Heavy civil and infrastructure
Schedule, equipment and cost data for heavy civil contractors
Heavy civil jobs run for years, carry detailed CPM schedules and burn cost through crews and equipment more than through subcontracts. We connect Primavera P6, HCSS, accounting and project management into one model so schedule status, quantities, equipment and cost come from the same refresh. Then we automate the recurring updates public owners require.
The challenges we hear
Schedule updates live in P6, cost lives everywhere else
Monthly CPM updates, float and critical path sit in Primavera P6 while cost, quantities and billing sit in the estimating, field and accounting systems. Executives get schedule and cost as two separate stories about the same job.
Unit-price progress is reconciled by hand
Bid items, installed quantities and pay estimates are tracked against the owner's schedule of values in spreadsheets. Matching field quantities to bid items and to cost codes each month is slow and easy to get wrong.
Equipment cost and utilization are hard to see by job
Equipment hours, rates and location come from HCSS or telematics, while the cost lands in accounting. Without a link between them it is hard to tell which jobs are carrying idle iron or under-recovering equipment cost.
Public owners want recurring reports in their format
DOTs, agencies and program managers ask for schedule narratives, progress updates and pay estimate backup on a fixed cadence. Those packages are assembled by project controls staff from several systems every period.
Long jobs make forecasts drift
On a multi-year job, cost-to-complete, margin fade and cash position change slowly and then all at once. When forecasts are kept in per-job workbooks, the drift shows up at a quarterly review instead of when it starts.
Daily field data stops at the field system
Crew hours, production and daily logs captured in HCSS or a field app rarely reach the same report as the schedule and job cost. Production rates against the estimate are calculated late, if at all.
What we build for you
Schedule and cost reporting on Fabric and Power BI
A lakehouse that lands schedule, quantity, equipment and cost data on a schedule, with Power BI pages from portfolio down to activity and cost code, and a data-quality gate before anything is published.
Owner reporting and field reminders
Recurring owner update packages, daily log reminders and RFI and submittal aging alerts built in Power Automate, n8n or Zapier, alongside the custom HCSS node we are building out for n8n.
P6, HCSS, ERP and project management connected
Integrations that pull P6 schedules (live or from XER files), HCSS field and equipment data, and accounting cost, linked through a crosswalk of jobs, bid items and cost codes. Unmatched records are flagged, not dropped.
Governed AI over CPM schedules
Agents and MCP tools that can read a P6 schedule or an offline XER file and answer questions about float, logic and the critical path, read-only by default with every tool call logged.
WIP, cash and backlog forecasts for long jobs
WIP schedules, cost-to-complete, backlog burn and cash projections calculated the same way on every job, with the assumptions stated next to each forecast so drift is visible period to period.
Use cases
- Built and shown
Schedule data in your reporting: P6 and Outbuild next to cost
Milestones and activities from P6 XER files or Outbuild land in the same model as cost and project records, mapped to the right project.
- Built and shown
Automated WIP schedule from Procore and accounting
A WIP schedule that builds itself from Procore and your accounting system every night, with month-end figures frozen as reported.
- Built and shown
Monthly progress report automation for contractors
The monthly progress workbook rebuilt as a refreshing Power BI report, with every figure traced to a source system or a validated input.
- We design and build this
Weekly owner update reports assembled from live project data
A weekly owner update built from live project data, with an optional AI-drafted narrative that a project manager reviews before it is sent.
- Built and shown
Cost-code crosswalk and master data that every report agrees on
Projects, cost codes, and vendors mapped once in versioned reference data, so every report uses the same answer and gaps go back to the owner.
- Built and shown
A construction data lakehouse in Microsoft Fabric
One governed home for construction data: raw sources landed, cleaned, mapped, checked, and published to Power BI and a SQL endpoint.
- Built and shown
AI schedule builder for CPM schedules with evidence and XER export
Specialized agents draft a CPM schedule from project documents and client answers, show the evidence behind each activity, and export XER for the scheduler to review.
- Built and shown
MCP servers for Procore, Primavera P6 and other construction systems
An MCP server exposes a construction system's API as tools an AI agent can call, with scoped permissions and a log of every call.
- We design and build this
AP invoice approval routing by job, cost code and amount
Vendor invoices routed to the right project manager by job and amount, checked against the commitment, and passed to accounting once approved.
- Built and shown
Backlog and burn forecast for construction
Backlog value and backlog months by project and month, with weighted pipeline shown beside it but never counted as backlog.
- We design and build this
Certificate of insurance expiry tracking and vendor reminders
Expired and expiring certificates of insurance flagged by vendor and project, with renewal requests sent before coverage lapses.
