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Announcing our Partnership and First Integration with Procore

We’re excited to announce that we are launching our first integration point as the first step in our partnership with Procore. Watch our recent roadmap webinar to learn more about this and other exciting plans for CxAlloy TQ.

We are starting our Procore integration with the most obvious and requested connection point – bringing CxAlloy TQ issues into Procore as commissioning observations. Our integration operates at the data level, allowing direct communication and either one-way copying or two-way syncing between Procore and CxAlloy TQ.

Our goal, as ever, is to reduce the amount of time and tedium in managing data by simplifying and automating those tasks.

One-Time Copy

The one-time copy option is for those situations where you want to create issues in CxAlloy TQ but prefer issue follow-up and resolution to be managed exclusively through Procore.

With this approach, you choose which status triggers the copy to Procore, and which status is set after the issue is successfully copied. CxAlloy TQ issues with the designated status are copied to Procore, including the issue’s comments and files. After being copied, the CxAlloy TQ’s issue status is updated to indicate the copy was completed.

By leveraging statuses as the trigger for copying issues to Procore you can easily control which issues get copied and see which issues have been copied. In CxAlloy, you also get the benefits of all the tools that already exist for managing statuses such as batch editing and import.

Ongoing Sync

With the ongoing sync approach, all CxAlloy TQ design and/or construction issues created in the project are copied to Procore. Updates to the observation in Procore are synced back to the CxAlloy TQ issue, and updates to the CxAlloy TQ issue are synced back to the Procore observation.

As with the copy operation, the ongoing sync approach includes issue comments and files, with the addition that new comments and attachments in Procore are brought over to CxAlloy as well.

Per-Project Settings

We’ve designed our integration to be flexible, with the ability to enable and customize it on a project-by-project basis. The integration options can be changed or disabled altogether at any time. After authorizing a project through Procore, CxAlloy TQ automatically runs the integration at regular intervals and safely manages credentials.

Learn More

For more information, read our support article or watch our short overview video.

The Beginning of Great Things

As we evolve our partnership with Procore in 2021 and beyond we plan to deliver deep integration across many areas. We hope this new integration helps you to Get In, Get Done, and Get Home faster than ever before.

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Report Generator People Section – Customer Appreciation Summer Week 5

This week’s feature release is the long awaited addition of a People section to the Report Generator. Users can now add a People section to their reports, which will include the name of all users in the project, as well as their email, phone number, company, and role.

Report with People section
People section title page
People section as seen in reports

As with all of our features, we welcome any feedback to help us make any additional improvements.

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Protection Against Accidental Navigation – Customer Appreciation Summer Week 4

We’ve previously received a number of reports from users regarding accidental navigation away from a page while editing an item. This week’s update adds a notice warning users of potential data loss, and providing the opportunity for users to verify or cancel any attempts to leave the page before saving.

This warning only applies to the direct edit of an existing item, but the framework for this feature will allow us to to address any future requests for similar functionality in other areas as well.

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Account Company Search and Duplicate Company Detection – Customer Appreciation Summer Week 3

Generally speaking, we don’t enforce unique names across most sections of CxAlloy TQ. However, this has occasionally led to situations where users accidentally create duplicate entries for companies that already exist.

To address this problem, we have made it so that attempts to add a new company at the project level will default to using the existing account level entry when a duplicate is found.

Company Dropdown

On selection of an existing company, the form will change to update the existing entry instead of creating a new one.

Autofilled Update Form

Additionally, we’ve added the dropdown search that was already being implemented for the project People list to the Account people list as well.

Users can still add a new company with the same name as other existing companies by typing the name in the search dropdown and hitting the Enter/Return key without selecting an existing entry from the dropdown.

With this update, we hope to eliminate the addition of redundant company entries at both the project and account level, while still allowing multiple companies with the same name to exist if desired.

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Filter by Date Updated – Customer Appreciation Summer Week 2

This week’s feature expands on a sort that was added during a previous customer appreciation summer – date updated.

We’ve leveraged that existing functionality to allow users to apply it as a filter. As with other date related filters, the new Date Updated filter lets users select an arbitrary date range from a calendar dropdown. The resultant filtered list will only display items that have been updated within the chosen date range.

