At the end of September, the team at Cassell Consulting joined the Viewpoint Construction Software Conference. The annual event offered a preview of what is new and improved with the company’s many software programs and services for the upcoming year. Its location at the Oregon Convention Center was evidence of the company’s surging growth. In prior years, the company’s office complex in SE Portland and even a local hotel‘s re-purposed parking garage had legendarily served as headquarters. But with over 1500 guests in 2014, only something like the one million square foot convention center would do.
At a meeting for partners held right before the official events began, Viewpoint’s Tom Kobayashi previewed a new web interface with upgraded security and a dashboard that included Hourly Time, Resource Management and VPC integration. We’ll have to wait until probably March of 2015 for that to be rolled out. But for this fall, we were shown Viewpoint for Estimating, Viewpoint for Cloud and upgrades for Project Collaboration, Content Management and Resource Management – which looks like it’s beginning to expand into a Scheduling Program. It was clear Viewpoint plans to continue developing its family of programs to maintain its competitive advantage.
“Collaborate” was the key word at the conference. It was the main theme of CEO Jay Haladay’s kick-off speech. It was right there on the cover of the conference’s hefty guidebook. The exhibit hall was staffed by Viewpoint representatives – of course – and the software giant had reserved for itself the center of the hall. But surrounding it were concentric circles of booths manned by companies with products that integrated with Viewpoint. The company appeared to be living by its word.
Among the collaborators we spent time with John Gerardi of ProEst, and picked his brain about the company’s estimating program – a favorite at our offices – while the conference’s attendees were busy taking seminars about Viewpoint program enhancements. What impressed wasn’t just the flexibility of its databases, and how CC could help businesses configure the program to meet their needs, but John’s festive personality. How could anyone not want to buy software from this man? Or at least join him for after-conference drinks when the opportunity arose. About Time featured their Mobile Resource Management Software, a powerful tool that integrates mobile field data with Project Management and Accounting. We’re excited about the opportunities it presents to increase efficiency and plan to soon offer this product at Cassell Consulting. Smart Reality demonstrated a mobile app that allows you to point your cellphone at a printed plan, which is instantly converted into an interactive 3D model.
Over the coming weeks we’ll be updating and expanding our website to feature the new products, features and services that all of these changes at Viewpoint will bring. We want to keep our existing clients in the loop, and help new ones become familiar with all the ways strong project management software can help bring order and efficiency to business.
