Who should use this guide?

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This guide is for any BuildTopia customer that wants to gain greater efficiencies by improving communication and reducing information errors. Review the questions below. If you answer YES to any of them, then you are ready to reap significant rewards by utilizing this guide to assist you with getting your trade partners online with BuildTopia.

1. Do you want to save time and money?
2. Do you want your trades to know when specifications or schedules change?
3. Would you like to have your trade partners provide cost information that you can compare?

What is trade partner collaboration in BT?

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The BTTradeNetwork allows BuildTopia customers to collaborate during the entire construction and customer/warranty service lifecycles. Online trade partners have access to:

Why collaborate with your trades online?

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Got a minute? Check out the value you’ll receive from online collaboration with your trades.

1. Save Time and Money.  Bid and contract your new projects online, making possible a weekly cycle instead of a monthly bid cycle. Join other BuildTopia customers who have reduced their current bidding and contracting hours by as much as 70%.
 

2. Save Carry Costs.  Reduce construction schedule cycles through online updates. Improve relationships with trade partner by helping them avoid wasted trips to the project site. Also help trades develop and advance their resource management skills through online schedule updates.
 

3. Control Contracts. Take control of trade partner agreements. The BuildTopia functionality allows you to effortlessly manage contracts through future activation dates and expiration dates. You'll also have access to project cost history reported by trade partner.
 

4. Control of Budgets. Track actual costs to budgets with budget and variance cost reporting.
 

5. Control of Variance Costs.  Quantify and classify variance costs.
 

6. Control of Documents. Eliminate the cost of faxing, mailing and delivering documents. All trade partners receive documents online including:

• Bid Plans and Specifications
• Start Notifications
• Option/Selections Sheets – including updates
• Construction Schedules – including updates
• Work Orders and Variance Work Orders
• Service and Warranty Requests

7. On-line distribution of Service Orders.  Save valuable administrative time by providing essential information via online service orders, including:

• Homebuyer name, address and contact information
• Builder-defined appointment dates and times
• Builder photos that clarify and document defects

8. Monitor Trade Partner Service Performance

• Quantify open service requests
• Expedite open service requests
• Report cycle time for closing service requests
• Classify defects by root cause

When does it make sense to begin online trade collaboration?

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Ultimately the decision to begin online trade collaboration is up to each BuildTopia customer. Following these few best practices should prepare you for a successful rollout of BuildTopia to your trade partners.

• Create your own trade partner account. In order to become familiar with the tools your trades are using, create a trade partner account yourself and log in as a trade.
• Start with the key trades. Ask yourself: Which of my trades are ready for online collaboration?  Which trade relationships will benefit the most from online collaboration?  Start small and add additional trades gradually.  Use your success with these trades to build buy-in from other trades – let trades’ “word of mouth” work for you!
• Migrate to online trade collaboration in stages.  Start strategically and build additional points of collaboration over time.  This allows your trades to gradually build their skills.  Think “wade in” versus “deep end.”
1. Bidding & Contracting.  Allow trades to enter bid costs and begin to negotiate online. Create contracts and manage price changes via BuildTopia. For your first project wait 30-60 days after the manual bids have been entered to bring your trades online. This provides you time to resolve errors or omissions.
2. Purchase Orders. Issue purchase orders through BuildTopia.  Set expectations that you will begin to pay off of BT-issued POs rather than trade invoices.
3. Schedules. Train trades to check construction schedules within BuildTopia.  Get your house in order first.  Go online with schedules only when you are updating and maintaining these schedules within BuildTopia – ideally daily.  With your commitment, trades will learn to rely on the accuracy of these online schedules and begin managing their resources more efficiently.
4. Service Orders. How do you track the age of open service orders?  What are your expectations regarding trade response time?  Share these quality standards with your trades, then issue online service order and allow your trades to work within these standards.

What are the steps for online trade collaboration?

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So you’ve read through the “who,” “what,” “why,” and “when.”  And you’re convinced of the value of online trade collaboration.   So proceed with the “how” and prepare to reap the rewards!

Decide on your approach. Choose between one of the methods below. We've included the advantages and additional considerations for each. Select the hyperlink to learn about steps two and three for each method.

Method 1- Three step activation facilitated by you

Schedule and Prepare for Trade Partner Meeting(s). During these meetings you will assist your trade partners with creating their BuildTopia accounts, as well as provide a general orientation to BuildTopia system information and navigation. Depending on the number of trade partners - and considering meeting elements, such as facility space and available equipment - you may decide to have one or multiple meetings. The following tools have been designed to assist you (1) with inviting your trade partners to the scheduled meeting and (2) facilitating the meeting.

Collateral

• Invitation to send to TP (Word document)
• Agenda* (Microsoft Power Point)
• Account Setup Instructions* (Word document)
• BT Login Cheat Sheet* (Word document)

 Preparation

• Send Meeting Invitation
• Laptop and Projector for Meeting presenter
• 2-3 Laptops for Trade Partner Use During Meeting (to assist with account setup and allow initial exploration of the BuildTopia system)
• Printed Materials - asterisked items from #1 above

Facilitate Meetings and Create Trade Partner Accounts

Method 2 - Three step activation facilitated by BuildTopia

You might be saying to yourself: ”I don’t have the time to roll out online collaboration to my trade partners?”  Don’t worry; the BuildTopia professional services team can help.  We can do as little or as much as you need.  Consider using our services to customize your meeting documents and/or to facilitate the meeting itself.

Contact our Customer Support Center at support@buildtopia.com for a custom proposal.

Provide your trade partners contact information and attend the meeting.

Method 3- Self activation by Trade Partners

Open the document to customize the content. Self Activation (Word document)

Email or print and send the document to provide your trades with the necessary steps to create their account and access BuildTopia training.