Navigate the Cost Code List in HCSS Field iOS and Optimize Your Work

Alright. So, again, good afternoon. My name is Aneel Bhimani. I am with the product team at HCSS here. I primarily work with our iOS development team, and so we mostly see the HCSS field and the HCSS MyField product, specifically on the iOS platform. And so today, we're gonna talk about the cost code list, which lives in the HCSS field product. Our goal for the webinar today is to introduce you guys to the cost code list. We released this about with the first iteration, released right around UGM, so around February, and then the details portion, we released late March. And so we'll cover the what goes into both sides, both the list view and the details view. And then we'll definitely save some time for feedback from you guys because this whole list view that we're gonna go into actually came from feedback from our customers. And as I'm sure you guys know, HCSS definitely values customer feedback, and so this is a product of that feedback. And so we're always open for additional feedback to continue to improve our products. So just diving into the agenda, what we'll cover, we'll talk about what exactly the cost code list is in field, how to get to it. We'll talk about why we actually built it in the first place. We'll talk about just a basic rundown of the functionality. So I'll do a live demo from my iPad to kind of show you with some demo data what data can be shown in this module. We'll talk about some future plans that we have, some additional data points we wanna add in, and then finally, we'll open it up for q and a. Perfect. So why did we actually build the cost code list? And actually, before I get into any of the weeds, if you do have any questions or any thoughts throughout the session this afternoon, feel free to put it in. There's a chats option in Zoom, and so just throw in chats, and then we have Thomas here who's monitoring the chats and answers some of those questions. We'll also have a more formal q and a at the end. So why did we actually build the cost code list? So as I mentioned, the need for having this cost code list in the mobile app came from you guys, from our customers. Right? Over the years, we've got a lot of feedback about how, there's a need in the field, especially to see all the data that's tied to your cost code, to your jobs production in a single pane of glass. And unfortunately, historically, that data was kinda dispersed all over the place. So let's say, for example, you wanted to see the cost code's production to date. There's different ways you could do it. You could go into time card, add the cost code, tap into the cost code, and then view that information. Or you go to job analysis, set the date range, set your foreman, and then you can see the production data to date. And so we did have that data, but it was kinda dispersed. And then the job analysis would show the budget information and your actuals. The cost code on the time card wouldn't show that information. So the data was kind of not as cohesive as people wanted it to be, especially you or customers wanted it to be. And similarly, let's say you wanted to get the job to date breakdown to see how the work was estimated. Right? You wanna compare how did we perform to date versus how was this work estimated for us. So you'd wanna see your estimate notes. And to do that, you'd have to go back to the time card, add the cost code, compare the notes in the time card estimate notes section into the job analysis module, see them, and then try to make some assumptions on, are we performing as estimated, are we better than estimation, are we are we worse? So it wasn't as as cohesive and as simple as we we wanted it to be. And then the other thing that we would hear is that not only was the data dispersed, another example of the data being dispersed is if there's issues on the cost code To see any issues or any RFIs or dig permits or anything that's kinda ancillary to the core of the work, you'd have to go into the project controls module. And so if you're looking at your production in job analysis and you're seeing, okay, we're behind. Why are you behind? I wonder if there's any issues tied to it. You'd have to back out of job analysis, go into project controls, go into your your issues there, and then see the data. So not only was data dispersed, another key piece of information we received from you all was that there wasn't enough data in the app to allow the foreman to make their planning decisions. So one example of which was seeing budget information for work that wasn't yet started. And so like we talked about in the time card or in job analysis, you could see in progress performance, but job analysis wouldn't show data for unstarted cost codes. If I just wanted a quick snapshot of what is my production quantity budget for this cost code, what is my labor hours budget, what is my equipment hours budget for cost code that I had not yet started on, I couldn't see that right away with job analysis. Or similarly, if you wanted just a quick snapshot of how much material was received on your job site, how much of that received into your hub and installed, and then the remaining stockpile information, we didn't have a good way of showing that data previously. And so based on based on that feedback, based on all the, information that you guys provided us, the solution we developed is what we call the cost code list. And the cost code list is basically a centralized view, within the work plan. So it's it's narrowed down, spundled down to a specific job, and then under that job, a specific cost code. And in that view, you can see your former can see all the information they need to help with planning and decision making out in the field. So let's dive a little bit deeper and go into the weeds of what actually shows in these views. Next, we will do a live demo here in a minute. I just wanna give a quick overview with some screenshots of what's in the view. So starting with the list view, here you can see your production right off the bat. Very simply, you can see how much or how little of my work has been done. This view will always include your data across all your format, and it will always be up to date data. And the other thing is even if the cost code has not been started yet, it'll still show up in this view. Other thing you can kind of see right off the bat is you can see if there's any linked issues that may impact the work. So is there a potential change order tied to this cost code? Is there linked issues tied to the cost codes? Are there submittals? Are there dig permits? You can see all of the data there. And the power of this list view, which is all your cost codes across your filtered job, is actually in the filtering and sorting options that we have, and we'll show that off here in a second. And then once you tap on one of your cost codes, we'll actually take you to the details view, and the details view is basically any data that we had previously across different screens in the app. We've consolidated all of those and put them in one place. So here, you're looking at a single cost code, but within the single cost code, you're seeing all your cost code tags that are tied to it. You're seeing your production progress, but that'll show you what's been done to date as a percentage, the quantity itself, and then the remaining. You'll see your estimate notes and resources. You'll also see if there's any linked pay items. You can see your budget breakdown, so you can easily see if you're at budget, over budget, under budget. You'll also see a budget breakdown by your custom cost types. So you can see by your by your labor dollars or your equipment dollars. If you use custom cost types in heavy job web, if you have, like, a fuel budget or a trucking budget or anything that's more granular, we'll see all of the that breakdown here. You can also see any linked items, and you can actually tap into them and see the details. So if you have a potential change order or submittal or an issue that's impacting this cost code, you can see that. And then, of course, your linked materials with the stockpile information I talked about earlier. And then we've also because this is a new screen, because your users may not be familiar with going into Workplace and seeing this screen, we've also linked it in screens that they may be familiar with. So when they're in job analysis and they're viewing a specific cost code, at the top right, there's the option for seeing all the details, which will navigate them to the new details view. And then similarly, they're production plan, there, they can quickly tap see all details, and they can see, okay. I'm building this plan. Let me see how it was estimated for the work to be done, or I'm building this plan. Let me see what linked materials I need to plan for for this time part or for this production plan. So all of that information is relevant, it's linked back to these additional screens. So I'm gonna swap over to my iPad, and we can do a a demo walkthrough of of the module. Alright. Perfect. I should be seeing the iPad right now, which I believe it does. Okay. So this is your typical dashboard and the field app. Where this is is in the work plan, and where work plan is is the top right. So right above the date where you'll see it says August nineteenth today, right above it, there's the work plan button. If you tap on that, you'll it'll take you right into the cost code list. Taking a step back, if you're not familiar with the work plan, there's a lot of good information that lives in this view. The cost code list is what we'll talk about today, and that's the first tab there. But if you have any production plans, that information show up here. If you have a crew that's either dispatched from dispatcher or that's on your time card, that information show here. If you have any scheduled meetings, those can show here. So I won't get into the weeds of the different tabs within work plan, but there's a lot of good data that lives within the work plan module itself. But today, what we wanted to talk about is the actual cost code list. This list, by default, it'll actually sort by code. And so just as heavy job sort does, alphanumerically, it'll have, your code. But as I kinda alluded to earlier, the the power of this list view, which is a very high level view, is within these filtering and sorting options. So, and my favorite is probably if I sort, I can sort by completion percentage, and I can very easily see what work has been done highest percentage to lowest percentage. So for whatever reason, on this Staunton Lake job, I've done two twenty nine percent of, my first cost code. I've done two hundred percent of my drill and shoot raw cost code. But I can just kinda scroll down and see some better data here, and I can see that, oh, I'm very close. I'm ninety eight percent done with furnishing twenty four inch RCP. I'm ninety six percent done with pay this pavement work I have to do. So that as at a very high level helps me as a foreman with my planning so I can quickly see, okay. I know that this work is done. I have a dedicated crew to, this pavement work. I need to figure out what to do next with this crew. And then very similarly, we have the opposite. So if I go back to sort here and I can sort by instead of, high to low, I can sort low to high, and I can see, okay. I've done here are my cost at the top that I've done no no work against. Here's you know, I've done one to two percent against. I know that I want this pipework to be done by the end of the year. I know that I'm only I'm only four percent done today. Let me figure out what changes I need to make as a foreman to make sure that I'm working towards these goals to get the other ninety six percent done. So there's a lot of value. Just gonna this in this, sort view some other options that we included is sorting by pay item. This is something that we added into the time card screen. You get a a high level view of, okay. If I'm looking at my my site work, what cost goes under that site work, is helpful. So we do show this in in time card, but this just makes it a little bit more more granular where you can see based on the site work pay item I'm doing, here is how my individual cost codes are performing. Or based on the subgrade pay item I'm doing, here's how my individual pay items or cost codes are performing. And so all of these can be changed within the sort options at the top here. And once you set it once, let's say you always prefer to see your data by pay items or you always prefer to see it by completion percentage, that preference will will stick going forward. Similarly, you can go in and sort by labor hours. And so I know that as a form, I wanna see which of my cost weight is gonna take the most work, the the most man hours. So I can go in, sort by my labor hours, and I can see, okay. This twenty four inch pipe is gonna take me the most man hours, and then way at the very bottom, I have I have cost codes that take the least amount of work. And so all of that is kinda coming from the lens of help me plan better. So I'm gonna go back to sorting bottom of completion percentage, and I'm gonna do high to low. The other neat thing there's there's a search option. If you know which cost code you're looking for, you can search. And then, of course, being being on an iPad, on a touch device, you can you can just scroll right away. The other neat thing that we have is filtering. So if you tap the filters icon, we let you filter by your your cost code tags. So let's say you're today or this week, you're specifically interested in what electric work do I have left to do, or or what is the per progress on electric work I've done? These tags are set in the HeavyJob manager system, and your field can then go in and choose which filters or which tags they wanna filter by. And the last thing before we get into the details view, what we what I wanna show off here in this list view is I'm kinda right off the bat, you can see your your cost code, your cost description. You can see the percentage of work completed. You can see the remaining. But what we did kinda right below that is any sort of data points that may impact this work, we've we've connected it right in this list view. Right? So I can see that for my twenty four inch pipe, I have a dig permit. And not only do I have a dig permit, that dig permit, that orange triangle lets me know that's an expiring dig permit. Within the next seven days, that dig permit is gonna expire. So if I want to if I need to keep doing this work beyond that seven day window, I need to make sure I get this permit updated. There's also a request for information that's pending. I need to get with the owner to see what is the answer for this RFI so that I can then convey it down to the field. So this is the this is what we call the list view. Let me tap into one of these, and we can actually go to the details view. And I'm actually gonna rotate my iPad real quick so I can see it the long way. Both of these screens work both landscape and, portrait mode. So here I am in the details view with let me take a step back. What I did is all I did is just tap into twenty four inch RCP. It takes me to this view. Right at the top, I see the cost code and the description. We have the arrows. If I wanted to go back or forward, I can go and see how different cost codes are performing, but I'm gonna stick to this twenty four inch RCP. Again, we show you right off the bat the tags that's tied to this cost code, so I know that this specific cost code is tied to my storm work. And then in the general section, the same data you saw previously with the progress circle and then the budgeted quantity, the to date quantity, and the remaining quantity, we show all of that in this view as well. We also link your estimate notes. So I can quickly see that down below, have all my budget information. I can see how it how it is performing to date. But in the top, I can see how was this actually expected to be budgeted estimated to be to be performed. So I can see that, okay, when the estimator estimated this work, they expected me to use forty eight thousand linear feet of twenty four inch RCP, they expected me to have ten hour shifts, they expected me to do one hundred and fifty linear feet per shift, and then this is the crew makeup that was expected. So as a foreman, if this is work that I haven't yet started, that let's say I'm gonna start a week or two weeks from now, I know that, okay, I should plan for this crew makeup and these resources when I plan to do the work. And then pay items, if you do have pay items linked to the cost codes, you can see that right off right away here too, so you know that, this RCP work is tied to my sewer line pay item. Going into the budget details here so at at the top here, you'll see your production based on production quantities. Right? So linear feet specifically. In the budget details, obviously, you'll see things based on dollars, and then also hours. Before I get into the weeds of this, I do wanna mention that, you know, a lot of times we'll get feedback that I don't want my foreman to see all the dollar information. That's that's information that they don't need to know. They don't want to know. As a as a company or as a project manager, I don't want them to see this information. Great. We can accommodate that. There's a preference if you go to credentials and in the subscription group for the foreman, there's an option that says show cost. If you disable that show cost flag, it'll hide all of these dollar amounts here. It'll only leave the labor hours and the equipment hours, and all your dollar information will be hidden from them. Same thing in in this view. Well, actually, view doesn't show it. Same thing in another view that I'll show here in a second. But, yeah, this is with the show cost data on. So, I can quickly see at the top most information, my budget for this RCP work was, three point three million. To date, I've done two point seven million. I have six hundred and twenty thousand dollars remaining. I can see where I am at a quick snapshot of what was my budget by my individual cost types and where I over budget. So the red, I can see that I'm thirty one thousand dollars over in my material dollars expense and another twelve thousand dollars over in my repairs, that that being because I've spent money towards my repair cost code without actually having a budget towards it. This view, the there's two tabs in the budget breakdown. There's the budget, which is just straight math, which is your budget minus your actual, which you're remaining. And then if you're familiar with job analysis, you'll be familiar or even some of our reports in HeavyJob web, you'll be familiar with the expected calculation. And so HeavyJob does a calculation based on production to date. We'll say that you've let so I've done ninety eight percent of my work. HeavyJob expects me to have spent nine hundred and eighty two thousand labor dollars. To date, I've only actually spent four hundred, and so I have a positive variance of five hundred and seventy one thousand. Similarly, the same math applies for labor hours, equipment dollars, equipment hours, and then all the other dollars down here. And so you can quickly compare against what does heavy job expect you to have done based on your progress, or you can just see the raw math of I budgeted this, I actually spent this, and then here's my remaining money. Right below the budget information, we have what we call our linked items. Here is similar to what we saw on the list view. You can quickly see what items may be impacting the production on this cost code. So here I have a submittal, and I can see that it's been sent to the owner. I also have an issue that's been created. It's a gas leak, and it's in draft mode. And so maybe it was collecting additional information, on that gas leak, and so that's why it's still in draft mode. And I can also see I have a dig permit that expires in three days. And so if I tap into let's say I tap into the dig permit, I can quickly see that, it's impacting two of my cost codes. It's also tied to my plans drawings. So if I have if I use HCSS plans and I have plan sheets linked to this cost code, it'll show up here. And I can see who is responsible for this dig permit, who placed the dig permit request initially, what was the turnaround time. If there's any notes, it'll show up here. And so I can in this case, I can follow-up with Ian and be like, hey. This dig permit's expiring in three days. This work's not gonna get done in three days. It's gonna take another two weeks. We need to get a new dig permit. The other good thing that's built right into this view is if they're looking at all the details of the cost codes and they notice an issue, they can tap into add issue, and they can add an issue right off the bat, right on the fly in the field app. They can log the information. Because I was viewing my twenty four inches RCP cost code, it automatically linked that for me, and I can populate any my information and send it off to the field or send it off to the office. And then finally, we have the linked materials section. This is where you can see what's been received to date, what's been installed to date, and then what is essentially your stockpile, what is remaining on your job site. And so it'll have any linked materials on here, that's tied to this cost code, and then you can you can see how how much has been utilized and then what what do I need to order more of. So, I don't have a good example here, but let's say let's say I had, my 24in pipe, I had received sixty four hundred. I let's say I already, I installed or or yeah. If if I installed more than, and I can kinda dig into and see what it see why that is the case. And then you can you can also toggle to different cost codes in this view. The other thing that if you're filtering down let's say I only wanna see my concrete work. If I have two concrete related cost codes, when I tap into one of them here, when I filter, I'll only see it's pre filtered for me based on the concrete work, so I can't see anything beyond just the two that I had already filtered down to. K. See there are and then in fact, it does work in landscape and in portrait mode. I see there's questions coming in. Let me swap back to the presentation real quick, and then we'll pivot to questions here in a second. Alright. It should be showing the slides. Yep. Is okay. Excellent. Alright. Perfect. So what's next for this screen? We do have some plans, specifically on the material side. One of the things that you notice is that we do have the we show you're received and you're installed and then your stockpile. What we do wanna also add in is budget information. So how much was this well how much was this material budgeted to be done against this cost code? That's something that we do have plans for, but like I mentioned at the beginning, we're always open to ideas. So if you have ideas of additional data points that already exist in HeavyJob that you wanna be able to send down to your foreman that's tied to your cost code, we'd love to have that. So feel free to throw that in the chat or message me. My email is there, and then we can look into getting that added. Alright. Yeah. We can open up for questions. I see there's a lot of good questions. Tom, is there anything specific that you wanted us to talk about? Is there anything is one that was a feature request. Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Let me find it. Will you be adding a filter option to filter the dates to show a certain pay period? The dates. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah. We hadn't thought of that. We hadn't considered doing that yet just because this view, we wanted to make sure it's always what's been done to date so that people wouldn't have to filter by a specific pay period or a specific forming group. But that's something that is of interest. We can consider that. But the goal this view specifically was to be everything to date regardless of who did the work or when it was done. Okay. I think that was one of the main ones. Everything else was kinda just how to get how to get into it. So it's just kinda helping them out with that. So Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So this is this is in the Work Plan module and I can, let me shift back to the iPad real quick and show that again just because I went there pretty quick. Okay. Perfect. So when I'm in the field app, and this is the dashboard that you guys are used to or your foreman are used to, the work plan is located right above the calendar. So if I hit August nineteenth, I'll see my calendar where I can see the my historical transactions I've done. Right above it, there's that blue link to work plan. If I tap on that, this will it'll show me my my cost code tab and then everything else that's in work plan. I did see one of the questions mentioning that they saw crew and production plan and things, but not cost code. This was a new addition this year. So as long as you're in one of our twenty twenty five releases, especially the newest one, you'll be able to see this data or see this tab. And so that's again at the top right, work plan, and then you'll see the the cost codes. It is filtered down. So I had chosen my Fountain Lake job on my dashboard, so it is filtered down to my Fountain Lake job. I can go in. If I wanna see it for a different job, I can either go to the dashboard and change the job, or I can come in here right under Fountain Lake. I can tap the little drop down, and then there's an option that says select another job, and I can go in and choose my hand grade job or any other job, and then I'll see the cost codes and the data tied to that jobs. As you'll see, because I had sorted by completion percentage for the previous job, it kept that preference for me. And so now even though I'm looking at a totally different job, it's it's automatically sorting my data by the completion percentage. Similarly, if I had sorted it by pay item, it would have kept that preference. And yes, I still see something. Yeah, this is an iPad only functionality. This option doesn't exist on the iPhone version yet nor on field Android. This is just on the iPad version. Yep. I see there's a question about how to set up the cost code tags, and Tom sent a help article on that. All all the the filtering, the tags that show up in this view, those will be set up in the manager system. And if you need any help with that, feel free to give us a call at our support line, or if you go to help.hcss.com, you can find the information there as well. It looks like most of the nope. There's some more questions here. Okay. So we had a question come in. If a customer is using DIS on a hybrid system, which means they have a desktop back end as well as our web interface, will this data come in accurately? That's that's correct. Yeah. So this functionality will work whether you're using our hybrid system or if you're using a web only system. The cost code data on the back end all lives in the same place, and so the mobile app will pull all of that in. Okay. Let's see. Yeah. Good question, Ada, about the stockpile information on materials. The question was, is it showing the stockpile for the just for that cost code or for the entire job? It's actually showing for the showing it for the entire job. And so how, materials works is that when they're received, they're received against the entire job, and then you install them per cost code, but then the the stockpile information is against the initial received amount. So it's across the entire job what is the remaining stockpile regardless of what cost code it's gonna be performed on. Okay, and there's a question from Joe about job analysis is limited to the foreman time card. Is there job analysis that could be for the entire job? So in job analysis, there is an option to change it from the individual format to all foremen. So initially when I go into the screen, it only had me selected as the user on the device. But if I go in and let's say if I had just an Andrea, if I go in and just change it from Andrea to myself or sorry, to to all foremen, then it'll look across all my foremen and their production across across all all the foremen. And then if I do to date versus the date range, it'll show show that information. The other thing that we talked about in the slides that I can actually demo is when I'm in job analysis and if this is a screen they're already used to seeing, if I go to my cost code, let's just choose this cost code, we do have the see all details button here, which will link back to the main screen. So let me go back to my actual Fountain Lake job, which is the one that has better data. So if I'm in job analysis and I have all my foremen and I'm looking at everything to date, if I go to let's go to which is in my so does twelve inch trenching. If I just go to see all data, I can see the cost code details there as well. So it's linked back to job analysis. Good questions. Alright, perfect. Feel free to throw in any other questions you have. I'm gonna swap back to the slides real quick, but we'll be around to answer any other questions you may have. All right, perfect. So just to recap, the cost code list and the details view, it is live. It's in field iOS, specifically on the iPads. As long as you're on any of our newer versions, 2525.3 or onwards, you'll be able to see it. We always recommend just updating to the latest version, which you can just find in the App Store, or you can reach out to our support team and they'll be happy to help you out. And then the whole goal of it is just to help your foreman see any sort of information that they want to see that's related to the cost code out in the field. The goal is to help them with their planning, to see production to date, and just make sure that they're staying on track and able to do and build the project right. And if you want any more information, just some tutorials on the Academy. You can to academy.hcss.com, you can find more information. And of course, we have our help site, and then we have our twenty four hour support team whose number is here. So if you get stuck on trying to get an update going or seeing your data or if anything's not looking right, feel free to call our support line. They'll be able to get you squared away. And if you're ever just needing additional help, additional consulting on best practices or any of that, we have our consulting team, and you can find their information by going to hcss.com/ consulting. All right, that's all we have for today. Hope you guys learned something new. Hope this was valuable. We'll be around if there's any more questions. Not, we'll talk to you next time. Take care, everyone.