Read how a construction app can help you streamline communications, save you time, and money. Get the tools you need to succeed in your project!
When you think of construction, you likely picture hardhats, tools, and a whole lot of manual labor. But did you know that an estimated 92% of all construction workers use their smartphones every day in the field? That’s right — even the most hands-on industry is turning to construction apps as our world becomes more and more digitally advanced.
With smartphones starting to play a significant role in the construction field, easy-to-use apps that are accessible to everyone are essential. According to the study Construction Apps: A Critical Review and Analysis, some of the most common app uses include:
- safety
- quality control
- planning
- scheduling
- attendance tracking
- communication
If you’re unsure about the effectiveness of technology in the construction industry, take a note from Samsung, a worldwide leader in innovative technology. They confidently state that construction apps are changing the job site.
The main aspects of the construction apps that Samsung’s team mentioned include:
- Project administration & management — from planning bids to filling out forms, storing details to tracking finished project results
- Safety — through sharing of forms, inspections, training, details, and more
- Scheduling — by making payroll more accurate, quicker, and easier, as well as managing subs as the need comes up
- Communication — making it easy to speak —and share forms, photos, and more— with any member of the building process
High-quality construction apps are changing our workforce for the better because of their ability to improve each of the areas mentioned above. We’ll dive into the details of these savings one area at a time below.
Construction Apps Save Time
One major benefit of technology of all kinds is its ability to save us time. Think about it — how much faster is it to click on someone's phone number after finding their website on a google search, compared to the old days of opening up a telephone book for every new number you had to dial?
Construction apps perform similarly in the workforce. They take tons of jobs that used to be done by hand, and they do them for you — or at least provide a faster and smoother course of action than pen-and-paper could provide.
Let’s take daily reports for example. These are often written by construction workers at the end of the day — either at home or in the office before heading back to be with the family. They’re tedious but important, as essential documentation can be missed if they’re skipped for even one day.
Construction apps can often create these reports for you. They pull data you’re putting into the platform as you work —messages, photos, tasks, files, etc.— and they keep this information grouped together by client, forming report-like features by the time your shift is finished.
It’s more than likely that every participant in your project owns —or at least has experience with— a smartphone. However, this doesn’t guarantee that app training will be easy. The key is to look for apps that are simple, and act in similar ways to apps they already know and use, that way, they’re not learning a whole new concept — they’re simply downloading an easy-to-use tool on a device they already use day in and day out.
These easy-to-use construction apps have the ability to perform all kinds of tasks — think messaging, documentation, schedule-creation, and more. This makes for even more time saved on your end.
It’s also completely possible —and realistic— to use multiple apps at a time as well, taking advantage of various aspects offered by different construction management softwares.
Studies show that construction app usage increases, and many managers in the field use multiple different versions every single day.
Check out the incredible number of apps construction companies reported using each day:
The number of apps used is surprising, but it creates a clear image of how mobile apps are changing construction. Tons of tasks that used to be done with pen and paper can now be done more efficiently with the use of construction app technology.
Construction Apps Save Money
Time is a clear benefit, but can something as simple as a constriction app actually save you and your company money? The answer is yes — even if you have to pay a decent amount to get it up and running at the beginning of the process.
We’re not just here to tell you that construction apps can boost your financial success. We want to prove it as well. Let’s start by allowing the data to speak for itself. Check out the table below to see just how much mobile apps are changing construction profitability:
The most impressive part of these numbers is that they’re coming from real companies who have gone before you, implementing construction apps in their daily practices. They’ve provided the real-time stats, so you can trust your company has a good shot at achieving the same.
Just how successful are these construction apps?
If we do some quick math, the percentages listed in the table above leave just 3% of respondents saving less than $1,000 after starting to use more technology on the job site. Your odds of saving significantly more than that are extremely high when it comes to this simple yet effective switch.
The numbers listed in the chart above are definitely great, but you may wonder — how exactly is this money being saved? Just a few of the most common causes include:
- Fewer hours worked —and therefore paid out— due to more efficiency in reports, documentation, scheduling, and communication tasks. The clear communication that comes from many construction apps can make your workers’ general labor processes much quicker — saving hours all around the clock.
- Fewer mistakes made during projects due to clear plans and fully understood expectations. When no work needs to be done twice, you’re reducing hourly payouts by a significant amount. Not that your workers will be coming in short — your company will just have time to take on more tasks, making you even more money along the way.
- Employee hours tracked correctly with job site check-in features. No more incorrect or questionable, hand-written timesheets. These apps measure shifts accurately and may even use GPS to ensure workers are truly on site when they’re supposed to be. This feature is beneficial for peace-of-mind or client questions, too — not just timesheet trustworthiness.
- Higher efficiency rates due to detailed to-do lists, clearly assigned tasks, and more. When expectations are fully understood, most of the work tends to happen at a significantly faster rate. What could your workers accomplish if confusion was wiped off the table entirely?
It’s completely clear that it’s not only time being saved with the help of construction apps— it’s your company’s money, too.
These apps make work easier and more financially efficient, allowing you to increase your profit, lower your project rates resulting in more jobs, or pay your workers more to increase motivation.
Construction Apps Reduce Job-Related Stress
Along with saving time and money, most construction apps are designed to reduce the amount of stress you take on each day at work.
How can technology in the construction field reduce job-related stress?
To start, it cuts down on the number of things you need to do each day. As we mentioned earlier, automating timecards means one less thing to do. And daily reports can be as simple as communicating in one place where photos, who worked, and progress can be viewed historically, by date. Other time-savers reduce stress as well, as they offload all the things you’re juggling in your mind to remind yourself to do, which leaves you more time and mind-space to think through the really important problems.
