Welcome back as we continue our series on how to successfully implement Procore into your company. This blog is going to be focused on companies who followed our initial suggestions in the first blog and have had some initial success with it. You can start following these steps around the 4-to-6-month mark, but some companies may take a bit longer depending on how much training and practice they’ve had. We’re going to talk about how to start customizing Procore to your company’s needs, creating standard operating procedures from Procore, and utilizing Procore templates.
Before we get started on the new topics, I’d suggest that your company continues to have those weekly/bi-weekly focus group meetings. You can start to transition them to monthly if some groups are showing great success. However, continuing these meetings is vital in order to hear feedback from your staff on their issues.
Customizing Procore
The initial Procore system is built for everyone to pick up and serves a wide variety of construction companies. Some features may work perfectly out of the box, others might need some slight adjustment, and some tools may need to be completely revised to fit your business practices. The great thing about Procore is that nearly every tool can be customized. From the past few months, we should have a collection of some changes your focus groups had requested from their meetings. Now is the time to research and implement them. First, start utilizing the test project for any changes. One thing to know is that Procore Admin Settings will change all projects, however you can set project settings for individual projects.
Again, start with the low hanging easy fruit and work your way to advanced customization. Some common ones we often see (and are easy to customize early on) are the daily log items and the customized forms that are different from the Procore default forms, such as those for contracts and change orders. You can reach out to your Procore representative to have customized forms created for your company.
Creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
As you get more of the processes for the tools solidified and customized to your needs, it’s best practice to start creating a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) manual. This manual contains the exact step-by-step procedures to take using the different tools in Procore. They should contain instructions, pictures, videos, common questions and answers from the focus groups, and be in a place that should be easily accessible for all employees. We recommend a digital format that is saved on your cloud storage (such as SharePoint or OneDrive) on your server. This serves as a place for new hires to read and understand the process but also to refer back to for those tools you don’t utilize frequently.
The SOP manual should be updated as developments to your Procore take place, such as further customization or updating processes to be more streamlined.
Utilizing Procore Templates
Procore templates allow you to only see the tools and customizations you want for a particular type of project. For example, your Daily Log might have two different layouts depending on if it includes any sitework or exterior work. Project Templates also make project creation significantly easier and faster. To get a template set up, create a Project that all the settings you need. This will serve as a baseline. This is an area where a consultant, like ZenTek, can be really helpful to you. From there, you can contact your Procore representative to help you get that template into your system.
This is around the time your company starts to see a great return on investment for Procore, as your employees should be trained to do the basics and you start getting into some of the automation that Procore offers. However, some of the more advanced customizations may require our assistance. You can’t ask a question on a topic if you don’t know that topic even existed within Procore. And, around this time many companies start to be complacent with their settings in Procore due to how much time has already been spent. However this is a vital mistake when adopting Procore. You can read more about some more common pitfalls by reading our blog here.
Next in Series: Mastering Procore
