Why Your Construction PMIS Solution Should be Unique

Your organization’s needs are unique. Your Construction PMIS should be too.

A surprising number of construction Project Management Information System (PMIS) implementations fail. Why is this the case? We published a blog article listing the top 10 most common reasons why PMIS deployments don’t succeed a couple years ago.

But I can boil that top-10 list down to two primary reasons for you:

1. Runaway costs
2. Poor user adoption

Underlying both the above points of failure, however, is the myth of a one-size-fits-all PMIS solution. 

Debunking the myth of a one-size-fits-all PMIS solution

Many vendors promise that their PMIS is turnkey, that it includes everything you need and is ready-to-deploy for your organization. They show off all the pretty automated reports and tout their long feature list.

This may all sound good in a slide presentation. Problem is, there is simply no such thing as an out-of-the-box PMIS solution.  

Any PMIS you deploy will require costly customizations to fit your business processes:

• Every PM and team in your company will do things a little differently. Those cookie cutter workflows, forms, and processes will need be modified.
• You may need to interface your PMIS with various other internal company systems, some of which are probably legacy software. That means custom integration and programing.
• Your stakeholders input data differently (e.g. offline forms, maps, interactive dashboards, etc.) and they consume data differently (e.g. interactive lists, reports, Excel, etc.). More customization will be required to meet those needs.
• Finally, management will want custom reports pulling together data from multiple systems and sources. Since those reports are specific to your organization, they will need to be custom created by the vendor or a consultant.

You get the idea. There is simply no way that something off-the-shelf will seamlessly fit all your organization’s processes and workflows without modifications. This is where the runaway costs start.

Even after the customizations, that off-the-shelf PMIS still probably won’t be flexible enough to help your team do their job, so they won’t use it. They may enter data if you mandate it. But they’ll primarily rely on familiar tools (like Excel) that help them get their job done. Poor user adoption now means the data in your PMIS is incomplete or your teams are duplicating efforts by using multiple systems.

All the above add up to one sad fact: Your organization just wasted a ton of time and money based on the myth of a one-size-fits all PMIS deployment.

Why you need a construction PMIS tailored to you

Every company, project and PM is unique. The PMIS you deploy should be unique too. It should fit how you and your team work while also being powerful, extensible, mobile, and easy to use.

Meeting the unique needs of construction organizations was the inspiration behind Construction Viz, our recently introduced subscription-based construction project management solution.

We designed Construction Viz based on the belief that every aspect of a PMIS needs to be meticulously designed around your organization’s processes by professionals that have both construction and IT experience.

Our expert staff will collaborate with you to fully customize Construction Viz to meet your organization’s unique needs. That includes workflows, forms, reports, and integrations.  It’s this solution provider mentality that sets Construction Viz apart in the industry.

We also wanted Construction Viz to be cutting-edge, but still ensure complete backward- and forward-compatibility with essential construction industry systems.  Which is why we selected Microsoft SharePoint 2016, SQL 2016, and Azure to power Construction Viz. Not only are these established enterprise platforms that you already know and trust, they also support all the features your organization needs in a PMIS solution. Construction Viz tailors these tools for your construction project management needs.

Construction Viz’s industry leading technology and features

Construction Viz gives you the power and extensibility of the Microsoft ecosystem – including SharePoint, SQL, Office and more – optimized for construction and customized for your organization.

Key Features of Construction Viz:

• Complete flexibility – Extensive customization and integration options powered by SharePoint 2016 and the Microsoft enterprise ecosystem.
• Robust reporting – Powerful SQL 2016 database technology and reporting capabilities, including SSRS (mobile and paginated reports), geospatial mapping, dashboards, KPI widgets and more.
• End-to-end security – Second to none security and compliance with the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.
• Mobile support – Productivity in the office and the field with complete mobile and offline support.
• Integration galore – Ready integration with the industry standard software you use every day (Office, Oracle Primavera P6, SAP, ArcGIS and more).

There is another advantage to consider. Because Construction Viz is built upon industry-leading enterprise platforms like SharePoint, SQL and Azure, you can rest assured that your organization won’t be stranded in a proprietary walled garden where customizations or integrations are prohibitively costly. Or, worse yet, surprised by a vendor going out of business.  Construction Viz offers you the peace of mind and reliability of using Microsoft’s widely deployed and extensively support platforms – optimized and enhanced for construction project management.

There are many PMIS platforms to choose from out there. Only Construction Viz is designed around you and your project.

A version of this post also appears in the special CMAA section of the June 19th issue of ENR. 

See what Construction Viz can do for you

Find out more about Construction Viz by visiting our microsite, or contact us to schedule a free consultation and demo.