What qualifies as an update varies slightly based on the section being filtered, but it generally includes any direct edits to those items, as well as issue creation and file uploads where applicable.

With the addition of this new filter, users will be able to quickly determine whether items of interest have received any new updates.

A forthcoming update to the iOS app will also include this new filtering option.

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Sort by Percent Progress – Customer Appreciation Summer Week 1

It’s that time of year again! We are kicking off our fourth annual Customer Appreciation Summer. As in past years, during the summer we will be releasing a new feature every week pulled from the suggestions our customers have made in our feedback forum.

Our focus with these features is on the smaller “quality of life” improvements that can often slip under the radar.

In that spirit, our first Customer Appreciation Summer feature is the ability to sort checklists and tests by line answer percentage. This new sort is called “Percent Progress”.

This new sort option sorts on the number of “Yes” and “N/A” responses within a given checklist or test as a percentage of all answerable lines.

A forthcoming update to the iOS app will also include this new sorting option.

Users can now quickly gauge progress on line items while identifying potential problems or bottlenecks. We’ll be releasing plenty more features in the coming weeks, including some other high demand sorting and filtering options. We hope you’re looking forward to it!

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CxAlloy TQ Winter ’21 Updates

We recently rolled out some great improvements to CxAlloy TQ for web and iOS.

CxAlloy TQ for Web

  • The ability to see PDF form field values.
  • An improved “Attached Files” page.
  • Separation of attribute units into a separate column in the equipment export.
  • Ordering attribute columns alphabetically in the equipment export.
  • Performance improvements and bug fixes.

CxAlloy TQ for iOS 5.1

  • CxAlloy TQ app for Apple Silicon Macs.
  • Open CxAlloy TQ urls in the app (“Universal Links”)
  • If you have multiple Apple devices, you can now browse your project on one device and continue it one another (“Handoff”).

Read on for more details about these features.

PDF Form Field Values

Now when you view a PDF in CxAlloy TQ you will see any values previously entered into form fields in that PDF. Please note that you cannot enter new data into forms in CxAlloy TQ.

Improved “Attached Files” Page

The “Attached Files” page has been revamped with a cleaner view that features larger thumbnails and more information. This same revamp is on the way for the “Project Files” page as well.

Performance Improvements and Bug Fixes

  • Images and PDFs now load faster in the viewer, especially when using the “Next” and “Previous” buttons to navigate between files.
  • The Attached Files page loads faster.
  • The “Next”/”Previous” controls load faster when viewing an issue detail page.
  • The “Source” field for attached files now includes more information for checklist and test line files and is a clickable link.
  • Tabbing between issue comment text boxes now works in more situations.
  • Searching in “Attached Files” now follows standard CxAlloy search rules, allowing for quoted strings and negation.

CxAlloy TQ for Apple Silicon Macs

Last year, Apple announced that it would start making its own chips for the Mac, like it already does for iOS devices. An interesting side effect of this was the new ability to run iOS apps on these new Apple Silicon Macs. After some testing and some tweaking of the user interface, we have now made the iOS app available on Apple Silicon Macs. To download it, simply search for “CxAlloy TQ” in the Mac App Store on an Apple Silicon Mac.

Universal Links

When you tap on a CxAlloy TQ link in an email, message, or note on your iOS device, it will launch the app and go to that item in the app instead of the website. This means you can successfully click on links even when you are offline!

If the project or item is not available in the app, the app will automatically pass it on to be opened in your browser instead as before.

Handoff

If you have multiple Apple devices, you can now browse your project on one device and continue it one another using Handoff. For example, if you are viewing a list of checklists in the iOS app and you bring your phone close to your Mac, you can click the Safari icon in your dock to load the same list of checklists in your browser.

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CxAlloy TQ 2021 Roadmap

Our final webinar of 2020 was a roadmap of our plans for 2021 and a look back at what we released in 2020, including several features that we launched shortly before the webinar.

If you are a CxAlloy TQ user, you can watch the webinar right now on our training page by clicking the play button below, or read on for a brief synopsis.

