The Value of Data

In our first episode of Hard Hats and Data Chats, Fraser Gallop and Steve Gross introduce the series and dive into one of construction’s biggest challenges: turning everyday operational data into timely, actionable insights. They discuss how ERPs capture essential information, why accessing it is often harder than collecting it, and how spreadsheet‑based workflows create delays, version issues, and reporting headaches. They also share real client stories—from month‑end WIP struggles to the impact of moving from nightly to twice‑daily data refreshes—showing how better data flow can transform project oversight and decision‑making. Join Fraser and Steve as they lay the foundation for becoming a truly data‑driven construction organization.

Learn more about Steve’s work with eCMS Cloud Construction ERP Softwarte at  Computer Guidance Corporation or Fraser’s work transforming construction data into actionable insights at Onware.

Transcript

Fraser Gallop 0:00

Welcome to Hard Hats and Data Chats. I'm Fraser Gallup and I'm here with Steve Gross. And we're welcoming you to our new podcast series. We're going to be talking about data in the construction industry and how data is captured, how it flows, and how people can turn that data into insights that drive better decisions. Our first episode theme is going to be the value of data. And before we get kind of too into this, let's introduce ourselves. So, Steve, let's uh tell us who you are.

Steve Gross 0:37

Thank you, Fraser. I'm Steve Gross. And uh I've got a few years of experience uh in the construction financial systems, both implementing them, consulting on best practices, on how to get the most out of those financial systems, and also uh in business development. Uh so I've I've got uh a lot of experience and expertise with ECMS, the ERP system will be featuring, and uh have a good understanding of how data is structured within that system and and the data that contractors need to run their business.

Fraser Gallop 1:16

So when somebody shows up and says, you know, how how do we structure our cost codes? How do we set up our companies? Uh you're you're the go-to guy for for getting that. Exactly. I'll generally have a couple of ideas on on how they should do that. And and and get it right the first time so that there's no rework later on, right?

Steve Gross 1:34

Hopefully, hopefully. Hopefully. Yeah, the rework is always a lot of work.

Fraser Gallop 1:40

Um okay. Um I'm I'm Fraser, I'm Fraser Gallup. Uh I work with with Onware, uh, mostly in the role of more of like a data architect these days and kind of just you know helping to put the solution in place uh when people are are are looking to, we like to say activate their data that they already have. Um I'm also a Tableau ambassador. Um and and uh Tableau Ambassador is is uh just kind of a group of people in the Tableau community that uh kind of participate in the user groups and do speaking and that sort of thing. Uh so pretty active in that that Tableau community. Uh and and Tableau, I guess, if if you don't know, is a is a product for doing like data visualization and analytics. Um but uh anyway, we we kind of or I'm kind of more of a specialized in in the construction data. Um so that's kind of the alignment with the podcast here and and working with Steve, um, you know, taking that construction data, turning it into actionable insights. Um so used lots of different data visualization tools, um, you know, helped to set up data warehouses, doing system integrations, um, you know, just to date myself, maybe a little bit. Uh, you know, it's a just under 25 years uh ago, we we started uh OnWare as a as a company and we started building software to manage RFIs. Uh back then, at the at the beginning, it was all done through faxes. So we actually made a web application where people would send a fax to a fax number and it would capture that fax as a PDF and put it into like a build the RFI log. Um, you know, it was it was a great day when we could shut down that faxing tool and not have to like rely on faxes anymore, but that's kind of where it all started.

Steve Gross 3:37

Yeah. Well, while while we're talking about history, uh when did we first meet anyway?

Fraser Gallop 3:46

I think it it I it's either CGC, like the customer focus event, like the your annual uh or customer uh user group, or one of the smaller user groups, like maybe the the Great Lakes user group. I don't know. Did you were you in Banff the year that they went to Banff?

Steve Gross 4:03

I think that was the I think that was where we first connected Frasier up in Banff. What wasn't that a nice uh venue for that users group meeting?

Fraser Gallop 4:12

It's funny because it's the the Great Lakes Users Group and Banff is a bit of away from uh the Great Lakes, but it was it was it was really fun. Um I I remember it was in probably around 2015, around that time. Um the I actually my wife was away and I and I brought my son with me. And so I like I kind of just said, like, you have to stay in the hotel room all day. You know, I'm not I'm not gonna entertain you, I'm gonna be busy, I'm gonna work, you can get room service, you can like order some food, you just you know, stay in the room, be a good kid, right? He had the time of his life being able to order room service in a hotel and like be oh yeah, you know, yeah, away from yeah, on his own. It was it was he had he had a good memory of that too. So yeah, it was a good event.