These helpful tools can also cut worries that relate to documentation. Most construction apps available today make it extremely easy to keep track of what goes on throughout each project you complete.
Some apps can even store work-related messages — both the ones you write and the ones you receive. The most convenient apps do this by pulling text messages directly into the system.
For example:
Let’s say you’re a construction manager speaking to participants on an upcoming project. You start in the app and send out messages to everyone who needs one. They can then answer you back through the app on their smartphones, or they can text you directly through their phone’s native messaging.
Ordinarily, only the app-based messaged would be saved. However, the most communication-friendly apps may have the ability to pull regular text messages into the system as well, leaving you with documentation of every word you receive.
Why is this important? Some trades and workers will send critical project information over text. This information is not only important for your entire team to see, but for you to be able to find later.
Here are some examples:
- An issue resulting in a change of price or time
- An estimate for an upcoming project
- Critical materials needed for upcoming work
- Request for payment stuck on one person’s phone
With the right construction app, you don’t have to take the time —or even remember— to save every message away in your file, or re-write the message in another chat so someone on the team knows what needs to be done. It’ll already be there, for your entire team to see, both today, and in the future when you need to find it. Compliance in the construction field has never been easier to adhere to.
In short, high-quality construction apps make challenging circumstances simpler by holding onto important information until the moment you actually need to access it.
Many apps can even manage, store, and share files that you may or may not need to pull up at some point in the future — initial project plans and agreements, contracts, invoices, receipts, photos of finished work, and more.
Before we move on, there’s one more stressor that all construction groups are facing right now — the worker shortage. Fortunately, construction apps may be able to make a small impact in this unfortunate challenge.
If you haven’t yet heard or experienced the seriousness of the construction worker shortage, just think on this statistic for a moment — the United States of America needs 1 million more construction workers to continue at the projected project rate.
People want new houses, they want their homes improved, and they need essential work done when things break or become unsafe to live with any longer. As members of the building industry, it’s our job to make that happen, but we can’t do it without the proper bandwidth.
It may be a slight difference, but anything is welcome at this point. When you take advantage of construction apps, you’re saving significant amounts of time. This gives you the ability to spend your hours elsewhere if needed — including on the job site. After all, it’s worth it in this nearly desperate time to save every hour of manpower you can.
Introducing Rivet — The #1 Communication Construction App
The best construction apps make building easier and more efficient by saving everyone time and helping folks get home earlier. At Rivet, this is our goal.
By centralizing communication, creating tools around that communication to help with daily coordination, and providing a space for more access to critical project information, Rivet has helped builders and contractors save:
1. Time
2. Money
3. And critical relationships
Communication is the number one most essential piece in all construction projects performed today, which is why we aim to keep it central to everything in the app. Fluid communication ensures participants can work efficiently in almost every project setting. It’s the missing piece to almost every construction project gone wrong. It’s essential for building success, and it’s the basis of every action that takes place on the field.
If leads can’t communicate with workers, it’s much harder to get development, repair, or renovation done right on the first try.
But whether you’re building an entire apartment complex or installing a small client’s new kitchen sink, the Rivet construction app is ready to support you along the way.
Some of our communication construction app’s main features include:
- Ability to organize communication by project, for communications sent through Rivet, and through personal text message
- A centralized project hub with customizable fields where you can add links to the latest plans and selections, lockbox codes, site rules and more
- A digitized worker schedule that can be managed through events, daily to do’s and job site check-ins (that can all be sent via text message)
- Tasks, events, and customizable logs that your team can communicate around, and can be shared with anyone via text or email
- A shared directory of project contacts like vendors, clients, and subcontractors so that people can solve problems faster
Rivet gives you the opportunity to communicate well with every project participant in a documented fashion. It also allows access to important job-related information, both onsite and behind-the-scenes. It works well alongside full construction project management apps, adding strong communication to the center of everything you do.
If we’ve piqued your interest in this type of technology, we’d love for you to learn more about how simple our platform truly feels.
- We’ve created an article all about sending text messages from Rivet. This feature came to be when we realized how hard it is to get every project participant in on a new company app. With convenient text message integration, it’s no big deal if a member or two don’t want to join. Their messages will automatically be pulled into the platform for you to read, respond to, and record for later use. And the how-to article doesn’t mean the process of adding a non-member to your chats is tricky, either — it’s literally as simple as granting access to your contacts and adding their information to the thread you desire.
- We have several videos available to showcase a variety of our app’s features. Rivet will always be here to help you succeed. One of our recent support efforts has been the creation of videos to preview and help you with specific tasks once you’re ready to use the app. For today, consider viewing how to create a project hub, how to handle daily to-do’s, or how to perform job site check-ins. Whether you’re ready to use these features or you just want to take a peek at the Rivet construction app from the inside, these recordings are sure to help.
- We’d love to let you learn more about us. We’re all for connections, and we’re a team ready to personally support you however we can. Feel free to view our About Us page to learn more about who we are at Rivet. Rivet is different — we’re not the traditional construction project management software. Our goal is to help make communication strong, coordination easier, and automate as much of the tedious admin work as possible leaving people with more time to do what they’re experts at, building. If you’re ready to try a communication tool, actually built for the construction industry, simply download our app or give us a call today. We’re looking forward to helping improve your projects — one high-quality conversation at a time.
Want to learn more? Here are additional resources you can use:
