In 2016, the large consultant firm McKinsey & Company released a report that rocked the construction industry, looking at the space’s need to adopt more digital solutions. The report indicated right off the top that large projects “typically take 20 percent longer to finish than scheduled and are up to 80 percent over budget.” Those numbers are clearly untenable, and with productivity measures actually decreasing over the previous 25 years, it was - and still is - clear that the industry needs to find whatever ways it can to improve these metrics, with many of these solutions revolving around increasing uses of technology.
Strides have been made in a lot of these different areas, but barriers still remain for technological adoption to reach the levels it needs to. One of these barriers is the difficulty that arises from having so many one-off solutions. Given how established this industry it is, it can be difficult to convince companies to use new workflows, leading to a lot of different solutions, which can lead to issues in trying to integrate them seamlessly. A survey by FlowForma of 100 key construction decision makers indicates that 88 percent believe seamless integration of multiple systems is very important or absolutely required. As time goes on we see more integrations between key tools, and last month we saw another. FlowForma, a digital automation and workflow tool, announced in August a new integration to construction management software Procore.
FlowForma’s tool works for a lot of different industries, including healthcare, education, and manufacturing sectors, among others, but the construction industry is one of the spaces they work with more than any other. Their Process Automation app works with Microsoft Office 365 and works to assist with forms, workflow, and document generation. There’s also no coding necessary, and minimal IT involvement to get started, with the ability to start receiving usable insights to reap ROI, gain resilience, and drive innovation within four months of getting started.
All of this can be used by the construction industry to rapidly digitize their practices with low barriers to entry, which, again, is a major need for the industry. With the FlowForma tool, users in the construction industry can start automating many of their processes that were previously manual, cutting down on the time spent completing these tasks, more easily access information from their worksite to cut down on potential delays, achieve BIM compliance, and perhaps most importantly, reduce project overruns.
Meanwhile, Procore is among the top construction software solutions which is designed to provide value for all relevant stakeholders throughout the project. Building and project owners are provided with increased visibility across each step of a project while contracts are given much more efficient workflows to complete projects on time and within budgets while also being granted greater abilities to communicate effectively and efficiently between those in the field and those in the office.
It’s great to have multiple options for software to streamline construction processes, and now workers can benefit even more with a seamless integration between FlowForma and Procore. Broadly speaking, this integration of FlowForma’s Process Automation app will allow for, well, automated and customized workflows within Procore. FlowForma’s press release on the integration calls out a specific example of how this can work with a company’s submittal projects. In this example, they note that a new submittal in Procore can “trigger a custom FlowForma process to involve all internal and external stakeholders in the review, approval, and amendment of draft submittal documents.” After revisions complete, the Process Automation tool will update the final draft back into Procore to finish the process.
This new integration adds to the list of integrations that are offered within the FlowForma toolset, with others including Autodesk BIM 360 and QuickBooks, among others. On this latest integration with Procore, FlowForma CTO Gerard Newman said, “At FlowForma we are constantly working on ways to develop our product further and enhance the user experience for our customer base. Providing easy to use, pre-built integration into applications such as Procore makes it easier for construction companies to automate their processes at scale, drive efficiency, and connect multiple systems. As the number of applications in use in construction companies continues to grow, we will continue to provide ‘out of the box’ no code integration to our construction customers.”
