How To Create A Daily Report With Raildiary

Daily reporting is crucial for any contractor working in construction.

Proper daily reports build a full picture of your project history which can then be used for:

• Account Valuation
• Explaining The Cause Of A Significant Delay
• Payment Applications
• Dispute Resolution
• & More!

Reports shouldn’t just be for the project or commercial managers in the office. They should provide real value for everyone on site by giving them a clear overview of the works being completed and allowing them to make adjustments that avoid delays, fix problems and generally make life a little bit easier.

So why is it that filling out daily reports has become one of the most frustrating, perhaps even forgotten about tasks of your day? To put it simply, the current method of reporting doesn’t work. Recording specific events, labour, resources and weather conditions can be difficult after a long day, especially if you are relying on scraps of paper. Important details get missed and by the time you get around to filling out a report, it’s too late to make use of the information anyway.

Even the most disciplined of site managers can eventually start to view their meticulous note-taking as a thankless, even pointless exercise. It’s expected that most records will be filed away and only dusted off if a significant commercial issue arises, long after the works are completed.

That’s why we created Raildiary. To shift the focus from reactionary due-diligence to proactive project management. We want to give you real-time visibility of everything happening on-site, including your budget and materials, so you can anticipate problems before they arise.

Most importantly, we want to save you time. By filling out your daily report throughout the shift with photos, videos and locations integrated into the document and certain calculations filled out automatically, we’re making sure that you can leave site and get home to your dinner earlier than ever before.

So What Does Your Daily Report Include & Why?

1. Shift Information

It might seem obvious, but without it, how will you know who was overseeing the site that day? Or who was working? Or where?

Construction companies deal with a massive number of contractors, subcontractors, projects and locations, so it’s vital to capture basic project information. This covers the project name, purpose, who the report was completed by and what date it refers to.

Details you might not think to record, such as the weather, are also important. Changes to weather conditions can impact the efficiency of workers, increase the potential for accidents and slow down the progress of the work.

With Raildiary, pre-generated reports templates make it easy for you to remember everything you need to record. You’ll thank us later when someone asks you if it was snowing that day 7 months ago!

2. Access Information

Access is critical to railway construction works, because the amount of available working time correlates directly with outputs and progress. Capturing the detailed, step-by-step intricacies of each access type and the supporting timeline is important when it comes to explaining delays in working time and project progress.

3. Resources

Understanding what labour, plant and material is used on site each day is the backbone of site reports. Every department within the project management team makes use of this information. It provides context for progress, budget, identifying delivery issues and valuing subcontractor or main contractor applications.

Information in this section is aligned to project and company requirements to make sure that information is both consistent and compliant with company procurement rules.

This is also one of the main areas where we can save you time with your reporting. The Raildiary app can automatically calculate your allocation of labour and plant to specific tasks throughout the day, so you don’t need to work out yourself at the end of a shift.

4. Planned Works

The project programme and construction delivery plan provide the basis for works each shift, week or period. Capturing this information in a consistent format means that progress against KPIs can be easily tracked and presented to the wider project team.

Your planned works can be filled out before attending site to allow for easy input and comparison of actuals whilst on shift. This also means that you can have constant visibility of your actual process versus your planned progress, so you can easily establish why they might not match up.

5. Actual Works

Inputting actuals against planned works allows you to measure your progress, provide evidence for any discrepancies and understand they key drivers behind each activity.

This section makes it easy to record construction events. For example, you can fill out your report through voice to text software and auto image tagging directly from your mobile device. The events log helps you build a detailed timeline of the works and understand and delays or events that need to be addressed.

Furthermore, a photo timeline cuts down on your time spent providing separate progress photo reports or trying to insert photos into your notes. Instead, your team have all the information and insight they need - every step of the way.

6. Shift Comments

This section is designed for an end of shift summary or for capturing key comments and issues. The section is split into three components to allow managers to easily access key facts:

1. General shift comments. This area captures key performance metrics or issues and lets you flag them for urgent review. Construction reports should capture inefficiencies so they can be quickly addressed and mitigated, but also efficiencies that can be built on in future works.
2. Close calls. Track your key safety observations as part of the daily report to provide context and remove additional paperwork. Store your close calls in one place for an easy report download back in the office.
3. Environmental issues. Flag your concerns or issues with the environment in this section. Ensure your HSQE team have all the information they need in real-time, allowing action to be taken to reduce impact.

7. Hours Allocation

Every day different activities are undertaken by different resources. Quickly noting down which teams were on site, the number of resources they had, the hours they worked and a description of the work helps you easily keep track of the time dedicated to specific tasks - and the Raildiary automatically calculates some of this for you based on the data you enter. This also helps project management teams understand and benchmark activity costs and outputs.

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Raildiary is not about creating more work for you on-site.

It is about:

• Saving you time on admin
• Allowing you to anticipate problems, changes or delays in your project before they happen
• Presenting your reports in a clear, consistent format so you can easily access the information you need

For more information and support get in touch.

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