Inside Buildertrend: A quicker way to start your day

Show Notes

Every other Thursday, weโ€™ll give our listeners a glimpse into the inner workings of our business with our new โ€œInside Buildertrendโ€ series on โ€œThe Building Code.โ€ What are our teams working on? What features are coming up and how will they benefit our users? What data and research are being collected behind the scenes? Tune in as we take a look inside Buildertrend.

How will the new Summary page help our customers?

On Episode No. 3 of โ€œInside Buildertrend,โ€ Brad Dinan, product manager, joins Zach and Charley to talk about the newly refreshed Summary page.

Hear how the updated design of Buildertrendโ€™s landing screen makes it easier and faster than ever for builders to prioritize their day.

What are the key takeaways?

  • About the new Summary page: The usage of the original landing screen was very low. Most users would begin there but quickly navigate to another page. With the redesign, the goal was to personalize the experience for each individual user. It gives them the information thatโ€™s most important up front, so they can prioritize their day.
  • Prioritizing your information: The Summary page is the first thing users see when they log in to Buildertrend. With the update, users can now see the overall landscape, a snapshot of what’s going on with their projects. The most important information will appear based on set deadlines, so users can decide where they want to start.
  • Easier account navigation: In addition to quicker navigation from the Summary page to other areas of the software, thereโ€™s now an activity feed. The activity feed, a feature users love in the mobile app, is now available on the desktop version. This makes it easy to review the most recent and critical notifications first.

Why is this cool for Buildertrend users?

Our customers rely on us to equip them with a Summary page that assists with running their business. For it being the first screen that our customers interact with, there was very little interaction. With the new redesign, thereโ€™s less friction, and critical information that moves jobs forward is front and center.

The new experience gives users easy access to tools for communicating quickly on urgent items that may require more attention.

Related content:

Check out the last โ€œInside Buildertrendโ€ episode to learn about the offline Daily Log capabilities.

Catch our next โ€œInside Buildertrendโ€ minisode next week. Subscribe here, and never miss an episode.

Got podcast topic suggestions? Reach out to us at podcast@buildertrend.com.

The Better Way, a podcast by Buildertrend:

Looking to improve how your team plans projects with the worldโ€™s No. 1 construction management software? Pick up Buildertrend project planning pro tips on the newest season of โ€œThe Better Way, a podcast by Buildertrend.โ€ Subscribe and stream all of these bingeable episodes on your favorite listening app now.

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Transcript

Zach Wojtowicz:

Welcome to โ€œThe Building Code.โ€ Zach Wojtowicz here.

Charley Burtwistle:

Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And today we have Brad Dinan, Buildertrend employee here in the Product team with an update with some exciting new things coming down the pipeline from our software which is, ultimately, why people are here.

Brad Dinan:

That’s why we’re here, at the end of the day.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Brad, we were just talking before we went on air, never been on a podcast before.

Brad Dinan:

You know, this is my first time. I did want to mention that I’ve got a couple offers from Barstool Sports and Joe Rogan, had to turn those down, wanted this to be the first one. So glad we could make it happen.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We hear that a lot. So, we appreciate you making time for us. We know you’re really busy. Tell us a little bit about your role at Buildertrend. We’ve had a few of your peers from the Product team, but maybe give us a little background, your Buildertrend story.

Brad Dinan:

Yeah, absolutely. So, like you said, been here about five and a half years. Started in the Customer Success department. Like a lot of people in our Product department. So, kind of got the insights of training users, onboarding them, how to use the software, figuring out pain points, trying to get past those pain points, removing as many blockers as we can just from our user’s workflow. So, I found myself two and a half years into that role, just getting very passionate about user problems and how we can make their experience better in the platform, honestly. So, with the help of a couple senior leaders, Scott Seager and Eric Fischer, I don’t know if you guys know them or have ever heard of them.

Charley Burtwistle:

I’ve heard of them a couple times.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I don’t know who that is.

Brad Dinan:

Yeah. A couple guys that are kind of around here.

Zach Wojtowicz:

My current boss. Never heard of him.

Brad Dinan:

Yeah. But had some conversations with them, and they really wanted me to take that next step toward product. They thought that the way I was working and questioning things was more geared toward a product role. So, I don’t know if that was just them pushing me out of Customer Success.

Zach Wojtowicz:

How it goes, honestly.

Brad Dinan:

Now that I think about it and say it out loud, but regardless.

Charley Burtwistle:

Why do you think Zach’s on the podcast?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve had a week-long roast session from Charley, and I’m not sure where the heat’s coming from. So, just buckle up. It’s all in good fun.

Charley Burtwistle:

It comes from a place of love. That’s an awesome background though. And I do love that that’s Buildertrendโ€™s frame of reference. If you’re in a position, you’re talking to customers, and something isn’t the way they want it, instead of just avoiding it, you steer into it and you’re like, “well, we’ll just fix it.”

So, the big reason you were here today is talk about the new Summary page. Just launched. I mean, you guys have been working on it for a while. It’s a huge update. It’s awesome. Where did this kind of start? You know, you talk about customer problems. Is that something you were hearing a lot or where did this come from and kind of how’s it going?

Brad Dinan:

Yeah, absolutely. So, honestly, this update wasn’t more so like hearing customer feedback and saying this isn’t the right solution, this isn’t helping me do my job on a daily basis. It’s more that we had that big react conversion going on, and we had to get this page converted over into that new react framework. So, we could honestly do a lot cooler things with it, honestly, and then gear it more toward our users.

So, Charley’s going to love this, but we pulled a bunch of data around. Had to mention that. So, we pulled a bunch of it, extremely low usage, if any, on existing solution. We pulled some heat maps and things like that. And the only thing that we were seeing was people were landing on that page and then navigating off of it. So, that was very easy for us to basically say, โ€œHey, let’s take a look at all the feedback we’ve gotten over the years.โ€ Really story map out what we think would be beneficial from a landing page perspective for our users, and then just started building out that solution. So again, very easy for us to do that. But our main goal when we were kind of designing this new page was just providing more of a personalized experience for each individual user. And honestly just helping them prioritize their day more efficiently.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Well, before we kind of go a little bit further, I think it’s really interesting to hear how you guys go through the decisions you make. We don’t just, I think the perception can be, we just tweak it, change it. You do extensive research and validating and you actually put it in front of users and observe their behaviors and really dive deep into what are the actual common workflows that people would expect in a software, and that’s what prompted this change, right?

Brad Dinan:

Yeah, exactly. So, again, we knew that we had an existing solution that just was not meeting the needs of our users and what they were trying to do on a daily basis. So, very easy for us to take a step back and then start with a blank slate. That’s really what this new landing page is. I do want to make that clear. This is more of a starting point. We just had to get this thing converted over into that new react framework. And now, we’re able to actually look at it and maybe tailor it toward different roles based upon feedback and data and things like that we’re getting. So, it’s really cool to have this new page that initially, honestly, is providing more value than the original one did. But again, it’s just a starting point. So, you guys are going to see a lot more things that are going to make our users more efficient and help them prioritize.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. Just from a product standpoint and the way we think about โ€ฆ When I look at an app, it is kind of like your first impression. As when you log in and like what you see and you can make a decision, like when I log into QuickBooks, it’s kind of just shout out into it on the pod. So, what’s your perspective as a product person on that land landing page experience, Brad?

Brad Dinan:

Yeah, absolutely. So, it’s honestly the key area, again, like you said, first thing that someone sees when they log in. So, it’s the key area that really is just going to give that user the overall landscape of what’s going on. We know that people, for the most part, are not managing one or two jobs in here. It’s more five, six, ten, whatever the case may be at that point.

So, aggregating all that information. We know that either the user that’s logging in or their teammates are setting deadlines for things to get done. It’s a very simple concept, but we are basically elevating that information for those users, so they know, hey, if something’s past due … Typically past due is a negative connotation with that, so you probably want to go and take care of that first. So again, very simple decisions kind of made just to elevate, hey, based upon timing, assignments to you, and then seeing that overall landscape of what the team’s doing and how things are changing. Again, very easy for us to design this new experience and just push them toward those things based upon deadlines that they’ve already set up.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Charlie, next time you’re late to a meeting, just say you’re past due.

Charley Burtwistle:

Past due to the meeting. Yeah. Zach was past due to showing up for the podcast. See what I mean? Like this is going to be all day folks. So, I love the idea. So the new landing page is actually going to go from, as you said before, you land there, you navigate away from it, now they’ll actually be able to kind of prioritize their day, one stop shop as soon as they log in.

Brad Dinan:

Yeah, absolutely. So again, we’re surfacing every entity that we have in the program, you can basically for the most part set a deadline on. So, if we can aggregate all that information, get it in front of that specific user who it’s assigned to. We’re not necessarily saying, โ€œHey, start here, start with To-Dos.โ€ It’s more or less, here’s everything that you have, pick and choose where you want to start based upon your needs, and then, obviously, you know what needs to get done in the program. So, we’re going to trust you to make that decision. But if we can elevate everything that you have on your landscape, so you can see the entire picture, it’s a lot easier to make those decisions.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I think, low-key, one of the things that I’m most excited about on the update is you guys took the feed from the mobile app and put it into the desktop version. And I know it’s not necessarily on our notes here of things to talk about, but it is really nice to be able to look at the job and see what was my team doing and collaborating on.

Was that a conscious … We want to make sure we get that usability here too?

Brad Dinan:

Yeah, absolutely. I remember conversations when I was down in CS with all my clients there. I need to see what’s going on. I don’t need to … I get notifications and things like that, but if I have to sift through 20 emails and figure out exactly what’s moving and what happened when. That’s a lot tougher than having that activity feed that just lays out everything that the team’s doing โ€“ everything that’s moving. And if you see something that maybe shouldn’t be moving in that direction, you’re able to identify it and stop it a lot quicker.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. I think it matches the types of personas that are using the program to your point, like looking at roles and the way that works well now it’s like, if you’re an owner, you can log into the job and see the most recent notification, whether it was relevant to you. But also if you’re a field crew member, you need to see, did the schedule get adjusted, is there a scope change? Whatever. It’s also in a nice, convenient way, both mobile and desktop now.

Brad Dinan:

Yeah. Yeah. And a really cool thing that I’m hoping people know with that activity feed is they can go ahead and save filters and things like that. So, if they have certain reports that they want to pull when they log in or see certain maybe just the Daily Logs for the past week or whatever it is, they’re able to set that up and just click a toggle and change that reporting structure pretty easily there and alter that content.

Zach Wojtowicz:

So, it’s got some customizability to it as well. That’s awesome.

Brad Dinan:

And I feel like that some people may think that’s like a really small change. But at the end of the day, a ton of small changes add up to improved workflow, improved productivity. I get more stuff done faster, better.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Did you read that in a fortune cookie or something?

Charley Burtwistle:

So, when you guys are thinking about how do you kind of keep that in mind where this may seem like a small change, but it’s going to have a huge impact down the road?

Brad Dinan:

Yeah. So, we’re actually changing the way that we’re working upstairs. So, I’m going to contradict myself a little bit here, so don’t hold me to it. But โ€ฆ

Zach Wojtowicz:

I think our last product person, Austin maybe, said something similar, “Well, we’ve traditionally done it this way, but we are …” Sorry to interrupt you.

Brad Dinan:

No, no, you’re completely fine. So, yeah, we’re not so much focused on making these complete overhaul changes with that new way that we’re working. Yes, we did do a complete overhaul of this new landing page. That’s where I contradict myself. But again, like I said, it’s really just to give ourselves that starting point, and then we’re able to use qualitative quantitative data, shout out Charley again, to make those more informed …

Zach Wojtowicz:

I love how you stand over at me. Like it’s a โ€ฆ

Brad Dinan:

I’ll say one nice thing about Zach before we leave. Maybe. But again, just instead of having this big master plan of, all right we’ve got this landing page initiative out there, we’re done, let’s move on. Or, maybe we have four iterations already planned. Now, we’re switching the way we work more or less to adapt and kind of change based upon feedback that’s coming in. So, we’re already aggregating feedback around this new landing page.

And we may have a plan or assumptions of things that we think that we want to tackle next, but the team has bought into this new process, and they know that’s going to change based upon what we’re hearing, what we’re seeing, and the plans that we have, things are just going to shift. And while we kind of looked at that as kind of a negative thing in the past, it’s altering our plan that we’ve been putting together for eight months, maybe we should plan it for one month, get something out there and actually get that feedback and start moving a lot quicker and making those decisions and seeing that impact.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I love it. And I think too, when you make some of these changes, if you go long periods of time, where you have big sweeping and it’s like, whoa, everything changed. This new model, it’s a narrative. So, there’s subtle changes and it’s more about enhancing usability and ironing out the details. So, that the flow for our next new customer is like, “Wow, this is better than I expected.” We’re using our customers to inform decisions for future customers. But also for our current customers, they don’t feel like every day it’s something new and like I have to relearn it every day.

Brad Dinan:

Yeah. It’s way less intrusive than what we’ve been doing in the past. So, when we make those smaller updates, it really allows our team to dive into what’s the value that we’re creating for our users. So again, changing the way that we’re working in the technology department is we’re getting …

Basically, we used to do that planning work and get the information over to our developers and say, “Hey, you need to do a, B and C to accomplish this goal.” We’re pulling those developers in so much earlier to the process and basically saying, “Here’s the value that we’re trying to create.” And that’s sparking so many different conversations, so many things that we wouldn’t have thought about upfront, and again, allowing us to pivot and say, โ€œHey, we have these big plans to do.โ€ And it’s like, well, what if we just did a small portion of that? See if it’s working, if it’s not working. And then, again, kind of adapt on the go there.

So, getting that the whole team to buy in, I can honestly tell you with this new way that we’re working upstairs, I’ve never seen people so invested in the new process. And it’s very exciting for me because I’ve spoken with so many clients over the years, know their families and their history. So, it’s easy for me to reach out now and be like, “Hey, you’ve been asking for that.”

Zach Wojtowicz:

I keep my receipts. I want to be like, “Collaboration.” It’s an amazing thing.

Charley Burtwistle:

So, with this new workflow, I mean, I don’t know if you’re allowed to spoil anything, but what’s next for the team here? Where are we going? What are we going to take advantage of this new workflow for?

Brad Dinan:

Yeah, absolutely. So, we’re analyzing all the feedback again that we’re getting around that new landing page. There’s some cool things that we’re thinking we’re going to do next. I won’t mention them yet. So, you guys can’t hold me to it, but just …

Zach Wojtowicz:

It’s so you can come back.

Brad Dinan:

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Setting myself up, job security, and things like that.

Zach Wojtowicz:

But we once had a guest say they were going to be on like six or seven times. Like Frank Blake was like what, 15 times?

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. He’s been on here a few times.

Brad Dinan:

I’m pretty sure they sent me a reoccurring invite, but I’ll have to check it.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Introducing your third host of โ€œThe Building Codeโ€ everybody, Brad Dinan.

Brad Dinan:

Self-proclaimed. But no, we’ve got some cool things coming with the landing page, again, just looking at kind of those different roles. We know they have different needs. We know an owner doesn’t need to see the same things that a field crew guy sees. So, that’s a no-brainer to look at that. But again, that’s a pretty big change that we would want to validate over time. So, we’ve also got some cool things in the works.

My workstream is specifically called communications engagement. Which, if you think about it, is communications, pretty much everything that you’re looking at or doing in the program. So, no small feat there.

But we’ve got some cool things coming up around notifications. There’s some really impactful work. We know that we are ending quite a bit of notifications anytime something shifts in the program, and we’re interrupting our users more than we should, honestly. So, if we can compile things that are, here’s something that requires your attention, and your action right away, versus here’s maybe a summary at the end of the day with those changes and things like that. So, just a sneak peek into things that we’re looking into. But …

Zach Wojtowicz:

So Brad, as we’re diving into this concept of what you’re hearing from our customers, we obviously want our customers to give us feedback. Have you got any specific information on a use case that maybe you’ve heard of a user that, because of this change, impacted them in a positive way?

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, I’m going to speak kind of more to that entity counts feature that’s right in the middle of the page when you log in. So again, people just really have been wanting a starting point. We have them log into the program, and it’s quite a big program with a lot of different features and things like that. So, knowing exactly where start a lot of our users that are onboarding into the program and things like that, get lost upfront because there’s so much. So, putting those things more in their face that, “Hey, these are those things that are the most actionable, the most timely things that you have on your plate.” That’s that starting point that we give them. And we’ve seen some feedback coming in that, “Hey, I set up my team in the program, where do they start?” And it’s like, well again, they have these timely and actionable things that are already set up there. They’re able to easily view, click and actually be taken to a list page and do what they need to do next, so …

Zach Wojtowicz:

Which is so convenient. You think about the construction industry, obviously busy. They have a lot of deadlines, things are happening all the time, and having a way to kind of stay on top of that. And then, you think about the coordination between all the people that work in that company; you’ve got office, you’ve got field, you’ve got back end, front end, they’re everywhere, ownership, who is coming in and out. They need to be able to see who’s doing what, and this gives them a tangible kind of hub, which is … People love convenience, at the end of the day. And I think that’s going to be a huge use case for our team, or our customers, to be able to say, I can have one place that I can see all this happening and manage it and easily get to the next step without having to, just like you said at the beginning, land on the page and leave.

Brad Dinan:

Yep, exactly.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I love it. Well, we love having our product friends here on โ€œThe Building Code.โ€ We’re about out of time. Charley, any last thoughts?

Charley Burtwistle:

No thoughts. Excited for Brad’s the next episode, which will be coming up one week from today, I guess.

Zach Wojtowicz:

So, that notification thing will be done right next week.

Brad Dinan:

Yeah, I think so.

Charley Burtwistle:

No, these minisodes have been awesome. I feel like every time we get a chance to have someone from product in here, I learn more about our product, more about our process, and I get more and more excited about the things that are coming down the road. So, thanks for coming on. And I guess we’ll see you guys next week for another episode of โ€œThe Building Code.โ€ I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’m Zach Wojtowicz.

Brad Dinan

Brad Dinan | Buildertrend


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