HCSS vs. Wrike

Our operation uses several pieces of what we call specialty equipment (not used every day on every job). The foreman when finished will give a location of where this equipment is left, this many times can be very vague and lead to a lowboy driver trying to block around to find the piece or driving down a street he cannot get turned around in. With the GPS devices, the driver can pinpoint exactly where the unit is and if he has room to turn around at that location.

Incentivized

Negotiations often involve long timelines and multiple rounds of discussion. Wrike allows us to assign clear ownership, track due dates, and monitor progress so that nothing stalls or gets lost. Redlines, proposals, and finalized agreements can be stored and shared within Wrike, reducing reliance on scattered email chains and ensuring everyone is working from the most current version.

Incentivized

• #1 is support! HCSS is by far the best software support of any product we have ever used. Unlike most software companies HCSS utilizes their support calls to help upgrade their software. When you here them tell you that they will write down a particular issue you come across during a support call if they can't help you then and there they will research and get an answer to you extremely fast. If the software will not do it, you can bet there is a good chance it will be on the list of enhancements you will see come out in the near future.
• Estimating software is very extensive. Their software is capable of handling the smallest estimate all the way to the largest joint venture estimate. It has advanced features that make it extremely useful for analyzing job materials, subcontractors etc.
• HeavyJob is an extremely useful tool for the field to keep the office up to date with job costs. Everything is at the Foreman's fingertips on Tablets to allow the information from the field to get uploaded to HeavyJob manager which then can export to accounting. We are also able to give our Foreman the ability to deal with the Daily and weekly safety needs (Tailgate Meetings, incident Investigation, observations etc.) right on the Tablets thru HeavyJob.

• different views to accommodate different users workflow
• predecessors and successors to tie tasks together and adjust dates as a group
• Being able to see other people's workloads so when I am planning my projects for the upcoming quarter, I can set a project delivery date that is better suited to workload and is more realistic

Incentivized

• All their apps are on mobile devices. Although there is not a clear company policy on Android versus iPhone. Updates for features lag behind on Android. Some apps are exclusive to one platform making it hard to fully interconnect all programs.

• Templating.
• For example, let's say we are onboarding a new client. There are certain tasks that need to be done. It would be great to be able to create a new project and have certain tasks preloaded.
• Importing.
• Importing may seem easy, but there is so much nuance to it. The fact that you need to make sure the parent task comes before child tasks is very difficult to do without the help of AI. Also, I am not sure it is possible if you have a thousand tasks to import, to make sure that you have a folder structure and parent/child tasks.
• I also find that the documentation is lacking and the 2 import methods lacking as well.
• Customize my inbox. When I log into Wrike, my Inbox is the first thing I see, but this doesn't show the full picture of what I want it.

Incentivized

I wish that Wrike had more drag and drop functionality that would be connected to assignee and also I wish that the finish date of a task would update to the date where you checked completed. It does not do that. Also finishing a task doesn't move the start date of the next task it "protects your time in that way", but our management team wants us to quickly see what we have down the pipeline rather than having to scroll down the list of upcoming tasks.

Incentivized

As mentioned, user interface appears messy and complicated at initial onset. Training is necessary but becomes easy to maneuver through after solid daily use.

Incentivized

I love the way task management is designed within Wrike. The full overview, followed by sequential updates, really works for us - this way, we don't need to go into individual people's work subtasks to find what's happening with a project. That's very useful from a project management perspective. The to-do feature also lets everyone access info in one place.

Incentivized

Over two years of (almost) daily usage without outages. Don't remember any errors. I give it 9 only because some Wrike plugins (for online document edit) are based on NPAPI architecture. These types of plugins are being phased out in new browsers, and NPAPI plugins are disabled by default in recent versions of Chrome so you have to do some browser adjustments when you switch browsers or move to another computer.

Wrike tasks loads fine, but I hate clicking files and wait for a bit of time since it is powerpoint or word, Wrike assumes I want to open those on Wrike. My suggestion is to link it to office 365 so we do not need Wrike based decoder for PPTX and DOCX

Incentivized

The people at HCSS who I interact with, whether it is a support technician, product manager, or the HCSS President, Mike Rydin, are as passionate at making construction management for heavy civil contractors a valuable experience as I am. They want to get us emphatic, project management addicted people in to tell them why their product is not working, and work with us to design the software to work for us. HCSS is good for the heavy civil contractor; it is going to help us to manage our projects with precision, accuracy, and accountability.

We've had so many questions during the establishment of Wrike for our team, and the Wrike support team has exceeded our expectations. Our team is naturally curious, and the Wrike support team has always been willing to hold conversations about how we can make an idea work, to show us hidden features that delight us, and to help us plan ways to build out projects efficiently. They meet our questions with multiple solutions and best practices

Incentivized

We had staff in person provide some training

Incentivized

I love the Wrike training options. Wrike Discover has tons of courses, learning plans, certifications, etc. This is an area where Wrike definitely shines! I wish these resources were more in your face for new people, because it seems like a lot of coworkers didn't know all of this training was available to them.

Incentivized

It is critical to select the right team to take to HCSS for implementation. They take very good care of you and your team and listen to all of your concerns. During implantation we often discuss wants and needs with VPs and Officers as they pass through to check on our progress.

There are a lot of bells and whistles in Wrike, and not all of it is easy or intuitive to understand once it's plopped in your lap. It's easier when there are a few choice people who understand Wrike as a platform and articulate it in such a way where it makes it easy to pass it along to others in the group

We researched other software companies but none provided the depth of support and knowledge that HCSS brought to the table. HCSS is also always growing and listening to its customers. Customer support seems to remain the backbone of the company that is always striving to grow with the industry.

Jira did not at all help us get our work done as content creators. I think that was because Jira wasn't quite right for our uses. Wrike fits our needs so much better. I can't tell you enough the relief I felt when we adopted Wrike and I never had to use Jira again.

Incentivized

Wrike has significantly enhanced our workflow and productivity, ensuring accuracy and efficiency meet high standards. Our work now reflects professionalism and top quality. Other departments have taken notice of how organized we are thanks to Wrike, and we take great pride in our work—all made possible by this platform

Incentivized

• The biggest ROI for us was the ease of adoption by field personnel.

Incentivized

• Wrike has improved our resource management significantly.
• Wrike has improved the request intake process for us.
• One negative impact of using Wrike is that we had to include Workato for some customised automations, which were not supported by Unito, but this can be on a need-to basis.

Incentivized