ConstructionOnline Reviews

I am a new user of this kind of software. A few months ago I did not even know that something like this existed. It has opened a whole new world for me and I am blown away by what this software can do. We demo'ed a few competing products before making a choice and it was the wide range of features at the most competitive price that sold us on ConstructionOnline. I especially like the messaging feature which is basically an email system dedicated to one specific project.

There is nothing I really dislike about ConstructionOnline, there are just some features I do not use as they do not meet my needs as a commercial general contractor. For example, I do not use Estimating and Change Orders as they seem to be less robust than some of the other software products. These features seem to be geared more towards the residential market. However, I realize it is hard to be everything for everyone.

A feature, I think, that would be nice would be the ability to sign documents electronically. Maybe one can do it through Redline; if so, I have not been able to figure it out yet.

As a general contractor one has to collect submittal packages from vendors and subcontractors, review them, and then attach a separate sheet to the package, that contains your stamp of approval/comments/signature on it, before you forward the submittal package on to the architect/engineer for review. On this submittal sheet there is space for the different reviewers to add their stamps as well. It would be nice if ConstructionOnline could generate this submittal sheet that you can attach to submittal packages sent to you. Currently, I generate the submittal sheet in another project management program, print it, place my stamp on it, sign it, scan it back into my computer, upload it to a pdf editor, add it to the submittal package file, and then upload the combined file to ConstructionOnline. It would be nice if you could do it all in ConstructionOnline.

The selection picker is definitely something we use a lot and helps keep the myriad of selections in a home organized, such that they can be sliced and diced by trade/room etc. Redline plan room we've recently starting using. The ability to do our own takeoffs is super handy. More than any feature, the support you get is invaluable. The team is always ready and willing to help you figure out how to use the software to meet your goals. The ability to have a set of shared plans is super helpful, as you can make field modifications in real time and have them reflected on all your coworkers plans as well, and vice-versa.

Construction Online doesn't *look* as user-friendly as say, Trello or Monday.com, but it has all the features and more. It takes considerable training to take advantage of all the capabilities and that makes it hard to adopt across a team that's busy doing other things. Making a lot of the features more user-friendly interface like would help. Bite-sized training, like pre-recorded sessions that introduce users to functions in an organized way, building on previous lessons would be helpful. The support is very helpful and willing to help you get started, but you need to know what you want to accomplish for them to guide you there. Starting fresh, you don't even know what you want yet.

Estimation portion is good. Job costing is fair.

It does not have the ability to provide clients with add/alternate pricing. Seems like a very basic feature that most construction companies are asked to provide. This one slipped by us through all the demo's and we have been frustrated for over a year with this. Have to manually do work arounds.

Also we are a commercial construction company that does about 300 jobs a year. The software does not even have the ability to assign each project a job #. With as many jobs going on, we have to be able to cost every purchase and we do that using job #'s and PO#'s. We are manually assigning each job a number.

These are just two of the larger misses on this software.

installation was as simple as clicking a link. Very user friendly and easy to install. Technical support is available but I never used it because I had no issues. I was able to do everything myself.

I have not identified any issues. I am able to manage my projects from beginning to end. This is exactly what I needed.

The detailed list on the estimating program helps to remind me of each item to price. The change order option is very helpful because it becomes part of the base bid, and it is designed to allow me to track the draws each week.

I give my project manager a copy of the estimate without the mark-up info. It would be helpful if I could print off a copy of the estimate with all the details of the estimate, but without doing a proposal to get that copy.

We like its ease of use. Additionally the internet platform makes it available to all of our employees wheterh they are in the office or not.

We would like to see the estimating portion use a single item entry system that could include labor, materials, trades, equipment and other costs in one line item in the database. The Construction Suite product does this. This feature is the only reason we are still using the Construction Suite software and have not moved completely to COL.

The financial reports are instrumental for our business.

Building the construction schedules could use a feature that lets you add lag days.

