ARRANGEMENTS FOR ADMINISTRATING AND MANAGING A CONSTRUCTION PROJECT
First Claim
1. A computer program product to facilitate the administration of a construction project including a computer readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a processor cause the processor to:
- store questions in a relational database;
associate at least some of the questions with a first level, a second level, and third level;
store predetermined answers to the questions, wherein at least some of the first level questions relate to ownership of a proposed improvement to land, at least some of the second level questions relate to construction specifications and at least some of the third level questions relate to scheduling and bidding parameters for the construction project;
request responses to active first level questions;
accept and store at least one reply to the active first level questions;
compare the stored reply to the first level questions to the predetermined answers;
tag, as inactive, questions that have become irrelevant in the first, second and third level based on the compare of the reply to the first level questions;
request responses to active second level questions;
accept and store at least one reply to the active second level questions;
compare the stored reply to the second level questions to the predetermined answers;
tag, as inactive, questions that have become irrelevant in the second and third level based on the compare of the replies to the second level questions;
request responses to active third level questions;
accept and store at least one reply to the active third level questions;
compare the stored reply to third level questions to the predetermined answers;
tag, as inactive, questions that have become irrelevant in the third level based on the compare of the replies to the third first level questions; and
configure a management process based on the replies to the first, second and third level questions.
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Accused Products
Abstract
In some embodiments, a construction project administration system and method are disclosed that queries an administrator as to ownership, construction specifications, bidding parameters etc. for a proposed construction project using active first, second and third level questions and accepts and stores replies to the active questions. The stored replies can be compared to predetermined answers, and questions that become irrelevant based on the answers can be deactivated and taken off a list of questions to be asked. After a sufficient amount of questions are answered, the system can auto-configure a process for online construction management. For example a website can be set up that can be used by all parties to the project to automate communications, the exchange of data, status updates etc. including the submission of bids, acceptance of bids, and the award of contracts and many more paperless construction management features.
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Citations
20 Claims
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1. A computer program product to facilitate the administration of a construction project including a computer readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a processor cause the processor to:
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store questions in a relational database; associate at least some of the questions with a first level, a second level, and third level; store predetermined answers to the questions, wherein at least some of the first level questions relate to ownership of a proposed improvement to land, at least some of the second level questions relate to construction specifications and at least some of the third level questions relate to scheduling and bidding parameters for the construction project; request responses to active first level questions; accept and store at least one reply to the active first level questions; compare the stored reply to the first level questions to the predetermined answers; tag, as inactive, questions that have become irrelevant in the first, second and third level based on the compare of the reply to the first level questions; request responses to active second level questions; accept and store at least one reply to the active second level questions; compare the stored reply to the second level questions to the predetermined answers; tag, as inactive, questions that have become irrelevant in the second and third level based on the compare of the replies to the second level questions; request responses to active third level questions; accept and store at least one reply to the active third level questions; compare the stored reply to third level questions to the predetermined answers; tag, as inactive, questions that have become irrelevant in the third level based on the compare of the replies to the third first level questions; and configure a management process based on the replies to the first, second and third level questions. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A method for administrating a construction project comprising:
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queering a user with questions in a hierarchal order, via a website providing an online user interface, to determine owner parameters, bidding specifications, asset management specifications, design parameters, procurement parameters and constructions specifications; accepting and storing answers to the questions; retrieving one or more process compliance templates in response to the stored answers; automatically generating phases of the project, each phase having scheduling and compliance parameters; configuring automatically an online project management process on a website based on the stored answers where the configuring to include at least one of configuring an electronic mailing list, project specifications, project parameters, access information, bid submission parameters, bid acceptance parameters and contractor compliance parameters. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A method for administrating a construction project comprising:
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configuring a construction management process with parameters; retrieving one or more process compliance templates in response to the parameters; configuring a website to facilitate administration of the construction project in response to the process compliance templates; automatically configuring a messaging system to send notifications to prospective partners in a construction effort; registering a plurality of visitors to the website and querying the visitors with questions; configuring features that will be available to each of the plurality of visitor based on each visitor'"'"'s answers to the questions; parsing the construction project into sub-projects and requesting bids for each sub-project; accepting data via the website to include paperless bids, proposals and correspondence; deciding which visitor will provide services for each sub-project; deciding which visitor will provide materials for each sub-project; transmitting specifications related to the construction project to a permitting authority in a paperless manner. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20)
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Specification