Architects Can Build Too: The Collaborative Power of ACC and Autodesk Build

DWANE LINDSEY: Welcome, everybody. Thank you for attending my session here at AU 2024. Today, we're going to take a look at presentation I'm going to give, "Architects Can Build Too." So we're going to take a look at how us, as an architectural firm, actually utilize Build during our construction and design process.

So what are we going to take a look at today? We're going to look at a little bit of an introduction to myself and FGM Architects, take a look at why we're utilizing Autodesk Build. We'll take a look at our FGMA project template, so the template that we use to actually start our projects. What do we do from a Build setup standpoint? So once we get into a project, what do we actually set up? Build in the field. How do we actually utilize Build on a mobile device? And then what do we do post-Build, meaning once we're done with our field work, what do we do once we get back to the office?

Just to recap our learning objectives-- unfortunately, I can't just say become more efficient and remove paper process and make it digital. Had to give you a few objectives here. So one, we're going to take a look at how you can design a project template within ACC to reduce the amount of project setup that you have. Evaluate what tools slash modules within Build are best suited to utilize for your workflows-- not everybody's workflows are the same, so how do you evaluate Build to customize for your workflows? Then evaluate those workflows, and what do you have to do from a company standard standpoint to put inside of Build? So we'll take a look at these parts and pieces.

A little bit about FGMA. FGM is-- or FGM Architects-- is an employee-owned professional services firm. We have eight offices amongst five states in the United States. I am located in the Chicago area. My title, as it said on the initial slide there, was the architectural applications director, so I oversee the tools, technologies, processes that our design staff utilizes from predesign all the way through construction.

We are a design firm. We do not perform construction management services. However, we do perform construction administrative services for our projects.

So why did we choose Autodesk Build for FGMA? We needed to get away from this manual paper process. This particular person here, holding a set of drawings, clipboard, paper, everything else-- can't really say why he's smiling, so I'm going to fix that for him. Because really, if you're holding that much information in your hands, how do you actually get anything done when you go to a job site? So really needs at least two more hands, arms, to actually get anything done. So we want to get away from that process. This is multiple years in the making.

Reduce multi-step processes. So with this manual paper process, your clipboards, your pencils, your cameras, roll of drawings, everything else-- people would go out to a job site. They'd write things down. They'd make verbal notes. They would do whatever they needed to do to actually get the information done while they're on the job site.

Then they would have to come back and put this information into some sort of report, like a Word document. So take all their notes that they've handwritten out or verbally done in some phone recorder or whatever it might be, and then type all this information out into a Word document. Go grab all the photos they took-- hopefully, they remember where they took them-- and attach those to the entities or the parts and pieces of the report that they actually needed to work with. So long process to actually get this stuff done. We had to become more efficient at doing that.

Single apps. We had some people utilizing digital apps. Not everybody was paper process. But we'd have people using one app to look at drawings, one app to do a punch list, this different app to do photos, this app to do field walks. We wanted to get away from that. We wanted to simplify our workflows.

We also wanted to get Android and iOS. Now, for the most part, we are an iOS firm, pretty much standardized on the iPads. However, we did have Android devices being utilized amongst our teams, so we wanted to provide access to those team members that wanted to use those Android devices.

Like I said before, just become more efficient. Paper process, multi-step process-- these things take forever. If you notice the dates on this actual punch list report, the date of the visit was on the 9th of February. They didn't get the report out until six days later. By then, things are probably done, so this report becomes obsolete very, very quickly. We need to become better at doing that.

We did look at other platforms. It's not like I just looked at Build and said, that's what we're using. I did go through and looked at many different other applications, and not saying any of these applications are bad. They just didn't fit into the FGMA workflow like I would hope they would, and that's, hence, why we went with Build.

So what do we actually use? There's a lot in here. We don't use everything. We use the Sheets module. Obviously, this is how we get our set of drawings and things out to the folks in-- for our folks, when they go to the field. Files-- approved RFIs, approved submittals, model files, et cetera. We'll utilize this to-- not only for the field work, but also during design. We have cloud collaboration with our Revit models, so that is dealt with the files aspect as well.

