Construction administration for engineering firms

Construction needs attention on Home lists what your firm owes across every project, late first: RFIs and submittals waiting on you, failed tests not yet retested, missing payroll weeks and payrolls to review, pay estimates waiting and pay applications from a contractor's Job to take in, bidders' questions, comments back from an agency, punch items the contractor says are fixed, permits running out, and daily reports left as drafts. Each line opens its page. My projects only narrows it to the projects you're the estimator on. Help › Ask Aggrado can answer the same question (“what's late?”) in words.

On weekday mornings the same list comes by email: what's late or due within two days and what waits on you, to each project's estimator (or the owners and admins), with the week's summary on Mondays. Turn it off from the person menu's Notification settings, under Engineering. Put these dates in Outlook or Google Calendar under the card gives a calendar address with the firm's dates (openings, RFI and submittal due days, bond and permit expiries).

Keeping the record is anyone's who edits estimates. The steps that commit the firm each take an approval:

• Recommend or return pay estimates, and decide change orders.
• Answer RFIs and review submittals.
• Issue field orders, directives and addenda.
• Review payrolls and accept Buy America certifications.

The Engineer of record role has all four. The Resident project representative role is for your inspector: it logs reports, tests, RFIs, submittals and payrolls, drafts answers and change orders and attaches files, but approves nothing. Someone without an approval sees its button grayed out, with a line saying which approval it takes. Owners and admins give roles on Company › Users and roles.

1. Start today's report.

   From Construction › Daily inspection reports, select New report for today. The page is one column with big fields, for a phone on site; Open on your phone shows a code to scan. With no signal, the draft is kept on the phone and saved when it's back online.

2. Record the day.

   Weather and temperatures (Fill in the weather takes them from the National Weather Service), or No work today (weather, holiday); the contractor's force and equipment, the work performed, tests, visitors, and problems, instructions and delays. Tell me about the day sorts what the inspector says into the report's fields, for them to check. Take photos with the phone's camera; each takes a caption.

3. Post the quantities measured.

   Each against a pay item of the contract schedule, with where (station or area) and a note. An item not on the schedule goes in by change order first.

4. Submit it.

   A submitted report counts in the Item record and beside each claim on the pay estimates. To put one right, reopen it, change it and submit it again. The PDF prints on your letterhead with the photos.

Construction › Field tests (the Tests tab beside the reports) logs compaction, proof rolls, concrete, cylinders, asphalt density, pipe pressure and leakage, mandrels, manhole vacuum, camera runs and bacteriological samples: the day, where, what it had to meet, what it found, and pass or fail, with the lab's report attached. A failed test stands until a later test retests it and passes.

Beside it, Construction › Contract time and weather days works out the completion date and days left from the notice to proceed, the contract days and the extensions granted, and sets the days the submitted reports lost to weather against each month's anticipated weather days. Construction › Certifications keeps what you sign for the project's permits, each a checklist with its evidence attached.

1. Log it.

   From Construction › RFIs, select Log an RFI, enter the subject and the contractor's question, and select Log it. Attach theirs. It's due back in a week unless you set the day.

2. Answer it.

   Write the answer and select Answer it. The day and who answered are kept, and the RFI's PDF says an answer isn't a change order. If the answer changes the work, make a Field order from it or a Directive from it.

From Construction › Submittals, select Log a submittal. Each is numbered with its revision (007, then 007.1 when resubmitted) and due back in 14 days unless the spec says otherwise. Record the Review action (approved, approved as noted, revise and resubmit, rejected, or received for the record) and the comments. Log the resubmittal starts the next revision. Approved submittals fill the closeout's submittals item.

On Construction › Field orders and directives, New field order is a minor change with no change in price or time, and New work change directive orders a change now, with an estimated price and days and how it'll be priced. Issue it fixes the words. Get it signed sends the issued PDF to the contractor for signature by link, with no account needed, and the signature is kept with it. On an issued directive, Make the change order starts a draft change order on the pay estimates with its words.

Construction › Pay estimates reviews each pay estimate against the contract schedule; Record a pay application enters one the contractor sent. Each line shows the claim, what your inspector observed through the period's end, and your quantity. Recommend the observed quantities fills yours from the daily reports. Retainage, stored materials and what was paid before work out the amount recommended. Recommend payment or Return to the contractor decides it, and the Recommendation for payment (PDF) carries the certificate and the engineer signing it.

A contractor on Aggrado Job can send a pay application straight to you once you connect under Contractors on Aggrado on Company › Company settings. It waits on Pay estimates until you select Take it into this project, and your recommendation goes back to their Job. New change order adds or deducts pay items at the bid price, and prices new items from your unit price book; a change order prints, and Get it signed sends it for signature.

Each record has an Email button beside its PDF. The dialog fills in whom it usually goes to: the contractor (the awarded bidder) for RFIs, submittals, orders, punch lists and the notices of award and to proceed, and the owner for daily reports and the recommendation of award. Both get a pay estimate. Addresses come from Company › Directory (a contact at a company of that name) and the bid room's plan holders. The PDF is attached, it goes in your firm's name, and replies come to you. Every send is listed under the record.