CxAlloy TQ for Web

Throughout 2020 we focused on features that eliminated friction and administrative overhead in managing the data in your projects. From the many small improvements made during our third Customer Appreciation Summer to the major enhancement of pushing template changes – which allows you to update tens to hundreds of checklists or tests instantly, even when they’re partially completed – you can manage your work in CxAlloy TQ faster than ever.

At the end of the year we also made our markup and callouts feature available to all accounts, allowing you to draw on any image or PDF, and added signatures for those projects that require that extra layer of accountability.

CxAlloy TQ for iOS

Besides matching the markup and callouts, signatures, and other features that debuted on the web, the iOS app added new features all its own in 2020. From scanning labels so you don’t have to type in serial numbers to batch answering identical checklists and tests, the iOS app empowers you to be more efficient than ever before.

CxAlloy TQ for Windows

Finally, we released the beta of our Windows app. The Windows app represents a major step forward compared to our previous Chrome-based Windows solution, allowing offline access to multiple projects, adapting to any screen or window size, and featuring a more usable, modern interface. We have built it off of the same battle-tested sync backend as our iOS app so that you can be confident it will have the information you need when you need it.

You can download the Windows app today in the Windows store by clicking below.

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We have big plans for the Windows app in 2021 as we work to bring it to full feature parity with our iOS app. Speaking of 2021…

Vision for 2021

In addition to the Windows app, we have two major initiatives planned for 2021: Custom Phases and Milestones. We believe both of these will greatly expand the ways in which CxAlloy TQ can be used to manage and monitor project progress, giving you greater flexibility in how you organize, report, and track your project data. You can watch the webinar video for more details on our plans for these features as well as information about other planned features.

Of course, we’ll release other, smaller features throughout 2021 as well, so please keep an eye on the blog for details as those roll out. We think 2021 is going to be a great year!

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Markup, Signatures, and More – CxAlloy TQ Fall 2020 Release

We recently released a major update to CxAlloy TQ with Markup and Callouts, Signatures, a new Account Projects page, and several other improvements.

Markup and Callouts

In this release we made Markup and Callouts, which was previously in beta, available to all accounts while also rolling out improvements based on the feedback we received during the beta.

Markup allows you to annotate images and PDFs with arrows, text overlays, shapes, and freeform drawings. To use these new tools click on an image or PDF and you’ll find new annotation tools available in the toolbar.

The updated toolbar contains the new markup tools

Callouts is a feature of Markup which creates thumbnails of any area you annotate with a circle or rectangle. This is particularly useful for multi-page PDFs, as it allows you to easily surface information on any page of the PDF.

Circle and rectangle annotations create Callouts

Markup is deeply integrated into CxAlloy TQ – when you markup a file those markups are reflected in the image thumbnails, PDF reports, and subsequent file downloads. Markup is available in the iOS app as well, and annotations sync as you would expect.

For those that have been using Markup during our beta period, this release makes several improvements:

  • Increases the resolution of annotated images
  • Adds multiple download formats
    • Original file without annotations
    • Flattened file with annotations
    • PDF with embedded native annotations
  • Updates batch downloading to use the annotated version of a file if it has annotations
  • Improves performance of loading the viewer
  • Correctly handles HEIC images
  • Fixes an issue where Callouts that were drawn close to the edge of a document would not appear correctly

Signatures

With Signatures you can now add signatures to checklists, tests, and templates and users can sign using their mouse or finger (on devices with a touchscreen). Signatures are also available in our iOS app.

A new “Signatures” section appears for checklists, tests, and templates

When creating checklists and tests from a template, any signatures you have defined on the template are copied over just like lines. Signatures on a checklist or test can then be signed.

Of course, signatures can be included in checklist and test PDFs, and signature activity is now included in history.

Signatures replace the previous “Signature Lines” feature. If you have ongoing projects that need the prior “Signature Lines” functionality, please contact support and we can re-enable it for those projects.

Account Projects

Previously available as a separate “Overview” page, the new Account Projects page includes significant improvements over the simple project list it replaces.

The biggest change is that each project shows it’s dashboard summarizing the status breakdown of issues, checklists, tests, tasks, and equipment. There’s quite a bit more, though, as you can now sort and filter your project list, generate PDF reports, and export the data.

