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Tangentworks 550
by S. Coldwell on Buzz Shout
Yesterday I played around with the Tangentworks 550 demo (called TestDrive) for over an hour. Using the recommended "sample user" logins, I was able to see how this web application works. The first really great feature I noticed was how it's set up to totally merge into one place all the various information files you might be accessing daily, no matter whose company they're from, inside your firm or out. In my current firm, I have to constantly login and logout to various websites depending on whose company uploaded the files, and I can never see together all the different deadlines or requests-for-information across various information I'm working on, because each has the info controlled from different companies. In the 550 setup, each of these different companies can subscribe to Tangentworks, upload their data and control access to only who needs to see it, and I can view in one place all the info that I'm supposed to have access to, with my deadlines sorted personally across all my information. I've yet to see this integration in any other information management software out there. They call this setup the "Tangentworks Metaverse", which encompasses all the different subscribing companies' data into hierarchical "pyramids" that can each have their own sub-workspaces for clients and information. It's organized very intuitively, much like a familiar folder tree that's navigable on the left side of the main view. At the very top level, that's where you can see merged and sorted all the data that just pertains to you (regardless of which pyramid it belonged to); it's called the personal "Skyview" page.
I poked around their sample data, and got to understand better how it was organized by subscribing company studio client information. Each one of these is called a "level" in their pyramid analogy. Working daily with many different clients and information, like an architect or contractor typically does, I can really see how this setup could really help organize the chaos of data (requests-for-information, announcements, deadlines, etc.) that increasingly pours in disconnected from dozens of sources.
In addition to their basic document sharing, which seems well thought out, they have included standard data lists which are commonly used in the design and construction industry, such as RFI Logs, Submittal Logs, Change Order Logs, and Pay App Logs, etc. Again, all of this data "rolls-up" to the upper levels of the pyramid, so that when I was at these upper levels (company, studio, or client), I could see together in one place all of the items from the various lower levels (information). So unlike other document sharing software I've seen, where I would have to separately drill down into each information log to see all of the RFI's or submittals for each individual information, they can now be viewed together and sorted as I need. They call this capacity, to view data up-and- down across the different levels, their "roll-up / roll-down" feature, and it seems a major time-saver. I looked around in the administration area, and while at first it seems a little daunting, I soon realized that they've written this application to serve a more mature business market, where there's likely a need to set up sensitive access permissions with various categories of clients, engineers and contractors. And I was impressed with the ability to create my own data lists and templates that can contain almost any field type I'm likely to need, including standard text, choice lists, checkboxes, photos, file attachments, web links, etc. And they apparently make it possible to easily share custom list templates with other subscribers of Tangentworks 550.
In summary, I think that Tangentworks 550 could be the next killer app for the AEC market, especially given what seems like a very reasonable pricing structure. Sure, there are some detailed improvements I'd love to see, and the user interface graphics could use a little further work (it lacks some of the punch other products have), but given the fact that this company is new and the number of innovative things they've thought about so far (most importantly, its overall structure), I would think these details are surely something that they will soon be working on. Tangentworks... can you hear me? :-)
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