Bridgit Bench vs. Smartsheet

Bridgit Bench vs. Smartsheet for construction project management: Overview

Bridgit Bench features & integrations

Bridgit Bench is the leading resource management software for the construction industry because of its ease of use and approachability for every level of user. Bridgit Bench is completely customizable and is proven to save time, mitigate project risk, and increase an organization’s bottom line by streamlining core operations. Bridgit has redefined resource management in the construction industry with a full suite of features designed to help contractors build stronger project teams, optimize capacity planning, and create balanced workloads with actionable insight into workforce allocations and utilization rates. Contractors across North America use Bridgit Bench as their “workforce control center” to keep resource planning meetings efficient and productive.

Features included with Bridgit Bench are:

• Expandable Project Gantt 
• Smart allocation suggestions based on title and availability
• Forecasting and allocation dashboards
• Easy-to-build reports
• Custom permission groups for controlled transparency

Bridgit Bench has an Open API that allows organizations to integrate their resource planning with their existing tech stack. It also supports integration with Procore software and is available as an embedded experience within the Procore app.

Pros and cons of Bridgit Bench

PROS

Bridgit Bench is very simple, user-friendly, and easy to use. It allows contractors to quickly update staffing changes common to the construction industry and provides accurate visualization tools for creating efficient, strategic, forward-looking workforce plans. Its user-friendly interface allows for the consolidation of multiple, error-prone spreadsheets commonly used for resource management. Bridgit Bench helps to improve collaboration by providing unlimited users with controlled access to accurate, actionable project and allocation data via web-based or mobile applications.

Bridgit Bench was built for construction and is responsive to customer needs. Our implementation team has contractors up and running with their workforce and project data within 2 weeks. Bridgit works with customers to update existing features and create meaningful new features to satisfy the needs of the industry.

CONS

Bridgit Bench is currently only available for North American, Australian, and New Zealand-based contractors.

Smartsheet for construction project management: Features & integrations

While Bridgit Bench was built specifically for the construction industry, Smartsheet was built to satisfy the needs of a wide array of industries. It is a widely used business system for automating project and work management. Smartsheet acts as a more intuitive version of Microsoft Excel with users still required to set up spreadsheets or go fishing for Smartsheet construction templates that deliver the needed functionality. Though it wasn’t designed specifically for construction resource planning and still requires spreadsheet creation, Smartsheet is a flexible software solution that general contractors are able to make work to plan, track, and report on work.

Features included with Smartsheet are:

• Budget management
• Contract management
• Equipment tracking
• Dashboards

Smartsheet also has an Open API and supports a number of software integrations.

Pros and cons of using Smartsheet for construction resource management

PROS

Smartsheet is like Microsoft Excel, but with tools that help to enable collaboration and increase transparency. It allows users to build and share “sheets” for real-time collaboration. Smartsheet also allows users to easily create complex sheets and helps to consolidate large amounts of data into dashboards.

CONS

Given that Smartsheet is a tool designed to service multiple industries, it can be a little overstuffed for construction workforce management. This can lead to it being a difficult tool to garner buy-in from your team as the interface can be overwhelming to team members that aren’t regularly using it. A lack of view-only user permissions can also lead to multiple users having access to manage your data and increase the risk of unwanted changes.

Being a close alternative to Microsoft Excel, Smartsheet also requires some manual data entry and the use of Smartsheet construction templates that may not plug and play with your other systems. The amount of data that comes with every construction project can make workforce management a very time-consuming, tedious process when you’re using something like Smartsheet for construction project management.