Contractor Foreman vs. Podio

Contractor Foreman works well for subcontractors and GC’s who don’t have the budget for higher-priced platforms (like Procore) but still need estimating, scheduling, daily logs, change orders, and job costing in one system.
For example, a 10–25 person construction company can replace separate tools (Excel, QuickBooks, text messaging, and whiteboard schedules) with Contractor Foreman and immediately improve organization and accountability.

Some people seemed to be confused by too many options. Customizing your work in a digital workspace needs means rethinking your possibilities by knowing your toolset well. In the beginning, I was a little bit frustrated, because I didn't see all these options and there was a lack of best practise. Studying the large Podio App Store solutions helped me to understand. If you do not have the time it's the best moment for getting in contact with one of the Podio partners.

Incentivized

• The service is top notch. You would be hard pressed to find other options with this kind of service.
• The ability to have your project flow through the modules makes it a breeze to use.
• Being able to track time as well is a key feature.

Incentivized

• Podio's apps are the most customizable tools I have seen anywhere, and I have tested and evaluated a large number of work management solutions. The abstract nature of their apps makes them ideal for very specific, niche cases as well as common, general purpose uses. The solution is elegant: an app is simply a collection of app items, with characteristics and perhaps links to other apps & their app items, all of which can be defined by your needs. Anyone who enjoys making "lists" of "things" should love this.
• Custom reporting is a dream in Podio. I can take any characteristics or fields in any of my app items, compare or filter them with other apps' items, run calculations on them and figure totals by month, team member or almost anything else you can imagine. The possibilities really seem limited only by your imagination.
• Podio has a lot of features, but another strength to factor in is third-party support. There are a lot of outside companies that offer additional features like detailed workflows, synchronizations between other cloud-based apps, and possibly even graphs in the near future.

• We already heard from CF that they might implement this, but a Gantt chart available while in the estimating tab, before you submit the project
• If you don't do things juuuusssst so, sometimes the system doesn't update or rejects what you're doing. It can be picky.
• You have to constantly refresh using their provided button. Fixes a lot of issues and becomes second nature, but a little annoying at first.

Incentivized

• Not sure if this has been implemented but having drop-down menus that change depending on your previous selection - AND/OR functionality would be great.
• Some ability to reskin Podio.
• Archiving of old projects / content of apps without manually moving contents.

Eliminated the need for our team to log into multiple systems to do their jobs which aligns to our Lean approach

Incentivized

Podio customer service is great. The cloud and mobile service is fast (almost instant, continuous syncing). With a solid user base, and backed by Citrix, this is a serious business solution. They're also constantly working on improving and making it more powerful. I anticipate it only getting better

Mostly great, especially for the price. The features appear to have definitely been designed by a team with a depth of construction specific experience. I also highly rate the usability because of the vast vast amount of customizability inherent in the system. It appears that almost all forms and features are customabizable on the company level and even specific to different individual users.

Incentivized

It is usable, for sure. Requires a bit of thinking to be really useful.

Availability was good, FUNCTIONAL availability was more spotty

Incentivized

Never experienced an off-time. Minor Bugs often solved within hours after reporting.

Incentivized

Many times we had issues that turned out to be errors and bugs. At first, we would be told forcefully that there were no bugs, then we would document them, and we would get an acknowledgement but no apology for essentially either gaslighting us or being ignorant of their system

Incentivized

It works all the time and if I have a question, support get back to me ASAP

Absolutely top notch! They were always there to help and immediately. Very happy with the communication they provided and the knowledge they had of their product. I would venture to say that they are one of the best in terms of support in their space.

Incentivized

Podio support was always responsive and very quick to provide answers and assistance during the history of using this product, their support team has always been top notch. There have been several cases where calling podio support a feature was not available and they provided either workaround solutions or added the features straight into their roadmap.

Incentivized

Implementation was moderately difficult, it's the functionality and execution that are seriously lacking

Incentivized

Could of got more help sooner and mapped out structure after the 1st month. Future planning

I used Projul and Buildium when I was primarily managing rental properties rather than full home builds. Projul was great for estimating and invoicing, while Buildium served its purpose well at the time. Now, as a small construction company, Contractor Foreman provides everything we need in one platform, making project management much more efficient.

Incentivized

As everyone knows Asana is a well-known project management solution but because of its ranking Asana and its functionalities are coming down and coming up with some complaints. So, I decided to choose Citrix Podio because it works well and provides effective services.

Incentivized

We had just 2 users

Incentivized

As you business grows, so does Podio. There seems to be no limit to the workspace and apps you can create on the platform

• Cost Savings. Integration with QuickBooks and Bills improved financial control. 0-15% cost savings per project.
• Time Savings: Streamlined project management led to a 20-30% reduction in administrative time, boosting on-site productivity, and with project tracking a 15-20% reduction in project delays.
• Enhanced Collaboration: Centralized documentation and real-time updates improved team communication, increasing collaboration by 5-10%.
• Overall, CF has provided a 10-15% return on investment annually through increased efficiency and cost control.

Incentivized

• Podio has made our internal communications more fluid and timely.
• It's much easier to search and find things (previous developments, notes, updates) in Podio than in the traditional combination of email, document storage, etc.
• The Podio platform fosters a clearer understanding of all the work, projects and updates we are juggling at any one time.

Incentivized