Steve Gross 5:00

It was a lot of fun, that's for sure. I think it was in 2017 actually.

Fraser Gallop 5:03

2017, okay.

Steve Gross 5:05

Yeah. So, you know why we're doing this podcast, you know, it's uh we there it's a huge opportunity, we we both believe that construction companies and all the data they're capturing, you know, what what do you do with all that data? And uh how do you get it timely and how do you get at it, right, Fraser?

Fraser Gallop 5:29

Exactly. I I think you know the the challenge was really isn't collecting the data, it's it's getting access to it. Like, you know, um you've got payroll people that are making sure time cards are entered on time so people get paid. You have all that payroll data. You know, all your AP department, they're they're out there like getting all those vendor invoices in into the system and and getting them in to get approvals and stuff so that you know you can pay vendors on time. All that data's there in the database. Um, you know, the challenge is giving that to the people that need to be able to use it and make decisions on it.

Steve Gross 6:06

On a timely basis, absolutely. Yeah, you know, uh most good ERP systems these days provide you with the ability to collect this information, some efficiently, some not so efficiently, but that's the important thing. But we're kind of assuming that most of our audiences, at least at that level, they've they've achieved that, right? And and now now that you're you have this great information coming into the system, what what can you do with it? And how to really how to really leverage it to run your jobs and manage margin and stuff like that.

Fraser Gallop 6:44

Exactly. Like the you know, that's that's the key is you know, um usually the data is there. It's it's it's you know, how do we access it? How do we how do we make good use of it? Um you know, I thought, you know, we maybe uh, you know, I I I wanted to maybe kind of relate a customer story here as a as a kind of uh a good example. Um maybe you could like talk a little bit about like, you know, uh closing closing the month and like the way that that uh you know that kind of ties into reporting.

Steve Gross 7:16

Yeah, so that is a critical, a critical milestone, the month in close and and in construction, most of that is around revenue recognition and WIP, because uh getting the the data together and there's tends to be some um massaging that needs to take place to lend conservatism in places where it's needed, you know, depending upon the project manager that you're working with and and so on. But it to do that, you have to pull everything together as of that period end. And uh so yeah, that kind of launches that that's a that's a a data collection milestone for sure, that's important in construction. And one of the challenges, we were talking earlier about efficient capture of data. But one of the everybody does this, every has to do with, you know, it's just it's just a fact of life in construction, but not everybody does it in the best place. Uh data is being captured, true, but it might be might be captured in a spreadsheet or something like that.

Fraser Gallop 8:24

I was gonna I was just gonna say, do you mean Excel is not the best place?

Steve Gross 8:28

Oh yeah. So I mean everybody, everybody loves Excel. It's like your security blanket, right? So, but the problem, what is the problem with that, Fraser? I mean, the problem is if your laptop get hosed, it you know, your number is different than somebody else's number. If the if you have a different version, there's the version control issue. What else? What else is there that causes that problem?

Fraser Gallop 8:49

We had a grade one where they the um they were they were using Excel um, you know, as at the end of the month, you know, they were they were taking the data out of the ERP and they were putting it into Excel spreadsheets. And then they were kind of they were in the Excel spreadsheets, they were like making journal entries to like do stuff, but they weren't posting the journal entries back into their ERP. So when we tried to do like reporting on this, it was like, well, you guys have to stop using Excel, or you at least you have to take your journal, your fake journal entries from Excel and put them back into the ERP if you want things to balance at the end of the day, right? Right.

Steve Gross 9:30

And and to be able to generate financial statements. Yeah, in essence, their financial statements were in Excel at that point, you know.

Fraser Gallop 9:37

Yes, exactly. Yeah, and it's it it just it you know there's definite like limitations there, like where you know Excel is not a database and it it's got you know size constraints where you you can only have so much data before it just starts falling apart, right?

Steve Gross 9:55

Absolutely, different versions of things and so on. And you know, uh the other thing is that um keeping it offline like that is uh uh it it's it's a problem from a timiness perspective because it just adds days of work, hours at a minimum. But I quite honestly, I think it's days for a lot of shops of work to get the the books closed to pull all this together and and so on. So keeping that all online where it's backed up and integrated with the financial statements is definitely the way to go. And um and then, you know, once you have that information in the system, Fraser, it really lends itself well to trend reporting too. If you want to see your margin erosion from period to period, you know, how are we doing? That sort of thing. You know, once you collect it all in one spot, you have that ability to go back on a date sensitive basis and compare period to period, which is really important uh in terms of watching where a project's going and making sure that uh it's not it's not slipping from your fingers.

