I currently work for a framing company, where we have been using coda for the past 4 years. It has evolved over the years based on scaling and figuring out what we need in a tool. I am hoping to connect with other people who are in the construction, engineering, manufacturing, or architecture space to see how you use coda on a day to day basis. Coda is very powerful, but there is a general hesitancy in these industries for new and evolving software.
Were currently building a complete project management hub with Tasks, Notes, Time-management, Stakeholders, File-management, BIM-Integration, Wiki, Protocols, Project Structure Plan, Lean-Management-Standards and KPIs
It’s supposed to grow to a single source of truth document for everyone involved.
Internal as well as external
Very cool. We have tried to do something similar, but have had issues about adoption. Have you used coda for anything else, or is the attempt to build this all out at once?
It grew from the time-management and to-do aspect (planning of the planning).
We’ve been using other tools but they all missed some major features. Coda isn’t perfect either (I’m missing sequential entries in the timeline) but in its core the biggest pain points of other tools can be solved.
most of the time it was “another tool you look into, one hour before meeting”.
So adoption was one thing that bugged us with other tools.
But I must say, that adoption with coda only grew with its functions. And I think that’s the main issue with specialized solutions.
Since the people are already in the coda doc because of “to-do’s”, their attention spills also over to “time-management” in our scenario. Being able to reference different features makes them even more involved.
like: “Oh my to-do is part of a process in a timeline, let’s check it out. Since I’m in the timeline, I might as well update that process”
And the more interwoven everything is, the more people use it
Hey Erik! I’ve built a couple of tools for construction/design clients: both for estimating and quoting jobs. Across industries, it takes a certain type of owner and team that want to work using digital tools.
I find if you can show and talk about real savings and improvements then people are more likely to at least try the tool. If you’re having trouble with adoption, try to speak to user pains (eg, back and forth emails/calls with a customer to refine the scope of a project) and how the tool can resolve them.
It also helps to build with the full team - invite them in on a regular basis to design and iterate the solution.
Hi @Erik_Andersson1,
I am a manufacturing engineer that has built tools for many projects and purposes for our company. I’ve built a tool that works as a simple document naming convention engine, I’ve built algorithms to help mistake proof other departments’ decision-making to optimize for production, and I’ve built project management tools that we used to launch into a new ERP system. I have found that the key to implementation is ensuring it actively simplifies workflows and mistake-proofs processes. It doesn’t add value for a veteran manufacturing manager to use this system unless you leverage the button automations and correct data views to keep decision making essentially on one page and with solid lookup dependencies. Essentially, if you can drive policy adhesion through the tool built, it will have great value. Especially for those complicated processes no one wants to implement in the ERP or operations management system.
I also use Coda for our sustainability program and other complicated programs where a lot is happening and there are a lot of stakeholders of the information…
A key workflow we’ve implemented across the company is in new product introductions / commercializations. Product setup takes input from all major departments, and we’ve made it super simple for everyone to contribute their needs and issues in a collaborative space. Once we took the plunge and ran with integrations like Zoom notifications, suddenly visibility is extremely simple.
Hope these cases help provide some insight. Open to collaborating if you want to see some examples.
Best,
Kolbi
We’re not in AEC specifically, but we have some overlap in what we do with AEC and collaborate with contractors, architects, etc. We’ve found Coda enormously useful as a customizable tool for managing business processes. We use it for to-dos, accounting/bookkeeping, invoicing, time off tracking, team performance reviews, CRM, knowledge base, inventory tracking, etc. The cool thing is that we can customize and automate things to fit our business rather than relying on what some general-purpose tool was built to do. We used to build a lot of this in-house with Python or other tools, but Coda is a lot easier for people on the team without a coding background to grasp. I’d love to connect and compare notes.
I also built a system for my condo association that manages amenity reservations, provides access to HOA documents (including contracts with our architects, engineers, and contractors…), offers surveys for owner feedback, lists units for rent, and provides a bit of a directory for those that want to share their info.
Hi @Erik_Andersson1
I am an architect in South Africa. Will be glad to share some of the relevant overlap with you in our endeavour to create a system for my little practice.
