Construction projects use email extensively to send and receive information between internal and external stakeholders. No matter how many processes we automate for unifying and collecting information (transmittals, portals, EDIs, etc.), there will always be project-critical information being passed around through emails.

Digital Construction reduces email, but still…

A study done in 2012 around the benefits of Integrated Digital Construction (IDC) shows how much construction projects benefit from the reduction of email when processes are centered around BIM, integrations between different systems, collaboration, workflows, etc. The below 3 projects, all with similar size and complexity, represent 3 buildings: type “A” designed from 2D drawings with minimum collaboration, type “B” designed with BIM and minimum collaboration, and type “C” using BIM with a high level of collaboration. The study shows that a significant amount of emails is reduced per square foot in type C projects i.e. ones using BIM with a high level of collaboration.

However, fewer emails do not mean project critical information has also been reduced. On the contrary, it is probably the same level but squeezed into fewer emails.

Mission-critical emails need to be searchable 

After we developed Power Search for Autodesk BIM 360, we found a need to extend this great tool to also cover emails. But the task was not easy. Emails are cumbersome and contain a lot of values: TOs, FROMs, SUBJECT, ATTACHMENTS, DATE, BODY, and more. Plus, the volume of emails a typical construction project receives and sends a day can be very high and heavy (with those big attachments).

What we developed is a way to automatically process emails uploaded to Autodesk BIM 360 folders, and have our platform load them into a database and extract the different fields to make them fully searchable (To, From, Subject, Body, etc)! Users can then search for emails from the “BIM360 Email Search” within BlackSmithSoft DC or WFP. Results can be viewed in the browser, exported to Excel, or downloaded.