- We design and build this
Change order approval workflow with routing and escalation
Change orders routed to the right approver by amount and project, with reminders, escalation and a logged decision on every one.
- Built and shown
Client and owner portal for project updates and reports
Owners and clients get one secure place to read updates, answer questions and confirm requests, with every response stored on the project.
- Built and shown
Construction cash flow forecast from AR and AP
A rolling weekly cash forecast built from the invoices and bills already in your accounting system, with assumptions stated on the page.
- We design and build this
Daily log reminders that chase only the jobs that are missing one
A scheduled check that finds active projects with no daily log for the last workday and reminds the person responsible, not the whole company.
- We design and build this
ERP migration data mapping without losing history
A versioned map from old ERP to new, reconciled before cutover, so job history, cost codes, and vendors carry over and reports read across both.
- Built and shown
Executive portfolio dashboard for contractors
A portfolio page and a one-page executive KPI view, with drill-through from any project to its detail.
- Built and shown
Field data capture app for checklists, photos and site notes
A mobile screen built for one field job, such as walks, checklists or quantities, that files data straight to the project and onward to your systems.
- Built and shown
Get Procore data into Power BI, reliably
A repeatable pipeline from the Procore API into a Power BI model, with validation, history and refresh you can rely on.
- Built and shown
Job cost reconciliation between Procore and accounting
A nightly cross-check of Procore cost against accounting job cost, with every difference listed and traced to the system to fix.
- Built and shown
Meeting and job walk transcription tied to the project record
Meetings and job walks are recorded, transcribed, summarized and attached to the project, so what was said and seen becomes searchable project context.
- Built and shown
Procore and Sage integration for reporting you can reconcile
Procore projects matched to Sage jobs in a governed lakehouse, so cost, billing, and AP line up in one report and every mismatch lands on a worklist.
- We design and build this
RFI and submittal aging alerts before they hold up the work
RFIs and submittals approaching or past their due dates flagged to whoever has the ball in court, with a weekly aging summary for the project team.
- Built and shown
Structured manual inputs in SharePoint for data no system tracks
Wins, risks, safety, and QC registers move from loose spreadsheets into SharePoint lists with defined fields that flow through the same quality checks.
- We design and build this
Subcontractor onboarding and prequalification without re-keying
One intake for new subcontractors that collects documents, routes prequalification for review, and sets the vendor up in Procore and accounting once approved.
- Built and shown
Weighted project health scorecard for construction
A 0 to 1 project health index from weighted categories, with the arithmetic and data coverage shown so nobody has to take the score on faith.
Systems we connect
- Primavera P6
- XER files
- HCSS HeavyJob
- HCSS HeavyBid
- HCSS Telematics
- Procore
- Viewpoint Vista
- Sage 300 CRE
- Microsoft Fabric
- Power BI
- SharePoint
Proof
- BuildPrimavera P6 MCP server with offline XER analysis (reference build)
- BuildProcore and P6 analytics through Azure and Power BI (reference build)
- BuildConnect: multi-agent CPM scheduling platform with XER export (production)
- WalkthroughWalkthrough: custom n8n nodes for Procore, Autodesk, HCSS and Power BI
- WalkthroughWalkthrough: Primavera P6 MCP server
- Codep6-mcp on GitHub(opens in a new tab)
Frequently asked questions
Can you get data out of Primavera P6 without giving you live database access?
Yes. XER exports can be parsed offline for read-only schedule analysis and reporting, which is often the safer place to start. Where a live connection makes sense, we scope it with your IT team and keep access read-only unless a write is explicitly agreed.
Do you work with HCSS HeavyJob and HeavyBid?
Our custom n8n nodes include an HCSS node, still being built out, shown in our n8n walkthrough alongside Procore, Autodesk and Power BI. For a client build we confirm which HCSS products and API access you have during discovery, then map jobs, cost codes and bid items to your accounting and schedule data.
How do you tie schedule progress to cost on a unit-price job?
We build a crosswalk between P6 activities, bid items and cost codes as maintained master data. Quantities, cost and schedule status then roll up through the same keys, and anything that does not map is listed for review instead of being reported as zero.
Can you produce the reports our public owners require?
We can automate the data behind recurring owner packages, such as progress, schedule status and pay estimate backup, and generate them in the layout you submit today. Narrative and sign-off stay with your project controls team.
How long does a project take and what does it cost?
It depends on the number of sources and reports. We run a short discovery first, then work to a fixed scope and price, agreed after discovery.
Next step
Which report or workflow would you like to improve?
Tell us what your team does today, which systems are involved, and what you want to change. We'll discuss whether there is a practical fit.
Prefer email? charley@buildflows.ai