As an Elite Construction Partner with Autodesk, IMAGINiT Technologies has had the opportunity to work directly with the full spectrum of clients supporting design and construction, including: owners, general contractors, subcontractors, AE firms supporting construction administration, specialty consultants, etc. Through supporting all of these different client personas, we know that nothing in construction is a “one-size-fits-all” solution, and unless you are 100% self-performing design through construction, you know that you will be collaborating with many other companies that are using many different project and data management solutions, most of which are customized to some degree.
As a general contractor, you may have final say in the Construction Management Solution (CMS) used to capture documentation, reports, RFIs, submittals, change management, etc. and you may even invite your external subs into that CMS platform to participate in the project delivery. This alone brings many challenges:
-
-
- You will need to train your subs on your system
- Consultants want to own their data, they don’t if it’s stored in the GCs CMS
- Notifications via email are often lost in our inboxes and actionable items become unintentionally neglected
- It’s difficult if not impossible to enforce standards when you have so many external members with varying degrees of technical experience working within your account
-
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg…
What if there were a solution that could support owners, GCs, CA's, Subs to work in their own environments yet seamlessly and securely exchange data in its preferred format between different platforms?
(Enter stage right) IMAGINiT Pulse! IMAGINiT Pulse is our integration platform that enables the exchange of data in its desired format from one of many tenants to another. Pulse has been around since 2018, mainly used to exchange data in the product design and manufacturing space but recently, based on the challenges that we have been hearing from our clients, we have been tirelessly working on utilizing Pulse for construction solutions. We are proud to announce our first service offering that utilizes IMAGINiT Pulse: Procore to ACC!
We are taking a two-phased approach to this offering. Phase one is focused on migrating Procore project data to the Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC), into the appropriate tools. This is not just a file migration tool. We are able to successfully move items like RFIs in Procore to RFIs in Build, Punchlists to Issues, Drawings to Sheets, and the list goes on (see graphic below for more details):
While Pulse’s connections to Procore and ACC allow us to intelligently push from Procore to ACC, there is an initial service component that is required to enable proper data exchange. IMAGINiT will guide you through a discovery and planning process to understand your requirements and customize your ACC project templates to support the exchange of data from Procore to ACC. This service will also account for areas in Procore and ACC that have limited or no APIs for us to leverage, meaning, some items like meetings, correspondence, transmittals, and specifications currently require separate data migration workflows, or a decision can be made to not migrate them at all. Autodesk and Procore are constantly making updates and opening APIs, so you can bet that when an update is released, we will develop a proper connection!
Phase 2 of our Procore to ACC solution will enable a bi-directional exchange of items between Procore and ACC. When we release this solution, users will be able to control the synchronization of data between the two tenants. For example, a GC creates an RFI assigned to the CA in Procore, which triggers Pulse’s synchronization to the CA’s ACC project and creates the RFI with any attached reference documentation. The CA performs their internal distribution and RFI approval process in ACC. Once the RFI has been answered and closed by the CA, that will trigger an exchange back to the GC’s Procore project with the answer to the RFI and any final attachments. Utilizing this solution for data exchange enables both parties to work optimally in the platforms that they’re most comfortable in, while ensuring that they both maintain ownership of the data that they are responsible for. Finally, as with Phase 1, there will be a service requirement to support the customization of the data exchange. This may be a one-time service, or it may require customization for each project that’s being supported.
The Procore to ACC solutions are where we are starting with Pulse for construction, but we are not limited to Procore connections. If you have different requests for a data exchange solution to ACC, please reach out to IMAGINiT and let’s have a discussion. Pulse might not be the “one-size-fits-all” solution that we are all looking for but it’s pretty darn close! We are extremely excited to roll this offering out and are looking forward to providing a solution to the industry that’s been needed for some time!
Check out our on-demand webcast - Master the Migration from Procore to ACC
About the Author
Follow on Linkedin More Content by Vince Daniele
