Agenda

■ Next steps after the initial implementation

■ User experience as the key to success
■ “Simple” change management
■ Alternative technologies to improve the user’s experience
■ Unifiers Future in Construction
Next Steps – after the initial
implementation

Phases of an implementation, Self Evaluation, Think

outside the box – avoid the “Status Quo” mindset,
Must have vs. nice to have – prioritize
Implementation Phases

Select Implement Maintain

On‐Going
Implementation Phases

Maintain
Select Implement Stabilize Evaluate Improve

1 Year 1 Year On‐Going

 Implementation Phases

Improve

Gather 
Prototype Configure Pilot Deploy
Requirements
Self Evaluation
■ Figure out what’s important to the users and the “Business”
■ Process map from cradle to grave – SIPOC
▪ First, figure out what’s actually done in the process, not what should be done
▪ Understand who ALL the players are and what they do
■ Understand the scenarios and find the gaps
■ Refer back to the Critical Success Factors and goals of the
original initiative.
■ Identify must haves
▪ Keep an open mind – don’t get stuck in the status quo
▪ Separate out the nice to haves
▪ Weight and prioritize them – let the users vote to determine this
▪ Don’t forget the low hanging fruit – nailing these can have a significant effect
on user acceptance
Know All the Players and What They Do
Us Everyone In Between Them
Fax, Email, Mail,  In Others In Their
Performed in My System Phone Call System System
(The Black Hole)
Document  Send Answers &  End
Distribution Change Doc’s

Final
Initial  Approval
Questions Submit Requests Review

Initial
Initial  Approval
Schedule Submit Schedule  Answer
Extention
Impacts

Design
Final  Team
Answer Submits
Cost  Submit Change 
Impacts Request

End
Payment  Submit Payment 
Needs Request

Document Manager #1 Document Manager #2, 3, 4, . . .  Document Manager #XYZ

 And . . . Don’t Forget the Subcontractors

Electrical

Mechanical

Drywall

Masonry Earthwork
Painting

Landscaping Site Concrete

Plaster
Paving

Tile Stonework

Doors & 
Windows Hardware

Metal Panels FFE

Structural Steel
Structural 
Rebar A/V Systems
Concrete
Structural 
Precast
EIFS Louvers Network 
Roofing
Systems
Siding
Architectural  Equipment
Metals
Keeping Everyone Involved
(Many Inter-module Connections)

Us All Work Captured In Unifier!!

Them
Single Source of Truth

Send Answers & End

Change Doc’s

Final
Initial
Submit Requests Review
Approval

Initial
Initial Approval
Submit Schedule Answer
Extenstion

Design
Final Team
Answer
Submit Change Submits
Request

End
Submit Payment
Request

Single Document Manager
The Must Haves
■ Simplify the Workflows or Add New BP’s
■ Consolidate or Eliminate BP’s
■ Expand user base to include more external users
■ New Workflows
■ New Forms
■ Eliminate Fields
■ Add Fields
■ Minimize or Add Dynamic Data Sets (DDS)
■ Remove auto-creates
■ Add auto-creates

■ Remember – Automated DOES NOT always mean Efficient and

Intuitive
The User Experience – the key
to success

User Knowledge curve, Remember the casual vs.

power user, Intuitiveness vs. Complexity
Workforce Experience with Technology
■ Paper & Pencil The comfort level that
■ Fax users have with
■ Cell Phone technology in the work
place, varies significantly
■ Computers
from one end of the
■ Tablets
spectrum to the next,
■ CADD
regardless of position or
■ BIM age.
■ Suppliers ■ Project Managers
■ Foremen ■ Construction Executives
■ Superintendents ■ Owners
■ Field Engineers ■ Designers
Capitalize on the Power of Unifier

■ Links via portlets & dashboards

■ Graphical dashboards
■ Links to step specific documentation
“Simple” Change Management

Importance of QA/QC in configurations and

upgrades - don’t take upgrades/updates for granted,
Utilize the testing environment(s), Be
methodical/meticulous/systematic/comprehensive
Quality Assurance & Quality Control

■ Quality Assurance - to ensure what will be configured meets

the customers needs
■ Quality Control - to verify what was configured meets the
design requirements
Keep it in Perspective

■ Is Unifier a mission critical application?

■ How important is change management?
■ How important is testing?
■ Do you want a place for end users to submit their requests?
■ Are there certain things where you need leadership approval?
■ Who are all the players that need to be involved?
■ Does this need to be included in a much larger change management
process?
Utilize the Testing Environment(s)

■ You get Prod and uStage, but if you want a place to really test:
▪ Development – for a sandbox environment, the ‘Playground’.
▪ Training – a place you can train your users as well as external users on
what is currently in production
▪ Testing – with integrations it is best to have a separate environment
where you can keep the upgrade testing running concurrently
■ Refresh your non-Prod environment(s) often.
▪ Facilitates troubleshooting when you have more recent data to look at
where you can see what something looked like before a config push or
a change in data.
Test, Test, and Test . . .

