5 Things to Look for in Cloud Software

Cloud software is a tough nut to crack. There are literally thousands of cloud applications vying for your business. Who should you talk to and who should you send packing?

5 Things to Look for in Cloud Software

There are many important things to consider when purchasing cloud software to run your business. The 5 things to look for in cloud software products are role-based permissions, configuration options, enforced workflows, accountability and scalability.

First, the software needs to support role-based permissions. The simple fact that the average user does not need access to all functions and configuration settings requires role-based permissions. Role-based permissions within the product should not limit productivity or visibility, but should preserve data integrity and protect organizational processes and controls from tampering. Furthermore, separating responsibilities can protect your organization from unnecessary liability and help maintain compliance with best practices and legal requirements.

When evaluating the configuration options offered by software, make sure you can accomplish your primary goals with out-of-the-box functionality. Implementing highly configurable software may seem daunting when facing implementation, but this investment in time and money is well worth the savings when compared to expensive software customizations down the road. Mature products often provide the flexibility to adapt to many organizations processes because they have been time-tested by many users in different environments. Organizations should leverage this experience for significant cost savings.

The software you buy should allow administrators to set enforced workflows that prevent your team from skipping steps in your process. Enforced workflows also contribute to producing consistent work and products that continually meet your standards.

The fourth thing to look for in a cloud software application is accountability. To hold your team accountable software should have excellent communication and reporting tools. The communication tools should be easy to use and should archive and organize correspondence for future reference. Reporting should provide management with actionable intelligence regarding breakdowns and root causes.

The final thing to look for in a cloud software product is scalability. To be a scalable cloud application, licensing should be flexible, training should be readily available, all information should be in one system and the software should be able to integrate with other systems.

ProjecTools Product Information

  • 817

ProjecTools Client Spotlight

September 24th, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTools Client Spotlight "I don't see how companies can manage projects like [...]

  • 568

Standard Project Management Features

September 2nd, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTools subscriptions provide valuable standard features that support projects. ProjecTools standard features are available to each user to complement core application functions and business processes. Utilize the modules below to increase top-down visibility, communication, accountability

  • 545

Security and Reliability

September 1st, 2015|0 Comments

Users need a secure, reliable environment to access project information and perform work. All applications and client data resides in a private cloud network with data replication and failover to geographically diverse datacenter equipment. ProjecTools provides 99.5% Network Availability

  • 492

Construction Project Management Services

August 31st, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTeams is proven for flexible on-site or remote project deployments. Each ProjecTeam specialist has deep work history with a career of improving project execution, information management processes, with tools that make projects efficient, timely, and profitable.

ProjecTools Resources

  • 1872

Spreadsheets and Email as Project Management Tools

March 9th, 2017|0 Comments

Projects have too many moving parts and too many players to be trusting critical data to spreadsheets and emails. You need a spreadsheet reduction strategy.

  • 1811

Project Management Assessment

November 15th, 2016|0 Comments

Project Management Assessment Assess your project management practices against the best project execution teams in the Capital Construction, [...]

  • 1716
  • Review & Approvals

Document Management Software ROI

October 5th, 2016|0 Comments

Document management is massively important for engineering and construction projects. Take the approach and use the tools that add the most value.

  • 1357

Aligning Document Control and Cost Control

February 15th, 2016|0 Comments

Align Document Control with Cost Control and create seamless progress and earned value reports to stay on budget and improve cash flows.

ProjecTools Videos, Demos, and Webinars

  • 1519
  • Review and Approvals

Optimizing Review and Approval Processes for Engineering

October 14th, 2021|0 Comments

Let’s talk about review and approvals, and closed-loop systems, and how to execute the review and approval processes for engineering and commercial...

  • 1567
  • Document Management

The Keys to Successful Document Management

November 23rd, 2020|0 Comments

Let's talk specifically about document management software, and the key factors for clean and organized documentation, accessibility, finding a system...

  • 1716
  • Review & Approvals

Document Management Software ROI

October 5th, 2016|0 Comments

Document management is massively important for engineering and construction projects. Take the approach and use the tools that add the most value.

  • 1631

Document Distribution and Access for EPC and Construction

August 24th, 2016|0 Comments

Global projects have global teams that need to be in the loop. Cloud technology takes the pain out of giving teams on demand access to project data.

