Overview & background
Construction Change Orders are a common occurrence-- in construction, time is money.
Managing Change Orders, however, doesn’t need to be difficult or time-consuming.
Fieldwire makes your change order process runs effectively through clear documentation and tracking.
Document Unforeseen Circumstances
Change Orders require records to justify their effort, and with the Fieldwire construction app, you can keep track of every little detail and notify everyone of potential cost impacts by creating tasks.
Let's say you're replacing the roofing on an existing building and, as the operation begins, your field crew finds deteriorated decking.
Use Tasks to track Additional Work
You can easily keep track of every little detail by creating a task for the decking replacement and pinning it to your roofing drawing.
- Add a category i.e. “Change Orders”, so that all of your Change Orders are in one place.
- Assign it to certain clients so they are aware of the additional work and potential cost impacts. Alternatively, you can export this information into a report, which will be discussed in the following section.
- Populate manpower and cost for tracking purposes.
- Add photos of the existing decking and record any important notes in the messages.
Every update to the task is timestamped, so you can see a chronological history and instant notifications are sent out so everyone stays informed.
A Fieldwire "task"
Export task information as a backup for the Change Order request
When the time comes to send in the official change order form, there are two different ways you can export task data to further support the contract updates.
Option 1: Reporting on multiple Change Orders
Generate a PDF Detailed report from the Tasks tab by clicking on 'Generate Reports' and select the 'Change Order' category under Task filters so all of your change order tasks are included in the report.
- Log in on web and select 'Generate Reports' (within the ‘Tasks’ tab).
- Select the 'Change Order' category under Task filters so all of your Change Order tasks are included in the report.
- Add in as many recipient emails as you would like even if they aren't on Fieldwire.
Tip 1: Explore the other ‘Task filters’ to further refine your report. For example, you can use ‘time filters’ to only include Change Orders created in the last week.
Tip 2: Ensure that your company logo is uploaded in the Project Settings to ensure that the report is branded correctly!
Extract of a Fieldwire PDF report
Option 2: Reporting on a single Change Order
If you’d like to share one task, you can export it as either a formatted PDF or an email.
- Select the blue "Share" button on web, then choose “Email”.
- Choose whether you’d like to send a basic email (HTML) or a formatted PDF.
- Enter in the recipient's email and they will receive an entire history of the task.
Upload approved change orders and have a record of all changes
Now that you’re using Fieldwire to effectively record and track your change orders, the approval process will be a breeze.
As you receive approvals, you can upload them into Fieldwire (into the ‘Files’ section) and attach these files to the relevant tasks by clicking on the blue paper clip icon and choosing an existing file from the Files section. You can also attach the Change Order to the relevant position on the plan, as shown below.
Attaching a file to a plan
When revised contract drawings are issued, upload them to the Plans tab and Fieldwire will automatically slip sheet them as new versions. Your project team will have all of the information they need, and you can come back even after the project has closed out if you need to reference information.
Construction Change Orders can often be contentious but now with the Fieldwire app you will always have a clear paper trail at hand with minimal effort.
Now that you've read about Change Orders, you may be interested in:
1. How to use Fieldwire for your Punch List process
2. How to conduct inspections in Fieldwire
3. How to use Fieldwire for your LEED Documentation process