Virtual project room

A virtual project room (also known as a project communication management system (PKM or PKMS)) is web-based software for project management .

Project rooms connect project participants across company boundaries via the Internet in the sense of fractal organizations. The main goals of this virtual community are to ensure that processes are up to date, speed, documentation, transparency and legal certainty and thus higher quality and cost savings in the construction process.

Project rooms play a particularly important role in the construction industry , since historically the construction of the building has been carried out industrially for many decades and for many centuries more by hand via separate, but independent organizations (trades, craft guilds). Only through the widespread availability of the Internet has it been possible in recent years to network project participants as virtual teams. Since, as a rule, construction projects in the sense of the definition of a project are one-off projects with a job shop character, the special requirements of a project organization arise when designing these systems .

Groupware systems provide the basic basis for virtual project rooms .

How project rooms work

Project rooms are collaborative information systems for closed user groups that provide documents or information for authorized project participants around the clock from any internet-enabled computer in the world. In the event of newly entered information, the participants concerned are informed via automatic notification mechanisms (push principle) from a so-called “Unified Messaging System” integrated in the project room via e-mail, fax, SMS. Access (pull principle) to this project data then takes place via secure authentication procedures and role-based project and person-specific access mechanisms in order to guarantee the confidentiality of the data and to record and document the respective individual transactions. Using appropriate retrieval systems , both structured and unstructured information and files can be indexed or fully text-indexed and up-to-date retrieved.

Differentiation from classic document and asset management solutions

Document management solutions "off the shelf" should often serve the broadest possible clientele and therefore offer more general organizational structures. The company's internal needs are clearly in the foreground. In the case of "Asset Management" applications, the central requirements for managing digital objects within the company are also the focus.

Data exchange - clearing center

The number of companies involved in a medium-sized construction project often includes several dozen companies. In the case of major infrastructure projects, this can also include hundreds or more companies. The efficiency of cross-company planning processes also depends on the implementation of industry-standard processes. In the construction industry, for example, these are collaborative work processes between architecture and civil engineering as well as in the planning of energy consumption. Up-to-date project rooms provide ready-made and optimized processes and support in particular the quality assurance procedures, as well as approval procedures and the logging of all changes to the data.

Data order - library system

Also due to the increasing complexity of many construction projects, the number of documents generated with EDP means increases inflationary during the entire planning and construction process. A distinction can be made between project and object documents. Project documents are process-relevant for the organization and process of the construction project. Object documents, however, relate almost exclusively to the building. The total volume of all related files easily includes hundreds of thousands of files: CAD files and their visualizations, contracts, protocols, correspondence, orders, delivery notes, calculations, etc. v. a. m.
Up-to-date virtual project rooms make it possible to make quality demands on the documents provided by the planning teams during the first planning steps and thus avoid directing and coordination efforts and subsequent corrections. Likewise, claims of later user groups of the building object, z. B. on the part of the management or technical facility management, brought into the planning at an early stage (keyword: "construction-accompanying facility management") and thus the IT conformity and sustainability of all data can be influenced.

Advanced services

In some cases, manufacturers of project rooms also offer the possibility of using so-called "web conferencing / desktop sharing tools" to view or edit information in real time with other online participants interactively via the Internet. Many project room systems also have additional modules that support the user in the project management activities that arise in the planning and construction process. Other project room tools are usually online viewers for Office and CAD files.

Application operating models

As a rule, project room systems in application service provider operation - often also referred to as "software on demand " or " software as a service " solution - are made available by the operators via the Internet as executable, but customizable and project-specific solutions. The respective project participant therefore only needs an internet-enabled computer to access the project room platform.
For companies and institutions under public law with special requirements in terms of data protection, the focus is on application operation in their own responsibility, for example real estate in the financial sector, infrastructure or special buildings (prisons, etc.). Access rights to the application, databases, printed output and even general inspection are then subject to separate conditions.

Functions

The following functions are usually available on a central Internet server

Project address (own URL)
Uniform filing structure (project-related)
Integration of plan number systems with:
- Version history
- Automatic test runs and distribution
Upload and download functions (also for multi-file uploads)
Integrated online conference
Office connection and Windows Explorer integration
Access and insight management based on roles, functions or people
Viewer (preview of plans etc.)
Version comparison and redlining (insert notes)
Info boards (messages)
static and dynamic filters on the filing structure, as well as on the communication process
Opportunity to inspect the communication of other participants (e.g. for deputies)
Unified messaging
- Notification and connection of participants via e-mail, fax, SMS and also by letter
- Participants use project fax addresses instead of office faxes in order to be able to document this communication.
- Incoming and outgoing faxes are text recognized and are therefore also searchable.
- E-mail messages are configurable.
- Fast notification even to mobile phones.
- Individual forwarding rules (e.g. e-mail to fax)
Integrated repro providers (for plotting plans)
Use of open standards for data exchange and integration
Data backup and archiving mechanisms

Billing

Billing is based on different models:

Used space / month
Participant / month
Per mille of the construction sum
Flat rate
Corporate license
Number of stored data records

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Christian Müller: The Virtual Project Space , dissertation at the University of Karlsruhe , 1999, pp. 55–56 [1]

[1] Christian Müller: The Virtual Project Space , dissertation at the University of Karlsruhe , 1999, pp. 55–56 [1]