ProjecTools Application Manages Over $25 Billion

ProjecTools Application Manages Over $25 Billion

graph2Hello all,

This is Jerry Morgan, ProjecTools CEO. Through our periodic examination of anonymous usage analytics, it turns out ProjecTools application manages over $ 25 billion dollars worth of projects. This means we have helped clients protect massive capital investments with many moving parts. I am very proud of this number because it indicates our clients are experiencing success and that they trust ProjecTools to manage their project information.

After learning we hit the $25 Billion dollar mark, I started looking around trying to wrap my head around the significance of the number. As it turns out, 25 Billion dollars can buy a whole lot. 12.5 Freedom Towers, 125,000 Homes, 550,000 brand new Chevrolet Corvettes, or 11.3 Million shares of apple.

As we have reached the $25 Billion mark and fix our gaze on $50 and $100, I’d like to thank our clients for trusting ProjecTools and our application. I’d also like to thank ProjecTools employees for building the application, client base, client usage, and the rapport that allows our clients to utilize ProjecTools as they do.

Thanks to clients and the team for helping us reach this important milestone.

Sincerely,

Jerry Morgan, ProjecTools CEO

jerry

ProjecTools Product Information

  • 817

ProjecTools Client Spotlight

September 24th, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTools Client Spotlight "I don't see how companies can manage projects like [...]

  • 568

Standard Project Management Features

September 2nd, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTools subscriptions provide valuable standard features that support projects. ProjecTools standard features are available to each user to complement core application functions and business processes. Utilize the modules below to increase top-down visibility, communication, accountability

  • 545

Security and Reliability

September 1st, 2015|0 Comments

Users need a secure, reliable environment to access project information and perform work. All applications and client data resides in a private cloud network with data replication and failover to geographically diverse datacenter equipment. ProjecTools provides 99.5% Network Availability

  • 492

Construction Project Management Services

August 31st, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTeams is proven for flexible on-site or remote project deployments. Each ProjecTeam specialist has deep work history with a career of improving project execution, information management processes, with tools that make projects efficient, timely, and profitable.

ProjecTools Resources

  • 1872

Spreadsheets and Email as Project Management Tools

March 9th, 2017|0 Comments

Projects have too many moving parts and too many players to be trusting critical data to spreadsheets and emails. You need a spreadsheet reduction strategy.

  • 1811

Project Management Assessment

November 15th, 2016|0 Comments

Project Management Assessment Assess your project management practices against the best project execution teams in the Capital Construction, [...]

  • 1716
  • Review & Approvals

Document Management Software ROI

October 5th, 2016|0 Comments

Document management is massively important for engineering and construction projects. Take the approach and use the tools that add the most value.

  • 1357

Aligning Document Control and Cost Control

February 15th, 2016|0 Comments

Align Document Control with Cost Control and create seamless progress and earned value reports to stay on budget and improve cash flows.

ProjecTools Videos, Demos, and Webinars

  • 1519
  • Review and Approvals

Optimizing Review and Approval Processes for Engineering

October 14th, 2021|0 Comments

Let’s talk about review and approvals, and closed-loop systems, and how to execute the review and approval processes for engineering and commercial...

  • 1567
  • Document Management

The Keys to Successful Document Management

November 23rd, 2020|0 Comments

Let's talk specifically about document management software, and the key factors for clean and organized documentation, accessibility, finding a system...

  • 1716
  • Review & Approvals

Document Management Software ROI

October 5th, 2016|0 Comments

Document management is massively important for engineering and construction projects. Take the approach and use the tools that add the most value.

  • 1631

Document Distribution and Access for EPC and Construction

August 24th, 2016|0 Comments

Global projects have global teams that need to be in the loop. Cloud technology takes the pain out of giving teams on demand access to project data.

Project Management Software Overload

Great strategies for separating the wheat from the chaff and moving past Project Management Software Overload.

