Monograph Launches New Forecasting Features
Firm management software provides comprehensive project status and budgeting tools for AEC firms
San Francisco, CA — June 2020 — Monograph, a San Francisco-based technology company innovating the way architects and engineers oversee projects, timesheets and forecasts, is pleased to announce two important software features. Designed to support connected workflows and improve forecasting capabilities, the new Project Status categorizations and Project Planner are a direct response to current needs faced by architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) businesses.
Designed by architects for architects, Monograph understands the realities of how AEC firms operate, particularly throughout this year where there has been a greater need for a feature that can accommodate the changing statuses of AEC firms, their projects, and budgets. With Monograph’s new Project Status categorizations, users can label a project as proposed, active, paused, cancelled or completed, allowing a clear view of where a project is along its life cycle. Companies can maintain a more accurate forecast while reflecting the current state of projects being managed across the firm between marketing, business development, project, and finance teams––all through a simple dropdown toggle. The status feature will afford Monograph’s users more flexibility, granularity, and control over which projects they can or cannot see in other parts of the software.
“We are excited to further support our customers by helping them manage the status of their projects in a way that is realistic and helpful,” said Alex Dixon, Co-founder at Monograph. “With the new status and budgeting functionalities, we are ensuring our customers can forecast confidently and resource appropriately with real-time information.”
Tracking a project’s status is important for team alignment and high-level reporting. Existing solutions without statuses have several shortcomings––namely they fail to account for the reality of the project’s life cycle. Often while projects are being developed, in the proposal stages, teams within marketing or business development want to move forward with a provisional outline including; the potential scope, schedule, team and budget for a project––without impacting the firm’s overall reporting. Users can now effectively go about this process through the use of the Project Status categorizations and the Project Planner.
“Monograph’s new forecasting tools allow us to have fine-grain control over our projects and see into the future with a more accurate lens,” said Thomas J. Zoli, Principal and Director of Architecture at Workshop/APD. “This feature has made it easier for us to plan more effectively for upcoming projects while allowing us to track active projects that are paused due to Covid-19.”
For example, if a user changes the status of a project to “proposed,” it can be filtered from forecasting and reports. If they change the status of a project or phase to “paused,” this feature allows firms to manage their team and resources more effectively while still being able to understand the future impact of paused projects. The smart pause feature also captures the total duration of the pause and adjusts as needed when projects resume.
In addition to the five new Project Status categorizations, Monograph is also launching a Project Planner feature, which helps users build out their project plan and fee at the same time, whether it be top-down, where a total fee is known, or bottom-up, where a fee is constructed in tandem with a work plan. This collaborative feature seeks to resolve a common issue within firms, as cross functional alignment on project proposals, plans, and budgets are typically siloed activities which can lead to miscommunication, misalignment and redundancy in workflow. With Project Planner on Monograph, users can build a clear project plan with flexible, custom phases to guarantee firm efficiency by collapsing everything into a single, unified platform.
The Project Status feature is available now and the Project Planner feature will be available by July 2020. All Monograph users can access the features with their subscription during project creation and editing. To learn more, visit https://monograph.io/ and trial the Project Status and project planning features.
About Monograph:
Monograph is a San Francisco-based technology company founded by designers Robert Yuen, Alex Dixon, and Moe Amaya. Founded in 2019, Monograph offers firm management software designed to help architects and engineers oversee projects, timesheets, and forecasts in one, integrated and simple interface. The software is deeply rooted in the founders’ experiences in building tools for architecture firms, where they noticed a recurring challenge—architects and project managers were discontent with their existing and non-existent management software. Seeing this void for a simple cloud-based project management application, the co-founders set out to create Monograph, the solution for architects, designers, and engineers to manage their firms more effectively and transparently. As the creators of a software designed by architects for architects, their company is on a mission to empower and arm the professionals who create our buildings and cities with better tools. For more information, please visit https://monograph.io/
