HCSS Reviews and Ratings

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Score

9.5 out of 10

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for HCSS are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Availability of 24/7 technical help: Users appreciate the fact that HCSS provides round-the-clock technical support for any issues they encounter. Many reviewers have mentioned that this availability has been invaluable to them, allowing them to get immediate assistance whenever they need it.

Highly knowledgeable and prompt technical support staff: The technical support team at HCSS is highly regarded by users. They are praised for their expertise and ability to solve problems quickly over the phone. Several reviewers have mentioned that they were impressed with how knowledgeable and efficient the support staff was in resolving their issues.

Thorough training provided by HCSS: Users value the comprehensive training offered by HCSS, as it helps them maximize the benefits of using their products. Many reviewers have mentioned that the training sessions provided by HCSS have been instrumental in helping them understand and effectively use the software.

Reviews

38 Reviews

The only one for heavy civil construction

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

April 29, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The company utilizes HCSS HeavyJob to track and analyze daily costs and production quantities. It is provided companywide; however, adoption and use of the product to full capacity is definitely not reflected in the data.

Pros

Production costs
Production tracking
Equipment allocations

Cons

Appears complicated at initial onset; messy interface
Not very user friendly, even after training
Cumbersome when used in conjunction with other platforms

Likelihood to Recommend

HCSS HeavyJob is a great program that caters to, well, heavy jobs! Being what seems to be the only software for heavy civil construction, it makes sense to the company, and with good reason. HeavyJob has some really great features: the production reporting and forecasting are vital field tools that, when used as intended, can put your teams ahead of schedule, provide invaluable information on where the lag is or keys on how to pick up production for the next day/week, all in real time.

Angelique Hamm

Corporate Applications Manager in Corporate at Flatiron (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

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HCSS... a rockstar in the field!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

February 15, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

HCSS is mainly used by our production/operations department with HCSS Heavy Job and HCSS Dispatcher and our estimating department with Heavy Bid. It is a great tool in the field for capturing progress quantities and daily time cards. It has been extremely easy to use in the field which has, in turn, made it very easy to adopt by many as it takes little effort to master.

Pros

HCSS support is amazing. Call any time and you will speak to someone in Texas.
Daily snapshots of what happened are easily documented and can reported on.

Cons

HCSS is very expensive and can be hard to justify at times.

Likelihood to Recommend

The HCSS support structure is truly topnotch. Any time we have an issue and give them a call they are right on it. Between the response time to the time, the problem or situation is fixed, in most cases, it is usually the same day. They are great at helping you with the problem but also take the time to explain the problem, why it happened, and what the correction is/needs to be.

Verified User

Employee (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

The Cadillac Software

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

January 15, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

HCSS is being used in our Earthwork/Utility division as our bidding and project management software. Heavybid allows for consistent bidding while allowing us to pull bids together quickly. Heavyjob is being used for electronic time cards, quantity tracking, and labor/equipment tracking.

Pros

Customer support.
Easy to use.

Cons

I can't think of any!

Likelihood to Recommend

HCSS is great for bidding projects from $500 to $20,000,000 (these are the typical size of projects we bid on). It allows for multiple users to bid on the project at the same time, so if you have multiple estimators, it's perfect for that.

Dan Watkins

Estimator/Project Manager at Casper Construction, Inc. (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

View profile

A Leader in the Construction World

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

January 3, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

HCSS is used by various departments. Mostly in the field for timecards, cost controls, and engineering/bidding.

Timecards are kept in HeavyJob, which correlates and feeds info into JDE. The field uses these applications which are then analyzed and approved by cost controls.

HeavyBid is used by our engineering/bidding department. All major bids use this HeavyBid and we find it to be an extraordinary program. Allows us to compile a lot of historic data to be used in current bids. Truly a blessing.

Pros

HCSS works wonderfully as a timecard. Using the application is very easy and it speaks very well to our data systems.
HCSS is the pinnacle of estimating tools. It allows multiple analytics and set-ups for estimators. In addition, conversions of your bid into budgets are extremely easy once exported.
Within HeavyJob, once you enter in manhours and production data they run all the data analysis for you, providing graphs and figures from your inputs.