The new Account Projects page

Many of these features were available in its previous incarnation as your account “Overview”, but we made several improvements as we brought it over to replace the projects list.

  • Added administrator, location, and date created sorts
  • Added Checklist Open Count and Checklist Closed Percentage sorts
  • Added administrator, location, and date created information to each project listing

One note is that the checklist sorts can only sort projects with upgraded checklists. Accounts that have not upgraded will not see the checklist sorts, and in upgraded accounts the sort will ignore un-upgraded projects.

Other Improvements

Several other improvements were included in this release.

  • Templates now have a new section that shows all related checklists or tests and their “Push Changes” status
  • You can create new assets or attributes “on-the-fly” in more places
  • The presentation of related template information on checklists and tests has been improved, and the “Pull Changes” button has been moved next to the template information
  • You can now download a sample file from the import screen

 

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Filter for Empty Fields – Customer Appreciation Summer Week 11

For Week 11 of Customer Appreciation Summer we’ve added the ability to filter based on when a value is not set. This makes certain actions much easier, such as finding all unassigned issues. Combined with our batch editing tools it’s now trivial to quickly audit and correct data gaps.

Easily find unassigned issues with the new filtering options

This ability (what we internally call the “none” filter) is only available when it makes sense. For example, issues always have a status and therefore don’t have a “No Status” filter. Filters that include a “none” option include assignment, discipline, priority, equipment type, system, checklist type, review type, review remark, and field observation type.

The “none” filters can be combined just like other filters. For example, you could find all equipment that either has no discipline or has discipline “Mechanical”.

Finally, we’ve also added the “none” option to these same filters in the report generator.

We hope this makes it easier to manage the data in your projects!

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File Navigation Improvements – Customer Appreciation Summer Week 10

For Week 10 of Customer Appreciation Summer we have made two improvements to file navigation: we’ve added next and previous buttons so you can quickly cycle through attached photos and files, and we’ve added Select All and Deselect All buttons for attached photos and files.

The new navigation controls allow you to move to the next or previous file in the list, or jump to any other attached file via a dropdown.

Quickly navigate between files with the new navigation controls

The new Select All/Deselect All buttons make it far easier to batch download files. We’ve also renamed the “Zip” button to “Download” (it still downloads a .zip file, though).

Easily select all attached files with the new Select All button

We hope you like these improvements!

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Select Specific Items in the Report Generator – Customer Appreciation Summer Week 9

For Week 9 of Customer Appreciation Summer we’ve added new report generator options to select specific items for a section, such as specific equipment, checklists, issues, and so forth.

You can now choose specific items as an alternative to filters

Selecting specific items is an alternative to filters; you can’t combine the two. The interface reflects this with a toggle that allows you to switch between the two options.

For tests we’ve done something special. The list of tests is actually a list of all attempts, allowing you to cherry-pick specific attempts to include. For example, you could select just Attempt No. 2 out of three total attempts. The resulting report would then only show Attempt No. 2 for that test. In addition, only issues, photos, files, and callouts related to Attempt No. 2 (or the overall test) would be included.

Tests give you the option to can select specific attempts

With these new options you are able to build reports that just weren’t possible previously. We hope you like it!

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The End of Summer Blowout – Customer Appreciation Summer Final Weeks

Summer is drawing to a close but not without the final releases of our third annual Customer Appreciation Summer! We hit a few bumps here at the end but in the past week we’ve released our final three features: file navigation, new report generator options, and filtering for items where a field is empty.

We’ve got a quick overview of these features below and we’ll have more detailed posts on each of these throughout this week and next.

Select Specific Items in the Report Generator (Week 9)

You now have the option to select a specific set of items to include in the report generator as an alternative to filtering. With tests, you can even select specific test attempts to include.

Select the exact equipment to include with the new “Specific Items” option

File Navigation (Week 10)

You can now navigate to the next and previous file in the file viewer, or jump to any other attached file from a dropdown. Plus, we also added Select All/Deselect All buttons to file lists.

Jump to any attached file with the new file navigation

Filter for Empty Fields (Week 11)

Certain filters now allow you to look for items that don’t have a value. For example, you can filter equipment to those that have no discipline set, or filter issues by those that are unassigned. These same filters are available in the report generator as well.

