Lydon Solutions

Construction Project Management Software Solutions

Consulting News

Need help with Microsoft 365 for Construction Projects?

Consulting News |

More and more organizations are taking the leap to Microsoft 365. They see the benefits of having all of their company data securely stored in one location while accessing Microsoft's multiple services such as Teams, SharePoint, Project, and Office. They are also taking advantage of the Power Platform to create organization-specific customizations that they can readily distribute to users as joined-up solutions.

If your organization is one of those that have taken that first step and signed up for a Microsoft 365 subscription, congrats! Microsoft 365 has all of the tools you need to build an enterprise-scale organization or project solution. Now comes the hard part.

IT initiatives are not unlike any construction project. You need to design, budget, and have experts in the field with a successful track record that can deliver. Check out our series of blogs articles with tips and suggestions on using Microsoft 365 to manage your construction projects:

Expert help from Lydon Solutions on managing construction projects with Microsoft 365

Lydon Solutions has been delivering enterprise-scale Microsoft-based solutions for construction since 2009. We offer Microsoft 365 managed services to get you up and running at any point in your journey. We've delivered solutions for small organizations and fortune 500 companies ranging from a Power Automate workflow automating the review of daily reports to custom SharePoint program management solutions supporting multi-billion dollar projects.

While there are many IT companies out there, what makes us different is our consultants have both construction and IT experience. We've been there with you, and our solutions prove it. Check out our Microsoft 365 Managed Services or submit a free one-hour consultation request here.

How Microsoft Delve Can Help with Your Construction Projects

Consulting News |

You've probably seen the Microsoft 365 Delve App in your Microsoft 365 navigation menu and wondered what is it and how you can use it to be more productive within my construction organization?

Microsoft 365 all apps
Microsoft 365 all apps

Webster's Dictionary defines the word delve as "to make a careful or detailed search for information." Microsoft Delve does precisely that. Delve, released in 2015, is included with some Microsoft 365 subscriptions depending on the plan you have.  Delve aggregates relevant files from across Microsoft 365 and displays them in an easy-to-understand content card. Delve provides robust search across Office documents, PDFs, OneNote sections, images, and videos from OneDrive and SharePoint.

Delve navigation
Delve navigation

Delve uses Microsoft Graph's machine learning capabilities to determine which content to present to you. The more frequently you modify the content, the better odds that it will be displayed higher in the list of available cards. Only content that you have access to will be displayed, and although your personal files might show in Delve, they will not be visible with others in the organization unless you choose to share them. To help with searching and organizing, you can add tags, either as boards or favorites, to your cards.

In addition to presenting Microsoft 365 content, Delve is also an employee directory of your tenant users. By default, Delve displays the Microsoft 365 user profiles of all organization members, including phone numbers, email, and locations. You can add additional metadata to your profile, such as which projects you are currently working on, your skills and expertise, and education. All of the other metadata you add is also automatically searchable across your organization.

Delve profiles
Delve profiles

Using Microsoft Delve for Construction Projects

How can you use Microsoft Delve for a construction organization? Here are a few ideas:

  • Suppose you need to get to a file as fast as possible without going into a specific application such as a Teams site, SharePoint, or OneDrive. In that case, you can use Delve as your Microsoft 365 landing page and see all of your relevant files in one place.
  • You may need a better way to organize relevant files. Unfortunately, files might have odd file naming conventions, reside in hard-to-find nested folders, or existing in many different file formats.  This situation could occur when preparing a proposal or a bid package where you may need to aggregate multiple files into a single presentation. With Delve, you can add tags to organize their associated cards in a more intuitive manner that best suits your work style and the deliverable, so the users don't have to save their files into another separate location.
  • If you are looking for a specific skill set or experience on your team, Delve can give you a quick and easy way to search the entire organization. With the additional metadata that users can add to their profile, you can turn Delve into a searchable database of employee skills and experience the next time you have to put together a proposal or build project teams.

While Delve seems like one of those apps that you might want to investigate further, unfortunately, some black clouds are on the horizon. Microsoft has removed the Windows 10 Delve app and has announced at Ignite 21 that it will also be removing the Delve iOS and Android mobile apps in June of this year. In its place, Microsoft is directing users to the Outlook mobile, which includes similar features to Delve. This move could signal that the end of days for Delve, which is a shame because it does have some potential for enhancing your productivity. It might also be Microsoft's intention to release an updated app that could consolidate Delve into the new Project Cortex, which utilizes Microsoft Graph as well. We will have to wait and see. Until then, give Delve a try and let us know your thoughts.

Get Expert Help Using Microsoft 365 for Construction Projects

If you need any help with Microsoft 365 for your construction organization, check out our managed services and sign up for a free consultation. If you are interested in our prebuilt and enterprise-ready project management information system (PMIS) for your Microsoft 365, visit our catalog of available Construction Viz apps and submit a demo request.