools and technologies are *intended not to be cross platform and interoperable*, by design. Let me repeat that, by design. They want you repeating the nonsense of your last paragraph, the truth is there are better tools to work with better technologies to produce better results that are available to *all* platforms and web browsers, and don't miss this part...for free...free operating systems, web servers, application servers, IDEs everything...all of it free. And of far higher quality than MS's products.

The real choice is not "do I want to code for IE or Firefox" (as MS would have you believe), but do I want to code for just the most popular browser or *all* of them.

All on-line companies follow one of two trajectories, either they start their endeavor on MS products and go along until they actually start having some success (ie. usage) at which point either their MS code running on MS servers collapses under the demand or their budget collapses under MS's Licensing costs, at which point they make a painful transition to Open standards based code running on (if they are smart) open source servers, get their IT costs under control and gain the ability to scale, exponentially. Or they start with Open standards based code running on (if they are smart) open source servers and skip the painfull MS part.

The end point is always the same, whichever way you choose.

Seriously, get someone to explain this to you, someone who actually knows more than MS products.

Respectfully,

Clifton

modterry · 06-08-2009, 07:03 PM

I agree with Clifton. I have used MS products for years and the cost of hackers, rebuilds of servers, lost time, upgrades forced on you , even though the last product just got stable. I code in Cold Fusion - My version was 4.5 and had to pay both for a MS upgrade and a $ 1200 upgrade for Coldfusion. CF is the easiest app to write in - but, it gets on the upgrade bandwagon and makes it very hard to upgrade and works best on Windows. I just found out we got hacked - with virus software running. Don't know whether it was through windows or through coldfusion - still working on that.

If your browser based you are browser based.

Back to the original post - Use something out of the box that works close to what you want. If online toolbox is close use it, If quickbooks sorta works use it - it may be easier for you to adapt and put up with not having all the features you want - you at least won't be spending a ridiculous amount of time having something developed.

Software development is a moving target because the owners add or change their scope too often and the software developers get caught up in adding too many features or don't think through the reality of what is being asked of them. Rarely do software writers have their apps go through a real test drive by average people.

Unless you are a big company, and have a custom budget ( $ 100,000 ) find the best off the shelf or hosted apps you can find.

Terry

Sarah9910 · 06-08-2009, 10:10 PM

I agree with Terry. Most people don't even utilize the out of the box software as much as they could, let alone have something developed specially for them.

Learn how to use what you have, when you have that mastered and your company has made oggles of money because of what you'd done, then, well, then...retire.