Lydon Solutions

Construction Project Management Software Solutions

Construction

Protect Remote Workers from Cyberattacks with Microsoft 365 and Endpoint Manager

How-To |

The ongoing pandemic has forced us all to rethink how we work and interact with each other and the information assets held within our organizations. The increase in remote working elevates the likelihood of security threats, potentially putting our information at risk.

Now is the time to evaluate your infrastructure and security, not only for the immediate threat but also to plan for what comes next.

Better Remote Worker Security with Microsoft Endpoint Manager

At Lydon Solutions, we have been a virtual organization right from the start. At the moment, of course, we have increased the number of staff working from home, and we have been able to do so seamlessly by using services from Microsoft 365 and Azure because we do not have an on-premise infrastructure. We use Microsoft 365 for email and collaboration (SharePoint, Teams, etc.) and use Microsoft Azure Endpoint Manager (previously called InTune) to manage all the devices our employees use.

Endpoint Manager, a cloud-based enterprise mobility management service from Microsoft, ensures that your employees' devices and applications access your company information securely.

Here are some of the ways we use Endpoint Manager at Lydon Solutions to protect our information and systems:

  • Multi-factor security. We require employees to enroll all devices in Endpoint Manager and use multi-factor authentication before allowing access to company information.
  • Asset management. We provision and manage all company-issued laptops with Endpoint Manager, automatically configuring all devices with our organization settings and ensuring they are compliant with our security policy requirements.
  • BYOD device management. Our employees are free to use their devices of choice, and with Endpoint Manager, we can specifically target only the apps that contain (or access) company information, such as Office.
  • Policies. Using public computers can also be risky. So, to ensure that our employees are not accessing company information from these devices and potentially leaving sensitive information behind, we create policies not to allow access.

As part of our Microsoft 365 managed services, we can set up your Microsoft 365 tenant and implement Endpoint Manager so that your company can manage projects effectively and your information and assets are protected.

Find out more about our services and how we can help you in your goal of secure remote working by scheduling a no-obligation consultation and demo.

Microsoft Power Automate Construction Use Cases

Case Study |

Here are a few examples of how we delivered real-world efficiencies for our construction industry clients using Microsoft Power Automate.

If you have been following our posts, you will know that we are big fans of the Microsoft Power Platform and, in particular, Power Automate, Microsoft's modern take on workflows. Available in Microsoft 365 with E and M licenses or separately if you need to access premium connectors, Power Automate provides a quick way to take advantage of workflows to improve processes predictability and business efficiencies for your organization.

Construction Use Cases for Power Automate

Microsoft provides a gallery of Power Automate workflow templates, which can be used for simple business scenarios or as a starting point for more complex solutions. We have helped numerous construction industry clients achieve their goals by leveraging Power Automate. Below are a few use cases of Power Automate for construction.

Document Review

There are several ways to create document approval workflows in Power Automate. For example, you could leverage the built-in approval actions to send approval requests via email or SMS to a mobile phone where the user clicks on a link to perform the approval.

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One of our clients needed their sub-contractors to approve and respond to document changes without having access to the company's project management information system (PMIS). We leveraged Microsoft's Adaptive Cards technology to allow recipients to approve document modifications without leaving the email they received with the notification for action. Handling approvals entirely within emails was more convenient for the approver and helped improve engagement while increasing the turnaround time for feedback since users didn't have to learn a new system. A bonus was that the client didn't have to purchase additional licenses for their sub-contractors.

For another client, we used Power Automate to generate a daily digest of new and updated documents from each program's projects for PMs to review and provide feedback. This workflow also sent a weekly digest of projects that were closing out and attached a PDF document binder (also created by the workflow) of all the project documents as an attachment to the email. In each case, the body of the email contained project-specific information extracted from the project sites.

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Project Safety

One of our clients needed to log when personnel entered and left construction sites to allow them to know who was on site quickly should there be an incident. To meet this requirement with Power Automate, our client's users registered their mobile phones with the new workflow we created. Then we leveraged Power Automate's geofencing features to trigger updates to a SharePoint list on the movement of personnel around construction sites.