Find all unassigned issues with new filter options

We hope you like these features, and we hope you enjoyed Customer Appreciation Summer! Please keep letting us know what features you would like to see in our feature request forum.

But wait! What about week 12? Well… it needs just a little more time in the oven but we are working on one final Customer Appreciation Summer feature. It’s one a lot of people have asked for. We hope you’ll look forward to it!

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Commenter Role and Company – Customer Appreciation Summer Week 8

Week 8 of our Customer Appreciation Summer adds the company and role of the author to comments, both on the web and in PDFs.

Comments now show the author’s role and company.

You’ll also see this information in the next release of the iOS app later this week. That update also features the “Include Asset Name” option when creating checklists and tests that we first rolled out on the web last week.

In addition, we’ve improved the presentation of field observation comments in the PDF to make it clearer which comment photos belong to.

It’s now clearer which comment photos belong to.

As a reminder, all of these features are based on feature requests at feedback.cxalloy.com. Although we focus on smaller features during the Customer Appreciation Summer, we are also working on many of the bigger requests. If you’ve added a request, made a comment, or just voted on the ones you want, thank you – your input there has been incredibly valuable to us.

We hope you like these updates and we’ll see you next week!

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Create Checklists and Tests Without Asset Names – Customer Appreciation Summer Week 7

Week 7 of our Customer Appreciation Summer is all about checklists and tests. First, we’ve added a new option when creating checklists and tests: “Include Asset Name”. By unchecking this option you can create checklists and tests without their associated asset name, which was not possible before.

The new “Include Asset Name” option gives you more control

We’ve also made two other improvements to the options step – you can now change a name right away without having to click “Customize” first, and we show an example of the name the checklists or tests will be given.

In another improvement to checklists and tests you can now see the percentage of Yes, No, and N/A answers in the PDFs right next to the colored progress bar.

You don’t need to guess at the percentages anymore

We hope you like these updates. See you next week!

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Navigation Improvements – Customer Appreciation Summer Week 6

We’ve improved a couple of small navigation bits for week 6 of our Customer Appreciation Summer. Though small these feature requests had a lot of customer votes behind them!

  • After creating a new checklist or test template within a folder, you will be taken to the newly created template inside that folder.
  • When adding lines to a checklist or test the “Add a line” form will remain so that you can quickly add multiple lines.

We hope you like these improvements. See you next week!

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Delete Projects – Customer Appreciation Summer Week 5

The latest Customer Appreciation Summer release adds project deletion. You can now finally get rid of that project you renamed “ZZZZ Don’t Use”! 😀

You can now delete projects

Deleting a project is as simple as clicking the “Delete” button on an account’s Projects page. It’s also available as an option in the “Actions” dropdown on the Overview page and on the General tab of the Project Settings page.

A project must be archived before it can be deleted, and only account admins can delete a project. Like most actions in CxAlloy TQ that modify data, you can undo a project deletion immediately after deleting it. If it takes you a day or two to realize that a project should not have been deleted, you can contact support and we can restore it for you.

Now your project list can look just a little cleaner. We hope you like it. See you next week!

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Pull Template Changes – Customer Appreciation Summer Week 4

This week we’ve got something really great – a major expansion of the Push Changes feature we rolled out late last year.

Push Changes allows you make edits to a template, such as adding lines or editing questions, and then “push” those changes to the checklists or tests that were created from that template.

With this release you can now also “pull” changes, meaning you can bring a checklist or test up to date with its associated template directly from the checklist or test. You can even select multiple checklists or tests in a list and “pull” changes to all of them.

Even better, we now show information about the associated template directly on the checklist and test page. This makes it easy to know when a checklist or test differs from the template it was created from and also provides a convenient link to that template.

You can now easily see whether a checklist or test differs from its associated template.

Prior to this release we also expanded push changes to allow pushing from account templates. The sum of these releases is a complete picture for pushing and pulling changes, allowing a checklist or test to be brought up to date with its associated template, regardless of whether it’s a project or account template and whether you are starting from the template or the checklist or test.

We hope you like this feature. See you next week!

One note: pushing and pulling changes are limited to upgraded accounts.