In-Depth: Architosh talks to the makers of Rform

Continued from page 1

The Projects window lists your various projects in rows, listing off ID, title, original date of the project, revised date, original contract price and revised price. There is also a status column listing whether the project is open or closed.

02-Creating a New Project in Rform.

03-Creating a new Project in Rform.

Setting up a new project in Rform is very simple. (see images 02–03 above). You enter basic details like project name, number, address and the contract time and contract price (very important those last two!). The next part of the form (see image 03 above) is your terms and conditions. Within these text boxes are standard text commonly used in the AEC industry. You can substitute your own T&C text within these boxes and this forms the basis of your contract forms.

Before you begin using Rform (or initially once setup) you invite project team members to use Rform. The Prime Consultant is typically the architect or contract administrator and is the person that manages the entire project in Rform. The Prime Consultant has particular privileges in the application. Principally they can create, edit, issue and recommend most of the contract (CA Phase) forms, such as Proposed Change Orders and Certificates for Payment. The second type of “project team” member is the Owner(s). The Owner is the one who is responsible for paying the contractor. They can approve or disapprove proposed change order forms as well as make comments on any form in the project. (see image 04)

04 - Rform's Project Team page.

The third team member type is the Contractor(s). Contractors can create, edit, and issue request for information (RFIs). They can also submit quotes for any proposed change order forms assigned to them. In Rform you can have multiple contractors in the overall project but generally the general contractor will be the typical single entity in this team role. Lastly, consultants can be apart of the Rform process. They too have certain privileges and can only read or add comments to forms. Typically consultants are civil, mechanical or structural engineers but they can include representatives from insurance companies for example.