Electronic Submittals - Right Around the Corner

Many contractors and dealers still prepare construction submittals on paper. Submittals are one of the last frontiers for process automation in construction.

Some of our users do electronic submittals on BuildSite. The output is an email with PDF attachments. This method takes paper out of the process, but it takes more time than it should: Users have to prepare a table of contents, upload it to the submittal package, and then email the document set. The recipient has to right-click the attachments, save the documents to a directory, and then associate each PDF with a line in the submittal log. Everyone would benefit from an easier, better way.

Enter BuildSite 3.0. We've modeled 3.0 on how people actually prepare submittals. As a first step, people highlight the spec book, noting what spec sections require submittals. Then they prepare a table of contents (or submittal log), search for products, find documents, and associate the documents with the table of contents. With 3.0, BuildSite users can do all this online, using our newly developed submittal template. You fill in the section, sub-section, and product specified from the spec book, then search BuildSite for products and documents. With 3.0, you have a choice: you can build your submittal line by line or complete the table of contents first, then find the products. In either case, you associate documents with spec sections easily and quickly - with a click of a button. Here's the template:

In our next newsletter, we'll tell you more about the output of BuildSite Submittals and how it can integrate with project management software.

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