Boosting Construction Administration Efficiency: Zyscovich Architects’ Success with Newforma

The Zyscovich team spent a significant amount of time ensuring that everyone received the most current project communication and documentation. It was extremely difficult to track information shared across multiple project stakeholders including the owner team, general contractor, and subconsultants. In addition, the Zyscovich Construction Administration team had no way to determine if documents were received or downloaded within the required timeframe. Delays in communication were occurring when a file transfer was sent to an external team member and there was no way to determine if the other party received it.

Zyscovich also wasted time trying to find information that was usually buried in a staff member’s email inbox. Since emails were not kept in a project file, the Construction Administration team had no way to track what information was being communicated through emails including responses to RFIs. It became more difficult to manage review processes when staff members were out on the job site or out of the office. Martha commented that “when people are out of the office, that’s when the emergencies happen!”

Zyscovich now uses Project Center Info Exchange to share files with external stakeholders. This feature does not require a license for external stakeholders and there are no limits on file sizes, number of users, or the number of transfers. Jessica and Martha can now track if the documents were downloaded (or partially downloaded), who downloaded the files, and when. Info Exchange provides email notifications, reminders, automated transfer expiration, and a history log for all files transferred.

Martha shared that when in a Zoom meeting if someone claimed not to have received the file, she can now call up the Info Exchange history log and share when the file was received, to whom it was sent, and who in the organization downloaded it (or did not download). This level of tracking provides the transparency and accountability the team requires to meet project deadlines.

Zyscovich staff members now file their emails to their projects using the Project Center add-in for Microsoft Outlook. Gone are the days of asking staff members to forward emails or search through Outlook. They have access to all project emails and use Newforma’s powerful Search functionality to quickly find the information they need.

The Zyscovich CA team now have options for simplifying the exchange of submittal and RFIs. They use the Newforma Outlook Add-in feature to file emails to the project as a submittal or RFI. Information contained in the email, including attachments, are automatically populated in Project Center. This enables the CA team to easily monitor and track RFIs to ensure accuracy and completeness of responses.

In addition, Zyscovich has implemented the Newforma Project Center Connector for Procore, so that general contractors using Procore can send submittals and RFIs automatically to Zyscovich CA team, eliminating the need to upload and download files.