From a young age, I was always drawn to math and art (such a cool kid, I know). But I had no idea how to combine these two passions into one career. Until one day a teacher said to me: “Have you considered engineering?”

Ha! No one in my family was even remotely affiliated with the construction industry. Not only had I never considered engineering, I also wasn’t sure I understood the difference between an engineer and an architect. But after falling into (and loving) my engineering degree, I ended up working as a structural engineer in Australia.

I absolutely loved (and still love) the construction industry. The work is a fantastic blend of creativity, math, and science — everything I was hoping for. The projects are extremely collaborative and the people (whether they’re tradespeople, designers, or project managers) are highly skilled, extremely practical, and down to earth.

From Engineering to Construction Tech

When I moved to San Francisco from Sydney to further my career, I stumbled upon Fieldwire. The company’s mission to empower the fieldworker, improve construction productivity, and essentially make the lives of construction folks easier, really resonated with me — so much that I immediately understood the product. From the minute I picked up the Fieldwire app, I could see how it could have helped me and my entire project team. Despite having zero tech or startup experience, I knew I wanted to be a part of this movement.

Still in San Francisco, I currently work in Fieldwire’s Business Operations team. Probably the most surprising thing about this transition was the overlap between my current and previous roles. The operations team is responsible for delivering projects and managing stakeholders — not too dissimilar from my responsibilities in construction. And the best part is, the skills I gained while working in construction around problem-solving and finding practical solutions have been extremely transferable. Oh, and the people are okay too ;)

If you’re interested in switching to technology from construction yourself, I’d love to hear from you! We’re actively seeking people with industry backgrounds to join our various teams around the world. Apply online and make the switch today.

Imagine if you had no easy way to access or manage your plans…

Rework would increase, productivity would flat-line, and profitability would ultimately suffer.

Thankfully, this isn’t the case for you!

As a Fieldwire user, you can easily locate plans, manage your markups, and update information — even when you’re working from the field.

But just in case that isn’t enough, we’ve got a few handy tips that’ll save you even more time, especially when you’re working on-the-go.

1. Use private markups to reduce noise on plans

You may already know that any markup you draw in purple will remain private to you. But did you know you can ‘Filter’ your markups to only display those that are purple? This is the best way to reduce the amount of noise on a plan and focus solely on your private markups.

As a project admin or member, you can also change the privacy nature of a markup by updating its color at any time. Just right-click on the markup (or long-press on mobile), and choose ‘Details’. Then choose purple to make the markup private or a different color to make it public.

2. Use keyboard shortcuts to add markups in seconds

Here are a few keyboard shortcuts that’ll save you time when adding markups to plans on the web:

• ‘shift+t’ = Add task
• ‘p’ = Draw with pen
• ‘a’ = Add arrow
• ‘c’ = Add cloud
• ‘t’ = Add text box
• ‘m’ = Add measurement

Want more keyboard shortcuts? Here’s a full list.

3. Change plan names to prevent automatic versioning

Have you ever wished you could change the name of a plan to a page number? Did you know that you can?

Once Fieldwire has finished scanning and naming your plans, you have the option to revert the names of those plans to chronological page numbers. Simply select the ‘Revert to Page Numbers’ button, then specify a naming convention. This is an extremely useful hack if you do not want your plans to automatically version.

Want to know more about version control? Watch this helpful video for a complete overview.

4. Adjust your plan version description

By default, Fieldwire names your plan versions after the date at which they were uploaded (e.g. “2019-11-15”). However, you have the option to rename these version names in bulk to match a particular drawing issuance package, such as “Bid set” or “Addendum 2”. Go to the ‘Version Control’ menu and click ‘Edit’ next to a particular upload to edit the version name for that upload.

Read this help article for more information.

Extra tip: On the web, you can filter your plans by version name from the ‘Filter plans’ menu.

5. Use hashtags to easily group and find plans

Many of you have hundreds, if not thousands, of plans stored in Fieldwire. Which is why we recommend using hashtags for finding plans with ease.

Hashtags are commonly used to group together plans across folders — e.g. plans associated with a particular level or trade.

Simply ‘Select’ the specific plans you want to group together, then click ‘Manage tags’ to add the hashtag you want to use. Now when you search for plans using that hashtag, only the selected plans will appear! This is a great tip for users who need to quickly and frequently access specific plans during the course of a project.

Want more tagging tips? Watch this video to learn how to batch edit plan hashtags.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email support@feldwire.com. And don’t forget we have plenty more guides available in our resource center.

If you’d prefer to have Fieldwire tips and tricks delivered straight to your inbox, please subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Wire.

Key facts

• Power Design, one of the nation’s leading electrical contractors, migrated off PlanGrid and onto Fieldwire
• They transferred 227 projects, worth more than 1.4 billion dollars, with zero downtime in eight weeks
• More than 100,000 different documents, tasks, and photos — about two terabytes worth — were transferred in the process
• A total of 2,100 users were on-boarded and 2,000 new iPads deployed
• By 2020, 100% of Power Design will be using Fieldwire

“We needed a scalable solution”

With innovation and integrity at its core, Power Design strives to use the best-of-breed construction technology for its large scale and complex electrical projects.