For another client, we created a workflow to monitor data from weather stations located at the construction site. The workflow recorded the real-time weather at the site and sent alerts in the event of inclement conditions. Another workflow monitored data from a weather service and processed weather forecasts for construction sites to allow project planners to schedule or reschedule work based on forecast local conditions.

Project Automation

We built a workflow for a client to automate the request, approval, and provisioning of Microsoft Teams sites from a predefined set of templated sites. Users would complete a form to request a new team site, specifying the owner, users, the template to use for configuration, and if it needed to be private or public. The workflow would route a request to the project manager for approval. If approved, the team site would be provisioned and configured, and an email sent confirming its approval and creation to the requestor. If the project manager denied the request, the workflow sent a notification to the user with the reason.

For another client, we created a workflow to allow users to work cost reports and budgets in Excel without changing their processes rather than forcing them to log in to the PMIS to update project financial information. The workflow reads data from the Excel workbooks and sheets and updates the corresponding SharePoint lists in the PMIS. Additionally, if someone updates the values in the PMIS, they can optionally be written back to the master Excel file.

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Take Advantage of Power Automate for Your Construction Projects

The above are just a few examples of how we have helped our clients use Microsoft's Power Automate to achieve efficiencies with repeatable processes that provide predictability and ensure accuracy. There are so many more. Make sure you explore what Power Automate can do for your construction projects.

And if you would like some help, we have several construction-oriented Power Automate flows and components to jump-start workflows for your projects.  You can request a free one-hour consultation here.

Microsoft Power BI and Paginated Reports for Construction

Microsoft News |

As your construction organization moves to Microsoft 365, the question of how to report on all your data becomes critical. Microsoft 365’s de facto reporting solution is Power BI. It is the one-stop-shop for reporting on data generated in Microsoft’s expansive cloud platform as well as external applications.

Microsoft Power BI is known as a robust dashboard report builder. It can connect to many different data sets and applications to build stunning dashboards and KPIs that can be displayed on any device. Microsoft continually enhances Power BI with functionality and integration capabilities and puts that power in the hands of the users. This helps to make it a prime reporting solution on the market today.

While Power BI can publish SQL Server paginated reports, it did not provide the option to create paginated reports until recently when Microsoft released a new desktop Power BI Report application.

So, What are Paginated Reports and How Would I Use Them in Construction?

Paginated reports can be extensively formatted, can fit one or more pages, and are designed to be easily printed. In construction, they are great for printing a formatted form (eg. Submittal Form):

Or data logs with multiple pages (eg. Submittal Log):

Get Started with Power BI and Create Paginated Reports

To get started with creating paginated reports in Power BI, you will need a Power BI Premium license and you must download and install the Power BI Report Builder software. Please be aware that Power BI Premium is expensive. Before you consider Power BI for paginated reports, we recommend reaching out to Microsoft to understand licensing requirements. There are also some settings required in your Power BI service that will be needed. We would recommend doing an internet search on Microsoft Power BI Paginated Reports for step by step instructions as these might change.

See Microsoft’s FAQs for Power BI Paginated Reports for more information.

Lastly, to build effective reports, you will need to have a good understanding of where your information (ie. data sets) resides in your topography. We would recommend that you start mapping out your data sets sooner rather than later to ensure power users all create reports using the same structured data.

Get Reporting Expertise from Lydon Solutions

Having the ability to create paginated reports in Power BI is a great feature. Lydon Solutions has been building SQL Server Reports (SSRS) and Power BI reports for construction for many years. If you have any questions or need help building SQL Server or Power BI reports, you can get a free consultation to talk with our team of experts. If you need an enterprise construction management PMIS that can be deployed into Microsoft 365, complete with reporting, or get a demo of our easy-to-use project management software solution, Construction Viz.

