NoteVault is a California-based developer of mobile daily reporting technologies for the US construction industry, growing its market partly through a solution integration strategy.
One of the first major acquisitions in the SaaS construction collaboration sector was Autodesk’s $46m purchase of Constructware in February 2006 (post). Competitors’ fears that the powerful workflow features of Constructware would be migrated to a revitalised Buzzsaw proved unfounded, and three years later there was considerable industry discussion about whether Autodesk would even continue support for Constructware (April 2009). These rumours were hastily denied by Autodesk executives, and new Constructware releases were rolled out, but with little or no marketing fanfare.
It was therefore something of a surprise when a long-dormant Google Alert suddenly pinged a news release into my inbox: NoteVault Completes Integration with Autodesk Constructware. But at least it’s put mobile technology provider NoteVault on my radar.
NoteVault
Founded in 2007 and employing (May 2014) 24 people, NoteVault is a San Diego, California-based provider of voice-to-text-based mobile daily reporting solutions for the commercial construction industry. Its integration with the “widely used” (its words) Constructware is the latest in a string of tie-ups with other US-based construction software vendors, the product development part-funded by an April 2014 investment from West Partners.
Instead of relying on hand-written notes often compiled from memory, time and date-stamped daily reports (effectively, site diary entries) can be rapidly created by voice, text, email, app (iOS and Android options) or Evernote, and are then securely stored in NoteVault, from where they can be viewed online, issued as alerts or notifications, or published as PDF reports with searchable data.
The data can be shared with solutions including CMiC, Trimble’s Prolog, Viewpoint, Spectrum (and now Constructware), while the PDFs can also be filed to user-specified Box or Sharepoint locations.
NoteVault appears to be only marketed in the US (the company has further offices in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Seattle and Tampa), though customers include some international names such as Aecom, URS and Atkins. Pricing starts at $20/month per user for standard reporting (which excludes human transcription of voice notes), or $80/month with unlimited professional transcription.