We’re a council who manages controlling weeds on roadsides and nature reserves. We often send staff out to do a roadside audit (visual check for weeds and coverage). How will OpenRoad help us?
Using the OpenRoad mobile app, you are able to conduct an audit onsite, taking (geo-tagged) photos and making notes. Using geo-location services on your phone, the app can link your position to an area (location/property/roadside) within OpenRoad, displaying historical information, current jobs, and allows you to complete audits and forms. This data is synchronised back to the OpenRoad cloud and can be immediately seen by staff in the office.
We often assign large volumes of work to contractors, but have little to no oversight of the progress of work. How will OpenRoad help with this?
Within OpenRoad land-managers are linked with contractors. When a job (or package) is assigned to the contractor, a two-way relationship is established. As a land manager you have visibility of when the jobs are scheduled by the contractor. Photos, notes, and form data entered by the contractor remain the property of the land-manager and are immediately visible within the land-managers OpenRoad portal.
Occasionally we require additional information about the conditions and location a job was performed in. Will OpenRoad help us with that?
Absolutely! When the contractor uses the OpenRoad mobile app, we capture the precise time and location of the job, and the record the hourly weather conditions at the time of the job. The contractor can attach additional photos, notes, and chemical applications. This information is immediately available to council.
We often have fixed budgets for allocated work to contractors. Traditionally when we assign work to contractors we export data out of multiple systems into spreadsheets where we can estimate the amount of work (budget) allocated to each contractor. This is time consuming and almost immediately out od date. Will we still need to use this process with OpenRoad?
No. OpenRoad allows you to see the budget amounts assigned to each contractor in real-time. You can compare estimates of allocated funds against actual work invoiced, as well as a variety of financial views (e.g., funds allocated per contractor or category of work).
We have a lot of historical data in other council systems that we don’t want to lose. Is there some way to import that into OpenRoad?
Yes. OpenRoad supports importing and exporting information via API’s. This means your IT people can integration OpenRoad with other council systems to import and export financial, mapping, project and job data, and other all other types of data.
As a land-manager we have GIS data of all the land assets we manage. Can this data be used in OpenRoad?
Yes. GIS data can be imported into OpenRoad and tagged with different labels, colours, and patterns. GIS data is an integral part of OpenRoad, and many of the views display data over-laying maps. GIS data can be created or edited directly in OpenRoad, or alternatively imported/exported via the GeoJSON format.
Our council is focused on excellent cyber security practises. As part of this we use single sign-on (SSO) and two-factor authentication. Will OpenRoad be able to support this?
OpenRoad uses Microsoft Azure Active Directory (AD B2C) for authenticating users. We can seamlessly connect to a variety of other identity providers such as Microsoft Office 365, Google, and Auth0 to support SSO and two-factor requirements.
When I schedule a job, can I see weather data for the day I’m scheduling the job for without going to another system?
Yes. Any job scheduled within 14 days of the current day will show weather information (rain, wind, temperature) for the scheduled day and surrounding days. We use weather data from Meteomatics (https://www.meteomatics.com/en/weather-data/).
We require our crews to fill-in custom forms before each job. Can this be captured in OpenRoad?
Yes. OpenRoad contains a form-builder for creating rich forms with a variety of field types and rules. One or more forms can be attached to a job, and rules can be created for each form (e.g. the form is only valid if a fields value is within a threshold).
My contractors need to record the time they are on the job. Currently we record time in a third-party system. Can OpenRoad help with this?
Yes. Crew members can record time on the OpenRoad app directly against a job, a land asset, or a project.
Our administration staff spend a lot of time raising invoices for council work. Does OpenRoad make this process easier or harder?
Easier! Within OpenRoad, when you complete a job you can choose to raise an invoice immediately. The invoice can edited (if required) or sent immediately to the council. If your business accounting is with a supported provider (e.g. Xero) we can post the invoice directly into your financial system.