■ Don’t rely on the software developer to have tested everything

■ Don’t rely on only yourself to have tested everything – more eyes the better
■ Take a methodical approach to your testing – have a thorough test plan
■ Be meticulous in how you test – leave no stone unturned
■ Test systematically through the entire process from the users perspective
– especially where integrations are concerned
■ Ensure you are comprehensive – Multiple testers and multiple scenarios is
critical
Leveraging Alternative
Technologies - improving the
user experience

Don’t fall into the shiny ball trap, What are your
gaps, Addressing the Easy vs. Effective
Some Alternative Technologies

■ Bluebeam
■ Box
■ Native Mobile Apps
■ Sharepoint
■ BIM 360 Field & Glue
■ Word Press/You Tube
■ UPK
■ Web Development
■ Etc.
Unifiers Future in Construction

Necessary Enhancements & Needed Functionality

Enhancements – Must Haves
■ Key Functionality Currently In EXP & PCM
■ Needed User Interface Improvements
■ Other User Experience Improvements
▪ Improved Smartform & Custom Print Functionality
▪ Native Mobile Apps
▪ Reporting Improvements
▪ Workflow Improvements
▪ Improved Request for Bid functionality
■ Interoperability with Other Systems
▪ Email consolidation/integrations
▪ BIM & VDC Integrations
▪ Tie to Social Collaboration Sites
▪ Environment to Environment Communications
■ Document Storage & Management Improvements
■ Improved Task Management
Some Ideas . . . That Will Help Everyone!
Key Functionality Currently In EXP/PCM
■ Easy process to manually 'Generate' individual or groups of
records and select assignees in real time
■ Can print the screen of a filtered/sorted/grouped log view
■ There is a tight connection between the project level contact and
licensed user database
■ Can add companies & users to the global directory from the project
level
■ Letters module has a tight integration to Word
■ Able to send record creation/update data between different
instances
■ Has Cost & Revenue Mark-ups as well as Multiple Budgets
■ Built-in procurement & bid management modules are available
■ Can access records directly from the dashboard and take action
■ Able to delete records
Needed User Interface Improvements
■ Provide browser neutrality
■ Update to current navigation standards of design
■ Capitalize on HTML 5 Functionality
▪ Browser based drag and drop of attachments
▪ Drag and drop web page layout
▪ Ability to embed HTML scripts & widgets into standard dashboards
▪ Enable HTML based custom dashboards and include integrations to data in
Unifier (similar to SWF today) and other systems
■ Provide improved navigation for selecting projects
■ Project level search across all modules
■ User definable Log views - Sorts, Filters, Layouts, etc.
■ Enable Maximize/Minimize of any window
■ Eliminate redundant pop up windows
Other User Experience Improvements
■ Improved Smartform & Custom Print Functionality
▪ Ability to include smartform in email notifications
▪ Support drag/drop and pasting of clipboard images into smartforms
▪ Usable Pickers, DDS, pull-downs and other form functionality on smartforms
▪ Able to include Logos & other images on custom prints & smartforms
▪ Added setup function for limiting selection of certain custom prints & by step
■ Native Mobile Apps
▪ Support for disconnected data access
▪ Granular mobile app rather than all inclusive, align with smartform technology
■ Reporting Improvements
▪ Ability to format UDR’s with logos, margins, fonts, etc
▪ Dataviews and UDR’s based on record permissions
■ Workflow Improvements
▪ Publish path improvements on workflow & non-workflow business processes
▪ Workflow selection redundancy
■ Request for Bid Improvements
▪ Ability to modify the scope on the fly
▪ Ability to efficiently issue addendums to the bid documents
▪ Allow for changing the bid date
Interoperability with Other Systems
■ Email Consolidation/Integrations
▪ Provide a unified email mailbox within Unifier
(currently separate umail and mailbox folders)
▪ Merge the mailbox with the users email DB
▪ Implement a project calendar that would interface
with the same users mail DB
■ BIM & VDC Integrations
▪ Direct connection of the Unifier business processes
to the model
▪ Allow references between Unifier and the model
▪ Enable clash detection to be captured & managed in
Unifier
■ Tie to Social Collaboration Sites
▪ Allow for discussions on certain subjects/records
▪ Capture discussion and incorporate it into the record
▪ Provide the ability to invite others to the discussion
without login credentials
■ Customer’s/Designer’s Systems
▪ Unifier to Unifier would be a good start
▪ Then add other popular systems
Document Storage & Management
■ Improved attachments & Document Manager navigation/search/layout
■ Neutral solution for document markups
■ Simultaneous document markup functionality
■ Ability to download documents with markups
■ ‘Combine to PDF’ functionality – from various file types
■ Dynamic save/update/upload of documents
■ URL based Document Manager – with relative path functionality
■ Ability to share documents with non-users
■ Real time syncing capabilities between the DB and users devices
■ Document Manager integrations with other CMS’ – Folder to Folder
integrations with same folder structure
■ Document permissions also based on record permissions if auto-published
■ Include other attributes in log for attachments on a record
■ When moving a document or adding attachments, allow versioning if it
already exists
■ Allow renaming of documents
Improved Task Management
■ Incorporate Project Superuser concept and ability to propagate project
access from the company or intermediate shell levels
■ Provide the sender and record editors the ability to add assignees
& CC’s to a sent record
■ Incorporate a permission set to allow users to take control of a
record and advance it (needs to be more dynamic than proxie)
■ Allow more than one proxie to a user and be project specific
■ Ability to share records with non-users via URL
Take-Aways
Take-Aways
■ Next steps after the initial implementation
▪ Phases of an implementation, Self evaluation
■ User experience as the key to success
▪ User knowledge curve, Think outside the box – avoid the “Status Quo”
mindset, Must have vs. nice to have – prioritize, Remembering the casual
vs. power user, Intuitiveness vs. Complexity
■ “Simple” change management
▪ Importance of QA/QC in configurations and upgrades - don’t take
upgrades/updates for granted, Utilize the testing environment, Be
methodical/meticulous/systematic/comprehensive
■ Alternative technologies to improve the user’s experience
▪ Don’t fall into the shiny ball trap, What are your gaps, Addressing the Easy
vs. Effective
■ Unifiers Future in Construction
▪ Necessary enhancements & needed functionality
THANK 
YOU