Hi @Konrad_Paul_Mertner
You and I seem to be on a parallel journey. Live connection to the BIM model is a critical component over here - currently exploring the best option for a robust bidirectional database link. It’s been such a pain over the years to find a system that works for small practices which gives us a lot of freedom to create connections during all work stages of our services. Would be keen to also compare notes on this journey with you. Products like Coda finally seem to offer the promise of such a system. It’s exciting.
Hendrik
I’m curious about your implementation!
Currently I’m still looking for a good and robust way to embed BIM models and upload them to that service using an API or web hook of some sort. I tried BIMcollab, Modelo and Speckle as well as some other smaller viewers. Speckle seems to be the best in terms of performance, workflow, price and aesthetics. But I’m having trouble uploading models without geometric issues there. The same with Modelo
If I’m not mistaken, Speckle is even able to provide parameters over its API.
All of that is supposed to live in a Coda table with files attached. I’m still not 100% sure if it’s a good idea to have Coda as a cloud storage in terms of performance.
Do you (or anyone else) have experience in huge coda-tables filled with files?
This file-table is being mirrored to OneDrive as a backup
Toe ek “Piet se groep” sien in jou pos, het ek gewonder of ek moet sê goeiemore of goede morgen!
Welkom by Coda!
What tool are you using for your BIM?
Groete
Piet
Ja hulle weet nie wat ons weet nie…
Ek het gesien jy boer baie hier. Nog nie seker of Coda is waarna ek soek nie, maar dit lyk na baie diverse en kragtige produk. Leer graag van jou.
I use Revit.
Hendrik
Unfortunately I have no implementation yet! But I will share with you some goals & sentiments of the current approach.
Just a bit of context. This is not a new journey for me and I know the need is shared by many other small practices / sole practitioners. Also worth considering that there is now what seems to be a new breed of products for us out there, including https://layer.team, which seems to be a very interesting product. I need to research more what is available currently but my reticence in committing to these products is the fact that these systems typically do not allow us to evolve the feature set as we have need. This is where a product like Coda.io comes in for me. The ideal would really be the ability to have a white label solution so that my client’s experience my company as the service provider and not an advertising vehicle for my service provider… but then for $10/m we should not lose perspective I guess.
That is a BIG statement and it’s probably semantics here but I presume you mean embedding a viewer (?) Unless you mean you are looking for a file repository for your BIM files for coordination purposes. I doubt very much that Coda’s file storage system is designed to to handle 100-500MB file sizes numerous times a day - but links to those files from another system in a table should be simple. We use Dropbox for that normally but the preferred workflow would be BIM360 from Autodesk - assuming you use Revit (?) (You seem to be from Germany so perhaps you use Nemetschek’s products?)
My approach would be much less ambitious. And perhaps we’re looking for slightly different solutions. So I would keep the BIM-to-BIM model / workflow with the consultants separate but all project communication otherwise as well as drawing issues, in this system online to be accessed at any time by relevant stakeholders. 3D interaction with Speckle (their 3D viewer collaboration service is pretty amazing) or perhaps Twinmotion Cloud might still have to be another separate process sadly - at least for now.
For me there MUST be a live bidirectional link with Revit metadata. So I am looking more toward the route of a creating an intermediate database link with Revit which Coda could also access, both in a bidirectional way. Even considering Google Sheets for this or else a MySQL or other cloud database. And so we have to include Dynamo in the mix.
Autodesk are accessing the integrations game with Platform Services but I want to stay as independent from that conglomerate as possible.
From a PM perspective, minutes, room data sheets, snag lists, drawing issue transmittals should all be integrated. Then extracting basic quantities & other schedules should harness Coda’s power with Revit’s metadata.
So, again, there is really nothing new here… So I might just add to the disparate landscape of imperfect solutions out there. But at least I’d feel we have some control!
Hendrik
PS: It would be ideal of course if we could get a native Coda-to-Revit connection. If it’s possible to create a Google Sheets connection from Revit using Dynamo, perhaps this could be achieved with the Coda API? I am trying very hard to remain an architect and have no experience at this level…