Small Project Design

I'd like to hear about what other small firms are using for construction observation / field reports. We have a 5 person office, are Mac users and have a few large projects starting construction. We're looking into archisnapper, and similar programs for an iPad or maybe an iPad mini. We will continue to use hand sketches, but I'd like something that can easily link photos and PDFs into a field report form.

Thank you,

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Aaron Pilat

OKC
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Aaron,

We have been using Evernote for construction observation / field reports. We also use PlanGrid for document control, but have created forms in Evernote to collect and document field conditions and issues. We find it to be very versatile and robust.  It allows the entire project team to remain abreast of the field conditions back in the office or at other construction sites as we share the various project notebooks.  The PlanGrid provide great snapshots of the work and Evernote can hold everything else. (Including the snapshots.

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Ricardo Ramos Assoc. AIA, LEED® AP, CSI
Arcadia CA
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Newforma

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Frank Marshall
EI Associates
Harrisburg PA
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Only caveat to Newforma is the initial cost. It will need to run on it's own server or it can run on a virtual partition if configured correctly, but if I remember Newforma doesn't support the virtual method. Then there is a per user licensing cost. I had priced out the entire system with new server to run it all, and the startup was very cost prohibitive. If you talk to a rep about setting it up, you will be blown away by the features, but with great features, come great $$$ irresponsibility. 

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Gordon McKenzie Assoc. AIA
Lewisville TX
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