Question
What happens if I want to invite my subcontractors to my projects? What are the benefits or drawbacks?
Answer
Companies and project administrators often need to determine whether or not they should add their subcontractors to Fieldwire. This article highlights a few relevant scenarios.
Keep in mind that Fieldwire is priced per user, so adding subs will increase your user count, regardless if they are invited as a follower, a member or an admin. However, by adding your subs to your Fieldwire plan, you can make use of the full functionality of Fieldwire, saving you time and money on your projects.
Cases where we recommend adding your subcontractors to your project
You should add your subcontractors if you expect they will be active contributors to your projects; meaning, you fully expect them to add markups, create and comment on tasks, add photos, etc.
If you'd like to keep an external record of the work your subcontractors have completed onsite, then opt to invite them to your projects.
When you add your subcontractors, they will also have access to all of the most up-to-date project information and will be able to view new drawings as soon as they are uploaded.
More significantly, the whole team can collaborate in real time. By being empowered to document and communicate issues as soon as they arise on site, you will build up a fully time-stamped and traceable record of the whole project.
Some users will also leverage sub-specific categories for their trades in conjunction with the 'Follower' permission to ensure that the subcontractors will only have access to the tasks they need.
Will I be charged if I choose to add my subcontractors?
If your subcontractors do not have a paid subscription of their own, then the Account Owner will be charged a prorated amount for their usage. Some owners will opt to have their subcontractors purchase their own Fieldwire subscription prior to being invited to the project. The subscription could run for the duration of the project; when the subcontractor no longer needs access, they can cancel the subscription on their end, and any Project Admin can remove the subcontractor from the project.
Alternatively, users on an Annual subscription can retain additional annual licenses as 'seats' to cover any additional subcontractors they may add throughout the duration of the project. Since Annual licenses are not associated with specific users, you could keep a revolving set of users and add or remove them on an as-needed basis. For example, if you have 2 annual licenses, and users A & B, you can replace user B with user C; since there will be two users, and two licenses, the users would be covered, and the account owner would not receive an overage charge.
If you are on a Monthly subscription, and you invite your Subcontractors, you will only pay for the amount of time they are on the project. To minimize costs, simply remove them when they no longer need to be on the project.
For more information about pricing, refer to Fieldwire Pricing and Overages.
What if you do not add your subcontractors to Fieldwire?
If you choose not to invite your subcontractors to Fieldwire, you can still keep them up-to-date with project information through Fieldwire's sharing capabilities (such as reports and plan exports). Here are some options for exporting content:
- Q&A: How can I export (and print) a copy of my plan(s) with Tasks included?
- Practical Guide: How to configure tasks for great reports
- How to Download (Export) Previous Versions of a Plan
You can even share individual pieces of information directly with subcontractors, such as tasks:
Note: sharing plans, reports, photos, and tasks in this way does not allow for real-time collaboration and will not capture comments or responses from the recipients.