Pre-Construction Project Tracking: The HeavyBid Module Every Estimator Needs

Whether you’ve already fallen in love with the HCSS platform or are just kicking the tires to see how much time and cost construction software can save you, you’ve probably heard HeavyBid Pre-Construction mentioned. While HeavyBid is used for estimating (submitting and winning more proposals), this subproduct of HeavyBid is used for estimate management and project tracking.

Key Features and Benefits of HeavyBid Pre-Construction

Offering numerous features to vastly improve efficiency, accuracy, and forecasting throughout the project lifecycle – from the initial bidding phase all the way to job completion – Pre-Construction is definitely something you’ll want to hear more about.

NOTE: With Pre-Construction being a completely web-based program, when you log in, you don’t need to log into your server. If you’re using the HCSS Cloud, you can launch Pre-Construction from HeavyBid, but you don’t need to. Accessing from hcssapps.com works as well.

Here’s a summary of the key features and benefits of the HeavyBid Pre-Construction module:

Opportunity Tracking

Addressing users’ common reliance on Excel spreadsheets, opportunity tracking enables teams to categorize their opportunities based on status—whether they plan to bid, have submitted bids, or opted out—while aggregating valuable data for analysis. As users refine their tracking, the system generates insights on which projects are more likely to win and yield higher profit margins.

Additionally, tracking bid outcomes, especially wins and losses, allows estimating teams to not only assess performance but also inform future opportunities.

Customizable Project Status Tracking

Pre-Construction offers users a flexible and intuitive way to manage project information that’s tailored to their specific needs. By utilizing a drag-and-drop interface, estimators and their team can easily add new fields, such as critical dates for mandatory pre-bid meetings, ensuring they capture all relevant data essential for successful bidding.

Users can also create personalized views and save templates. With an unlimited number of customizable fields, tailoring the system to capture the most critical information is a breeze.

Cross-Estimate Reporting

Cross-estimate reporting in Pre-Construction allows managers and executives to access essential metrics (labor costs, man-hours, etc.) in a much simpler format. Users can easily view data across various timeframes, such as yearly or quarterly, providing an in-depth look into bids that were won or are still pending.

“This really enables cross-estimate reporting for your entire portfolio of work that you have won and will help you start forecasting what those resource needs are, giving you some of that data to make those informed decisions,” says Phil Baranowski, Vice President at HCSS.

Associate Estimates to Projects

One of the most unique aspects of the Pre-Construction module is the ability to associate multiple estimates with a single project. Previously, managing multiple estimates for the same project could be cumbersome, but this new functionality allows users to link several HeavyBid estimates—whether for initial bids, design phases, or change orders—directly to a specific job.

Users can easily upload relevant files, such as plan sets or vendor proposals, and associate them with an exact project for easy access. Additionally, integration with the estimate history feature in HeavyBid ensures that both archived and active estimates remain accessible, granting teams a surefire way to draw insights from past data while managing current estimates.

Key Performance Indicators

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) within the Pre-Construction module offer valuable insights for teams managing estimates and bids. Accessible from the same interface, these KPIs allow users to evaluate performance metrics against historical data, helping to identify trends and anomalies.

“Again, another feature I wish I had when I was managing an estimating team,” Baranowski comments. “I highly, highly recommend KPIs.”

This feature not only provides a way to filter by owner, type of work, or location but also supports the establishment of baseline estimates for more customized comparisons. Importantly, these insights are available independently of project tracking, making them a versatile tool for any estimating workflow.

Calendar Sync

The calendar sync feature in Pre-Construction is a project manager’s dream, designed to ensure that critical bid dates are always at your fingertips. The module provides two-way synchronization to ensure that dates are kept up-to-date and consistent between platforms.

“This allows you to update bid dates or times on your Outlook calendar,” says Amanda Ayles, Group Product Manager of Estimating. “That will keep data in sync in Pre-Construction project tracking so that you really are creating a system of truth for important dates and information on your projects.”

Connecting to HeavyBid

Pre-Construction’s integration with HeavyBid streamlines project bidding, allowing users to seamlessly transition from opportunity tracking in Pre-Construction to generating estimates in HeavyBid.

“All of that valuable data that’s already been tracked on the project in Pre-Construction can now flow down into HeavyBid and become part of your estimate information,” Ayles says. “We want to just enable that whole process so you don’t have to worry about whether or not data was moved over properly.”

This powerful feature automates data transfer and enables users to efficiently filter and manage estimates without re-entering data, making the bidding process substantially easier and more accurate.

Any Questions?

With Pre-Construction, the aim is to help companies like yours track the entire project lifecycle – from the initial estimating phase all the way to job completion. To receive more information on how Pre-Construction can help you, reach out to one of our product experts today.