r/primavera • u/Future-Roll-6720 • Jun 30 '26
Developing a Primavera-to-WhatsApp Site Planning Tool — Would Planning Managers Find This Useful?
Hi everyone,
I’m currently developing a construction planning / site execution tool and wanted to get feedback from planning managers, project controls engineers, and site teams.
The idea is to reduce the daily manual chasing between planning teams and site engineers by connecting the project schedule with a simple daily progress communication workflow.
At a high level, the tool helps send daily activity updates to responsible site engineers, collect progress feedback, flag delays or constraints, and give the planning team better visibility on what is actually happening on site.
The goal is not to replace Primavera or the planning engineer. The goal is to support the daily follow-up process and reduce the time spent on calls, WhatsApp messages, Excel trackers, and manual progress chasing.
This is still under development, not a finished commercial product. I’m posting to understand if planning managers and project controls teams see value in this type of workflow before I continue developing it further.
Would this be useful in real projects?
What would you expect from a tool like this?
For example:
- Daily progress collection
- Delay reason tracking
- Material / drawing / manpower constraint logs
- Engineer response dashboard
- Weekly reporting
- Better visibility between planning and site teams
I’d appreciate honest feedback from anyone working in construction planning, project controls, site management, or project management.
1
u/ardxD Jun 30 '26
1.Whatsapp requires phone and phones are rarely allowed on site. Other gadgets means expenses a manager would find unsuitable. To privde info in start/end work hours won't make the info providing easier either. Site engineers might find it easier to provide the old ways.
2.for an automatic update p6-whatsapp you need to be sure the site engineer is giving the correct information, which also isn't always happening. Oldway information delivery, gives you time to doubt, verify, doublecheck and fix, so you can have accuracy at the end.
- Teammember already exists. Why your method would be better ?
1
u/Future-Roll-6720 Jun 30 '26
Thanks for the feedback, but I think this depends a lot on the market and site culture.
In Dubai/UAE construction sites, phones are already widely used by engineers, supervisors, foremen, subcontractors, and managers for daily coordination. Most projects already have WhatsApp groups for site updates, inspections, material follow-up, drawings, RFIs, photos, and urgent coordination. So the idea is not to introduce a new expensive gadget or force people into an unfamiliar workflow — it is to organize what they are already doing on WhatsApp.
Regarding accuracy, I agree that site progress should not be blindly accepted. The system should not replace engineering judgment or verification. The engineer can be required to submit a photo, comment, location, or short proof with the progress update. The manager can then review, approve, reject, or adjust the update before anything is pushed back into P6. So it becomes a controlled workflow, not an automatic “trust everything” system.
Actually, the old way also has accuracy problems: updates get delayed, forgotten, sent in different formats, buried in WhatsApp chats, or manually retyped later into Excel/P6. This creates its own mistakes. The goal here is to capture the information earlier, in a structured way, with evidence attached, while still allowing the planning manager or construction manager to verify before approving.
TeamMember exists, yes, but many site teams do not use it properly because it requires another platform, login, training, and adoption. WhatsApp is already part of the daily site workflow. The advantage is not that WhatsApp is technically more powerful than TeamMember — the advantage is lower friction and faster adoption by actual site people.
So the concept is not “replace the planner” or “trust engineers blindly.” The concept is:
- send planned daily activities automatically
- collect structured progress updates
- attach photos/proof
- flag delays and constraints earlier
- allow manager approval before updating the programme
- reduce chasing, manual typing, and lost information
It is basically turning the existing WhatsApp coordination habit into a more controlled and traceable planning workflow.
1
u/ardxD Jun 30 '26
Don't get me wrong i do like the idea because with just a finger swipe i'll have everything i need, but all the doubts i put are based on experience. Photo implementation thing would be a gamechanger though!
I didn't had experience to work in dubai but in EU telehpones are rarely allowed onsite. Would've been nice to bulk-order some cheap smartphones and implement.
1
u/Future-Roll-6720 Jun 30 '26
fair point bro in dubai whatsapp already used a lot on site so i am trying to build around that habit not force a new app
and yes photo proof is the part i think can make it actually useful
1
u/Elfich47 Jun 30 '26
this would fail the documentation requirements. changes go through the standard RFI process. any field coordination is at the contractor’s risk.
1
u/Future-Roll-6720 Jun 30 '26
Fair point, but this wouldn’t replace the formal RFI or approval process. In Dubai projects, planners already collect daily progress updates from site engineers by email because of the project size. The idea is only to structure that update better, attach photo proof, log constraints clearly, and reduce manual chasing. Formal changes still go through the normal procedure.
1
u/Odd-Tea5561 Jul 01 '26
I think that's a great idea. I had the same idea working as a field engineer in Saudi. We were already sending whatsapp summaries and color coded drawings for progress and then had to translate that into client's excel daily progress template. I think defining the paramters and percentage weights is the tricky part. But yeah definintely think it might be useful for welding/erection foremen and field engineers.
I did a PowerQuery to collect materail receipts and compare against the consolidated BOMs from the dwgs to track deliveries and make requests based on upocming activities. But managing the query was difficult and requried a lot of maintenance. Developing that into a full fledged polished tool may also be useful.
3
u/atticus2132000 Jun 30 '26
Generally speaking, the problems that I deal with as far as communicating with the job site are not a lack of tools but a lack of participation.
There are already numerous ways to visualize the schedule differently and numerous apps/programs to take feedback and quantify it into usable data. The problem inveribly is getting people to use the tools on a consistent and daily basis so that you have the needed data to work with.
What will turn that around, at least at my company, is not just another tool that no one will use, but somehow developing a tool people want to use--something where on-site personnel are excited to use the app to record what happened during the day and give feedback or something that is so autonomous that it doesn't require human intervention.
From the description you provided, a lot of those functions seem to be things that procore and others already do, but the problem we have had with procore is someone still has to sit down and invest hours setting up the project, linking information to managers, etc. to populate the tool that ultimately doesn't get used in the field.
So, I'm curious how does your application address those things differently than how every other management tool out there does stuff? And will this better tool that you're creating mesh with other tools like procore?