Bluebeam vs. e-Builder

As stated before, the mobile application is a great companion to the desktop version. Either one works great in viewing, editing and saving documents. While the measurement tool is handy to have, we have found the precision to be lacking when measuring scaled drawings (construction design drawings). While it is a good rough place to start for measurements, we wouldn't recommend relying on the precision of the measurements taken on something with a very large scale.

Incentivized

e-Builder is well suited to situations where there are stakeholders across a large organization who need updates on a regular basis and great for tracking costs and schedule. It is less well suited to small projects with little complexity. It is also not well suited to projects with multiple primes

Incentivized

• Overlaying pdf drawings to identify changes made by architects.
• Scaling dimensions when the architect has not provided required dimensions to proceed with work in the field.
• Hyperlinking construction documents with required information makes it much easier to look through multiple sheets in less time.

Incentivized

• I appreciate the fully configurable dashboards. They are beneficial for both individual or company-wide use.
• Getting email alerts when documents are recently uploaded is helpful with staying on top of current submittal processes. Highly supportive in the process of getting items paid for in a timely fashion.
• Redundancy is easily reduced because e-Builder is helpful in standardizing different processes. Transparency is also emphasized, which keeps people on the same page.

Incentivized

• If you have several tabs open and you try to drag one out for a side by side view then you do not have all the modification options and you have to combine them back together.
• There is a lag time when hitting the print option.
• There is also a lag time when opening files, sometimes I think the window is frozen.
• I wish the basic version also had basic file editing, as in editing a document as Adobe does.

Incentivized

• It would be great if EB can introduce an asset management module where we can tie assets to a project. This is the biggest issue I am currently having. If you can develop this, it would make Finance, Engineering, and Operations life easier. In addition, synchronize data out in field to EB for creating specific reports. For example, in water utility environment, knowing how much total linear feet of water line pipes were installed per day, per month, or per year. Furthermore, know what size pipe was installed.
• Help improve the Planning Module and make it more user friendly, similar to the updates made to Schedule Module
• Provide better reporting options on Dashboard Module. For example, allowing us to choose different types of charts, colors, etc.
• Improve the speed connection downtime which always happens around 1230am-2pm EST. EB really drags in speed when already logged in or having to log in to access the system.

Incentivized

Bluebeam is a powerful PDF viewer and mark-up tool. We are more familiar with it than Adobe Acrobat Pro or other viewers, and it has more features geared towards construction document managers than Acrobat Pro does.

Incentivized

Because again, one of our biggest clients entrusts E-builder to work with their systems. And its functions work for us as well.

Incentivized

I'm constantly finding that Bluebeam Revu does more than I knew it could. And when I find something that it can't do, I've found that Bluebeam truly listens to its user base and will work to incorporate any good suggestion when feasible.

Incentivized

Simple, because have a used it for the past two years, so i'm very familiar with the particular aspects of its program that I need to accomplish my tasks.

Incentivized

Its hard for me to give a rating on this one as we rarely have to use the support feature for Bluebeam. However, when we have used it, they have been ultra supportive in helping us get exactly what we needed. I know another engineer was trying to figure out a feature and the rep gave a detailed tutorial on how to complete the task

Incentivized

Again, because our technical support is great. He doesn't always answer the phone but he definitely responds to emails fairly quickly. In addition, I like that he actually resolves an issue and I have yet to encounter the same issue twice. Actually, I haven't encountered many issues at all in the two years I have used the software.

Incentivized

1. Set up the time to get training on the sytem before you go all in.

2. Listen, ask questions and actually practice using the tools and features while in class. It helps tremendously with becoming comfortable and remembering how things work.

3. Don't be afraid to mess up. They are helpful and will help resolve your issue in a timely manner

Incentivized

Bluebeam is a diverse program with many functions and tools, whereas competitive programs only specialize in one or few tasks. Although there are many tools within the program, users can still quickly learn how to use the program to best fit their needs. There is always a help tab for any assistance needed.

Incentivized

Procore is much more user friendly and better for project management however there are features in e-Builder that I do not have access to that probably make it more attractive for owners as they deal with financial management of projects.

Incentivized

• A major positive aspect is being able to take your computer home without taking the entire set of paper drawings. They have made it so easy to navigate a set of drawings that I can work at home using only the digital drawings.
• Collaboration with owners and architects has been a great feature. Setting up a Bluebeam studio and having everyone get in and mark things up, then having the architect be able to go in and see what markups have been added, has made the constructability review process much much better.
• Even when not working on drawings, Bluebeam is a very good tool for working with standard PDF documents. The markup tools are very easy to use.
• The negative aspect is the takeoff function because some people would like estimators to use the Bluebeam takeoff because it would make their job easier down the road; however, the actual act of doing a full scale takeoff in Bluebeam would require much more time.

Incentivized

• Has added extra steps to processes that were previously easier. And I work for a university that complicates everything
• Has more than cut in half the time it takes to generate reports about project status
• Has made project management more efficient

Incentivized