Bots and Project Management Information Systems (PMIS)

Reviews |

How bots and machine learning could impact construction project management 

Bots are a hot topic right now. Tech giants from Google, Facebook and Microsoft and automakers like Toyota are betting big on bots as a critical cutting-edge technology. And they aren’t alone. Thought leaders and entrepreneurs in virtually every industry and sector are exploring bot technology.

If you haven’t been following the hype, a bot is an application of artificial intelligence.  Basically, it is a computer program that fetches and analyzes data.  Some of these bots use machine learning to spot patterns or understand how humans perform tasks and then mimic – and enhance – that behavior.

We’re already starting to see some of these bots popping up for ordering food, booking flights, or as general personal digital assistants. Most of us see these innovations and say “wow, that’s pretty cool” and move on.  But, this is a much bigger transformative technology that is evolving that will reinvent the workplace and re-define the way people work – for better or worse.

Let’s have some fun thinking about the possibilities bot technology could create for business in general and construction project management in particular.

Why I’m All in On The Bot Bandwagon

Here’s why: we’re all being asked to do more with less to stay competitive in business today. At the same time, we must keep quality high. I believe bots and machine learning will help all of us be more agile, efficient and consistent.

Businesses have transitioned to the internet and for that matter the “cloud.”  So all of your data to manage and operate a business is created and transacted online.  Now imagine if we could apply bot technology to the various aspects of our business – finance, accounting, manufacturing, management, etc. – and program the bots to learn from our best practices. They could use machine learning to understand how we work, analyze problems, make decisions, and ultimately get things done.  So in a way they would become an extension of you – allowing everyone in your company to do more with an army of virtual assistants.

Take it a step further. What if you could buy bots that had “learned” from the masters like Warren Buffet for financial investing, or Bill Gates for technology leadership, and so on.  Now your company is drawing on the best of the best in the industry.

Construction Project Management Bots

Now let’s apply this to construction. Bots could transform the way we manage projects. As everyone knows, there are way too many data points to consider when managing a construction project.  There is not enough time in the day or resources to monitor all of them and their interrelationships.
But what if you were able to set up bots that could analyze all of your project data to spot patterns, find anomalies and make correlations. The bots could crunch mountains of data for you, aiding in your decision making and even taking corrective action.

For example, say you have a project risk that is added to your risk register.  That risk could have an impact to your schedule, cost forecast, contingency, scope, change management, and ultimately team communication.

What if a bot could perform multiple scenarios in real time and suggest the best mitigation plan based on your company’s priorities and best practices?  Bots could do all of the detailed analysis across scope, schedule, and budget and surface that information into a mobile device while you walked to over to the planning meeting.

Or consider scheduling. So many factors go into keeping your projects on time and on budget. Imagine if your team was assisted by a scheduling bot that was trained to understand scheduling concepts like schedule crashing and critical path. The bot could generate actionable reports, perform TIAs and make recommendations. You and your team could then make better, more informed decisions based the most accurate data analysis possible.

This all sounds great, but how do we get there?

I hope your mind is racing with some of the questions that will have to be answered like:

  • How could bots be assimilated into a PMIS to collect all of your data and analyze it?
  • What would the new role of a project team be?  Will the focus change from reporting and analysis to data collection and decision-making?
  • Can you teach a bot to learn all of the work experiences one would encounter?
  • How will bots and people work together in the workplace of the future?  Are there qualitative synergies that only occur when humans analyze data together?
  • What is the role of the PM?  Will they perform a QA/QC to the bot or act as a tie breaker?
  • Who does a PM blame when a bad decision is made?

Let me know your thoughts

I believe we all have much to gain in a future where bots are helping accelerate tedious or time-consuming business tasks. But there is understandably a lot of debate about the pros and cons of AI technology. Some fear the dystopian implications of machines becoming too intelligent or self-aware (the singularity).

What do you think? I’d welcome hearing your thoughts in the comments below.

2016 CMAA Capital Projects Symposium Takeaways

Events |

Finding a better project management information system is top-of-mind for construction industry professionals at the CMAA Capital Projects Symposium.

