By no means, a construction project is a walk in the park, even for seasoned project owners and managers. It involves several moving parts and is known to throw a few curveballs to an otherwise well-planned project.

Objectively speaking, there isn’t any way to avoid construction risks and delays – but you can minimise them.

And you do this by creating a highly structured construction schedule plan.

You have the option to either go with a DIY bar chart on paper for small projects. But for bigger ones, like the projects that we handle at RPM Schedulers, you need to employ specialised software that can encode and show a multitude of tasks and data with just a few clicks.

We know that not everyone is familiar with construction scheduling software and understand how to use it.

And that is why in this article, we will talk about construction scheduling software templates that you can use on your project.

Each template can cover specific aspects of your construction process, allowing you both a micro and macro view of the entire project.

Before we get to that, though, let’s first talk about why you need to have things documented and scheduled in the first place.

If there was any reason why you need to have a construction project schedule plan – it’s these three.

A construction plan works as a document that guides you through the entirety of a project. Each data serves as a “guidepost” of sorts, allowing you to monitor minute changes that can make project progress faster or identify possible risks that could end up in delays.

Keep in mind that construction projects are very fluid and normal for specific plans to change to adapt to the current needs of a project.

Having a digital project schedule provides construction managers and stakeholders with a high-level overview of the entire project – allowing them to pinpoint and develop solutions for potential risks or fine-tune existing processes.

We’ve all heard stories of project owners complaining that their project ended up costing more than was initially agreed. And though there may be instances where incompetence may have a role in it, most all boils down to stakeholders not being able to have a real-time picture of what really is going on.

For example, a simple delay on one phase can have a snowball for the entire project, which could lead to costly delays.

By monitoring project schedule timelines, stakeholders can determine and track risks and justify where possible budgetary problems happened.

This saves stakeholders from pointing fingers at each other or a lengthy and costly litigation process just to get to the bottom of things.

For any project to run smoothly, everyone involved must have a clear understanding of the steps required to achieve each phase.

Using a construction project schedule provides stakeholders with a detailed view of each step that a construction project must take until its completion.

It serves to guide managers in implementing each construction phase and as a tool that improves project delegation throughout the entire team.

Here’s a quick rundown of several elements that make up a construction plan and how a construction project manager use them to create a project schedule.

Work tasks refer to the tasks asked of every member of the construction team. This includes project design, engineering, logistics for general and sub-contractors, and every construction worker’s assignment.

The sequence indicates the order for tasks in a given project. This may sound mundane, but this is a vital component of the project – and can have a massive impact on work efficiency and completion.

Duration pertains to the estimate a project manager makes regarding the course of a particular task. This element’s importance relates to determining the budget after the strategic plan is implemented and ensuring that the sequencing of tasks makes sense.

Following the basic explanation of project schedules and how they influence construction projects, let’s dig into the software templates available for your project.

There are several Microsoft Project construction schedule templates that you can choose from, each with its specific purpose.

The Microsoft Excel construction budget template works great for remodelling and building projects.

It enables its user to develop detailed construction project budget data that includes all the essential and critical construction-related expenses.

And during the actual construction phase, you can use the data to monitor if the project is within or starting to go over budget.

The Construction Estimator template enables contractors to submit their estimates to a project owner.

It usually includes initial assessments about the overall project and labour costs presented in a straightforward, easy to understand layout.

The bigger the project, the more bid items the final bid amount has. Due to this high amount of data, computation errors sometimes happen. And once it does, it could lead to huge misunderstandings between parties that might end up in a legal battle.

The beauty of a Bid Tabulation template is that it can easily verify the final calculated bid amount’s accuracy.

The template includes columns for the project owner or the engineer’s estimate that enable users to see the project bids readily.

There will be instances where multiple contractors or subcontractors will bid on your project. And this is good because you’ll have several options to choose from. However, what is not a welcome thought in comparing bids against each other to see which is most favourable to you.

The Abstract of Bids template makes this entire process easy for you – as it allows you to quickly compare one from the other with just a few clicks.

If your construction project involves subcontractors, them keeping track of information like contact info, licenses and contracts are a must. Not to mention that there may be times where you’re legally obligated to submit information about your subcontractor – and that not doing so might lead to project delays.

This is where a Subcontractor Documentation Tracker template comes in handy as you have all the data you need in one place.

From inspection reports, specifications, weekly progress reports to plans, there’s just a lot of things you need to track related to construction projects. And keeping these files organised can help hasten the closeout process of your project.

Using a Construction Documentation Tracker template, put all of that information at the tip of your fingertips.

Part of making sure that a construction project is making good progress is doing weekly inspections. There will be times, though, where other matters could prevent you from doing those weekly visits. And this is where the Daily/Weekly Inspection Report template comes in.

It allows managers to key in necessary information like progress reports, total hours worked, or a list of materials on the worksite.

Using a Daily/Weekly Inspection Report template keeps you in the loop.

Using a Contractor Progress Payment template allows you to determine the exact amount you need to pay contractors and subcontractors based on the percentage of work completed to date with adjustments made for change orders, previous payments and retainage (if required) for each payment period.

It also has another page that tracks the amount of completed work for each task.

It is common to make budgetary changes in the middle of a construction project. This is sometimes due to unforeseen circumstances, project scope, or a change in site condition. When this happens, a contractor change order request summary template is needed.

The contractor change order request summary template allows the contractor to present a breakdown of the requested change, allowing the project owner to scrutinise the request and see if it is justified.

It is common for high profile construction projects to have multiple change order requests. Using a Change Order Log template, you can document and track factors like cumulative contract amount, time extensions, and order descriptions.

This template is for the use of contractors or subcontractors when they have questions regarding specifications or plans.

This template is quite indispensable as it allows a more fluid conversation between contractors and project owner in addressing and resolving possible delays.

It also is an excellent way of documenting the conversation between both parties about certain parts of the project.

You can use this template to collaborate with clients, subcontractors and your team when remodelling residential units.

You can utilise a Gantt chart to communicate with your team about specific project-related tasks or even to keep within the schedule.

If you are looking for an easy way for your contractors to submit their payrolls, then this is a template that you might be interested in.

This typically is used when extra or emergency work is needed. The template allows contractors to track and then use it as an invoice for the time and materials spent.

A typical Time & Materials Invoice template includes hours spent, materials used and markup amount.

Before project completion, all work must undergo quality inspection.

Using a Project Punchlist template will allow both parties to have a “what was done, and how it should have been done” checklist to confirm that everything is in order.

Project Closeout Checklist templates are usually used at the end of a construction project and is part of the tedious process of completing punch lists, doing final inspections, contract closeouts, submissions of “as-builts”, just to name a few.

A Project Closeout Checklist template includes all the details and requirements for each completed task.
There are other templates out there, and there are even bespoke ones.

What about you? Are you using one of the templates we mentioned earlier, or are you in need of something more specialised to your needs?

If you need advice, don’t hesitate to call or send us a message.