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New Asset Features to Boost Progress Tracking on 2D Drawings

Published Date
Author Justin Dye

 

Tracking progress for different areas of installation on a project can be tricky. While project schedules are helpful, they’re often static and don’t contain real-time info on a project. On top of that, some teams or subcontractors track their own updates independently, leaving other stakeholders out of the loop.

This lack of connectivity and collaboration can cause wasted time and avoidable delays. A survey by the resource management firm Planview found that teams without integrated or centralized tools lose as many as 20 hours a month. Moreover, 54% of respondents said poor collaboration led to missed deadlines, while 35% noticed a reduction in quality.

All this to say that when teams aren’t aligned on project information—such as installation updates—it’s more challenging to prioritize and execute the necessary work.

 

Introducing progress tracking within the Assets tool

One of the ways to solve the issues mentioned above is to make progress and updates easily visible to teams. That’s why we’re excited to unveil the new progress tracking features built into the Assets tool within Autodesk Build.

With these new capabilities, you can visually markup 2D sheets and track asset progress to keep office teams updated while empowering folks in the field to forecast their productivity and quickly adjust to scheduling changes.

These features also help ensure that different trades and teams understand what’s ready now, what’s next, and what’s falling behind—thus reducing miscommunication and delays.

 

 

Key features

To help you get the most out of the progress tracking capabilities within the Assets tool, here’s a quick rundown of some key features:

  • Create and View Assets on Sheets – You can now new assets directly onto the 2D sheets. If there are existing assets, you can link to them easily. Multiple assets can also be made quickly when drawing on a sheet.
  • Tracking Assets on Sheets – You can view and edit the status, references, or any custom fields for an asset directly on a 2D sheet. The assets change color based on their status to visually show progress.
  • Analytics & Reporting – Need to access and organize your asset progress data? You can export asset detail reports as a CSV or PDF report file. There’s also the option to use Data Connector and Power BI templates to extract asset data and drill down into customizable dashboards. This allows you to get a big-picture view of all things progress tracking.

 

Examples and use cases

There are many use cases for how someone might use these new progress tracking features. Here are a few examples:

 

Viewing status updates

Let’s say a general contractor primarily uses 2D PDF drawings and needs to visually see the status of the concrete pour directly on their drawing.

With Autodesk Build’s progress tracking capabilities, the GC can go directly into their drawing (using a mobile device or computer) to view the status of the pour, along with where it’s happening on-site. From there, they can make edits and updates or view additional information related to the task, such as issues or photos.

 

Tracking wall buildout through framing, drywall, taping

Here’s another example. Suppose a drywall subcontractor wants to track each wall’s framing, hanging, and taping status right from their 2D PDF drawings.

They can use progress tracking within the Assets tool to create custom categories for each wall type. They can also customize the status sets to mirror how they want to track completion.

From there, the subcontractor can simply go into the 2D drawing and trace all walls they need to install. As construction progresses, they can view on a 2D sheet color coding statuses of how far complete their wall installations are.

There are some clear benefits to Autodesk’s new features, but don’t just take our word for it; teams are already starting to see the value in leveraging these progress tracking capabilities.

“We are very excited to see the 2D markup functionality from Progress Tracking being brought into the Assets tool workflow. It is helpful to be able to quickly see on a 2D drawing not only the location of the asset itself but also the color coding for progress status updates. 

I also think having this visibility integrated into the greater assets workflow is critical so there is one centralized place to go see and find information. Now I can easily access all information related to that asset, whether it is links to asset documentation or related issues, create more customized asset categories, as well as see progress tracking updates from my drawings. It helps all our teams stay updated and improves overall transparency.” – Weston Short, VP of Engineering & Innovation at Gaylor Electric 

 

Bringing it all together

It’s challenging to execute a project if teams cannot track progress. This is why features like progress tracking in Autodesk Build are vital for project teams. If you’re looking for an easier way to visualize, track and analyze the progress of various moving parts of a project, be sure to give the feature a try.