PM quickstart
Costs, approvals, the crew on a map, the week ahead.
PM is where the field meets the office. You see labor cost in real time, approve everything above the foreman tier, respond to OT alerts before they hit overtime, and plan the next week from forecast curves.
1. A typical PM day
Five anchor moments. You will rotate among these all day; this is the loop in order.
7:15 AM
Morning labor cost check -- 7:15 AM
Coffee in one hand, phone in the other. The home dashboard shows yesterday spent vs. budget, today projected, and any red dots that need decisions before 9 AM.
- Top card: "Yesterday vs. budget" -- green if within 2% of plan, yellow at 5%, red at 10%.
- Middle card: "Today projected" -- based on currently clocked-in crew, who is scheduled, and cost rates from the wage determination.
- Bottom card: "Open decisions" -- approvals waiting, OT alerts, disputes escalated overnight. Tap each to triage.
- Spend 5 minutes here, then drill into the highest-impact red dot before your 9 AM stand-up.
10:00 AM
Multi-tier approval queue -- 10:00 AM
You are tier-2 in the approval chain. Tier 1 (foreman) has approved most entries already; tier 2 reviews anomalies, OT, and entries above a dollar threshold.
- Open Approval Queue. Three sub-tabs: Anomalies (yellow), OT (orange), High-value (red).
- Most tier-2 items take 30 seconds: tap, glance at the GPS trail + photos, Approve or Send Back.
- Send Back returns the entry to the foreman with your comment. The worker is notified too. Loop closes typically in under 4 hours.
- Tier 3 (controller) sees only entries you Approve-Up -- e.g., classification changes that affect prevailing wage. Use sparingly.
11:30 AM
Live crew map drill-in -- 11:30 AM
Walk to the trailer window, look out at the deck. Then open the live crew map on the tablet. You see every worker positioned on the site plan, color-coded by trade.
- Filter by trade: just see your concrete crew, or just MEP.
- Tap a cluster of pins to see the workers; tap a single pin for that worker individual day so far.
- Hover over any cost code section -- the map highlights which workers are charged to it. Quick reality check that the right people are on the right scope.
- Click "Replay last 30 minutes" -- the map animates worker movement. Useful when a foreman reports an issue at 11:00 AM and you want to see what happened.
2:00 PM
OT alert response -- 2:00 PM
Phone buzzes. "OT alert: 4 workers projected to cross 40 hours by 5 PM today." You decide -- approve the OT (with budget impact), reroute work, or send people home.
- Open the alert. You see the 4 names, their hours so far, projected OT cost, and which cost codes they are charged to.
- The forecast shows budget impact: $1,200 additional labor tonight, $0 tomorrow if you reroute.
- Three buttons: Approve OT (loop in the controller if over budget threshold), Reroute (the system suggests other workers under 35 hours who can finish the task), Send Home (the workers get a push notification).
- Whatever you pick, the foreman is notified and the budget projection updates immediately.
Fri 3:00 PM
End-of-week schedule planning -- Friday 3:00 PM
Last big task of the week. Open Schedule Forecast. The system pulls the schedule, projected workforce, weather forecast, and material delivery commitments and shows you next week as a curve.
- Workforce curve: how many workers you need each day next week, by trade. Compare to who is committed.
- Cost curve: projected daily spend vs. budget. Watch for spikes from material deliveries or weather contingencies.
- Risk callouts: rain on Wednesday will delay the slab pour. Schedule shifts automatically; you confirm or override.
- Hit "Publish schedule" -- the foreman + crews get the next-week assignment Sunday evening. Crews can self-confirm or flag conflicts.
2. Live labor cost dashboard
The dashboard updates every 60 seconds. It is the closest thing to a live financial view of the project. Six numbers matter most.
3. Multi-tier approval routing rules
Approval chains are configured per project. Three tiers cover 95% of contractors. Each tier has Auto-approve rules + Manual-review thresholds.
Crew foreman, lead, or general foreman.
Project manager or assistant PM.
Project controller, cost engineer, or finance lead.
4. Cross-tenant federation (GC seeing subs)
When you are a GC, your subcontractors run their own ConstructOps tenant. Federation gives you visibility into their crews without giving you write access to their books.
| Mode | Who sees | What they see | Who controls |
|---|---|---|---|
| Read-only roster | GC PM sees sub crew names, classifications, and clock-in status. | Live list of who is on site today, with classification. No hourly rates, no costs, no payroll data. | Sub controls who is on the roster; GC controls geofence. |
| Live crew map | GC PM sees sub workers on the site plan, color-coded by sub company. | Position, current cost code, classification, hours-on-site for the day. Useful for safety standdowns and coordination. | Sub controls map visibility per project; GC sees only subs they have signed coordination agreements with. |
| Daily log roll-up | GC PM sees a daily log per sub plus a consolidated GC log. | Sub log = sub work performed, sub crew count, sub photos. GC log = consolidated narrative + own crew. | Sub posts their own log; GC reads and can request clarification via anchored thread. |
| Certified payroll feed | GC controller sees the WH-347 weekly from each sub. Per-classification hours and prevailing wage compliance. | Full WH-347 with signed certification. GC retains audit chain in their own Confidential Ledger. | Sub generates and signs; GC receives and counter-files for federal compliance. Both keep their own copy. |
5. Predictive analytics
Three signal types help you steer the project before something hits the budget. Each shows a confidence band -- read the band, not just the point estimate.
Projected daily labor cost shown as a curve plus a shaded band. The center line is the best estimate; the band is the 80% confidence range.
For each worker each day, a 0-100 score for how likely they are to cross 40 hours by Friday. Aggregated to a project-level OT exposure dollar number.
When workforce is uneven across trades or cost codes, the system suggests reassignments to even out the work.