Procore....User Much?
Overall Satisfaction with Procore
Our organization uses Procore for all aspects of construction project management including bidding, field manpower tracking, financials, RFI's, submittals, scheduling, meeting minutes, change orders, invoicing and draw requests. It addressed the problem of errors and inconsistencies (we once had Excel files be our main source of all of the above). It further also allows us to recall past information at a click of a button by selecting specific data that has helped us become more efficient with our time. Procore's simplistic user-friendly formatting and cloud-based system has allowed even the non-computer friendly users to download their app onto their phones and input daily reports, upload site images and create RFIs with ease. As a result this has created more tracking and documentation then we ever had in the past.
Pros
- One of the most simple things that Procore does well is allow us to download images directly to a pdf. But Procore takes it one step further, where they provide a link next to each image allowing the receiver to download the actual jpeg of any given image from the pdf.
- Another area that Procore excels is daily reporting recognition. You can sort your manpower for any given project in a variety of ways including by date, vendor, and area. Creating weekly reports and recalling information from a specific time has never been so easy or efficient.
- The financial integration between contracts written (commitments), requisitions (vendor invoices), and payment issued is quite seamless as well. I can click on any given commitment and review all financials for that one vendor, or I can go to the home screen for the commitments and see a full summary.
- The last thing that I would say that Procore does particularly well with is RFI and submittal's. We have found that architects and clients alike have enjoyed being able to respond to RFI's and approve Submittal's simply by responding to an email. The response is the automatically uploaded into Procore. Its quite remarkable.
Cons
- There are 3 areas that Procore could really use room for improvement. One is cost tracking between change orders from a vendor and change orders going out to the client. There currently is no easy spreadsheet that reflects all the change orders received from subs that also links to all the change orders that have gone out to the client. I still have that one excel spreadsheet for that tracking purpose otherwise, change orders from vendors get lost and forgotten.
- The second area where Procore could improve is the financial entry. When setting up a job you can only enter your financials into the Budget and then it will automatically convert to the Prime Contract side. We would find it helpful if we could also input into the Prime Contract side as this is sometimes where we prepare proposals (left in draft) to our clients. If we do that however, we cannot automatically have it transition to the Budget side. We have to enter the same costs twice.
- Lastly, We aren't a large establishment and don't use PCO's and Change Orders. All of our extra costing to clients automatically goes to PCCO's, so we end up having to override the whole process which creates extra time and its a bit of a nuisance. We would like this aspect of Procore flexible/customized for the user.
There is no comparison. As I have been saying throughout this survey, the easy, point and click nature of Procore can't stack up against other softwares. Procore has excelled in making Project Management documentation easy. When you do get hung up on a task or can't figure something out, there is always someone available either by phone or my personal favorite the Live Chat function.
We have absolutely benefited from this. I believe the Owners have enjoyed the RFI, submittal, site image and punchlist aspect of it immensely. We are still weary of the financial approval of change orders through Procore, but it isn't due to our trust in the software as much as our own personal caution. However Procore is accommodating to this and we simply PDF and email financials out that way. It works well.
- We have definitely increased efficiency by using Procore. I'm not sure of the actual return on our investment, however I can say without hesitation that it has helped in errors which I am sure rolls over into financial gain.
- Ensure information is accessible and up to date
- Document job site conditions
- Track cost impacts from the field
- Streamline financial reporting
- Simplify employee time tracking
The best features that help achieve these goals are daily reporting, commitments, change events, rfi's, submittal's, and change orders.
Procore Feature Ratings
Using Procore
30 - Field, Management and Accounting
15 - This is for project management and accounting.
- Construction Project Management
- Field Tracking
- Bidding
- Being able to easy see which projects our vendors have worked on
- A simple financial review
- The app for our smart phones when in the field.
- Drawing mark ups
- Incident reporting
- Scheduling
Evaluating Procore and Competitors
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
We found that Procore was one of the most recognizable softwares in our industry, combined with how easy it was to use the product we found that the decision to move forward was an easy one. Luckily, as we have grown and done more business we have found that more architects and clients are familiar with Procore as well so the integration has been smooth.
I would like to know about the reporting more. I have found flaw in how Procore reports CCO's vs PCCO's and because of the miss we continue to keep an internal excel file that I'd one day like to be able to eliminate.
Procore Implementation
- Implemented in-house
- Just learning the process and making sure we did them in order
- Getting our more seasoned staff on board
- Becoming efficient and using Procore to its fullest capabilities
Procore Training
- Online training
Yes it was. Due to the on-line tutorials it made training quite easy and we could do it on our own time which was appreciated.
Configuring Procore
Just go through the process the way Procore outlines it.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
No, we have not done any configurations or customizations so we don't have anything to add.
Procore Support
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
Yes - Procore has been down from time to time for maintenance or something else. Its a pain because we use it so much but it doesn't seem to necessarily stay an issue for too long.
This is an easy one but I was trying to figure out which came first, the chicken or the egg...or in this case, entering the budget or entering the prime contract SOV. It was driving me nuts and I felt we were doing everything twice for no reason. I was quickly told that if we enter the budget first, we can auto-populate the SOV into the prime contract. That quick tip saved us a lot of time doing double entries!
Using Procore
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Budget/Prime contract integration
- Home page of commitments
- Photos logging
- creating PCCO's
- The use of change events
- Reports the way I need them to reflect cost of CCO's vs PCCO's.
Yes - I think its fantastic. I can view almost anything on it and there is a lot of ease with reviewing drawings, commitment inclusions and site photos
Procore Reliability
Integrating Procore
- Excel
- Microsoft Project
its a bit tedious to upload a schedule fro Microsoft project but it is definitely possible to do with just a few extra steps like downloading Procore drive.
- I would like our excel reporting/tracking of CCO's vs. PCCO's to be integrated better.
The vendors don't have anything to do with the integration we would want.
- File import/export
We strictly use Procore with Microsoft documents. We aren't that complex.
Take the time to learn it correctly, it doesn't take much and it is helpful to learn correctly for ease of use.
Relationship with Procore Technologies
I'm not sure how to answer this question. We allow each vendor to use Procore to any capacity they can
Willingness to try. They tend to just not want to learn a new system.
Upgrading Procore
- We haven't seen much of a difference so I'm not sure.
- we would love to see change events, change orders and PCO's eliminated. We would love to be able to go straight to writing a PCCO. The other steps are laborious and none that we actually use or implement.
Comments
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