BuildTools

Pros

BuildTools has far more features than other systems we compared in its class.

This has allowed us to perform not only almost all major business functions: selections & client management, change order documentation, communications, bids procurement, budget monitoring, scheduling, and invoicing but also other important but less well promoted capabilities such as daily logs (for health, safety & schedule deviation monitoring), meeting minutes that permit tasks to be assigned & tracked (for use with clients, subcontractors/suppliers, or internally) among others.

This combined with the product's progressive incremental improvements and willingness to occasionally make changes based on our own suggestions or requests add up to good value.

Cons

The advantage of having so many features can also be a detriment to new users, for whom learning and navigating the system may be overwhelming at first. This is exacerbated by weak FAQs/video tutorials and lack of proactive hints/suggestions as to how to get the most out of the software.

However if one is patient and implements the system section by section as each are successively mastered and while doing so makes use of the excellent and always responsive (and free) support staff, then this shortcoming can be overcome, revealing all of the features and capabilities.

Pros

The integration into our business is other systems has been seemless both saving us time and effort in our daily processes.

Cons

Compared to our previous system, I have not found any cons to this point after almost a year of usage.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing BuildTools

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to BuildTools

Pros

document and schedule control internally was nice.

Cons

the customer service/develop team are not good. offered great ideas but they seem lazy to try to implement anything. working vs published schedule is dumb should just be one schedule to useapp is not user friendly this program is only made for a desktop so makes very hard to use in field

Pros

Its accessibility in the field for our project managers and sub-contractors to review all the files associated with the project.

Cons

Only minor issue if file sharing via email/text is a little "clunky" due to PDF's having to run through a 3rd party reader for sending. Nothing major but it just adds a additional step in sending files in the field.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to BuildTools

Pros

Easy to use, made managing selections and getting change orders signed easier. Keeping all emails in one spot is great. Just starting to use the Bids feature, so far so good.

Cons

if you need scheduling pick something else or get a different software, it does not schedule, it may list dates, but if a task starts early nothing is adjusted and same if it finishes late. It just has static dates.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to BuildTools