Lydon Solutions

Construction Project Management Software Solutions

Construction Viz

Why Your Construction PMIS Solution Should be Unique

How-To |

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.

2017 CMAA Capital Projects Symposium Recap

Miscellaneous |

The Lydon Solutions team had a great time showcasing our construction management solutions at the 2017 CMAA Capital Projects Symposium.  Here are a few photos and takeaways from the event.

The annual CMAA Capital Projects Symposium is the ideal venue for construction industry leaders to learn about new techniques and technologies to improve their project management processes. We were proud to be bronze-level sponsors of this two-day event for the third year in a row.  As always, it was great connecting with industry professionals and showing off our latest innovative construction program management solutions.

Visitors to our booth had the chance to explore Construction Viz, our recently released construction program management solution powered by Microsoft SharePoint 2016. We presented demos highlighting Construction Viz’s powerful SSRS reporting capabilities as well as how easy the platform makes it to integrate geospatial map data with project information.

Thanks to everyone that stopped by our booth to chat with our team!

A few takeaways from this year’s CMAA Capital Projects Symposium

The CMAA event is a great opportunity to learn what is foremost on the minds of industry leaders. Here are a few insights we gained:

Breaking down information silos and encouraging collaboration – Many construction managers and owners are looking for a centralized location for all their project information. They want a solution that will enable them to better share this information among project team members.

Better Primavera P6 integration and reporting – P6 is the go-to project management application for many organizations. What’s missing is a way to integrate project information from other sources with P6 data and create robust reports.

Mobile is a requirement – Project teams need mobile-first tools that enable them to be productive in the field or away from their desk, with or without an internet connection. This isn’t just about convenience. Today’s fast-paced, competitive business environment makes this a necessity.

In all the above conversations, we were delighted to show off the capabilities of Construction Viz, a solution well-suited to meeting the needs we heard from CMAA attendees.

Construction Viz integrates with industry-standard software (Microsoft Office, P6, ArcGIS and more), putting all project data in one place for collaboration, sharing and reporting. The platform makes it easy to share P6 schedule information via built-in reports and dashboards. Finally, Construction Viz is designed from the ground up to be a mobile-first platform.

When we showed visitors to our booth everything Construction Viz could do – and then told them it was built on technologies that they already knew and trusted like SharePoint 2016, SQL 2016 and Azure – we generated a lot of excitement. It’s gratifying opportunities like these to share much-needed solutions with our construction industry colleagues that ensures we’ll be back at the Capital Projects Symposium next year!

Discover Project Management Perfected

If you missed us at this year’s event, make sure to check out the reporting and mapping capabilities of Construction Viz in our most recent blog posts. You can also contact us to schedule a free consultation and demo.

Come See Us at the 2017 AACE Western Winter Workshop

Events |

Don’t miss our demo of Construction Viz, our new mobile-friendly, subscription-based construction project management solution. We’ll be showing off Construction Viz’s powerful SSRS reporting capabilities and easy integration of geospatial map information and project data.

The 2017 AACE Western Winter Workshop is coming up next week on March 2-5, 2017 in Indian Wells, CA. We are thrilled to be Gold Sponsors once again this year.

The AACE event brings together construction industry professionals from around the country (and even further afield) to discuss the latest trends in scheduling, cost engineering, and project management. We always enjoy the opportunity to reconnect with friends and colleagues, make new connections and share our latest construction program management solutions.

This year we’re very excited to showcase some awesome new features that we know construction project managers are going to love.

See Project Management Perfected with Construction Viz at the AACE Workshop

Workshop attendees: Make sure to stop by our booth to check out Construction Viz, our new subscription-based construction project management solution that is fully mobile-friendly. Construction Viz is powered by Microsoft SharePoint™ 2016, SQL 2016 and Azure – tools you know and trust.

Here’s a peek at our demo lineup:

Construction reporting made simple with Construction Viz and SSRS 2016 – Microsoft just expanded their reporting capabilities with SQL 2016 and SSRS. Construction Viz puts these powerful visualization and mobile capabilities at your fingertips. We’ll be demoing Construction Viz’s robust support for SSRS reporting, including mobile and paginated reports as well as custom KPIs, dashboards, and interactive grid view widgets. Read our recent related blog post for a preview and stop by our booth to see the demo.

Integrated geospatial maps and project data with Construction Viz – Keeping track of geographically dispersed projects is challenging. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to easily combine map data from tools like ArcGIS with your Project Management Information System data? There is: Construction Viz provides tight integration between project data and geospatial information with a mapping toolset that is robust, flexible and responsive. Learn more in our latest blog post and don’t miss the chance to see this feature in action at the AACE Winter Workshop.

The above are just a preview. Visit us at the AACE workshop for a full demo of everything Construction Viz can do to help your team save time, reduce cost and stay on schedule.

See you next week!

