To accommodate different learning styles, a step-by-step article with accompanying screenshots is provided directly below and a video tutorial is also available at the end of this document.
Introduction
From the Projects tab in the left-hand navigation, clients can easily build and view their projects in a way that allows them to logically group contractors. Projects allows clients to pare down the data for the hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of contractors that they are working with across their projects and locations to understand and compare the risks presented by a specific subset of contractors.
As an example, on a large $300 million dollar construction project a client with over 1,000 contractors in their portfolio may only be engaging with 50-150 contractors from the bid phase through contract award, preconstruction, and construction completion. Projects provides the client with the ability to maintain focus on the subset of contractors who are bidding and working on this particular project throughout its entire lifecycle.
Projects Landing Page
The landing page that a client sees when they access “Projects” from the left navigation provides a high-level dashboard that lists all existing projects:
Filters
The default dashboard shows a list of Current Projects, but like all list views in the Highwire application, a user will have the ability to refine their list by toggling between the four primary filter boxes: Current Projects, Completed Projects, High Risk Projects, and All Projects.
In addition, there is a secondary ability to filter your projects by market. Simply click on “Market” to open up the dropdown list of the unique markets that your company has set up in Highwire and select those market(s) that you would like to include in your filtered view. Note that if you click on the Save button to the right of the filter, you will set that filter to be your default landing.
Add Project
For current projects, you can click on any project name in the list view to be brought to the Project Workflow page for that project. To understand both the project workflow and the level of information that is captured for each project, we’ll now walk you through each step of adding a new project to your portfolio.
To get started, simply click on the “Add New Project” button to open a new project form:
Step 1: Project Info
Step 1 is where you put in basic information about the project, project contacts, and the distribution list for any standard project reports you’ve set.
Below is a screenshot that shows the data that is collected in Highwire for basic project information, which includes project name, address, start date, end date, project status, market, and SDI applicability:
As you learned in the earlier section, by completing the dropdowns for both project status (pre-construction, current, and complete) and market (client-specified geographical areas), a client is able to utilize the powerful filters that are available under Projects.
Note that if you are a client that relies on General Contractors to manage your projects, this section will also show a dropdown of your GCs so that you can assign the project accordingly:
The next screenshot shows the data that is collected in Step 1 for project contacts. There are two separate sections for contacts, the first is general project contacts and is always visible. The second section is only visible to clients who utilize Highwire Inspect and includes those contacts who are responsible for submitting monthly inspection reports, as further detailed in the articles on Inspect:
Step 2: Bid List
In this second step, users will begin to populate their bid list with contractors. This allows the user to compare contractors that are bidding on the same scope of work. To start your bid list, simply click on the “Add Contractor” box:
“Add Contractor” will open up a window with the list of your company’s connected contractors. You can sort this list by company or trade. In the example below, the contractors are sorted by trade (Division 9 - Finishes) and there are 2 contractors selected for addition to the bid list. You’ll notice that the graphs at the top of the window will change as you select/deselect contractors so that you can see a visual comparison between your bidders as you add them:
Once you’ve added contactors, you’ll see them listed on the bid list in Step 2. There are a few key functions that you will be able to initiate from your bid list, including clicking on the name of the bidder to open a new window with their full profile, clicking on their flags to see exactly what risk criteria they triggered, and clicking on “Email Sub” to open a new email window to request that the contractor complete their Highwire profile in order to be considered for bid. You can also maximize any of the graphs to do a side-by-side visual comparison of specific risks like flags, safety scores, EMR, recordable rate, etc:
Step 3: Safety Approval
Step 3 is where a client sets the safety approval for their bidders. If a client has set up a minimum score threshold, then bidders who meet or fail that standard can be automatically set as “Approved” or “Not Approved”, respectively. Otherwise, the client can set the approval status by simply choosing from the dropdown. In addition to Approved or Not Approved, some clients may also chose to have options for approval based on Corrective Action Plan Required, Provisionally Approved, or Safety Review Required:
Step 4: Contract Award
Contract Award is the final step in the Project cycle and it is where a client creates their final list of awarded contractors. This step is logically broken up into two categories, “Award Contractor” and “Awarded Contractor” as shown in the first screenshot below. The first category is essentially a summary of your bid list and you’ll notice that once you click on “Award” next to a contractor, that company automatically moves to the “Awarded Contractor” section, as shown in the second screenshot below:
You've successfully added a bidder to your project. You’ll notice that the graphs now display data for only the awarded contractor(s).
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