Dailiy login sheet
client communication
client's material selection
reminders and to do lists

to set a to do task or to assign it to someone inteam is complicated

This product is affordable and convenient for meeting all the essential management team criteria

Cons: great user-friendly tracking tools. easy daily log system

Ease of inputting costs into an estimate, uploading photos, and ability to communicate with team members and subcontractors

I find some features, like daily logging, difficult to find on the platform, but the more I use it, the easier the platform

Our primarily use for Construction Online is estimating, scheduling and job costing, and these features have been integral to our success as a company. We can easily build budgets for our clients, schedule projects and then track the job costing throughout the duration of the project. Everything can be built with templates which saves numerous hours and the real time job costing helps guides decisions throughout the build. The scheduling has allowed our project managers to plan well in advance which has created a smooth construction process.

The documents which can be autogenerated are great but I have found it quite tough to customize them to a format which can be sent directly to our clients or trade partners. This is more of just a personal preference rather than a drawback to the product.

We were looking at several products that would allow us to place all details for a project in one place. Once we test ran CO, the search was over. It is simple to navigate and use, even for employees that have no construction background. Building high end custom homes, it is imperitive we are all on the same page( and team ) with information and CO provides us the platform for that. Along with QBooks integration, we now have a stand alone system that has streamlined our productivity.

While incorporating CO with our system was somewhat flawless and quick, the tech support they offer is simply phenominal. These professionals really know the product so most issues, if any, are resolved quickly. After using CO for a year now, we would like to see the ability to have a seperate section for warranty on each project. It could be added to the punchlist section as those go along with each other.

I enjoy the cross platform functionality. It's so great to be able to access our files from any location, either online or from our servers in the office. This makes a big difference as our team (and project list) continues to grow - we can allow viewing of select items/lists and we don't need to force anyone to use Mac or Windows to work within UDA. Far surpassing any software features, though, the fact that your IT staff is so prompt to respond and so helpful launches this software into one of my favorites I've ever worked with. All software has issues - it's how you respond and deal with those issues that differentiate you from the rest and I thank you for it. Now if you can just have some IT available until 5pm West Coast time (where I am) my dreams would really come true. Thank you to Katy and all the other fabulously helpful people I've interacted with!

A trifling issue, but since you asked - when I add documents from our computer to the Project Files for a job, it's pretty wonky and time consuming. If I drag an item to the file list, instead of showing it was added - the file list scrolls back to the top so I have to scroll back down to see if it was even added - which it usually wasn't. This happens each time. This means I've taken to adding each document twice to ensure it imports so I don't need to scroll down to check if it's there or not. It would be MUCH nicer if the file list stayed put while I added files so I could see where - and that they were added to the list. Sometimes UDA lets me add mutliple documents and adds a 1 or 2 after each multiple - and sometimes it warns me that it already has that doc in the file. If this warning could pop up every time, I wouldn't need to then re-scroll down to the files I just added and delete duplicates. Also - just like when I add files, when I delete a duplicate the file list automatically scrolls back up to the top so I have to manually go back down to where I was to delete the next duplicate.

I love the estimating. It keeps the estimate more organized than Quick Books. Adding notes and attaching proposals from other subcontractors and suppliers keeps the information all close by.

I don't care for having to edit every row line in the estimate so the description spacing can be larger than the Item and cost rows. I wish there was a way to change all of them at once in the top ruler of the editor.

With regret, I took my time integrating with my QuickBooks software. After a little over 2 years of having Construction Suite, I finally took the plunge and began the integration process between the two software programs. I love the ease at customizing the software to suit our particular business. The customer support is second to none! The staff is quick to resolve any issues and answer questions minimizing any downtime. No worries! If I make a mistake the staff is quick to show me what I did, while correcting my mistake. Mistakes happen, it is nice to know I have support when and if I need it. I highly recommend the total care package. You will not be disappointed! As for the reporting, Construction Suite provides additional useful reports to help evaluate the current state of your business and let you see at a glance the progress of all projects both financially and the current phase.

Don't really have any dislikes! My only complaint is that I waited too long to do the integration between my software programs!

Estimating, Proposals, Project Tracking (Work Logs and reports) and Redline/Plan Room.

The infrequent times I have an issue or question someone is readily available to help and resolve it immediately. For Example- I called about upgrading my Construction Suite and their Support Specialist Win [SENSITIVE CONTENT] handle my questions in an efficient and professional manner. I'm up running again!

For me it is helpful to able to see load paths through out my projects. It would be great if you would include an overlay feature in red line/plan room.