Get a Detailed Demo of Construction Viz Today

Construction Viz includes everything you need to manage your construction projects—document management, dashboards, reports, forms, workflows and more—in one place.
Not able to attend this year’s AACE Western Winter Workshop? Find out more about the reporting and mapping capabilities of  Construction Viz by visiting our microsite, or contact us to schedule a free consultation and demo.

Construction Reporting Made Simple with Construction Viz and SSRS 2016

How-To |

Microsoft significantly enhanced their lineup of reporting tools with SQL 2016 and SSRS. Construction Viz puts these powerful visualization and mobile capabilities at your fingertips

We wrote about the robust mobile and offline reporting capabilities enabled by Datazen in a previous blog post back in December 2015.

We are always on the lookout for smart solutions to construction program management challenges. Datazen’s powerful mobile reports impressed us right away. Our team used Datazen and SQL to build real-time mobile dashboards and KPIs that construction teams could access no matter what OS or device they used. Datazen also enabled us to create offline reporting solutions for use in the field.

Datazen was powerful, but at the time it was still a separate application that resided on top of SQL. Taking advantage of it required custom integration.

Microsoft changed that by acquiring Datazen and incorporating their mobile capabilities into SQL 2016. Datazen is now a core part of the SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) toolkit. We think this is great news for our clients in the construction industry. Read on to learn why.

Construction Viz Takes SQL 2016 and SSRS to the Next Level

Construction Viz, our subscription-based construction project management solution, is powered by Microsoft SharePoint 2016, SQL 2016 and Azure. That means Construction Viz puts the power of SSRS – including the mobile capabilities of SSRS Mobile (Datazen) – at your fingertips, on any device.

Here are just a few of the powerful reporting features that Construction Viz enables for each business need:

SSRS Mobile Reports (formerly Datazen) – Construction Viz leverages the latest SSRS features to provide reports optimized for mobile viewing. Users can get business insights on the go from any device.  These reports are ideal for dashboards and KPIs for the manager or executive on the go to access through a Construction Viz site or SSRS Mobile.

SSRS Paginated Reports –  Paginated reports are the cornerstone of complex reporting in both SharePoint and SQL. These reports are great for printing and bringing into construction review meetings, such as monthly reports, status reports, and form logs. Construction Viz makes it simple to create and customize paginated reports that are attractive, clean and modern looking. Need to add data from a report to a presentation? No problem. Export a live and editable report from Construction Viz to PowerPoint. And, if you already have reports that you’ve created on-premises in SSRS, it is easy to pin any Construction Viz report to your Power BI dashboards to monitor all your reports in one place.

Custom KPIs, Dashboards, and Interactive Grid View widgets – Our custom JavaScript widgets make it possible to aggregate and report on data – both from within Construction Viz and combined with external sources.  Responsive dynamic progress metrics right on a web page are ideal for quick statuses of project progress and interactive data grids provide for grouping, sorting, filtering, and exporting data in an easy-to-use format.

Geospatial Mapping – Location matters for construction projects. Our custom mapping solution enables the integrated display of data from external sources like ARC GIS combined with documents, images, video, and dashboards. This combined information can be displayed geospatially in popup windows or layers.  Stay tuned for follow up blog post on Mapping.

Analytical reports and charts created with Excel – Excel is the most widely used analytical tool today – and will likely continue to be for a long time. Construction Viz integrates seamlessly with Excel, thanks to its underlying SharePoint framework. These types of reports are ideal for project teams to quickly post up existing Excel files.  Simple, easy to use, and already available.

It is exciting to see all the rich new reporting functionality Microsoft baked into SSRS and SQL 2016. Even more exciting is all the new possibilities these capabilities enable for our clients.

Ready to Perfect Your Project Management with Construction Viz?

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

Happy New Year from Lydon Solutions

Company News |

Lydon Solutions wants to thank all our clients, partners and colleagues for a successful 2016. We look forward to working together in the new year!

Author: Rusty Ostboe

As we say goodbye to 2016, our team here at Lydon Solutions has many reasons to be thankful. We get to help businesses and organizations in the construction industry do their jobs better with technology every day – and have a lot of fun along the way.

We were thrilled to launch Construction Viz this past fall. Construction Viz is a new, flexible, subscription-based construction project management solution based on our award-winning program management portal. It has been very exciting to see the enthusiastic reception that the platform has received.

And we are excited to continue teaming up with you — our clients and partners – to lead the way with innovative construction program management solutions in 2017.

Finding Ways to Give Back

For all the above reasons and more, we feel very fortunate and appreciative. Which is why all of us at Lydon Solutions are committed to giving back to our community wherever we can.

I had the honor recently to represent Lydon Solutions and help support two very good causes. If you are able, I encourage you to learn more about these organizations and the ways you can also help them with their work.