We were proud to be a Bronze Sponsor at the CMAA Capital Projects Symposium held in Austin, Texas last week. Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth to check out our award-winning Construction Program Management Portal.

A few takeaways from this year’s CMAA

We had a lot of great conversation with fellow construction industry professionals at the CMAA this year. Here are a few of our key takeaways.

Owners and construction managers across various industries told us they’re looking for a new solution to replace Oracle Contract Manager. Oracle Contract Manager has been widely used for document management, job cost, and field controls – but is now approaching end-of-life (EOL).

This leaves construction professionals looking for a replacement information management solution that is:

  1. Easy to use and configure – No one wants steep learning curves or difficult user adoption. The ideal tool should be simple for users to pick up. Most importantly, it should make their jobs easier, not more complicated.
  2. Cloud-based and mobile-friendly – The solution must support mobile users in the field as well as users in the office.
  3. Enduring and frequently updated – Companies cannot afford to take a bet on a custom solution from a vendor that may or may not be around in a few years.
  4. Deployable and customizable without coding – Project teams don’t want to wait for months or years for new features and updates.
  5. Built and supported by construction professionals that know the industry – Any solution needs to be purpose-built for the needs of construction users. And when it comes time to call support, companies need to know that someone who knows the construction industry and the software solution will pick up the phone.
  6. Integrated with Microsoft Office – Project teams rely on Microsoft Office applications to help them manage projects. It is critical that solutions compliment and integrate with Office.

These are all important requirements. Good news is that an ideal replacement solution for Primavera Contract Manager is already available: Microsoft SharePoint.

Microsoft SharePoint as a construction project management solution

The requirements above read like a feature list for a SharePoint-based Project Management Information System. That’s because Microsoft SharePoint is an ideal construction project management solution:

• SharePoint is easy to use and configure.

• It is cloud-based using Lydon Solutions Microsoft Azure data center link to the azure article here and mobile-friendly out of the box.

• Since it’s a Microsoft product, there’s little concern about ongoing updates and support.

• SharePoint integrates with all the Microsoft Office applications that construction project teams use, including Excel and Visio.

• Most organizations probably already have SharePoint deployed.

• Best of all, SharePoint is simple to customize with the help of construction industry IT professionals like Lydon Solutions.

All of which is why our Construction Project Management Portal is powered by SharePoint.

Our goal is to work with our clients to develop SharePoint-based project management solution tailor-made to fit their needs. We provide complete project management tools to keep construction projects on schedule and within budget.

Find out what SharePoint can do for you

The Lydon Solutions team had a lot of fun at CMAA showing off how SharePoint can make construction project manager’s lives easier.  If you missed us at the show, contact us today for a free consultation.

And don’t forget to download the Lydon Solutions Services Brochure for an overview of our services.

Header photo courtesy of CMAA. View more event photos on their Flickr slideshow below. 

Join Us For The 2015 CMAA National Conference & Trade Show

Miscellaneous |

Lydon Solutions is a Bronze Sponsor at this year’s CMAA National Conference & Trade Show, taking place October 11-13th at the Hilton Bonnet Creek in Orlando. The conference is an excellent forum for industry professionals to learn about new trends, share best practices and network with their peers. We are excited to take this opportunity to showcase the benefits of our award-winning Construction Program Management Portal powered by Microsoft SharePoint as well as our full range of professional services, IT development and hosting solutions.

Look for us at booth #111 and make sure to join us for our ‘Microsoft Excel PowerPivot and SharePoint – The Perfect Solution’ presentation at the Demo Theater, Monday October 12th at 2:30pm.

This event will be special for us, since we will be unveiling our new cutting-edge enterprise mobile technology for Dashboards and KPIs that runs across IOS, Windows and Android devices.  These dashboards are served up through apps that can be downloaded across devices and then connected to your enterprise data sources such as Microsoft SharePoint.  At our booth, we’ll be demoing our power BI solutions using Microsoft Power Pivot and SharePoint – it’s sure to knock your socks off.

Not able to make it the CMAA National Conference? Contact us for more information about our services and schedule a free consultation.