For contractors who want to ensure they haven't double or triple booked their best subcontractors, try the new "conflicts" reporting in BuildIT.

This report works for any contacts that have been assigned to 2 or more tasks, either in the same job, or across several jobs. The system will generate a report showing:

a) the contact

b) the 2 tasks in question

c) where the conflict is graphically

From this report, you can link to several areas:

1. The contact record

2. The "contact schedule" for that contact

3. The schedule view filtered by that contact

4. The specific task

We also have a preferences area where you can set your defaults, and have the conflicts report tailored to your needs.

Besides "trade conflicts", this also works for customers that have several crews or employees. You can see where the overlaps are, and where the gaps are in the schedule that can be filled. In doing so, you can optimize your staff, and increase your billable hours per month. Graphically, you can see on the BuildIT Gantt chart across several jobs where you have gaps, and where tasks overlap.

Make your edits, then re-run the "conflicts report" to ensure you have a schedule that is buttoned up. You'll be better scheduled, and your trades will thank you.

 Scott Hutchinson
 scott@builditsystems.com
 1 866 585 5050 ext 1

Our users have given two enthusiastic thumbs-up to BuildIT’s PDF construction document templates. There are now over 60 templates in BuildIT that instantly take your business to a new level of professionalism.

These templates marry job and contact details into preformatted forms, saving both time and costly errors. And… we’ve created hundreds of customized forms to match users existing forms or take those forms to another level of consistency, clarity, and efficiency.

If the information exists in BuildIT, there's never a need to re-type that information into a document.

With the ever growing use of iPhones and iPads, we've run into some limitations, brought about by the basic PDF reader included with these devices. Some customers have noticed that PDF documents generated in BuildIT would have blanks where data should be displayed.

In response to this, we have modified how BuildIT PDF documents (or PDF "forms") are generated.

• When viewing or sending locked (uneditable) PDF’s, the fields will now show on iOS (Apple) devices.
• To create or edit PDF forms, you will need a third-party app that goes beyond the native PDF reader on iOS devices. This will require a 3rd party application such as the excellent “PDF Expert” app to be purchased and installed by the user. This app comes in both iPad and iPhone versions and is only $9.99. 
   

 Scott Hutchinson
 scott@builditsystems.com
 1 866 585 5050 ext 1

After losing thousands of personal emails to a corrupt Outlook file years ago, I vowed to take steps to avoid that pain by moving my personal and business email over to BuildIT.  I've written before on the benefits of BuildIT email.
 
Years later, I have access to a long history of email correspondence. Easy to access, and confidence knowing my email is backed up regularly and available wherever I have an Internet connected computer.
 
In an effort to continue to improve our system features and performance, we've made some improvements to BuildIT email:
 
1. Click the email tab, and you'll see a new "date range:" in the lower left menu - the default is set to "current (1 year)".

2. This "current" value can be adjusted in the email preferences page. Set it to what you consider to be "current".
 
3. In the left menu, choose the year to search or display emails for only the selected time period.
 
TIPS:

1. When doing a search on email, ensure you have the correct job selected in the yellow job picklist. This will narrow the search to just those emails that are assigned to that job. Search results will display lightning fast.
 
2. For those of you with dozens/hundreds of spam/marketing emails, it only takes a few minutes to select and delete those. Again, the fewer emails you have saved, the quicker your pages will display and the shorter your search times will be.
 
3. If you have dozens/hundreds of unread emails, you can quickly change them to "READ" by using the top right yellow "do this" drop down menu option to "set checked to READ".
 
4. Looking for a particular file that someone emailed you? Just click the "files" tab, then in the top left, click "file association:email attachments" and search for the file. Great way to get to file quickly, and see the history on that file (who sent it, when, how big the file is, etc.).
 
NOTE:

Customers with 10K + emails: if you are not in the habit of assigning your emails to jobs (e.g. they remain "unfiled"), and you have ALL JOBS selected in the yellow job picklist, and you launch a search for a particular email, the system has to search ALL records to find that email. For some customers, this will take seconds. Search times over 15 seconds can be frustrating.

 Scott Hutchinson
 scott@builditsystems.com
 1 866 585 5050 ext 1