We were very happy to participate in the A Taste of Switzer event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Switzer Learning Center located in Torrance, CA. The Switzer Learning Center serves children and families with mild to severe learning, social, emotional and behavioral challenges. Programs include a 3rd-12th-grade special education school and family services clinic. It was great to see more than 20 local restaurants, breweries, wineries and caterers team up to donate food and beverages to make this event supporting Switzer Learning Center a success. Lydon Solutions was honored to be able to donate to this organization to further its important mission.

We were also glad to once again support School on Wheels as a premier sponsor of their Sip of South Bay event put on by Joyful Giving this past November in Southern California (see event photos here). School on Wheels is a nonprofit organization providing academic support to homeless children in grades K-12 through tutoring and mentoring programs. By providing educational support and reducing gaps in their education, School on Wheels’ tutoring program improves the children’s chances for academic success, and serves as a consistent support system to homeless students at a time of great stress and fear.

On behalf of everyone at Lydon Solutions, we salute these two organizations – and the many others like them – that are doing good and important work every day in our community. We are thankful to have had the opportunity to assist their missions.

Looking Forward

To all our customers, partners, colleagues and friends: We wish you all a very happy and prosperous 2017.

Takeaways from CMAA National Conference & Trade Show 2016

Events |

We had a great and productive CMAA Conference this year, including announcing our new Construction Viz solution at the event. Here are some insights we took home from the show.

Lydon Solutions was proud to be a bronze-level sponsor at the annual CMAA National Conference & Trade Show held Oct. 9-11th in San Diego. As always, our team had a great time chatting with our colleagues in construction program management. This year’s event was extra special for us because we unveiled Construction Viz, our new subscription-based construction project management solution.

2016 CMAA Conference - Construction Viz Announcement

Below are a few of our takeaways from the three-day conference:

1.       Organizations are wrestling with how to replace Primavera Contract Manager

The industry is facing the impending end of life for Primavera Contract Manager. Oracle is directing its clients to SKIRE Unifier. Many companies we spoke with, however, are weighing their options before making the move.

2.       User experience matters

Companies like Apple and Google on the consumer side and leading SaaS vendors in other industries, have raised the bar for user experience by providing streamlined and intuitive user interfaces.

So, it is no surprise that CMAA attendees we spoke with expect that same ease of use in their construction program management tools. They are tired of complex and convoluted software platforms. They want simple and intuitive interfaces. They don’t want to read a bunch of manuals or attend multiple training sessions.

3.       Users don’t want a one-size-fits-all platform

Related to the above, a lack of flexibility in many Project Management Information Systems (PMIS) was one of the biggest gripes we heard from users this year. In fact, we have heard this issued raised for several years running.

This complaint makes a lot of sense. After all, companies have different processes. Each project has its own set of requirements. Project teams and their individual members have their own workflows and ways of doing business.

Yet many PMIS platforms are not flexible enough to accommodate this reality.

4.       Mobile-first is a necessity for construction project management

Users want mobile-first tools that enable them to be productive in the field or away from their desk, with or without an internet connection. This isn’t just about convenience. Today’s fast-paced, competitive business environment makes this a necessity.

5.       Construction Viz really is project management perfected

The above observations mostly fall in the “industry challenge” column. Which is why it was so gratifying to announce Construction Viz at the CMAA this year.

Construction Viz builds on our award-winning Construction Project Management Portal powered by the industry-leading Microsoft SharePoint. Our portal is used by leading construction and utility companies to manage their multi-billion dollar projects. We believe our Construction Project Management Portal is the most flexible and extensible PMIS solution available.

Construction Viz takes everything we learned deploying our portal and makes it available as an affordable, subscription-based hosted solution. The Construction Viz platform is as flexible as project teams need it to be, offering customizable pages, forms, dashboards, reports, workflows and more. Since it is based on SharePoint, users can dive in and get to work right away without a steep learning curve.

Companies looking for a better way to manage their projects can start with the turnkey Construction Viz today and be confident that the underlying framework is scalable and flexible to keep pace with their changing business needs. Users can even seamlessly migrate from Construction Viz to our fully customized Construction Project Management Portal in the future.

6.       Construction Viz and SharePoint: the perfect PMIS solution with full mobile-first support

Most everyone is familiar with SharePoint, but not necessarily as an ideal construction PMIS solution. What blew folks away, however, was how we have mobilized the SharePoint experience with Construction Viz.

Construction Viz is fully responsive so users can access and update their project data on virtually any mobile device.  That means dashboards, reports and forms are always at the project team’s fingertips. Robust off-line support enables team members to be as productive in the field as they are in the office.
The mobile capabilities of Construction Viz we showed off to attendees really blew them away – and it is always fun to see someone’s eyes light up when they realize the benefit this functionality would provide them and their team.

Want to perfect your construction project management?

We loved showing off Construction Viz to everyone who stopped by our booth and presentation at the CMAA conference this year.

Not able to see our CMAA demo? Contact us today for a free consultation and demo to see what Construction Viz can do for your organization.