Projectmates Construction Software Blog

Email Notifications and Reminders

Projectmates offers numerous opportunities to send email notifications to others. Knowing the different types of notifications that are sent may help you decide who should receive them and when.

Automated Reminders: Projectmates will automatically send out email reminders to users who are responsible for completing a task once that task becomes overdue. (This only applies to tasks that have a due date)  In certain modules, such as Action Lists, Schedules, and Meeting Minutes, you can override this by setting a reminder to go out at a specified time such as 1 day before the due date.  Note: Projectmates will not send reminders if the task has already been completed.

Copy To/Notify Options: When creating, editing, or responding to various items in Projectmates, you will often be given the option to Notify or Copy other users of the project.  Checking user's names here will immediately send those users an email with a copy of the item as a notification.  This does not assign the item to that user, but strictly servers as a means to notify him/her that something was added or changed.  Only existing users of the Project can be selected.  Optionally, you can choose to 'List by Roles' to send an email notification to all users in a selected role instead of selecting individual user names. (Selecting 'List by Roles' will refresh the page, so choose this option before entering in any data into the item)

Send To Email Option: On nearly every page in a Project you will see a 'Send To' drop down in the top right corner of the screen.  Selecting the 'email' option will allow you to select users, contacts, or manually type email addresses to send emails to.  The email that is sent will look almost identical to what you are seeing on the screen at the time you clicked the send to email option.  This means that any sorting or filtering options that were selected at the time will still be intact on the email that is sent out.  This is an excellent option to send emails to non-users of Projectmates or to send emails of log pages.  For instance, you can open a Punchlist log, filter it by contractor, and then send an email of the log to the contractor(s) who are responsible for completing those items.

As as a side note, please be considerate when sending email notifications..only send emails to the people who absolutely need to see the information.  If users begin getting too many unnecessary emails from Projectmates, they may decide to mark these emails as Spam.  It only takes one person to mark Projectmates emails as spam to create a problem for multiple users receiving these valuable email notifications.

Subcontract Summary Dashboard

You may have already discovered that with the release of Projectmates Version 9.0 you now have access to a budget and subcontract summary dashboard. If not, then at your project’s home page, click on the Const Mgmt group and select Const Subcontracts (Note: The menu names could be different depending on how your site has been configured)

 

In the dashboard, you have an at-a-glance view of where the project currently resides in terms of budgeting. You instantly know what was budgeted, whether there is a variance, and the projected total. When the budget is breached, then the numbers in the “Budget Total” column turn red, signifying a problem. At the close of the project, you can also easily compare the budgeted costs with the actual costs.

 

Knowing that a visual summary is sometimes the best way to get an accurate grasp of the current situation, Projectmates also now offers charts that illustrate a project’s financial status. Located on the budget and subcontract summary dashboard page, you will find a pie chart and a bar chart. The pie chart illustrates the breakdown of cost commitments, while the bar chart shows a comparison of all budgeted, committed, and paid amounts.

Master Budget

If you need to manage a Master Budget for a large number of projects, Projectmates Version 9.0 has the solution.  Creating a Master Budget to distribute money amongst multiple subprojects is simple.  The Master Budget will even report back the cumulative costs spent within these subprojects as contracts and change orders are created.

You begin creating a Master Budget by creating a new project and selecting 'yes' for 'Master Project?'  From this project, you can setup a new Master Budget similar to how you would create any other budget.  Ass you add line items to your Master Budget you will be able to create subitems for multiple other projects.  This will associate those projects with the Master Budget, allowing their budgets to be linked.  The subprojects will not be able to budget more than the specified amount in the Master Budget, and the Master Budget will reflect the costs as they are added to the subprojects.  For complete instructions on how to create and manage a Master Budget, please refer to our online Help Guide.

Projectmates Ball-in-Court (BIC)

Projectmates' Ball-in-Court (BIC) provides a list of the logged in user's assignments.  From within a project, the BIC summary displays a list of any items that are due today or are past due.   Checking or unchecking the 'Overdue', 'Upcoming', and 'No Date' check-boxes on this summary will update which BIC items are displayed.  You can also filter items by a particular module such as RFIs or Change Orders, simply by selecting that module from the drop-down menu. 

Additionally, you can send your assignments to your Outlook calendar by clicking the calendar icon to the right of the task.  Simply open the file when prompted, make any desired changes to the task such as adding a reminder, and then click 'Save and Close'

Project Map

Did you know that you can show a map of your project along with any relevant nearby locations, such as competitors or satellite offices? With the release of Version 9 Projectmates' Construction Software has added this feature to every project's home page.  Simply put a valid address in the Project Info section to display the Project's location in red on the map. To display nearby locations, enter business names, categories, etc separated by commasinto the last custom field in the Project Info section (Custom Tab 4/Custom Field 80).  Projectmates will display the nearby locations with these specified descriptions on the Project Map.

The first time you view the map, you may have to select 'Update Location Data' to display the map on the Project Home Page.  Once this is done once, it will not be required again unless the Project Information changes.

If you would like to view the map differently, try selecting the Aerial or Hybrid views.  Also, clicking 'Full View' will not only display the map as a larger image, it will give you the option to show a Bird's Eye View or show current traffic speeds where available.