Logic behind the Newforma Construction Suite

We have been building Newforma over the past 7 years by following the project life cycle of the AEC/O industry. We initially started working with architects back in 2007 because they were most impacted by the challenges that our early solution solved: managing project email, finding project information on their file servers, and exchanging information with the external team members. This logically led to engineers becoming interested in Newforma Project Center (NPC) because they were recipients of the architects’ information published via NPC.

As the initial projects managed in NPC moved into the build phase, constructors started receiving information exchange notifications from our A and E customers—then they became curious about what we have to offer. And now, led by our construction customers, owners are recently taking a strong interest in our product.

Successful construction projects always have one thing in common: effective communication and collaboration throughout the entire team. This underlying demand from all of our customers to improve their communications ultimately led us to create this optimized suite of collaboration-centric solutions optimized for each major project player. It really is just logical!

This year we’ve had many discussions with our construction customers and observed how their employees are already using our software. The creativity that we witnessed directly shaped the three packages that we now offer within the Newforma Construction Suite.

We discovered that each construction company has different groups with distinct areas of responsibility. Some team members focus on front-end activities such as buyout, or coordination of design models with subcontractors. For these customers, we created the Preconstruction package starring our robust file coordination tools, audit trail and notifications. For project managers who oversee the ongoing construction process, we offer the Project Management package containing the full gamut of document control, RFIs, submittals, action items, meeting minutes, and contract functionality. And some team members are focused exclusively on jobsite activities. For this group, we developed the Field Management package for collecting field information and managing punch lists.

As of today we have over 52,000 subscribers and an additional 400,000 participants in our Newforma Project Network. With our Newforma to Newforma technology we provide a way to link all project team members using one of our Suites to connect so they can seamlessly share information while also managing their internal project information privately. Contractors are an integral part of the Newforma Project Network and as such deserve a solution tailored to their needs that also integrates with the rest of the project team.

Top 7 Reasons to Upgrade to Newforma Project Center Professional 9th Edition

Reason #1: Newforma to Newforma
Come to think of it, there are 50,000 reasons to start using Newforma to Newforma - One for each of the 50,000+ Newforma Project Center users at design, construction and owner/operator companies worldwide. "N2N", which has been unveiled in 9^th edition, allows Project Center users to seamlessly share, exchange and synchronize project information like RFI’s, submittals, file transfers, shared folders and Autodesk Revit models as if you are all working on the same system – except you’re not! You continue to work locally with files and project information on your local network at LAN-access speeds, and your partners only get to see what you choose to share with them. As one of the early users of N2N from Cannon Design has said,  "N2N completely redefines what it means to be connected to your project team."

Reason #2: The Revamped Info Exchange web site
I really think you are going to like the new look of Info Exchange. I think your clients and project team partners will like it too. We’ve revamped Project Home with  "ATM Friendly" access to Transmittals, Submittals, Shared Folders and more. We’ve also added Project Home widgets so you can tailor each default Project Home to spruce it up with site renderings or construction photos; display primary project contacts and info; or add additional useful widgets for open items, local weather, look-ahead project calendars and more. The  "ATM-like friendliness" extends into the project logs as well with 1-click controls to open attachments or enter responses, as well as drag ‘n drop to update your shared folders. Finally, it ALL works just great on iPads and Android tablets with WIFI or 3G/4G enabled.

Reason #3: Project Publisher
One of the most mundane, oft-neglected phases of project delivery involves the closeout and handover of project information. And is it fair to say that the actual presentation of documentation and materials to the client at project closeout sometimes leaves something to be desired? Not so with the Newforma Project Publisher feature. First use the  "wizard" interface to select record documents, submittals, the project team roster, selected document sets such as warrantees and O&M documentation, and information from any other activity center in Project Center to be part of your closeout package. Then organize the content any way you want in a hierarchical table of contents and publish it to a DVD, USB or network drive. The contents are neatly packaged into tables with each record linked to its underlying data and files. And it’s all professionally branded with your project and company graphics and accessed from a hierarchical table of contents. A far cry from 12 boxes and a cloud of dust!

