Genesis
The iBuild.Property apps came about from the need of scheduling my residential construction jobs using a calendar interface rather than just a list of dates. I come from an IT background of consulting and designing applications and UI solutions, so it was natural for me to combine the two careers into developing a range of Apps for the Construction industry.
If anyone has ever used a “Call Forward” system, either paper-based or an IT system like Click Homes, Framework or On-Site Companion, you know that scheduling the construction of a house is just a matter of knowing the sequence of the build, and booking in trades to build the house in that sequence, ensure materials are delivered on time. But a long list of dates, and I mean a page full of them for when you booked them, what date you have scheduled and when they were actually completed, is just too much to take in. I need to see a calendar.
At this juncture, I should thank a good friend of mine, Tony Krkovski, for teaching me his “Six Week Program” that he studiously hand writes out in a printed blank calendar, one for each of his jobs, to help him schedule and control his jobs. His advice, patience and willingness to share his vast knowledge, along with a killer sense of Baltic humour is invaluable to me.
So after doing a little research (and having a deep-seated hatred of paperwork, sorry Tony) I discovered Google Calendars. What a great application they provide to everyone for free! I discovered you could create as many calendars as you want (one for each construction site) and then lay out the schedule of building, just like Tony does in his hand-written pages, but you can also colour them to indicate if you have booked the trade, if they have accepted the work on the given date, and if the task has been completed. You can also colour tasks in bright red or yellow if it was a critical item. Much better than a highlighter pen, Tony! FInally you can print the calendar out if you really need to, but I found having access to the calendars on your phone being able to instantly communicate and edit your schedule was very professional to the trades. My success in construction is largely due to me keeping my Google Calendars up to date.
But there was a problem: For every job, you had to re-enter the same schedule, over and over again. The same Task name, in the same sequence, just on different dates because different projects start on different days. And being a person that always looks for improving efficiency (fancy way of saying “looking for shortcuts”) as well as a burning desire to finally create an App to immortalise my place in the world… I decided to create iBuild.Property.
The concept is a simple one; Houses, especially Project Homes, are built in pretty much a single sequence that repeats itself over and over. The only difference is what day the job starts and maybe a few “options” might change things up, hence the dates that trades start for the usual amount of time it takes to perform the task is all known from the start. How great would it be for an very small and simple App to take a file that has the sequence of Tasks and “write” this data into a Google Calendar of your choice. That’s it! Nothing too fancy; just save me time from entering the same data into different calendars, day after day.
The time it has saved me is incalculable, as it also means there is nothing “forgotten” that then becomes an emergency or trades getting annoyed at you forgetting to order materials on time. Every step of constructing a house is written into your Job calendar automtically, all coloured in whatever colour to indicate if something is important or needs a long lead-time. And as you book each Task, change it to green and then blue if it is completed. A very simple system. It’s not rocket science.
Future Developments
Of course you can never stop at just one App, right? In the works is an iPad version of the iBuild.Property that lets you move tasks around by click & dragging (just like in Google Calendar, but iBuild will split tasks up to allow for weekends), and will be able to email your trades your bookings. Lots of work to be done but it is in development as of August 2022.