However, until just recently, Power Design was using PlanGrid to manage all of its people, projects, and processes. Brad Moore, Power Design’s VDC Technology Manager, realized some shortcomings with the platform and started vetting Fieldwire to be their next solution.

“We needed a scalable solution and we wanted to work with a construction technology company that we could depend on for a solid product roadmap,” said Brad.

He quickly realized that Fieldwire checked both of those boxes (and more). Brad was so impressed by Fieldwire’s ease of use and ability to help his boots on the ground that he campaigned for immediate buy-in and companywide adoption.

“I started digging around in the backend and looking into Fieldwire’s API to see if it was possible for us to transfer all of our data — about two terabytes — from PlanGrid to Fieldwire. Once I realized we could, we started planning the whole process.”

Planning for a seamless roll-out

Brad was assigned the mammoth task of planning the companywide roll-out of Fieldwire. He had to decide who was going to get the application first, when they were going to get it, and how he would facilitate training in eight different regions across the country.

He said: “We had to onboard 2,100 users — 500-600 of those were on-campus and everyone else was in the field — and deploy 2,000 new iPads.”

To Brad’s delight, this entire process took as little as eight weeks!

In such a short amount of time, Power Design hosted 16 different regional training sessions which lasted a mere two hours each. Following that, they deployed their new iPads and migrated 1.4 billion dollars worth of projects off PlanGrid and onto Fieldwire.

Achieving zero downtime

Brad added that the key to achieving such a seamless outcome was having immediate buy-in from stakeholders. He said: “You also need separate pilot teams if your company is spread out geographically like ours. These people helped calm a lot of nerves in our dispersed teams.”

To secure buy-in from Power Design’s executives, Brad reminded them of their goal to triple in size by 2027; a goal that requiired software that could scale with them. He emphasized the importance of using software that’s designed with a contractor in mind and with task management at its core.

“To be honest, once we got people in the application and using it they were like ‘oh, okay, this makes a lot of sense,’” said Brad.

Uniting dispersed teams

As a result, Power Design was able to connect its various teams in one place. Brad said: “We have a lot more collaboration and transparency with Fieldwire. Everyone, from accounting to the project managers and pre-construction teams, was affected by this decision. So we’re collaborating much better now.”

To learn more about Power Design and why they chose Fieldwire, read Kim Slowey’s latest article for Construction Dive.

Field management is a fancy term for coordinating and communicating what’s happening on-site on a construction project. It’s herding the figurative cats of various shapes and sizes, aligning people and things to build stuff — amazing stuff like the Empire State Building, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and 30 St Mary Axe, AKA “The Gherkin.”

Field management for construction projects is what Fieldwire is all about.

Field management vs. field service management

Field management is the management of activities on-site (i.e., on a construction site). Field service management refers to the management of a (non-construction) company’s off-site activities, typically those related to installs, service, and repairs — like HVAC techs going out to a residence to fix a busted furnace. Field service management includes managing work orders, scheduling, dispatching, and resourcing.

How to do field management right

To reiterate, field management is the communication and coordination that happens on-site — in the field. (Ever wonder why it’s called “Fieldwire?”) In the bad old days, this involved a lot of pieces of paper, phone calls, and long walks to and from the field office — or farther. It also meant a lot of miscommunications and delays, not to mention mistakes, conflicts, and rework.

Luckily, you live in a time of smartphones and widespread connectivity, both of which have greatly improved the efficacy of field management. Even better, there are digital platforms like Fieldwire that are specifically designed to streamline field management, making that communication and coordination stuff second-nature.

Field management and Fieldwire work the same way:

• assign work
• track and report progress
• follow up as needed

Field management challenges

The challenges of field management can be solved with a few techy tricks, namely:

Lack of information

RFIs are a pain, but asking clarifying questions shouldn’t be. Fieldwire makes addressing errors and omissions in plans as easy as tagging someone on Twitter — it’s the same mechanism and way quicker than @ing someone with a Tweet.

Changes to plans

Insofar as updates to drawings, Fieldwire clearly shows differences in real-time with versioning control to make sure everyone’s on the same page.

Conflict resolution

No, not breaking up fistfights on-site — at least not typically — but resolving issues that occur when an HVAC fan is drawn to extend from the ceiling directly into a lighting grid, for example. With digital plans, conflicts like these are apparent and can be addressed before crews reach the site.

Site conditions

OK, so field management can’t fix the weather or convince rabid moose herds to rampage another day. But Fieldwire can document unforeseen circumstances that limit or stop work, so your reports will include context.

Benefits of field management

Besides solving for most, if not all, of the challenges of getting a building project off the ground, effective field management can make your life easier by:

• saving you time
• saving your company money
• limiting everyone’s risk — the risk of rework and the risk of liability in the off-off-chance everything doesn’t go exactly as planned

Ready to try field management? Check out Fieldwire, the construction management platform for the field.