Reasons #4 and #5: Contact Directory and Custom Word Forms
The new Contact Directory is a standalone app to centrally access and manage your company’s contact database. It works hand-in-glove, or rather  "drag-and-drop ", with Microsoft Outlook and the Project Team activity center in Newforma Project Center. You can also lock down Contact Directory editing privileges with the new  "Content Administrator" role.

But what really makes Contact Directory is its integration with the new Word-based form templates in 9^th edition. You can now convert standard,  "boiler-plate " Word documents like contracts and letters into dynamically generated forms merged with company, contact or project fields from Newforma Project Center. Your forms can leverage formatting options from Word like page numbering, headers, footers, repeating column headers and more. And a Mail Merge "Helper" macro helps administrators add smart fields and tables from Newforma contacts and project items like submittals, contracts or change orders.

In fact, we liked the Word form templates so much that we extended its reach to support the built-in forms in Newforma Project Center, including transmittals, RFIs, submittals and contracts, all of which were previously only editable using Microsoft InfoPath. We knew this would be pretty cool – but I have to admit I was surprised to hear from several of our earliest 9^th Edition customers that this was their favorite of all the new features! 

Reason #6: The need for speed
In 9^th edition, our engineers made a concerted effort across many aspects of the product to optimize the code. From navigating between activity centers to viewing PDFs to working with projects pinned to remote servers, 9^th edition will feel noticeably "snappier". This has been confirmed by our earliest 9^th Edition customers.

Reason #7: It’s the Easiest Newforma Upgrade Yet
My final reason to upgrade to 9^th edition? Well, to quote one of our early 9^th edition customers,  "it felt more like an update than an upgrade."  The whole process is very well documented and can be completed in a couple hours. 9^th edition runs on the same hardware as 8^th edition and there are no changes to any underlying OS requirements. And for the first time, you can now skip a release when upgrading to the current release. So customers with 7^th edition can bypass 8^th edition completely and upgrade straight to 9^th edition. Once you get onto 9^th edition, life gets even better with regards to updating and upgrading the Newforma Windows clients as there is now an option to auto-update clients to the appropriate release when upgrading a Newforma server.

To see a complete list of new features and functionality you can download an overview in PDF format.  To learn more about Newforma Project Center Professional, visit our website.

Alphabet Soup (or acronym hell ?)

Do you get confused or just plain frustrated when you are reading the industry press reporting that AIA, CURT and AGC have formed the 3XPT Strategy Group, GSA has published an IFC based MVD requirement for BIM concept models, NBIMS is adopting IDM, CSI is supporting the IFD Library and promoting PPD, AGC has published agcXML, ICC is developing Smartcodes, AIA TAP recommends using MPS, NIBS is sponsoring COBIE, or by all of the references to IPD, LEED and VDC. If you are an international reader, just substitute your local variations such as Avanti, be2camp,CIB, CRC, etc.

Regretfully, here at Newforma we too have been guilty of speaking in acronyms on occasion. For example, in December 2008 we sent you an email blast entitled “PIM and the DNA for IPD” inviting you to join us for a free webinar …. when what we really wanted to talk to you about was email management as an integral part of the project delivery process and to show you how firms like yours are tackling out-of-control inboxes to mitigate risk by capturing email decision trails and to improving team communication.

Through this blog we will be making every effort to demystify much of the industry jargon rather than just pile on and add to your confusion. We aim to be diligent about explaining exactly what the most important acronyms stand for, convey a fundamental understanding and provide an informed opinion regarding the importance of the specific project or initiative. As a start down that path, the links provided above (for anyone who wants to take the time to explore them) have been carefully selected to point you to an authoritative source that explains who or what is behind each of the acronyms used as examples above.

If we do err again, please call ‘foul play’ to get us back on track :-)