Project Management Software Overload

Ever been tasked to find the right Project Management Software? If so, you probably realize how ridiculously broad the category is. Project Management Software could mean anything from Basecamp to AtTask, or Microsoft Project to ProjecTools. This is Project Management Software Overload. To illustrate my point; on Wikipedia there are ~150 entries under “Comparison of project management software.” Which leads us to the subject of this post – how does one separate the wheat from the chaff? My answer – by correctly defining the words “project”, “management”, and “software” for your organization.
So let’s begin:

  1. We need to define “project.” If the project is simple, a simple application getting everyone on the same page and tracking input/change will be enough (think Asana, Basecamp, Trello). What about IT Project Management though? Totally different. Complex capital construction or EPC (Engineering, Procurement, Construction) project? Once again, there’s an entirely different set of criteria that should be considered. These complex construction project solutions require significantly more powerful software to manage all of the moving parts. Even after defining the project though (for this post: EPC projects), one is left with a staggering array of software options. Which leads us to the second criteria – defining “manage.”
  2. too many project management software optionsWe need to define “manage.” What part of the project is most important to you? Simple projects have fewer moving parts and stakeholders – they’re relatively simple to manage and you may be able to manage many aspects of the project with relative ease. But if we’re talking EPC projects you must be much more deliberate; there is Scheduling, Document Management and Collaboration, Cost Control, Procurement, Engineering and Commissioning, and often there are multiple projects going on simultaneously (PPM). Of course these aspects are all important and different organizations place emphasis on different parts of project management – complicating the issue even further. Luckily there are tools that manage multiple pieces of these complex projects, but even the most comprehensive tools can’t tackle everything coherently. For instance, ProjecTools is arguably the most comprehensive Project Management Software tool (for EPC and Oil and Gas projects) covering Document Management and Collaboration, Cost Control, Procurement, and Engineering and Commissioning. That said, we realize there are other aspects of project management (scheduling especially), and rather than try to re-invent the wheel – we believe integration is stronger that competition (we integrate with scheduling leaders like Primavera). So now, if you’ve defined what you want to manage – we only need to decide what “software” means to you.
  3. We need to define “software.” To be clear, we’re not interested in the technical definition of “software”, instead I’m working to define the category of things that are typically described as software. Let’s start with the basics: deployment options, purchase options, how it’s supported, and standalone or integrated.
    1. Deployment options are a point of contention, but the writing is on the wall: cloud is here to stay (see my presentation on the subject at PMI here).
    2. On purchasing – is it a CapEx or OpEx and can you fit it in your department’s budget? If you’re buying traditional on-premise software or deploying a private cloud, you’re looking at a significant capital expenditure and a significantly prolonged installation/implementation. On-premise can mean as much as a 10X increase in budget, the addition of IT support personnel, a decrease in redundancy, and 3-4X increase in the implementation timeline (which means less project-oriented work gets done). Good luck (and I’m not the only one who feels this way).
    3. How’s it supported? Having someone standing by to take your calls and correctly handle and escalate issues is something that really, really matters. Like anything, you may not realize how much it matters until you really need the support, but don’t dismiss this when you define what software means to you. And please don’t confuse “maintenance plans” for support; a maintenance plan is a poorly-disguised profit-generating mechanism – while support is designed to help clients and customers when they need it.
    4. Standalone or integrated? Everyone is talking about Big Data, but what they’re finding is Big Data Silos. Collecting data is an exercise in futility if it sits within a single application and isn’t used across the organization to make better decisions. Whether your chose multiple “best-in-class” systems and integrate them, or choose a comprehensive solution – you should understand the importance of integrated systems. At ProjecTools we fall into the “comprehensive solution” bucket but we also integrate with other applications to offer our clients a better control and decision-making platform and that’s important. Why is integration important? Because integration saves double-entry, preserves data integrity, allows for better decision-making, increases adoption rates, and leads to dramatically increased success in deployment and operation. But just because a company claims their software products are “integrated” doesn’t mean it was built together – be wary of larger vendors that “integrate” multiple products through acquisition of (once) entirely separate companies.

If you’ve followed this post so far, your needs in Project Management Software should be fairly clear. By defining what you mean by “project”, “management” and “software” you will be better equipped to make a purchasing decision, specifically as it relates to complex capital construction and EPC project management. Of course we’d love to answer any additional questions you have – feel free to send them to me personally.

ProjecTools Product Information

  • 817

ProjecTools Client Spotlight

September 24th, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTools Client Spotlight "I don't see how companies can manage projects like [...]