Fraser Gallop 11:01

The profit is not slipping from my fingers as you're yeah, that's like that's one of the main jobs of the project manager, right? Is to to to watch that kind of thing and be on top of that. And that's where this monthly closing cycle has kind of evolved into this, you know, it's it's the project reporting cycle. So he's got to kind of pull all that kind of stuff together to report that to the executive and and the boards and be able to show, you know, why has margin changed from last month to this month and and have the the data to to back that story up, right?

Steve Gross 11:33

Absolutely.

Fraser Gallop 11:36

And uh go oh go ahead.

Steve Gross 11:38

No, I was just gonna say, you know, and then in some companies, uh the project manager is also accountable for that margin, okay? And uh and and collections and and forecasting and and future periods. And this is all the what we're talking about now is the building blocks and all of that. And you don't want that in Excel, right? You want that all in in the main system and uh have the ability to easily and efficiently report on that and and get those statistics out.

Fraser Gallop 12:07

Yeah, we we worked with one um you know, one client and and and well, not just one, like this has kind of been a recurring theme that you know we've had to deal with is you know things like you know, they want to see the data in in near real time. They want to know you know what the number is of what is the total of the invoices that are in um for approval at the any given time, right? And and you know, where where are the delays happening with those? Um there was one that they were they were had to, you know, they they didn't have a system for their time cards. So they they were writing the time card, the the data, you know, on pieces of paper for for so today's you know a Tuesday. And so Wednesday morning that piece of paper would go to somebody in the office and they would input that into the ERP. Uh so they had the hours for for Tuesday on Wednesday morning. And so uh initially we had kind of set up all the data to refresh every night. So it was a it was a nightly process, you know, we would go and get all the data, but then the the project managers were saying, Well, we can't see our hours. And it's because the guy didn't finish until the next morning putting in the hours for the previous day. So, you know, we had to move to okay, we can't just do nightly refreshes, we have to do it twice a day. So we do like a nightly refresh and then another refresh at noon so that you can see by the afternoon, you can see what the hours were for the previous day and how productive they're being in the field. But then the you know, the reporting and and and and the the visualizations kind of give you that insight into what's happening in the field. Because you you know, in this case, it was actually uh it was in the far north where the project was happening, and and the project manager was you know, down south in the city, um, but they could actually see you know what was happening in in the fields, um, you know, just through their dashboards and and the data coming in. So it was important.

Steve Gross 13:58

I'll bet that was that was uh a game changer for them, I'm sure.

Fraser Gallop 14:02

Yeah. Well then it's you know, and then the the next inevitable question is can we refresh it more often? Like we don't want just twice a day, we want to see you know multiple times a day. Oh my gosh. Yeah, and and uh you know, they want to see it, you know, just as it's entered. So they're they're asking those questions like so you know, if you give access to that data sooner, they can ask those questions sooner so it doesn't have to wait until the end of the month. Um because I think that's the one of the challenges with that historical you know monthly cycle of reporting is that you don't ask your questions until after the month end is done. But if you if you have access to the data sooner, you can ask those questions sooner.

Steve Gross 14:39

Absolutely, very important and very useful. Makes a big difference to have the information to act. Well, very good. Um let's talk a little bit about our next episode and what we'll be covering in the future.

Fraser Gallop 15:00

I think uh, you know, we had discussed we're initially going to do six parts plus today's introductions. So we kind of have uh you know a tentative schedule, uh, but more talking about like you know, real examples of of stuff that we've worked with on on uh projects with customers in the past.

Steve Gross 15:19

Sounds great. Look forward to that.

Fraser Gallop 15:24

It's uh, you know, I think one of the goals that we want to do is is you know give a lot of practical insights, um, you know, talk about what works, what doesn't work, um, you know, kind of the roadmap for, you know, they one of the terms that uh that is really popular these days is like data culture and and you know becoming a data-driven organization. And so, you know, how can how can you kind of take that data that you already have and and you know start working with it? And and that's the kind of the the um the topic that we're gonna talk about next time. Uh get a little bit more into like you already have the data. So how can you start using that, right?

Steve Gross 16:05

I can't wait. That'll be a great session.

Fraser Gallop 16:08

Well, we're gonna try we're gonna try to post every two weeks. Um so if you if you subscribe now, uh hit that subscribe button in the podcast app. Uh, you should get notification and and an auto download as soon as the the next episode is up and available to to listen to. So we look forward to uh to having uh you join us virtually, I guess, as as we talk uh on the podcast. And and uh uh I'm really kind of excited to be able to do this with you.

Steve Gross 16:39

As am I.