Our favorite features are the messaging and financial features. The messaging portal makes it easy to organize your conversations and allow all team members to stay in the loop. The estimation, client selections, change orders, and invoicing features work great and make it easy to integrate with Quickbooks.

The feature we use the least and feel could be improved is the time tracking feature. We have attempted to use it in the past, but find Quickbooks Time to be easier and more user friendly, especially when it comes to integrating for payroll. The opportunities feature is also fantastic, but we do wish the opportunities could be accessed in the mobile app and synced to Quickbooks. We have some opportunities that might not become a project, but require invoicing for time spent on designs, etc. This is not possible in the opportunities section at the moment and we end up having to copy the estimate information into Quickbooks manually.

I use this software on a daily basis and the organization it brings to my project tracking, and scheduling is unbelievable. From estimates to completion, the software makes it possible to keep track of it all. What great software!

About the software itself, I have no complaints. I have been using UDA Construction since 2004 and the software has a learning curve that needs a serious commitment and that is one of the reasons why I like the app so much because a lot of the data can be updated from the field. The learning curve was steep over the years but it has only skilled me in how one should think around construction projects which is also a benefit. The learning curve, however, for me has been slow for the simple reason that as my experience and projects grew the demand exponentially grew on the software itself, so my learning curve followed that trend.

The app for the field has been a game changer for us. It bridged a gap between our office staff and the field staff in ways I didn't know would happen. Recently, integrating with QB has also blown my mind at how fast the PM in the field can see the project actual costs. He is now able to make those hard decisions much more quickly and with confidence.

The only thing that comes to mind is I wish there was an event log or something we can reference when changes are made. I also wish there was an automated numbering system for estimates.

The best thing about this software is the almost instant customer support given through the live chat and the knowledge of all of the techs is superb.

We are getting ready to integrate Quickbooks Desktop and it would be nice if UDA had their own accounting software within the program.

We are a small GC entity for an owner/manager of commercial properties. Construction Online allows us to easily manage multiple projects simultaneously whether we are the GC or just the owner's rep. It ahs paid for itself just in tracking of change orders alone. The fact that we can have one place to with one easy interface to store and retrieve information is absolutely amazing. It has allowed us to be better at what we do in the field because we spend less time trying to organize job folders.

The scheduling portion was a difficult piece to get to function properly Trying to have predecessors, getting the Gantt chart to layout correctly, and the schedule to print properly were all too difficult. We purchased Microsoft Project as a result.

I like the communication between the software accounting and estimating features of Construction Online. I also am very impressed with the Construction Online and QuickBooks expert, [SENSITIVE CONTENT]. With his level of expertise and skills set, I successfully facilitated the integration of our QuickBooks Online with the Construction Online. This integration is essential to our business operations between Project Managers and myself as the administrator of the financials and accounting. I would highly recommend [SENSITIVE CONTENT] as an expert to assist with any client.

Construction Online is labor intensive to integrate with QuickBooks Online. Several project features in QuickBooks are inactive/unusable when integrated with Construction Online. Also, not having the capacity to integrate/transfer payroll expenses for the job costing between the two software platforms is a disadvantage. I understand this feature is on the schedule with Construction Online to implement in 2022. Very happy about that.

The estimating module is very east to use and allows for quick changes and efficient communication.
The Construction online is the best there is when it comes to project tracking and communication with all team members.,

Getting proper job costs from Quickbooks. It's helpful but also confusing.

The features are endless. We can everything in UDA that we used to do in 4 different platforms. There is a lot to learn, but the outstanding customer services makes the process easy.

There is a learning curve as you get started. There are just so many features that we are still learning about.

UDA ConstructionOnline was very easy to use and navigate. As I was setting the system up and learning how to navigate through all of the features, the customer service/help desk team was always there to answer my questions. If the person that answered the phone could not help me, then they always found a person that could.

A pro/con about the product is that there are a lot of different sections which allows for a lot of different types of activities to be performed within the same platform. I liked the option to update properties through the app, but I didn't like that all of the different activities usually took many clicks to get to the right place. It would be helpful if the site was more integrated and allowed for information to be transferred from Punch List to Schedule to Game Plan to To-Do more easily. Seemed like I was setting up the same information in four different places and that can be time consuming.