  • 568

Standard Project Management Features

September 2nd, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTools subscriptions provide valuable standard features that support projects. ProjecTools standard features are available to each user to complement core application functions and business processes. Utilize the modules below to increase top-down visibility, communication, accountability

  • 545

Security and Reliability

September 1st, 2015|0 Comments

Users need a secure, reliable environment to access project information and perform work. All applications and client data resides in a private cloud network with data replication and failover to geographically diverse datacenter equipment. ProjecTools provides 99.5% Network Availability

  • 492

Construction Project Management Services

August 31st, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTeams is proven for flexible on-site or remote project deployments. Each ProjecTeam specialist has deep work history with a career of improving project execution, information management processes, with tools that make projects efficient, timely, and profitable.

ProjecTools Resources

  • 1872

Spreadsheets and Email as Project Management Tools

March 9th, 2017|0 Comments

Projects have too many moving parts and too many players to be trusting critical data to spreadsheets and emails. You need a spreadsheet reduction strategy.

  • 1811

Project Management Assessment

November 15th, 2016|0 Comments

Project Management Assessment Assess your project management practices against the best project execution teams in the Capital Construction, [...]

  • 1716
  • Review & Approvals

Document Management Software ROI

October 5th, 2016|0 Comments

Document management is massively important for engineering and construction projects. Take the approach and use the tools that add the most value.

  • 1357

Aligning Document Control and Cost Control

February 15th, 2016|0 Comments

Align Document Control with Cost Control and create seamless progress and earned value reports to stay on budget and improve cash flows.

ProjecTools Videos, Demos, and Webinars

  • 1519
  • Review and Approvals

Optimizing Review and Approval Processes for Engineering

October 14th, 2021|0 Comments

Let’s talk about review and approvals, and closed-loop systems, and how to execute the review and approval processes for engineering and commercial...

  • 1567
  • Document Management

The Keys to Successful Document Management

November 23rd, 2020|0 Comments

Let's talk specifically about document management software, and the key factors for clean and organized documentation, accessibility, finding a system...

  • 1716
  • Review & Approvals

Document Management Software ROI

October 5th, 2016|0 Comments

Document management is massively important for engineering and construction projects. Take the approach and use the tools that add the most value.

  • 1631

Document Distribution and Access for EPC and Construction

August 24th, 2016|0 Comments

Global projects have global teams that need to be in the loop. Cloud technology takes the pain out of giving teams on demand access to project data.

3 Ways to Treat Project Chaos

Get a grasp on how project devolves into chaos and see 3 sure fire ways to treat them and defeat project chaos.

3 Ways To Treat Project Chaos

Oil & Gas Construction GuyIn large Oil & Gas and EPC projects there is a ton of money on the line. The difference between a successful project, and an unsuccessful one is often the effective organization of the projects from FEED to Handover. The right project management infrastructure can help teams deliver capital projects with normal amounts of cost growth and schedule variance (typically ~10%). Alternatively, there is project chaos.  And in an industry that has a median cost growth of 24% and median schedule slip of 20% – this is the most common scenario. Effective project management requires the right systems and infrastructure to support it but that’s just a drop in the bucket.  Effective project management can reduce cost growth by 58% and schedule variance by 50%. Yes, project chaos is avoidable.

So how do you get from project chaos to order?  You’re in luck, this is our specialty, and there are 3 key ways to treat project chaos.

Stop using emails, spreadsheets and homegrown systems to manage projects. Have you ever wasted time digging through an email chain looking for critical information, or poured over somebody else’s spreadsheet trying to find what you need? Most folks have and those are just small examples of how ineffective spreadsheets, emails, and homegrown systems are. So quit using systems that provide little organization, accountability, and visibility – they allow project management chaos to flourish.
Get all of your teams working in the same system. Centralize. Collaborate. Have you ever been roadblocked by rouge teams, partners, or contractors using a different system? This happens in almost every project, and can be a tough situation to navigate. By implementing an effective, web-based project management system you can provide the most up-to-date data to all project stakeholders, in a single system. When the end game is reducing project chaos – you need to get everything in one place and everybody working in one system.
Enforce standardization. Ever encountered confusion due to multiple numbering systems or naming conventions? If you have, you know that this inconsistency makes it hard to track progress, report, and find the data you need. An effective project management system will allow you to track and enforce your numbering system, as well as partners, suppliers, or owners.  To prevent project chaos and enforce standards, start using an application that has defined numbering systems and naming conventions.  You might not realize how much project chaos is weighing you down.

If you, or someone you know is experiencing project chaos – please contact ProjecTools as soon as possible.  Symptoms include:  lack of reporting, cost growth of more than 10%, schedule slip of more than 10%, premature graying in management, lack of return customers, and many more.

