Version 9 is now the production version of Civil Pro. It is recommended all users upgrade, and seeing as it does not incur additional cost – why not!

Full project daily costs, docket, progress claim and invoice reconciliation management

Our daily cost and production management engine has been rewritten and extended. By the time you know your costs from head office, it can be as much as 6 weeks since they were incurred! Most engineers deal with this by monitoring their daily costs with some kind of spreadsheet. Then they have another one for checking dockets, and possibly another for invoices. Rack up more for checking against progress claims. These spreadsheets are hacked and copied, are inefficient and inevitably introduce mistakes.

Now you can manage it all within Civil Pro.

For smaller businesses, match our cost and revenue management with accounting in packages like MYOB and your projects will be as tight as a drum. For big projects and businesses, Civil Pro is the bridge between your everyday site work and your enterprise resource systems. On release we will have videos of how Civil Project can provide the best systems without all of the high level ERP overhead.

Electronic completion and approvals of checklists and NCRs

Checklists and NCRs can now be completed electronically using the mobile platform, windows application or combination of both. We have special reports that summarize the digital information about who checks, verifies and approves each item. The civil pro mobile approval request/response system means that approvers can integrate directly with your system and reduce the delays and paperwork associated with compliance.

More powerful progress claims

Progress claims now automatically calculate a ‘this claim’ amount. When each claim is created, it links to the previous claim allowing civil pro to calculate the difference from the previously certified quantities. Civil Pro also records forecast completion quantities so ‘at completion’ and ‘to complete’ can be added to your progress claims.

By adding your direct job cost rate (DJC) to your schedule civil pro can even calculate your earned budget (+ by cost code), and revenue to date, to complete and at completion – including adjustments for under and over claim. This capability feeds into our forecasts so the revenue side of your monthly reporting is automatically completed without any additional work.

And of course, a swag of new reports to support the new features.

Forecasts and financial reporting

Civil Pro uses the revenue forecasts from the progress claim and the cost to date from daily costs to make instant forecasts. Forecasts are automated so a basic forecast is created with an absolute minimum of additional information. As you add more detail, the forecast becomes more precise. We even create cashflows!

Better integration with Civil Pro Mobile

Civil Pro Mobile was developed to work with version 9 originally, but we bought it forward for v8 on request from our clients. Now version 9 is out, we have improved some of the workflows, including the security models which are now fully customizable and user definable. Some additional functionality has been added to allow the inclusion of any attachments – either from your lot documents or from your file system.

New registers

Civil Pro now supports the generation of risk assessments. These are most typically seen in OH&S documentation such as the Job Safety and Environmental Analysis (JSEA) of Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS) but will work for any kind of risk analysis. We expect to be including additional non-QA checklists (for example pre-start checklists and punchlists), but are not sure whether they will make the first v9 release or not.

Under the bonnet

Most of the work in the new version you can’t even see 🙁 – but we want you to know anyway

New data layer

You will notice the changes from the first log in which occurs in a fraction of the time of previous versions. You will see some other changes too – for example, you log in to your database first, then choose a project. This means changing projects is a breeze without having to create a new connection for each one. If all your projects are on the same database, you just use the same connection and choose your project. Easy.

Better memory management

The increase in photo resolutions sometimes caused issues in version 8. We have rewritten the photo preview layer so we can handle them in memory without issues. The change in the data layer also means civil pro has a smaller memory footprint, meaning you can easily run it and all the other programs you need for your workflow all at the same time.

Tighter error reporting

From version 9.41.61, error reporting is routed through a central error manager allowing more information in the instance that something goes wrong.

Multiple projects in standalone

Standalone files now support multiple projects. This makes is easier for users who run lots of smaller projects and don’t want to have to be hanging files all of the time. You can also store all of your template data in the same file with our repository projects…

Repository Projects

You can now assign any project as a repository project. This can just be a dummy project you use to hold your ITPs, work types, test methods etc so that you can import into new jobs quickly, or it can be a job you just finished that you use as the data source for your next job. Data can be imported easily from repository project on the same database with a couple of clicks from the context menu.

New features

• Export multiple reports to PDF – select the records to export, then click on the report while holding the CTRL key. Each report is saved to its own PDF.
• Copy from civil pro grids as raw text (exclude all of the tags for rich text) – refer short
• Auto-calculate testing based on ITPs when creating a test request.
• Lot summaries – users can compile everything including lot documents into a single compliance report using the Lot Summary function in the lot register.
• Lot map – use the lot map function to annotate a plan of your job to indicate where a lot is positioned, then save it to your lot documents.

More reports

• There are a stack of new reports;
• reports to support the new financial registers
• new claim reports
• ‘electronic’ reports to summarise information from checklists and NCRs completed through the mobile platform and approval request systems

Interface

Extended functionality in related items and linking

The related items engine has also been rewritten and now supports double click to add in every linking interface (as well as the good old drag and drop). Double click to navigate has also been tidied up to apply to all records.

More shortcuts

We are adding shortcuts (some with new functionality) all the time (refer to the help topic on Shortcuts and useful functions). Some shortcuts modify the behaviour of standard functions such as pressing the Ctrl key when running a report – this is used when printing reports for multiple records and you each one saved to its own PDF. For example, if you select two ITPs in the specification register, then select a Checklist report while holding the Ctrl key, you will be prompted for a folder location. Civil Pro will save two different PDFs – one for each ITP.

Where a menu item has a keyboard shortcut, you can see it listed next to their name.

Less clicks

Wizards such as the import wizard and the new project wizard have been streamlined to minimise the clicks. If we can figure out how to reduce complexity, then that’s what we have done.

More reports and improved customization

We have also changed the reporting engine and are in the process of rewriting reports so they are easier to customize and there is greater control during customization! Some of the reports to have the facelift include the checklist, ITP, NCR and Lot Conformance Report. Of course, the new reports for the Risk Analysis and Cost Management are in the new format.

More customizable view support, and more pre-baked views

Our customizable views have proven very popular with users. Version 9 now supports customization in more registers (the checklist for example) and we have written more pre-baked views that work out of the box!