Specifications. When we first looked at Build, it was in-- we were going to have our specifications in Files. But this year, Autodesk introduced the Specifications module, which has been a great enhancement. It allows us to upload our specs, sorts everything for us. It's been a great way to actually look at our specifications, especially when we have to go out to the field.

Issues-- the quote-unquote "bread and butter" of Build allows us to do our punch list, our site walks, et cetera, just note all of the information that we want on the job site. I honestly wish it wasn't called Issues. I wish it was called something else because not everything is an issue. Sometimes we just make notes, but we want to be able to track it. It's not necessarily an issue. It's a note. So I'm not sure if that'll actually ever happen, but that's the module that most people use for that.

Forms-- we use custom forms. I'll show you that when we get into the actual application itself. This is an example of a construction observation field guide that we have now generated an actual custom form from. This is like an observations. Hey, go observe this. Go observe that. Well, if something wasn't proper, correct, there is an issue, so to speak, there's really no way to document it back to the actual-- this checklist, so to speak. So we've actually converted this Word document to a custom form. And again, I'll show you that here in the future.

Photos, another big one for us. I generated this whole workflow on taking photos from a mobile device to upload to OneDrive, and then on your computer go to OneDrive, and then take those, and put them on the server so everybody could see them. But there's no way to search. There's no way to sort. There's no way to find out who took the photos, et cetera. Photos allows us to do that. Huge time saver for us.

Custom Reports-- when we do punch lists and field walks, we generate PDF reports. And that's what we use the Reports module for. Bridge-- we utilize Bridge in a few different ways. We use it for design, so we have projects that have multiple Revit files, maybe buildings on a site. We actually create one project for that. That way, the entire team is added to one project, not, let's say, six projects.

However, when it comes time to do the CA work, then we actually want to break that out into separate projects. We'll bridge Revit models and Sheets and et cetera from that kind of central hub project to the spoke projects that we utilize Build for.

So why didn't we look at everything? Why aren't we using everything? The old saying, you can't eat an elephant all at once. Gotta take small bites. If I went through and tried to implement every single module inside of Build, I would not be talking here today. It would take forever because we have so many workflows that we'd have to manipulate and change that we couldn't change some of the real essence of what we were doing inefficiently to become more efficient. We would never get there. So that's why we didn't do everything.

So what do we use for some of these other pieces? Newforma. We have Newforma Project Center. RFIs, emails, change orders, et cetera-- we use Project Center for that, and we still do it to this day.

Addendums and ASIs-- technically, there isn't a module for addendums and ASIs inside of the Autodesk Construction Cloud Build. So technically, maybe Transmittals could be doing that, just based on how you send that information out. But we have a separate module inside of Project Center that allows us to track all that information, so we didn't want to change that. We didn't want to change these workflows.

And the other big piece of this is Procore. Newforma and Procore have a connector so that when somebody creates an RFI in Procore, we can connect that to Newforma Project Center and Newforma Connect, technically, that's coming out. But we don't want to change that workflow because, well, Autodesk and Procore don't have a connector to each other, so now we're kind of working backwards in our workflow, so we didn't want to change that process.

Some of these other things like Meetings and Schedules and Assets-- meetings, we still do in Word. This is probably the next piece that I really want to take a look at as far as how can we utilize the Meetings module within Build to maybe become more efficient with our meetings.

Schedules-- we really don't-- we don't have construction schedules. If we have one from the contractor, we'll import that in. We are looking at maybe using Schedules a little bit more from a design schedule standpoint-- you know, when's the start of SD? When's the end of SD? When's the start of DD? Et cetera.

Assets-- we don't track assets. Assets and Build is, like, hey, equipment tracking, et cetera. That's its main course. We don't do that. We're a design firm. We're not responsible for that. So what things that we have been looking at, though, with Assets is, how can we maybe track a room? If we're punching a room and it's complete, we could actually say, oh, that room's complete, so we can have a room as an asset and mark that room being complete so that we know we don't have to go back in there. Again, something that we're looking at for the future.

So how do we utilize Build? Well, why don't we take a look at it instead of taking a look at a bunch of PDF files? So first things first, our project template. So we have one project template. We have our FGMA ACC project template. And this is the template that we use for every single project that we create on the Autodesk Construction Cloud.

So what are we really set up inside of our template? From a sheet standpoint, there's really not much from a sheet standpoint that we deal with. There's not a lot of settings or anything in here that we need to mess with.

Files-- we don't add files, per se, but what we do is we add folders. So we added a bunch of folders just to start. This doesn't mean that you have to use these folders. This is a starting point. We allow people to add folders, add subfolders. They want to change a name for something-- that's perfectly fine. We allow people to do that. But we at least have something set up for them when their project gets going.

Issues-- we've customized our issues. So there's a lot of things in here that are turned on and turned off. Commissioning-- we turned it off. We don't need to have people set anything to, excuse me, commissioning. We do have, however, a Custom Field Report.

So if you see the lock icon, these are types of issues that are default to the Autodesk Construction Cloud slash Build. This Field Report is something that I created on our own. Simply go up here to Create a Category or Create a New Category. I've added new types. You're able to customize the letters inside the pin so when you put it down, you can see the little abbreviation.

Observations-- we added an Item of Concern and Non-Compliance-- again, just two custom things that we're working with. We have a QC checklist that we're working on. So inside of our template, we have a checklist that if something is non-compliant, so to speak, needs a tracking, we can actually track that with an issue. So we have a bunch of different issues to work with there. Still working on that process.

Safety-- like, we turn safety off. We don't want people to put safety things down. We're not the safety experts. That is the construction industry. So from a design standpoint, we don't want anybody to mark an item or an issue as being a safety issue. That is something that we let the construction industry deal with. Doesn't mean we ignore safety. It just means we don't track it.

If somebody needs to do a warranty walk, we can come in, into the project, and turn this on. So it's not like this stuff doesn't just not come into the project. All this stuff comes in. It's just what we have turned on by default.

We also have templates. So when we do a punch list, specifically, we have a lot of things that we always put down on a project, adjust door latches, clean rooms, whatever it might be. Instead of typing all this information out every single time, we will allow people to utilize templates. Now, again, this is not a complete list of templates that are utilized for every single issue. This is a starting point for people to utilize so they can not have to do the most common things.

Forms is probably-- is the last one that we'll take a look at here. Forms, we basically have four templates that we work with. We have cover sheets, so I'll talk about this later on as far as how we use a custom PDF form. And then we also have this observation checklist that I talked about before.

This observation checklist-- if I modify this template real quick, it has all the different categories that we have. And then within each one of these, we have our questions. This is a yes, no, whatever it might be. If it is a no, we can actually require an issue. And we'll tie this back to an issue type that we have yet to create.

The thing, then-- the reason why we do this is that we want to be able to have everybody have these when they start a project. Now, one of the things you'll notice is that the cover sheets actually have a little icon. And that's the library icon.

So if you're an account administrator, you have access to a library where you can manage forms and a few other things that if you update it, you can actually push all that information to other projects. It also prevents people from manipulating, editing, the actual contents of that form, so they can't replace the PDF. They can't manipulate anything on the PDF.

The observation checklist does not have that. So when we go into the observation checklist-- and in a project, maybe it is an interior build out, and we don't have structural steel. Well, I can come in and simply delete this entire category so I don't have that inside my project. But from a template standpoint, I want to be able to have all this information ready for everybody and then let the projects choose what they have.

Checklists are very bad at adding things to from a project-to-project standpoint, so that's why we did a big picture thing. And now we're going to remove it later.

So this is what we've set up inside the template. This is our project template and how we utilize it. So when it comes to a project, there is some setup for a project. Now, I've done some setup in here just to save some time, but I want to go through a couple of things.

Number one is Sheets. If we're going to add sheets, you can do this whether it's from a model or from PDFs. So I can come into my Add Sheets. It's going to ask me for, do I want to do this from a file standpoint, so files within ACC, or do want to do this from my computer?

Again, your workflow is going to vary. We have PDF sets that we utilize for review and everything else and issue out to our consultants and construction teams. So we might just grab those PDFs directly from our servers. Other folks will actually take the Sheets from the Revit file right away. So the Revit file that's sitting in our ACC project-- we'll take it and add those sheets here.

Now, again, sake of time, I'm not going to go through the whole process here. But from a version set standpoint, you version it. Is this an IFC set? Is it a design development set? Whatever set it is, you add a date to it.

