Announcing Field Note Enhancements

OpenSpace has become a crucial part of the workflow for many construction companies this year, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and partly because our product allows teams to work more quickly and efficiently. Our goal is to give you greater visibility into your job sites so you can complete your projects on time and on budget. As our company continues to grow, we are making OpenSpace even more powerful. 

Today, we’re announcing that Field Notes have gotten much better. 

Field Notes is already one of the most-used features within OpenSpace. It allows anyone to add notes to a specific location or item during a walkthrough of the job site—and most importantly, those notes are automatically tagged to location, with no manual input required. Our customers use Field Notes in many different ways. Some teams document small details like outlet locations, while other teams mark temperature and humidity to ensure plaster is not damaged. The list of use cases is long. 

If you’re already using Field Notes to keep track of important issues on your job site and communicate within your team, the updates below will give you even more ways to do so. If you’re not using Field Notes yet, this is a great reason to start.

Custom Tags

Create your own tags and add them to any Field Notes you choose. This is fully customizable, which means you can use it in many different ways. For example, if you need to send a weekly report to your architect containing all relevant issues, simply add an “Architecture” tag to all Field Notes that you want to include. Then, it’s easy to download a report and send it off to them with just a few clicks.

Priority Status

Add a priority status to any Field Note, ranging from “P1” to “P3,” or mark it as “Completed.” When you have a lot of Field Notes for one project, it can be hard to manage them all at once. Using priority status, you can focus on the ones that are the most urgent and make sure they get addressed quickly. For example, if debris is causing a safety hazard in a high-traffic area, mark it as a “P1” so it gets resolved quickly.

Advanced Filters

Filters have been added to both the Sheet View and the First Person view. You can filter by priority status, custom tags, or integrations with project management tools. This gives you the ability to quickly find relevant Field Notes and identify issues. For example, a Superintendent can find issues related to a specific trade or a Project Engineer can find all “P1” issues on the 5th floor of the job site. 

Email Alert List

Now anyone on your team can get updates about a Field Note. Add people to the email alert list and they will be notified every time the Field Note is edited with a new status, comment, or tag. Improve communication on important areas of your job site. For example, if a railing has been installed incorrectly, you can add the Superintendent, Project Engineer, and Subcontractor, who will each get updated on progress to ensure the issue is resolved properly. 

Matt Goodman, a Site Supervisor at Teak Construction, has been using Field Notes for over a year. He says it is “a versatile tool used to generate reports for Quality Assurance Checks, Progress Tracking of Sub-Contractors and Consultant Communication.” He has also gotten a preview of the enhancements announced today and says they make Field Notes even more helpful.

Not using OpenSpace yet? If you want to learn more about our technology and find out why our customers believe it’s indispensable, reach out to our team for a demo.