In our most recent installment of our ConstructionSuite 9 Special Session webinars, Senior Product Specialist Ian Schafer and Sales Consultant Jordan Davis detailed UDA Technologies' new partnership with Amazon Web Services hosting. If you missed our live session, you can find the recording below as well as an interview with the hosts about ConstructionSuite and Amazon Web Hosting's benefits.
Utilizing ConstructionSuite and Amazon Web Services together gives you the freedom to connect your team anytime, from any location. Covering over 17 geographic regions, you'll never be without your project data using Amazon Web Services. Following the webinar, I caught up with Ian and Jordan to ask them a few questions about the combined power of ConstructionSuite9 and Amazon Web Hosting:
How is using ConstructionSuite with Amazon Web Services different from using it with another cloud platform?
Ian: Our partnership with Amazon is unique for a number of reasons. Unlike most cloud hosting companies, UDA provides a world-class collection of company management tools in the form of ConstructionSuite and ConstructionOnline, our cloud hosting is a way to provide these tools in the most accessible way available. We also partner with Amazon to provide access on a global scale with industry leading speed, reliability, and availability. Through Amazon’s economy of scale, we provide hosting services at a more reasonable price with better performance than you will find anymore. Most importantly, though, our client success is our goal and we are able to achieve that goal by unifying client needs in one platform rather than relying on 3rd party vendors for access to your servers, technical support, and even tasks as simple as small program updates.
Jordan: Compared to using a different platform, it's easy to see the immediate benefits from using Amazon Web Hosting servers for ConstructionSuite. Our servers are tailored to running ConstructionSuite in the most optimal condition. It runs faster, smoother, and all user connection questions are handled quickly from the beginning by the UDA team.
What applications can be integrated with ConstructionSuite hosted on the cloud?
Ian: Another great question! Hosting ConstructionSuite in the cloud is very similar to installing it on your laptop – which means you can access a wide variety of programs on the hosted server and you can carry it with you everywhere! As of right now, we have clients working on hosted servers with most of their mission critical applications – QuickBooks, Microsoft Office, Planswift, eTakeoff, Tsheets, Exaktime, and (of course) UDA ConstructionSuite. While all these applications are installed on the cloud hosted server, ConstructionSuite will be able to integrate perfectly with any/all of them as if they were installed on your local computer but with the added convenience of global availability.
Jordan: All versions of QuickBooks desktop, PlanSwift, Chief Architect, and eTakeoff are all great fits. Also, most browser-based applications not requiring constant internet connections are good to consider as well, such as MicrosoftOffice.
What kind of impact would newly using this feature have on a company?
Ian: The biggest impact this service has for a company is that it drastically improves accessibility. It's for the company who has only five minutes to dedicate to their work, and can't afford to sit still for very long. AWS is a great tool if you want to decentralize your company (having accountants and superintendents in different locations).
Jordan: As a single user, they would have the option to take ConstructionSuite wherever they go. With multiple users, they would have access to all data everywhere. A team would truly have streamlined project collaboration between home offices and field offices. It opens up the possibility for remote bookkeeping, schedule management, and much more.
How long does the set up process take and how complicated is it?
Ian: Once we receive user information and data from clients, our expected turn-around time is 24-48 hours for hosted servers. If you are working in a shared space, this time might change based on availability.
Jordan: All the process entails on the client side is them sending our team any program data that needed to be backed up and their ConstructionOnline log in information for each user (ConstructionOnline free accounts are used to set up Amazon Web Hosting for each company). So, the length of the set up process truly depends on how long the client takes to send over the required information. After our team recieves their data, it only takes one to two business days to get everything set up on our side.
Interested in learning more about how our partnership with Amazon Web Services can benefit you and your team? As Jordan stated during the webinar, "By offering our own cloud hosting services, we are able to bring our premium services and expertise to customers anywhere and everywhere." To learn more, speak with one of our Product Specialists today at (800) 700-8321!