And then it starts to extract sheet numbers and titles and tags. So when I actually look at my sheets, it will automatically-- from a Revit file, it'll automatically pull in the sheet number and the sheet title. If it's a PDF, it will do its best to look for the sheet number and sheet title.

In the handout, I walk through that process of how you can customize where you pull that information from. Draw an area around the sheet number, draw an area on the sheet title, apply that to all your sheets, OK? So that stuff happens when you bring in your sheets. The discipline is automatically set when you bring in the sheet. And that is just purely based on the first letter or first couple letters of the sheets themselves.

The tags-- when you look at a sheet, I can add-- I can edit tags. I can add tags. So maybe the tag of CA. When I'm maybe out in the field, I only want to see three or four sheets because I'm doing my CA work. I can filter by the tag. I don't want to necessarily filter by the discipline. So you can do filters for all of-- any and all of your sheets.

Now, the one thing that we have to do with our projects is right now, our general sheets are at the bottom. And by default, Autodesk does alphanumeric order. Well, I don't want my Gs at the bottom. I want my Gs at the top of the list.

So I have to go into Settings and then go to Disciplines. So inside of Disciplines here, I can see the associated sheets. I have 34 for A. I have 7 with the general. But this is the order that the sheets are going to be in when I look at them either in the web or on my mobile device.

If I want my G series first-- so I simply drag my G series up to the top. If I want my civil after-- before architecture, you can drag that up. Maybe I want my landscape to be after civil. I can drag that up. I drag all these different things.

Every single project that I create as an administrator, I have to do this. So if anybody from Autodesk out there-- please, let's get this in the template so that we can have a company standard to start with. If we need to manipulate it per project, we can do that.

Regardless, if you don't have any sheets, like, civil and landscape-- I don't have any of those sheets, so I'm not going to see C and L in my sheet list, but at least I have the order that I want. I apply that to my sheets. Yep. I'm good to go. So now when I go back and look at my sheet list, my G series is in the front. My other information in the back.

The other thing that we do from a Sheets standpoint is we get into locations. So locations is a settings. So inside the settings-- and you have to be a project administrator to do this-- I can go to my locations. Now, again, I've done this already, just to save on some time. But you can bring in locations.

I can do that from an Excel file, or I can do it from Revit. If you have the Revit file in, it grabs all the rooms, basically. You can check what you want to check as far as bringing in. And then it will go ahead and bring it in. The XLS file-- there's a template you can download. I have a five-minute video I created for our in-house teams to actually look at how to export from Excel or export from Revit a schedule into Excel, combine cells, and do all this work to make it into the template.

The difference between the two-- there's two things. Number one, you can see that classroom 130 came in first. And I have no idea why because typically, it's alphanumeric. So if I want to, I can go through and just keep going move down, move down, move down, move down, move down. I can't drag and drop. I have to move it down. At this point, not really concerned.

The other thing is the room name and then room number comes in when you import it from a Revit file. If you don't like that-- and we've had some people say, I don't want the name first. I want the number first-- then we have to go through the Import from Revit process because we can then say, room name comes first, then room-- I'm sorry, room number comes first, then room name comes second. And then you-- obviously, you customize the order completely. So we have this information in here.

The other thing that I've done and that we do with this is that we go ahead and link our Sheets. So when I come over here to the-- when I click on a sheet, on the right-hand side, I'm able to add a link to a location. And what I mean by that is I'm taking a location. I'm going to add that to a sheet, so I'm going to draw a little area.

Now, level one-- I don't need a big level one area, so I can simply just remove this link. What I did to start, though, is instead of clicking every single room, I just clicked level one. It adds all the sub locations. So I'll just not unlink all the sub locations here, so I still have 1, 2, 3, 4, so on.

So let's say I want to actually put a location on 103. I want to link this to a sheet. I can come over to my marked area here and just hit Add. This is going to take me to the sheet that I referenced for this A1-1. And I now have the ability to go through and add in a location. Even if you bring this sheet in from Revit or you bring the locations in from Revit, you do not get the physical location of the room. We're hoping that comes at some point here.

So what I can do is I can just simply say, OK, on the left-hand side, this is 103. This is my room 103. And just very quickly, you don't have to be exact on this stuff, this is purely here just to get information into our Issues, for the most part. So I now have A103. You can see I have the rest of these. I can continue going on. I'll just do this one for now. Close that out. And it's going to take me back to my Sheets.

Now, it actually opened up a separate tab, OK? So I can see I have this here. If I need to edit that for whatever reason, I can edit that. But this is what we do in a project, is actually link this, link our locations to Sheets. You can do multiple sheets, by the way. It doesn't have to be just one sheet. So if you have in large plans, you can go in and do that as well. So that's the locations piece that we set up.

Files-- really don't set much up in there. You already have the folder structure. If you want to add folders, you add folders.

Specifications-- again, just sake of time, I can't show the entire process of uploading our specifications. But I will say a couple of things. Number one, if your PDFs have the blank pages between sections because you print out in a book, make a copy of that and get rid of all those blank pages. What happens with Specifications is that you upload your PDF or PDFs, plural-- you can upload one massive PDF, you can open-- you can upload any number of PDFs.

Autodesk has a little bit of an AI that they use to read the spec section and the description or title of that section. If it's a blank page, then it doesn't know what to do, and you have to remove it manually inside of Build. It's just a harder process to do it than trying to do that in the PDF editor.

The other thing is make a custom section code number and a description. So, like, I have one for cover and table of contents. The AI doesn't know what table of contents is. It doesn't know a cover sheet. Everybody's got different things for that. But for the most part, when standard spec has a certain format to it, it knows how to pick that information up. So there's ways you can customize your code and your section so that way you can have this information here.

It's very similar to Sheets, where you can have the version sets. If you have multiple versions, you'll see that here. You can see issuance dates, et cetera. So this is a spec that I brought in from one of our projects. You're able to search through this, filter it down-- you name it. This is so much easier to work with than having a bunch of PDFs in your Files area for specifications. And you can see all this on the mobile as well.

Other than that, there's really not a whole lot here. We don't set up a lot, other than adding our files, working, et cetera. The other thing we do is reports, is we need to create some custom reports-- report templates, I should say.

So what I do is we utilize the Issue Detail. So I click on the Issue Detail. And this isn't an issue. This is an issue detail. This is our FGMA-- let's just call it a punch list. And what we're going to do is say, OK, I want to show things that I did yesterday, today, the last seven days. I usually put this as yesterday or today by default. You can change this in the projects. This is something that once we get it set up, then as people go through, you change however you need it.

The biggest thing, probably more importantly, is filter by the type. I need to filter this down because I don't want every single type of issue type that we have. I really just need punch list. I'll have information. In our punch list, we want to that by the location, because all those locations we set up-- I want to sort this by the location so I have all my room-- my punch list items for a room together as one.

I'll leave a cover page, get rid of the table of contents. Really don't usually care. Photos-- I'd like to go three per row instead of having two. And then the other nice thing with this, and this is a big reason why-- another big reason why we went with Build versus some of the other applications-- is that I can remove information I don't want in the report. We don't do root cause, placement-- don't care. Start date, the due date-- maybe the created on we keep. Let's get rid of deleted. Created by-- doesn't really care who it was created by. And maybe a lot of times we don't assign things to people.

So let's just drag these around, so now we can have location first. Maybe location details is second because, hey, this is on the floor. This is on the wall. This is on the ceiling. You can add those, versus the location, which is room name, room number.

So now I can save this as a new template so that anytime somebody needs to come in and issue a punch report, they can simply come in here, grab this, run the report. If they have to filter by the dates, that's fine. They can run this report. It generates that PDF report that you can then download.

So again, we set this up every single time a project is started. So again, let's get reports into a project template. That would be awesome.

So this is how we set up our projects. Now let's get into actually working in the field.

So I have a little-- this is my iPad. I'm going to go into my same project I've been working with here. And so what do we do? Well, I can come down to Sheets, and I can take a look at any of the sheets that I want. Let's take a look at this particular sheet here and say, OK, well, you know what? I'm doing a punch list, and I need to create an issue here.

So let's do that in 102. On the right-hand side, I can grab my punch list. I can grab my Issues tool. So I grab an issue. I can look at templates. Oh, here's all the templates that I had inside my project. If I'm looking for something specific, maybe this is just a general item-- oh, OK, I just need to complete all the unfinished work. I can grab that as a template item. And now you can see that blue area for the room.

