Issue 4 // APRIL 2018

Elevate 2018

Registration for Elevate 2018 is now open! Register today at the early bird rate and secure your seat in the certification class of your choice. Space is limited and these classes sell out every year!

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The April Release is now available! In addition to maintenance updates, we are excited to announce the release of the following:


Search Enhancements 
Several new "search" enhancements have been released in e-Builder that make it easier to find the information you are looking for as well as view and manipulate search results:

  • Target your search easily with autosuggest support on the project filter and the ability to select and deselect all checkboxes.
  • Narrow down your search quickly with the ability to sort, filter and export your search results,
  • Navigate large search results sets with improved paging and navigation.
Mobile Enhancements  
The latest e-Builder iOS client release includes new enhancements that make it easier to enter, navigate and view information from the field:

  • Add and edit Dynamic Grids .
  • Improved document and photo sorting which make it easier to find the information you need. 

The April Maintenance Release is now available!

Click here to view a copy of the release notes. 

Click here to view the enhancement webinar with more information on these features. 


e-Builder has opened up the call for submissions for the 4th Annual e-Builder Innovators in Construction Award (IIC)! This award recognizes forward-thinking owner organizations that demonstrate excellence in using technology to accelerate project schedules, reduce cost overrun and improve project outcomes. Past winners and finalists include best-in-class organizations such as:

• Howard Hughes Corporation (2017 winner) 

• Pennsylvania Department of General Services (2017 winner)

• State of New Mexico Public Schools Authority (2016 winner)

• HCA Healthcare (2016 winner)

• University of Southern California (2015 winner)

• Memorial Hermann Healthcare (2015 finalist)

• Northeastern University (2015 finalist)

• Inova Healthcare (2015 finalist)


A winner will be selected in the public sector and private sector category, and will be honored at a special awards luncheon on Thursday, October 11th at the 2018 Elevate conference. A special feature video will be created for both winners, showcasing their progressive practices in capital program management.

This is your opportunity to highlight all of the hard work and dedication that your team has contributed to improving the construction industry. Submit today for the chance to take this award back to your organization and join the elite group of winners and finalists. The deadline to submit your organization is June 1st, 2018. For more information and to access the submission application, visit our website.

Have questions or need help with your submission? We’re happy to help! Contact Maggie Caesar at [email protected].



Manage Project Visibility  
By: Robin Elliott, Customer Success Manager 

Did you know you can hide projects that are inactive, complete, or on hold from the project drop down list while still allowing users to have access? As an account administrator you can manage the visibility of project in e-Builder. There are scenarios where users may no longer be actively working on one or more projects but may still need access. Admins can hide those projects, so they do not appear in the project drop down list. Follow the simple instructions below to manage project visibility.

  1. Go to Setup.
  2. Under Administration Tools, go to Projects and then Project Visibility .
  3. Move the Projects to be removed from the Projects drop down list to the Hidden column. 



When users need to view projects that are hidden from the project drop down list they can use the ‘Hidden Projects’ link in the upper right corner. The ‘Hidden Projects’ link appears on every page within the projects module.



Users can filter for hidden projects by project name, project administrator, city, state, or any combination of project custom fields.

Blue Green Deployments

As little as two years ago, which is a “generation” in the tech world, deploying an update to e-Builder Enterprise consisted of compiling all the improvements, fixes and changes into a package and deploying that package every week. These enhancements would push out  in the wee hours of the morning and would apply all the changes at once. Such changes are beneficial, but they can also be jarring or overwhelming when presented in mass. We knew there was a better way. 

We needed a better way to manage the targeted service releases across a dynamically changing number of hosts. Our goal was to improve our processes and technology for our customers.

  • We segmented parts of our system, redesigning them into isolated services so we can make small changes rapidly.
  • We scaled out those services, allowing us to distribute the load across a dynamically increasing or decreasing number of host computers.

The result: The adoption of a blue-green deployment process.

The “blue” in the blue-green deployment model refers to the current state of the servers in a service cluster.


After we vet a change, no matter how minor, it is deployed to a small number of servers. These servers are removed from the load balancer for a short time and the remaining servers take over the increased load during the upgrade process.

The selected servers are upgraded invisibly as far as the customer is concerned. There is no consumer impact as they are still connected to e-Builder and using the application while the upgrade is taking place.

The upgraded servers are now “green”. The load is redistributed across the servers for a moment while the first iteration completes so the old and new versions are operating side-by-side.

Then the process repeats, taking more of the blue servers out and replacing them with green servers until all the servers are green.

Automatic load distribution means no impact to the customer at all; just an improvement to their experience!  

With the improved process, one large update in the dead of night has been turned into dozens of small updates that can be applied in the middle of the day with no downtime and no impact to the customer. Continual Improvement.

All the best

e-Builder's Enterprise Architecture Team
Jagruthi Mali
Erick Lopez
Sreejith Sreedharan
Enrique Altuna 
Lev Sholubka
David Moyer


Project complexity is increasing at the same time project budgets and schedules are tighter than ever. On top of this we are in one of the tightest labor markets in recent memory. Status quo project management practices are inadequate and will not scale into 2018 and beyond.

During this webinar we will speak with a panel of customers who have broken away from inefficient project management practices to go beyond on-time and on-budget resulting in increased value to their customers. 

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Key Take-Aways:

  • Learn to identify inefficient practices in the industry today that are impacting your capital programs
  • Hear from customers who have changed the way they work to become more efficient and the impact on their capital programs
  • Take away best practices on how to bring a more efficient practice to managing your capital programs 
Speakers:
Chris Burner, Chief Project Officer
Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority 

Gary Younger, Director, Program/Project Controls
Northeastern University 

Dan Conery, Capital Program Advisor
e-Builder