Enhancing Opportunities and Operations

Built around a simple process for easy Daily Activity Tracking & Analysis (DATA), Construction Monkey’s  (www.constructionmonkey.com) SaaS web app, crewHD, is designed to help specialty contractors manage labor (often a major risk to a project being a success or not).

Real-time field data metrics allow teams to know productivity for each activity installation, track jobsite conditions (e.g. other trades in the way, area not ready, rework, adverse weather) and instantly know their impact on the project and also facilitates knowing the labor-to-complete a project utilizing productivity data. Those capabilities driven and automatically created from a three- minute entry, an activity card filled out on a smartphone, tablet, or computer by each activity leader on the jobsite.

The entry also automates and expedites creating Look-ahead Planners, Pre-Activity Huddles which can be customized to include a current Job Hazard Analysis safety form, daily job reports/logs, time cards which can include per diem, signatures, and absentee notes, and additional work directives to help track and get vouchers signed for any work beyond your scope/contract.  

Project data is also combined to help understand company performance as a whole by tracking master tasks, allowing you to adjust future estimates based on past and current performance.

Pricing: based on project usage with unlimited number of users. Personal web demo available (https://www.constructionmonkey.com/marketing/webinar/crewhd).  

Oracle Field Service

Cloud- based Oracle Field Service (www.oracle.com 800/633-0738) management software helps mobile service teams with work planning and scheduling, technician enablement and customer self-service and features a patented AI-powered routing and scheduling engine optimizing field resource utilization.

The solution gives real-time visibility into technician location and job status and can flex to accommodate unplanned or emergency service events without disrupting existing schedules. The embedded AI-powered assignment assistant suggests the most qualified available resources to handle emergencies based on need.

To accommodate urgent requests OFS can send requests to multiple technicians who can assess project details and notify the scheduler/dispatcher if they can accept the work.  

Oracle Field Service also includes iOS, Android, and browser-based mobile applications that boost field technician efficiency. Guided workflows and real-time data from connected assets help technicians accurately troubleshoot issues. Technicians can also view asset service history, locate service parts, and capture billing information (including authorization or signatures) to ensure compliance while keeping information in sync across front and back-office systems from the mobile application. 

By connecting a knowledge library—such as Oracle Fusion Knowledge Management—field technicians can pull up manuals, videos, articles, schematics, and other documents n the OFS mobile application to get answers and solve issues faster. 

Customer self-service capabilities in OFS offer appointment scheduling, appointment reminders, and day of appointment communications with details of dispatched technicians including name and photo, and the ability to track technician status in real time. Customers can use the embedded chatbot to send messages to their technician (such as where to park or how to access their building) or to reschedule or cancel a service appointment.

Pricing: fee per user/per month

Text Request

Text Request (www.textrequest.com, 423/218-0111) customizable business texting platform, suitable for companies of all sizes, accommodates unlimited users, device, and contacts.  Adding text messaging to your business phone numbers (giving you both conversational texting and mass texting), the solution features SMS chat from your website via a live chat widget and mass texting suitable for promotions, company updates and mass reminders (BCC group messaging so only you see who gets the texts and only you get the replies) to any or all of your contacts instantly.  

Payments are processed through SMS via your own payment processor or Text Request’s processor.

You can connect your Google and Facebook business profiles and request, track, and reply to online reviews directly.

Text Request’s SMS Chat—how it works: messages come into your dashboard and your replies go to that contact’s cell phone. You can route each incoming message to the right person, department or location for each conversation and can also automatically send a text to a new chat noting that you will respond as available. It is also possible to type in a message and schedule it for a later time/date.

The SMS chat feature sends notifications of the incoming text to your computer and mobile app. The software also provides customizable text message templates on its website to jumpstart setting appointments and confirming them. 

Text Request integrates with several popular platforms, including HubSpot, MailChimp, Pipedrive, Inuit QuickBooks, Square, and Zapier.

Pricing: Standard and high-volume plans are available at escalating cost, differentiated at least partially by number of dashboards, number of included texts per month. Basic provides one dashboard (with one text line) and includes up to 1,000 texts per month; Starter, the most popular plan, features two dashboards and 2,500 texts per month. Corporate plan (5 dashboards and 6,500 texts monthly) and Enterprise plan (10 dashboards, 20,000 texts monthly) also available. Additional fee to connect to your Google and Facebook business profiles.

Patti Feldman writes articles and web content for trade magazines and manufacturers of building products. She can be reached at [email protected].