Construction Daily Reports: A Tedious Task with a Bad Rep 

Like status reports of any kind, construction daily reports often have a bad reputation.  It’s the tedious task that keeps people from getting home to their families at the end of their long days. And far too often, it is viewed as a waste of time as dust collects on the binders where all of those hours of work sit as unviewed piles of paper.

When daily updates are done digitally, however, paper turns into data. Information becomes readily available through search and filtering. And the valuable project story locked in those binders -- often only accessed in a “break in case of emergency” scenario during litigation -- becomes a valuable asset throughout the project.

It’s no surprise then, that the Daily Updates module in BIM 360 Field is one of the most used areas of the service. We’re thrilled to announce a whole set of new features that will make Daily Updates easier and more valuable for the entire project team!

The goal of these new features is to make sure the people who need to provide updates use BIM 360 Field Daily Updates every day and add rich data to the reports, but spend as little time doing it as possible!

Here’s four ways you can get more out of your construction daily reports by using BIM 360 Field and these new updates:

1. Make it simple

New General Notes Templates & Copy Previous Day Labor Activities

To expand beyond basic tracking of weather and labor activity during a day, the “General Notes” section in BIM 360 Field Daily Updates is the area where details can be added that give context around what happened onsite. To encourage users to add content to this area, we’ve added the ability to build a lightweight template to guide the capture of required information.

For example, prompts can be added to ask for details on information like deliveries, blockers or activities performed, or even include a rough plan of the next day’s activities. This helps encourage the input of a standard set of information that can then be analyzed at a later date.

The new ability to copy labor activities from the previous day speeds the task of entering data, while helping to ensure that important details are added to Daily Reports.

Another added feature to help speed the process of creating construction daily reports is the ability to copy labor activities from a previous day. Because labor activities do not always change much day-to-day, users can simply copy a previous day’s activity details.

2. Involve the whole team

Subcontractor access and permission settings

Creating construction daily reports shouldn’t be the sole responsibility of the contractor. This leads to a lot of extra phone calls, emails and delays to reports being entered while information is chased down. To alleviate this problem, BIM 360 Field Daily Updates can now be entered by subcontractors. Each update for a day is captured and can be quickly accessed from the calendar view in the Daily Updates module.

From the Project Administration dashboard, subcontractors can be granted or denied permissions to access modules and functions within BIM 360 Field.

Daily Updates are a record of project activity during a specific duration, in chronological order, and contain detailed information about who was on a job site and what they did. They are often used to handle disputes and litigation, and therefore need to be kept secure. BIM 360 Field has added a number of new security features:

• Permission settings control who can view which Daily Updates -- None, Your Own, Your Company, or All
• Subcontractors must be assigned rights to view and create Daily Updates
• An audit history has been added to track the history of published changes, including new reports and any changes to reports after they have been published

3. Get detailed

Add markups to documents and photos

Adding detail to Daily Updates can now be done by including an attachment of a document, such as a floor plan, that is in the BIM 360 Field Library -- or by taking a photo with your iPad.  Users can now also add markups to documents or photos to provide context around the attached information.

Attach documents to Daily Reports and markup areas to highlight specific items and provide context around notes.

4. Make data usable

Raw Microsoft Excel export of reports

With more users adding more detailed data to Daily Reports, we want to make sure the value of that data does not get trapped inside the application. Now, reports can be run to export data in raw Excel format, allowing for detailed analysis using sorting, filtering and report generation outside of BIM 360 Field.

To learn more about what BIM 360 Field can do to improve your daily on-the-job life, visit bim360.com/bim-360-field

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Already using software to track daily construction reports? 

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