The side effects of successful project management with ProjecTools include:  more sleep at night, promotions, an increase in profitability, more time, and more effective reporting.

ProjecTools Product Information

  • 817

ProjecTools Client Spotlight

September 24th, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTools Client Spotlight "I don't see how companies can manage projects like [...]

  • 568

Standard Project Management Features

September 2nd, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTools subscriptions provide valuable standard features that support projects. ProjecTools standard features are available to each user to complement core application functions and business processes. Utilize the modules below to increase top-down visibility, communication, accountability

  • 545

Security and Reliability

September 1st, 2015|0 Comments

Users need a secure, reliable environment to access project information and perform work. All applications and client data resides in a private cloud network with data replication and failover to geographically diverse datacenter equipment. ProjecTools provides 99.5% Network Availability

  • 492

Construction Project Management Services

August 31st, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTeams is proven for flexible on-site or remote project deployments. Each ProjecTeam specialist has deep work history with a career of improving project execution, information management processes, with tools that make projects efficient, timely, and profitable.

ProjecTools Resources

  • 1872

Spreadsheets and Email as Project Management Tools

March 9th, 2017|0 Comments

Projects have too many moving parts and too many players to be trusting critical data to spreadsheets and emails. You need a spreadsheet reduction strategy.

  • 1811

Project Management Assessment

November 15th, 2016|0 Comments

Project Management Assessment Assess your project management practices against the best project execution teams in the Capital Construction, [...]

  • 1716
  • Review & Approvals

Document Management Software ROI

October 5th, 2016|0 Comments

Document management is massively important for engineering and construction projects. Take the approach and use the tools that add the most value.

  • 1357

Aligning Document Control and Cost Control

February 15th, 2016|0 Comments

Align Document Control with Cost Control and create seamless progress and earned value reports to stay on budget and improve cash flows.

ProjecTools Videos, Demos, and Webinars

  • 1519
  • Review and Approvals

Optimizing Review and Approval Processes for Engineering

October 14th, 2021|0 Comments

Let’s talk about review and approvals, and closed-loop systems, and how to execute the review and approval processes for engineering and commercial...

  • 1567
  • Document Management

The Keys to Successful Document Management

November 23rd, 2020|0 Comments

Let's talk specifically about document management software, and the key factors for clean and organized documentation, accessibility, finding a system...

  • 1716
  • Review & Approvals

Document Management Software ROI

October 5th, 2016|0 Comments

Document management is massively important for engineering and construction projects. Take the approach and use the tools that add the most value.

  • 1631

Document Distribution and Access for EPC and Construction

August 24th, 2016|0 Comments

Global projects have global teams that need to be in the loop. Cloud technology takes the pain out of giving teams on demand access to project data.

HSE and HAZOP Workflows

HSE is critical and can’t be left up to chance – so quit chancing it and start using the right software application to manage HSE and HAZOP workflows.

HSE and HAZOP Workflows

Forward thinking Health Safety Environment (HSE) coordinators are changing the game. They are automating HSE and HAZOP workflows to process studies efficiently and track progress effectively. They are using tools flexible enough match your processes and smart enough to track key activities.

With teams spread across the globe, using disconnected systems and emails to communicate is a bad plan. Its time to simplify HSE and drop the spreadsheets and ad-hoc tools.

HSE and HAZOP Workflows

Hi, this is Eric with ProjecTools. Today we’re going to talk about automating HSE workflows. We’re going to take a look at this traditionally labor-intensive, uncontrolled process and we’re going to change the game by adding workflows that increase accuracy, visibility, follow-up, and accountability and tracking, which are all incredibly important when health and safety can be on the line. It’s important from moral and social standpoints and let’s not forget that the current market conditions and economic landscape, really demands sound HSE practices.

ProjecTools, HSE, is for oil and gas, EPC, and engineering companies who are dissatisfied with the traditional HSE and HAZOP management systems, which, as it turns out aren’t systems at all. Rather, they’re email and spreadsheets that get unruly and they don’t promote teamwork or automation. Our idea is to give you a competent, stable HSE management system that will get your teams working together, that will automate your workflows, tracking, reporting and follow-up. The goal here is stop the vicious cycle of dealing with provision issues, guarding your spreadsheets under lock and key, having no visibility into your HSE and HAZOP process, and your participants circumventing the agreed-upon workflows. Ultimately, probably too, with HSE, it can help you down a path to improving safety and reliability, without having to manage every little process and spend night and weekends organizing and auditing your HSE data.