Cons

The software itself seems to be a bit outdated as far as user interface
I'm not sure if this is a result of too much data or what, but the programs tend to be on the slower side when importing and exporting data.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you are looking for a well-rounded tool that can be used by the field for Field logs, Man Hours/Timecards, estimating and analytics, this is the product for you. It gives the user a lot of controls and parameters to filter data by, and as far as estimating, I believe this is the best product out there.

J. Mickey Merguerian

Project Controls Coordinator in Finance and Accounting at Underpinning and Foundation Skanska (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

Behind the scenes review.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

June 15, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I work for a concrete subcontractor and we utilize both Heavy Job Mobile and Desktop versions. We use it for our mobile timecards, productivity tracking, dispatching, safety documentation and inspection management as well as training logging. With the exception of our accounting department, the rest of the company directly uses HCSS modules on a daily basis, including all field management personnel.

Pros

The modules integrate well with each other which makes information sharing easy.
The mobile application works well and has enough back-end customization to be useful to any type of construction company.
The mobile platform is clean and easy to navigate.

Cons

Document storage is a huge thing they need to address. Similar to how a Google drive functions, they need to create a built-in way to attach and store project documents.
The Extra Work Tag documentation in the mobile field application could use a lot of improvements from sequentially being numbered in some fashion, as well as multiple signature lines for both the General and the Subcontractor representatives.

Likelihood to Recommend

The training staff is helpful and I feel would be able to teach this program to any company and help implement.

Th platform is robust enough for the management team, however simply enough for our employees in the field to be able to use.

Verified User

Manager (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Good equipment cost program, but needs better initial setup.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

March 6, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

E360/Fueler Plus is mostly used by the equipment department. We now are using the mobile app that operators can notify my shop foreman about issues on the equipment he is running. It addresses scheduled PM service alerts and tracks all repairs and costs to each equipment. This is all done electronically now rather than paper and file folders.

Pros

E360 tracks cost and time for repairs.
Fueler Plus tracks dispersement of fuel (gallons to each equipment) and cost of fuel.
Simple to use once you get used to it.

Cons

When setting up equipment/vehicles the license plate or EIN are on another screen and not on the General tab. This total doesn't make any sense.
Fueler Plus time card is a joke. It shouldn't even be called a time card, because it doesn't function as one. It's more of a fuel time log.
There is no type of user manual for these products. Even a simple flow chart would work. I'm not a techy person, so I like visual stuff.
At implementaion everything is going so fast that I missed a lot of technical important stuff. No disrespect to the implementor, but it felt like because they have done this a million times, we should already know this. I believe this is where hand outs are very important. One example was setting up PM's. I don't recall them saying that I would have to initialize each one for each eauipment.

Likelihood to Recommend

Once set up properly, I believe it's a great way to track cost and fuel usage.

Dennis Daikoku

Equipment Fleet Manager at Preston Pipelines Inc. (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

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HCSS HeavyBid Review

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

January 29, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

HCSS is currently used to bid on projects.

Pros

Organized
Easy to use and learn new features.
HCSS listens to its users to help make their programs very user-friendly.

Cons

None so far.

Likelihood to Recommend

HeavyBid is very useful for bidding work.

Verified User

Project Manager (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

HCSS saves us time and wins us jobs.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

January 29, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use HeavyBid for all of our estimating and HeavyJob for production tracking.

Pros

Absolute best aspect is their tech support. They always answer the phone and nearly always have the solution at hand. That is absolutely critical when working on a bid.

Cons

A few years back they implemented a Work Breakdown Structure type estimate but it has been slow to evolve. I understand this due to most of the industry lack of use of the product but that creates a chicken and egg scenario. Perhaps they would use it more if it were developed further.
There needs to be a mobile integration with HeavyBid for Android.
HeavyJob has seen some great upgrades to the mobile side on iPad and to a lesser extent Android. They need to stay concurrent with each other rather than forcing one OS on users over the other.
Similarly, while tablets have gotten love, Windows based touch screens, like Surfaces, have not. This are becoming more and more common, but if you want to use one for HeavyJob you have to use the clunky PC version and not the optimized for touch version that is on the tablets.