App to where I want my issue. And now it comes in with all this information automatically, the location, level 1, AP-102-- that blue area automatically picked up the information. The reason why you didn't see it in 103 yet is because didn't sync my iPad, basically, right after I did the work in the web. When you do work in the web, you have to synchronize your iPad to make sure you get the latest and greatest information. I didn't do that here. That's OK. That was mainly about the process of getting your rooms in.

But you can see this comes in automatically. If I need to change it for whatever reason, you could actually come in here and just click Lists. So if you didn't want to draw all those areas on your plan, you could just pick it from a list.

The description-- the nice thing about descriptions-- obviously, you can hunt and type in whatever you want. But what I'll do is I'll just use the little microphone, and I'm going to talk into and say anything I want. And it's going to automatically type for me so I don't have to hunt and peck on my iPad to actually put descriptions in.

If I want to put more information here, I can do that. We've actually taken out, like, due dates and other things from our issues. You can do this in the project template. I didn't get into that, but you can actually remove things that you don't want people to fill in. Like, we almost never fill in due dates or assign to or anything like that unless we're actually going to work with cross-collaboration with our CMs and GCs. A lot of times, we don't. So let's just not have that information in there.

I'm going to go ahead and use-- I can use the camera. I can take my photo. And I now have my photo. I'll get that out. I now have a photo attached to my issue. This photo is now also automatically added into the Photos module. So technically, you take a photo-- it goes to the Photos module. And then it's referenced into the issue.

If I need to add more information here, I could definitely do that. Tap on the outside. I'm done. Well, I can drag this item around if I need to, so if I need to put it in a different location, I can go in and do that.

Maybe I have a note about something, I want to make a note about something. So maybe I draw a little cloud area here. And right now, if I take a look at this item, right now, it's unpublished. So right now, this markup is only available to me. And I just have a question on something, but I don't want other people in the project to see this. I can just do this as an unpublished note.

If I need to edit it, I can take it and edit. I can change its color or whatever it is. But if I were to actually set this to publish, it becomes a darker red instead of that lighter red. So you may see that in some of your projects as well. But this markup, if it's unpublished, is only available to me, not anybody else.

The nice thing about the Sheets module is that it automatically hyperlinks all of your section cuts, blow ups, everything else, so if I need to get to that particular detail, I can go to my 5.4 and then go find my detail.

So I can, obviously, go back here. You can see there's an update to my Sheets that popped up. If I do a sync, it'll update that room number, so on and so forth.

But that is the basic process of going through, adding information. You can draw. You can text. You can do all sorts of markups here. But we utilize Build in the field as a tool. And this is how we do it, whether it's punch list, field walk, et cetera.

If I need to filter my sheets, maybe I only need to see my CA sheets, like I talked about before. I could go ahead and do that. So I could go through the tag and say, just show me my CA sheets. I don't have to look at everything else. I just need my CA.

So you have those filters to go ahead and do that. So you can really work through that process. The other thing that I didn't do was update my sheet order. So you notice all the As were first, so I'll just do a quick update. That's OK. And I'll go to my sheets. Now my Gs are first. Ideally, before you walk out of your office, go to the job site, whatever it is, you sync your project. That way, you have all the latest and greatest information.

From a file standpoint, If I need to look at an approved RFI, I can go in and do that. So you have that capability. One of the things you can do in sheets as well-- you can do this here. You can do it on the web as well. A lot of people do this on the web, is when they have a markup, I can put a reference to it. I can actually add a reference to, let's say, my files. And I'm going to add that to my-- it's a punch list, but I'll call it an RFI.

So now when I do this, and I'll go ahead and publish that because I want other people to see it, there's this little-- see if I can get my finger here-- that little paperclip icon. What happens now is I can click on that little paperclip, bottom-left corner of my screen. I hit the punch list that I referenced. And now it's going to bring up that file that I referenced.

So, like, if you have an approved RFI, this area-- something's changed. Maybe it's not graphical, it's more text information, you want to tell somebody, hey, this is actually changed. So you can do this. Again, you can do this on the web. A lot of people do it on the web. You can also do it via the markup tools here within your mobile device.

