Practical Guide to Project Set Up as an Electrical Contractor

Overview & background 

Electrical Contractors use Fieldwire to create scalable project templates to manage any work the project requires, including, but not limited to, material ordering and delivery,  installation, testing, commissioning, and more. 

My name is Eunice and I am on the construction team at Fieldwire. I work with a wide variety of construction firms, including Electrical Contractors. I’d like to share my knowledge on how I approach project setup through the lens of an Electrical Contractor!

If the workflow aligns or is a close start, please reach out to support@fieldwire.com for a copy of this Project template.

 

How to use this Guide to set up an Electrical Contractor’s Template Project 

This workflow provides Electrical Contractors a way to quickly get a project up and running in Fieldwire. It will guide you through setting up a scalable project ‘Template’ on the web version of Fieldwire (app.fieldwire.com). You and your team can then begin to capture Field data in that same project on our website, and our iOS and Android apps for your tablet and/or smartphone.

Each time you create a project on the web, you can clone elements from the Electrical Project template to reduce setup time and create standard best practices across your team and company.

Table of Contents 

• Create a Project
  
• Create a Plan Folder Structure
  
• Create a File Folder Structure
  
• Create Task Categories
  
• Create Custom Task Statuses
  
• Set Up Checklist Templates
  
• Set Up Report Templates
  
• Set Up Forms
  
• Clone your ‘Template’ Project
  
  

Create a Project

Any Account Owner, Manager, or User can create a Project on the Web Version of Fieldwire (app.fieldwire.com). To create a new project click the big "+New Project" button on the Project Dashboard. After you choose "+New project" you have the option to clone an existing project. So, after a Project template is created, you can clone project settings and selected attributes from that project into any and all new projects. 

• How do I create a project?

Create a Plan Folder Structure

Plan folders are often used to segment disciplines in a construction plan set, or to organize as shop drawings and cut sheets.

To create a new plan folder, select the ‘Plans’ tab then select ‘+New Folder’. 

Note: Only Project Admins can create new Plan Folders.

 

Plan folders follow an alphanumeric sequence in the Plans tab, so Electrical Contractors are encouraged to number the plan folders in the order of most-accessed disciplines. For example:

After you set up the plan folder structure, you can upload plans, by discipline, to the pertinent folder. Take a look at the article below for more information on that: 

• How do I use the Plans Tab?
  
  

Create a File Folder Structure

Files are used to store supplemental projects documents outside of your project plans. 

To create a new file folder, select the ‘Files’ tab then select ‘+New Folder’. 

Note: Only Project Admins can create new file folders.

Similar to plan folders, file folders follow an alphanumeric sequence in the Files tab So, users are encouraged to number the file folders in the order of most-accessed content. 

A typical file folder structure for an Electrical Contractor may follow:

After you set up the plan folder structure, you can upload Project Files and Documents, to the pertinent folder. Take a look at the article below for more information on that: 

• The Files Tab

Create Categories

Categories are the primary way to sort and filter project ‘tasks’. Tasks are a versatile and quick way to capture and organize field data, photos, and files. 

Project Admins can create a category by selecting the ‘+ New Category’ option at the bottom of the categories list.

For an Electrical Contractor, categories could include various electrical sub-scopes, quality control, material requests, pre-punch inspections, general to-do items. After creating relevant categories, each ‘task’ can then be associated with the appropriate category.

You have full freedom to create any sort of unique category to fit your project needs. Here are a few ways Electrical Contractors could set up Categories:

• How to create a category?
  
  

Create Custom Task Statuses

While Categories can be used to organize and track tasks, Custom Task Statuses are available to Pro and Business Subscribers, and can more accurately designate the stage of work that the ‘task’ exists in. Task Statuses serve as the primary means to see how your tasks have progressed. 

There are two ways Project Admins can create Custom Task Statuses:

1. Adjust Task Statuses from the Project Settings
   
   
   
2. Adjust Task Statuses from the ‘Tasks’ tab
   

Custom Task Statuses can align with your team or project’s workflow or the general life cycle and progression of your tasks. While categories can indicate the discipline, statuses empower users to know the stage of all tasks at a glance. 

Here are a few ways that Electrical Contractors have set up Task Status workflows in their projects:

• What is a Task?
• Custom Task Statuses
  
  

Set Up Checklist Templates

Checklist templates are a powerful way to provide standard approaches to different types of issues or observations, you, or a team member, might experience onsite. 

Once a checklist template is created, it can easily be pulled into a task to seamlessly provide a structure to complete your tasks or provide detailed instructions. 

There are two ways to create a Checklist Template:

1. Project Admins can create the templates under the Project Settings:
   
   
   
2. Project Admins can create checklist templates within a ‘Task’
   

Once a checklist template, that details a common workflow is created, it can be inserted into any task. 

For example, an Electrical Contractor may create a rough-in checklist template and use it in all rough-in tasks to provide a standardized approach to completing Rough-In's:

• How do I manage my checklist templates?
• How do I use checklists?

Set Up Report Templates

Reports are professional PDF or CSV exports of any or all Tasks. You can set up Report Templates, that capture field data related to key project objectives and key results.

Report Templates can be used to produce a one-time report or report generation can be automated to email that report to a group of stakeholders on a recurring basis.

Project Admins can set up report templates from the ‘Tasks’ tab after selecting ‘Generate Reports’.

Here are a few examples of Report Templates set up by Electrical Contractors:

• Constraints report - if you’ve tagged the word “constraint” on all Tasks that involve GC-caused constraints, you can create a ‘PDF Detailed’ report template with a ‘Tags’ filter for “Constraint” to produce a constraints report.
  
  
  
  
• Room tracking report - if you have a ‘Category’ called “Room Tracking,” you can create a ‘PDF Detailed’ report template with a ‘Category’ filter for “Room Tracking” to produce a report that contains the current status of all room tracking tasks.
  
  
  
  
  
• Overdue report - if you have start and end dates associated with your tasks, you can create a ‘PDF Detailed’ report template with a time filter for “Overdue” to produce a report of all overdue tasks.
  
  
  
  
• How do I Sort and Filter Reports?
• Practical Guide: How to configure tasks for great reports
  
  

Set Up Forms

Building out commonly used Forms in Fieldwire is a great way to standardize paperwork across all your projects. Another benefit of digitizing paper Forms would be that it allows users to easily capture field data and complete and submit Forms from their mobile device on the Jobsite. 

There are six default Form Templates that can be used by an Electrical Contractor:

If need be, you can customize these templates to your company standards or create any Form your company uses, such as work orders, electrical panel schedules, change orders, etc.

• What are Custom Forms?
  

A common way that Electrical Contractors use Fieldwire forms is to track extra work with a Time & Material Tag. From the jobsite, a user can easily create a new T&M tag, log information, capture photos, and even obtain sign-off from a GC representative.

• The Forms Tab
• What are 'Time & Material Tag' forms?

 

Clone Your ‘Template’ Project

Now that we have configured the ‘bones’ of your project structure, you can clone the Plan and File Folder schemes, the Task Categories, Task Statuses, Checklists and Reports Templates from the template project whenever a new project starts to save time and promote standardization: 

 

If you like this project set up or think it is a good starting point, please email support@fieldwire.com to request a copy of this template.

 

Find out how Electrical Contractors use Fieldwire:

• Houle Electric turns to Fieldwire to simplify the project’s complexities. Fieldwire provides key transparency to the client and helped increase efficiency throughout the project’s stages.
  
  
• Blue Mountain Electric managed and sorted 1,000 plans on Fieldwire and tracked all upcoming electrical tasks on the $50m Puget Sound Naval Air Station hanger retrofit.
  
  
• ABCO Electrical once relied on binders. Now, they're entirely paperless. ABCO used Fieldwire to improve workflows and gain a competitive edge as an electrical contractor.
  
  
• DC Electric saves 2-3 hours per person each day using Fieldwire’s custom forms and is almost entirely paperless on the jobsite.