Likelihood to Recommend

It is most suited for heavy civil construction. It is not very well suited for straight-up building construction and negotiated work. Although it can still do it, it just isn't tailored that way.

Christian Long

Chief Estimator in Sales at Astra Group, Inc. (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

View profile

What's so HEAVY about HCSS

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

January 23, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

HCSS is primarily used at our organization by our Underground group. The primary product we use is HeavyBid for estimating new projects as well as large change orders on existing projects. While we have licensing for both HeavyJob and Dispatcher also we have not had much success utilizing them to their full potential due to internal company issues. Overall HCSS provides a robust project management solution allowing for the information to flow freely from the estimators to the project teams.

Pros

HeavyBid integrates well with our accounting system and has reduced my budget development time significantly from our previous software.
HeavyJob's ability to capture field information from a mobile device is key to future success in the industry. There are several other platforms which provide the ability to capture field data but to date I have yet to find one as robust and user friendly.
HCCS's customer service is the cornerstone of my continued support of the software. I have contacted them several times after hours only to be greeted by a knowledgeable PERSON. The ability to converse with someone who knows the product and how to resolve issues without being on hold or speaking to a computer is invaluable.

Cons

HeavyJob is not envisioned to be an accounting system by the developers. Eventually more auditing capabilities will be needed.
Custom reports are expensive.

Likelihood to Recommend

HCSS is a flexible system and can be suited to nearly any need. The largest problem I have found is that many users don't know what they want at first and it is fairly cumbersome to change some of the key components the further down the implementation process goes.

Daniel Duke

Project Manager at ARB, Inc. (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

9 years of experience

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HCSS Feedback

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

January 19, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

<p>Our foremen currently use the Field System to create and send timecards. We will begin our testing phase to transition to mobile devices in the near future. Our Office Managers are the final approval level for timecards sent in by the foremen. They track attendance to manage paid and unpaid time off from work. Engineers and Superintendents use the Manager System to review and approve the first two approval levels. They review labor hours, cost codes, quantities and equipment codes and hours. They use the Production Analysis and Planner as well as other reports available in the Manager System.</p><p>We recently upgraded to 2016, and we have had a few kinks that we are working through, with HCSS. Overall, I feel the upgrade went well with a lot of work from HCSS and our team. Our company uses Specialty Jobs which is a complex element to manage.</p>

Pros

HCSS has established a team to assist our Company with any issue that arises. They respond timely and give us quality service.
HCSS works to accommodate our need in using Specialty Jobs, which tend to complicate our use of the product.
HCSS has created a very good process flow for Project Jobs with their product.

Cons

Some of the reports contain just the Foremen employee number, it would be great if they also contain the name.
Some of the reports are not compatible with running them in Excel, it would be great to be able to dump the data into an Excel spreadsheet.
I would like to be able to run User Accounts into an Excel spreadsheet.

Likelihood to Recommend

Mildred Rodriguez

Production Coordinator at The Lane Construction Corporation (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

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Reviews and Ratings

A Leader in the Construction World

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

January 3, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

HCSS is used by various departments. Mostly in the field for timecards, cost controls, and engineering/bidding.

Timecards are kept in HeavyJob, which correlates and feeds info into JDE. The field uses these applications which are then analyzed and approved by cost controls.

Pros

HCSS works wonderfully as a timecard. Using the application is very easy and it speaks very well to our data systems.
HCSS is the pinnacle of estimating tools. It allows multiple analytics and set-ups for estimators. In addition, conversions of your bid into budgets are extremely easy once exported.
Within HeavyJob, once you enter in manhours and production data they run all the data analysis for you, providing graphs and figures from your inputs.

Cons

The software itself seems to be a bit outdated as far as user interface
I'm not sure if this is a result of too much data or what, but the programs tend to be on the slower side when importing and exporting data.

Likelihood to Recommend

J. Mickey Merguerian

Project Controls Coordinator in Finance and Accounting at Underpinning and Foundation Skanska (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile