Construction Software Review

About two years ago, Transnet Capital Projects implemented several Primavera software products, including Primavera P6 v6.1 and Primavera Contract Manager v11. The company is still phasing in the products, but Brett Sandham, TCP’s Primavera specialist, said the company is more effectively controlling costs and managing schedules and resources. Overall, Sandham rated Primavera software a perfect 10 out of 10 and indicated that TCP intends to use Primavera for future enterprise resource planning needs.

According to Sara Anderson of Sharpe Enterprises, American Contractor is "the worst accounting software I have ever encountered." The company purchased the software from Maxwell Systems after a "really impressive" demonstration. A free trial of American Contractor was not available, but Anderson said she and her colleagues figured the demos were enough: "We were told so many things that we wanted to hear. Now, after having the software for over two years, it was the worst investment we have ever made."

"This is almost the worst software I've ever used," said Bennett Rodgers of Image Communications, a firms that installs voice and data infrastructures. "There are simple task (in my opinion) that this software will not do. Mainly, the search function. It will only search by the first word in the description exactly as it was entered. Spelling must be exact. No spaces or multiple words either. However, the searches are quick. Instant rather on the local network. The owner of the company likes the "bird's eye view" reports. That's a really nice feature.

Helmuth Geiser has been using Chief Architect design software for nearly a decade now. He credits the software with making change orders "a thing of the past" for Geiser of America, where he is owner and president. When Geiser first bought Chief Architect, he already had about 20 years of experience with a variety of CAD software tools, from AutoCAD and TurboCAD to Micado, a program that is no longer on the market.