Manage your projects in Outlook! No, Really!

Embracing new technology is often a challenge in construction. While technology can help organizations be more efficient, the number of systems required to do the job and the ever-changing technology presents challenges. To add to this dilemma, every contractor, CM, and owner have their own Project Management Information System (PMIS) that team members are forced to learn and conduct business. As a result, actual construction productivity takes a hit due to additional training, double-entry, errors, and general user dissatisfaction. It's no wonder most construction organizations are hesitant to leave old faithful – Microsoft Outlook and Office.

Challenge: How do we make it as easy as possible for the construction team to do their job and remove the technology burden of learning and working with multiple Project Management Information Systems (PMISs)? What if you could work in Outlook or Office entirely without ever having to log into a PMIS?

Welcome to Adaptive Cards

With the flexibility of the Microsoft Power Platform and Adaptive Cards, we have removed users' burden of having to learn one or more PMISs and allow them to work directly in Email or Teams. By leveraging Power Automate and Adaptive Cards technology, users can now receive actionable task-focused Cards. To respond, users open a Card to view content, review a task, or respond with comments. Work entirely from Email or Teams—no need to even log into a PMIS. 

So, my PMIS already sends out emails when there are tasks due. How is this different?

Adaptive Cards are the future of actionable messages and notifications. They are essentially small interactive applications. 

The are many benefits, including the following:

• Cards are responsive to any device.
• The card UI can be tailored and simplified around performing specific tasks. Using the KISS approach, we can make it easy for users to review content and respond.
• Logic can be included in cards to prompt questions and responses without having to log into the actual PMIS and never leave the email.
• Cards can read and write data with various systems such as Microsoft 365/SharePoint, SAP, Oracle, etc.
• Cards can leverage Windows 10 notifications.
• Cards integrate with Microsoft Teams Chat, Timeline, and Outlook.
• Cards can leverage assistants such as Cortana and/or a Bot webchat.
• Dashboards can be delivered using feeds from multiple Adaptive Cards.
• Security from the native applications can be extended to the Card.

Lydon Solutions can build Adaptive Cards for any PMIS using our pre-defined templates. We even integrated Adaptive Cards into the notification system of our Microsoft 365/SharePoint PMIS, Construction Viz.  By meeting the user where they work, Email and Office, it keeps users in their natural activity flow without interruption; more efficient, happier users. A win-win.

Adaptive Card for a Construction Viz Submittal Form email notification.

Find out how we can leverage our existing Adaptive Card templates to simplify your workflows and provide team members access to project data in the applications they use every day. Contact Lydon Solutions for a free consultation and to see how we can help your organization with its digital transformation to Microsoft 365. If you need a turnkey PMIS for managing your projects in Microsoft 365, head over to ConstructionViz.com, and request a demo.