InEight Progress Overview

InEight Progress is one of the applications within the InEight portfolio of products. It is an integrated electronic time, equipment and quantity collection tool as well as a daily field log. The InEight Progress solution includes three submodules: Daily Planning, Weekly Time sheet and Time center. The Weekly Time sheet and Time center solutions are covered in the Progress – Advanced User Guide. This Guide will cover the Daily Planning portion of InEight Progress.

InEight Progress Daily Planning Phases

Daily planning is broken down into three distinct phases in the application: Planning, Execution, and Approval. 

A daily plan is created by a project member to specify the tasks to be completed by a given crew, and to ensure productivity targets are met. Budget, quantity, safety, quality and other details are entered during the Planning phase to provide streamlined communication from the office to the field. Once the planner, typically a superintendent, field engineer or indirect supervisor is satisfied with the daily plan details and planned productivity, they will submit the plan to the Execution Phase.

In the Execution Phase, a project member takes the daily plan out in the field and references it throughout the day. As work is completed, the project member enters actual hours worked for employees and equipment. He or she also enters installed quantities, notes/issues and/or pictures to document issues and reviews the overall productivity.  By claiming installed quantities and entering actual hours worked, the project member can view productivity in real-time.  Once all employees have reviewed their hours worked and signed out of the application, the daily plan is submitted for approval.

In the Approval Phase, a project member reviews the actual tasks, employees, equipment, hours, quantities and productivity for the plan. In this phase, the hours and/or quantities can be approved as is, or if the approver would like something changed, the plan can be edited or sent back to the Execution Phase. The approver can approve the hours submitted, the quantities submitted or both. Approving the hours will send them to payroll for processing and approving the quantities will send them to the quantity tracking module of InEight Plan which syncs directly with InEight Control.

Daily Plan Work Flow

For all phases of the Daily Planning Process, InEight Progress Mobile communicates directly with the InEight Progress Web application, as shown in the diagram below:

A daily plan can be accessed in either program in any of the phases of daily planning. The program used for a phase may vary from project to project and depends largely on the roles of the project members involved. For example, it may be preferable to have a staff member such as a superintendent or engineer complete daily planning in the InEight Progress web application because they prefer to work from a computer in an office location. The Execution Phase of that same daily plan may be completed by a foreman who spends their entire workday out on the jobsite without access to a computer. In this case the Execution Phase is completed in the InEight Progress mobile application. Finally, the superintendent or engineer may also be responsible for approval of the daily plan which would again be completed in the InEight Progress Web application from their office computer.

Mobile Daily Planning has all the same functionality as Web Daily Planning for InEight Progress, but is available as a mobile-only application. 

InEight Control Integration

WBS (work breakdown structure) elements are used to link the quantity, hours and cost captured in InEight Progress with the cost elements in InEight Control. InEight Control communicates the WBS Structure (including budgeted quantities, hours and cost) with InEight Plan. InEight Plan then assigns WBS elements to components. 

InEight Progress uses the component quantities along with actual hours to determine productivity.

This lesson provides an overview of InEight Progress and the subsequent lessons will expand on the InEight Progress functionality in more detail.

Daily Planning

Daily planning offers specific functionality for project members to create, view, or change daily plans as needed. Daily plans allow you to select specific components and resources (labor and equipment) from a work package and assign it in daily production increments. 

Daily Planning is completed by navigating through the six tabs in the navigation bar at the top of the screen:

  • Overview – Modify or enter plan details, approvers, and executors

  • Details – Enter planner notes and tool box talk items

  • Time Sheet – Select tasks and resources and assigned planned hours

  • Quantities – Select specific components and specify planned installation quantity

  • Notes/Issues – Enter any additional plan notes/issues including photos if needed.

  • Productivity – Review planned productivity and compare against current budget or estimate or current estimate

A foreman can also use mobile daily planning to change an existing daily plan.  If the plan changes from the original plan, a foreman can still make changes to the daily plan.

Daily Execution

Daily execution allows you to capture actual hours, quantities, notes/issues, and productivity.  You can document the number of hours worked for each employee and machine assigned to a specific task. (For hourly rates, you can document standard time [ST], over time [OT], or double time [DT]).

You can claim the quantity completed and see the productivity for the day. You can also add notes and pictures. Once you complete the entries, you can sign out employees and fill out compliance questionnaires. This is commonly used to ensure at sign off that employees are not injured while at work.

Daily execution is completed by navigating through the seven tabs in the navigation bar at the top of the screen:

  • Overview – Review plan details, approvers, and executors

  • Details – Review planned tasks, planner notes and tool box talk items

  • Time Sheet – Enter actual hours worked and assign to tasks and resources

  • Quantities – Enter actual components and indicate installed quantity

  • Notes/Issues – Enter any notes/issues and photos related to execution of the work

  • Productivity – Review actual productivity and compare with current budget, estimate and planned production rates

  • Sign Out – Review employee hours, enter sign out pin or signature and answer compliance questions

Daily Approval

Daily approval allows you to review actual hours, quantities, notes/issues, and productivity that were entered during the execution phase. This gives supervisors a chance to review information before the hours are sent to the ERP payroll system and quantities are claimed in InEight Progress. 

There are 3 options in the Approval Phase:

  • Approve - Quantities and hours can be approved independently or all at once

  • Edit – The daily plan can be further edited by the Approver to change specific details such as tasks, resources, hours and quantities

  • Reject – Sends the daily plan back to Execution Phase to allow the Executor to revise the plan and resubmit

All tabs from the Execution Phase can be viewed in the Approval Phase.

Work Flow Beyond InEight Progress

When quantities are approved in Progress, they can be brought into the InEight Control application (initiated within InEight Control). 

Hours

When hours are approved, the hours are sent to your payroll system. Once ERP payroll has processed the hours, as-built hours and costs can then be pulled into InEight Control from ERP payroll (again initiated in InEight Control). 

Quantities and Costs

Bringing actual installed quantities and as-built costs into InEight Control allows you to monitor and compare actual costs and productivity against budgets for all cost accounts. It also helps provide timely information to accurately forecast costs.

The following diagram illustrates the workflow of InEight Progress in relation to other products within the InEight portfolio and the ERP system. You will reference this diagram throughout the course.