Files-- again, if you just want to look at a file, obviously, you look at your files. Specifications-- again, take a look at my specs. I can go through the masonry, grabbing here very, very, very quickly go through. If I need to search in my Specs, there's a search in the upper-right-hand corner. Maybe I want to look for anything that's metal in this particular section.

So I've seen-- oh, OK, there's all these different sections that have metal included inside of them. So search is great. It actually highlights it in the document as well. Again, just so much easier to work with than dealing with just actual files in the Files module.

Issues-- this is where you're going to see a list of your issues. So I generated an issue in a floor plan. Maybe I just need to create an issue, and instead of it being a punch list item, this is just more of a general condition. And maybe I just need to add-- this is a note for a general condition because of general site things.

Add that information in. Maybe I don't really care about location. Maybe I don't even have a camera reference or a photo reference. It's just a note that wanted to take. Well, I can add that here, and now I have the ability to see that. I can also filter. I don't want to see any punch lists. I don't want to see any field notes or anything like that. You can filter the type that you have. So let's say I only want to see my punch list items as I'm going through a punch because I don't really care about all the site walk stuff. I can filter my list to only show me that information.

So this is the nice thing where some other applications always had to have a plan reference. And if you didn't want a plan reference, you had to go to another application. Another reason why we wanted to stick with Build for that.

Forms-- so with Forms, what we do when it comes to field reports, punch lists, maybe even non-compliance, is we have a specific form that we wanted to have, a specific cover sheet that we have. So what we do is this is a custom PDF that I created, the date, project name, the project number, and the architect, basically, who's creating this gets filled out automatically based upon the form fields in the PDF. There's custom form fields you can use, basically form names. I think it technically comes from PlanGrid when that migration happened. So they've saved that over.

So I fill this information out when I'm on site. I tell the contractors whatever it is. At this point, I can either submit it, or when I get back to the office, maybe I write some more notes in here. But this, ultimately, would become my cover sheet.

Some people do this in the field because they want to put that particular information in while they're there. Other people will do this in the office. Doesn't really matter because you're not filling out a ton of information here.

So we have forms that we actually start to create. And you can see here, and I have that punch list cover sheet generated for that information.

The other aspect in here that we really get into, which gets into the More option here, is Photos. So with Photos, you see the photo that I took-- it's already in here from my issue. If I just want to add a photo-- I don't want to tie it to an issue, I don't want to tie it to a sheet, I don't want to tie it to anything else, I can just simply hit Add. I can use my camera. I'll take a photo. I could take multiple photos if I want. I hit Done. I now have a photo taken in my project. It's not reference to anything. It's just a folder I want to have here.

It's going to be saved up to the network-- I'm sorry, not the network. It's going to be saved up to the Build project, which then my entire team has access to, so now I can go through and really look at all the photos that were taken.

If you tap on a photo-- obviously, I moved. It's blurry. You could retake it, obviously. [LAUGHS] If want to tag it with something specific, I can go and create a tag. So let's say I just put in Keyboard, because that's the tag I want to have to this particular photo.

There is AI that will happen in the background. Doesn't happen automatically. It does take a little bit for that to happen. But there is some AI that will actually happen in these photos.

So I can add my photos, and I'll see them all here. There's filters and everything that you can do here. But for the most, part on the iPad, this is our tool. This is our tool belt, so to speak. And those are the modules that we utilize.

Once we're done in the field, what do we do? So once we're done in the field, we come back to-- we can come back to our project. And any issues I've generated, created, are going to be listed here, so my general condition is there.

Now, one thing I just want to make real quick-- all the work you do on the iPad is technically done in an offline cache mode. If you are connected to a Wi-Fi, strong data connection, it will upload that information automatically. However, you can work 100% offline, and we do that a lot. Once you're done, you connect to a Wi-Fi or data connection. And then you can upload all that information. It'll upload it to ACC.

So what do we do here? Well, we can go into our Issues. Let's say the general condition issue. I need to tweak my note a little bit, maybe change the status or whatever it might be. I can go ahead and do that. Oh, maybe I want to add that photo that I took before. I can add a reference and go grab that photo that I took of the blurry keyboard. I could add that here if I want to. And now that photo will become part of that. If I don't need it, obviously, I can go in and delete it here.