It’s probably important to take a deeper dive into the problems in HSE. I think I’m going to bring up a story of a client that we have, Carl. Carl is an agency coordinator for an oil and gas and a EPC project. He saw there was an HSE button in his company’s PROJECTOOL instance, and it was a great app, so he called us to find out more. In that conversation, he started telling us about the issues he was having, how much time he was wasting, and how unbelievably frustrated he was. He said that he wanted a seam or a break in the workflow that they agreed upon. The email chains and spreadsheets he was relying upon were being compromised by his team and just the fact that there was no enforced workflow. Things were getting out of control.

He had actually just come back from leave and their HSE tracking spreadsheet turned into 7. HSE tracking worksheets. He went in and looked and it was unclear what had changed while he was gone, who made those changes and why each change was made, and so forth. What he was most worried about though, that there was no latest revision. It appeared that various staff made updates to revision and saved as. It took him weeks to straighten the whole thing out and get the process back under control.

After diving into issues he was having, he wanted to know what our HSE app could do for him. After showing him the application and the workflows, how to import data, set up the app and the players, etc., he really wanted to get started. After some further import and set-up and training, his staff was using the application in a couple of days, and they really haven’t looked back, and they ultimately solved the major problems that he was having. The emails chains that were running amuck, turned into nice, neat HSE workflows, conversations were getting recorded and logged properly, and participation could be reported on, and stats and progress tracking was automated. It was no longer tracked in unreliable spreadsheets or ad hoc systems.

That’s what I’m going to show you today. I’m going to show you how ProjecTools is the best system for managing HSE and HAZOP, so let’s take a look at the typical HSE workflows and ProjecTools. This workflow that we see here, is a very simple workflow. It starts with the HSE admin page. Create an HSE item. It goes through a responsible party and they add their comments and input and send it on to a reviewer, who can then reject it or accept it, and then this flows to the approver and they can accept or reject. A reject, send it back to either responsible party, so they can resubmit and work through the process a couple of times, to make sure they have everything hammered down perfect, and when the approver agrees, it gets moved on in the workflow.

That’s the simple workflow. Let’s take a look at Workflow Number 2. Number 2 is very much the same for the first part, until we get to the approver, where the approver can reject, they can approve it. I would now they have an option to agree in principle. If they agree in principle, some other responsible party can add the evidence document and can kind of run through the workflow again until it gets back to the approver, and they can accept it or reject it.

The third workflow we now want to talk about is pretty much the same as what we saw before, except there’s one more layer, a very important layer, which is client approval. Some HSE studies you want to integrate your client and get their input and see if they agree or disagree with what you come up with and this can be dynamic or it can be part of the workflow, built in, but ProjecTools makes it very easy to professionally approach your client and solicit their feedback under HSE studies.

It’s important to note here that each of these workflows is determined by the players in the workflow. Approvers can move HSE items forward or send them backwards. Approvers can decide if they agree in principle but need to flesh out some more details, and ProjecTools will initiate that part of the workflow pretty much automatically. Also, the client approval workload can be a planned path or a responsive path in the workflow.

That’s what I’m going to show you today. I’m going to show you the ProjecTools is the best solution for managing HSE and HASOP because ProjecTools is cloud-based, bringing together global teams from around the world. They can log-in and participate in a controlled, consistent setting. It uses cascade workflows, which means the study’s initiated and bounced around. It bounces around to the appropriate players in a nice, neat ProjecTools task until the study’s closed. It logs all of the correspondence and back and forth, the supporting files, the outcomes, all of that stuff, in the system to maintain order and visibility.

Now let’s take a look in the application and I’ll show you how to get your HSE stakeholders working together in the same system and using path-based workflows, and how the system automatically tracks all the HSE activities and produces regular and consistent and useful reports.

This is the application homepage. Your HSE participants would log-in to ProjecTools website and they would arrive here at the homepage. How they would interface with the HSE workflows is they would go to incomplete task register, like we see here. I have HSE action approval. Maybe it would be, be review on approval, etc., and they would open it up. They’d see an interface that’s very much like this. They’d see some details about the HSE studies, they would see where it’s at in the workflow, and they would see details and documents and descriptions, recommendations, and the responses and back and forth. This HSE item. Then they’d be able to add a disposition and submit and go back to the HSE coordinator and it would be automatically logged and so forth. That’s just the basic interface for the HSE part of ProjecTools.

Let’s take a look at the back-end, under the hood, so to speak, what your HSE coordinators or HSE managers would really be looking at. In HSE tab, you can find your studies here. For this demonstration, I’ve prepared the Topsides HAZOP study number 2. I’ll send them, too. I can manage the study, I can manage the nodes and the guide words and the causes and indicate who’s going to be my reviewers and approvers. I added myself for all of these for the demo purpose, to make it simple, so I don’t have to log-in and out as different users.

There is also a HAZOP Deviations, which I’m going to bypass now. If you’re interested in those, let us know, and we’ll get you more in-depth demo.

Next thing I want to talk about is recommendations. In this area of the application, your HSE coordinator can manage the HSE recommendations. We can take a look at my notes up here. You can indicate your study, your node, your description, and indicate the recommendation. In this case, it’s just testing according to the new inspection standards.

From here, your coordinators would go to the HSE tracking register where they’d see with the HSE items that they could filter down and find out what they want. You can see we’re a little light on data here but this is a demo instance, so we want to keep it kind of light.

If I go in and manage my HSE study that we’ve been talking about, we can see the recommendation, we can see reference files, that one of them has been added here. I can add a reference document. I’ve also added one. Then we can get to assignment. Who this is going to be assigned to. We’ll assign it to Eric and we’ll say a response is required by the 20th of March. From here, we can distribute the task and this basically initiates the workflow that we showed you earlier. Then here in Status tab we can see that it’s been assigned and distributed. It hasn’t really been touched by any reviewers, it hasn’t been approved. There’s been no client approval. We can actually see that, no client approval is required on this particular HSE app.

Then a new tab, we can see the history, and all my recent has a history here and sent out. For action. Then the thread here is just a thread version of the history.

Now that we’ve taken a look at how to build and distribute your HSE action items and initiate the workflows, let’s take a look at the front-end again. I’m going to refresh my page here. We can see that HSE action assignment that we just initiated, showed up on my homepage in my task manager. I can see the descriptions, says Test Valve 36 00008 and the control system See inspection valve class V-36.

We can see that we’re very early in the workflow. We’re in the response stage. I can see what study number this is, what node we’re referring to, and I can see a description, the recommendation. I can see the supporting documents, reference files, and if this isn’t quite enough, I can add my own reference documents or reference files. I can see the history. Not a whole lot happened, because it just got distributed.

I’ll add a response to this HSE action item and then we can see how this shows up. The next stage in the workflow. I’ll indicate that when my response is complete, rather than saving it as a draft, so nobody could read the response, then I’ll submit.

All right, so back in our homepage, we can see that my response went through and that the next stage of the workflow showed up in my task manager. We did the response and now it’s moved on to to the approval stage. The approver would open this up and they would be able to see the responses and so forth, for this particular action item, and they would be able to add a disposition and move it along in the workflow.

That’s really the front-end interface and it just gets bounced around according to the workflow that we showed you and what’s great about this is that your coordinators can manage this and have some visibility in the process. For this one, we can see that this has been responsive, it hasn’t been approved yet, and we would be able to see check marks of where it’s at in the workflow. Similarly, when we open it back up, to Managed Items, we’d be able to view this thread our history; so we could see that I submitted this and added a response.

I hope you enjoyed this demo. It’s a great example of how to get your teams in one system to participate in the HSE workflows and how your HSE coordinators can have some visibility into the process, track the responses, without having to deal with messy spreadsheets or uncontrolled email exchanges or ad hoc systems that might not have this great functionality that adds so much value to the process.

ProjecTools Product Information

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ProjecTools Client Spotlight

September 24th, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTools Client Spotlight "I don't see how companies can manage projects like [...]

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Standard Project Management Features

September 2nd, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTools subscriptions provide valuable standard features that support projects. ProjecTools standard features are available to each user to complement core application functions and business processes. Utilize the modules below to increase top-down visibility, communication, accountability

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Security and Reliability

September 1st, 2015|0 Comments

Users need a secure, reliable environment to access project information and perform work. All applications and client data resides in a private cloud network with data replication and failover to geographically diverse datacenter equipment. ProjecTools provides 99.5% Network Availability

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Construction Project Management Services

August 31st, 2015|0 Comments

ProjecTeams is proven for flexible on-site or remote project deployments. Each ProjecTeam specialist has deep work history with a career of improving project execution, information management processes, with tools that make projects efficient, timely, and profitable.

ProjecTools Resources

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Spreadsheets and Email as Project Management Tools

March 9th, 2017|0 Comments

Projects have too many moving parts and too many players to be trusting critical data to spreadsheets and emails. You need a spreadsheet reduction strategy.

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Project Management Assessment

November 15th, 2016|0 Comments

Project Management Assessment Assess your project management practices against the best project execution teams in the Capital Construction, [...]

  • 1716
  • Review & Approvals

Document Management Software ROI

October 5th, 2016|0 Comments

Document management is massively important for engineering and construction projects. Take the approach and use the tools that add the most value.

  • 1357

Aligning Document Control and Cost Control

February 15th, 2016|0 Comments

Align Document Control with Cost Control and create seamless progress and earned value reports to stay on budget and improve cash flows.

ProjecTools Videos, Demos, and Webinars

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  • Review and Approvals

Optimizing Review and Approval Processes for Engineering

October 14th, 2021|0 Comments

Let’s talk about review and approvals, and closed-loop systems, and how to execute the review and approval processes for engineering and commercial...

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  • Document Management

The Keys to Successful Document Management

November 23rd, 2020|0 Comments

Let's talk specifically about document management software, and the key factors for clean and organized documentation, accessibility, finding a system...

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  • Review & Approvals

Document Management Software ROI

October 5th, 2016|0 Comments

Document management is massively important for engineering and construction projects. Take the approach and use the tools that add the most value.

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Document Distribution and Access for EPC and Construction

August 24th, 2016|0 Comments

Global projects have global teams that need to be in the loop. Cloud technology takes the pain out of giving teams on demand access to project data.

Information Is Power

“The better information one has, the more one will be able to control events.” It was true in 1597 when Bacon said it. It’s a condition of success today. A statement of the obvious in the information age, right?

Information Is Power

That’s how my twenty-one-year-old phrased it when she told me about the “awesome” lecture her business professor gave. Sir Francis Bacon said it more artfully: “The better information one has, the more one will be able to control events.” It was true in 1597 when Bacon said it. It’s a condition of success today. A statement of the obvious in the information age, right? One would think. Let’s examine that premise in the context of an experience I witnessed from close up.

The client requested the latest records for X data for all project Purchase Orders from Company A and Company B. Company A hardly broke a sweat as it delivered the data package later that same day – and on time at every scheduled interval for the life of the project. Company B needed a little time to sort things out, but promised to catch up. Eighteen months later, Company B is dodging questions, making excuses, and riding what remains of the team to get its X together. And X is just the tip of the iceberg.

I stay in touch with the client and often ask about the project. Company A has its challenges, but information management and handover data aren’t among them – key reasons the client will be working with them on the next project. Company B? Still getting their X together. As fate would have it, their calendar is open to do just that.

If you’re asking yourself what train wreck of a company takes eighteen months to comply with a client data handover request, you might also ask yourself this question: “Could I do it in a day?” And don’t say “it depends on the data”, or “it’s all billable hours”. Efficiency in technological and human resources has never been more attractive. Inflated billable hours have never been more repulsive. If you can’t instantly report or deliver project information at any point in time with a few clicks of the mouse, we should talk.

The two companies in this example actually have more similarities than differences. They each have quality talent and great skills. They share an undeniable work ethic. Each uses the standard office tools, and accounting and scheduling software. Each is committed to the health and success of client, company, and employee.

So, what was it? Why the massive variance in performance on this client request? The two companies’ information management practices were simply not at the same evolutionary stage.

The degree to which each company organized, standardized, integrated, and automated its data, its processes, and its teams was generations apart. The different attitudes toward project data were incredible, yet each had confidence in their approach.

Both companies made promises and guarantees to the client with the full and honest intent to deliver on those promises and guarantees. Both companies backed their guarantees with hard-earned reputations and past successes. Both companies relied on their people to deliver. Company B armed their people with spreadsheets, email and telephones to cobble together their standard office tools.

Company A had ProjecTools.