🎁 What's new in Join: 2023

Running product release notes, including what's been newly added, updated, or fixed.

Last updated: 5/26/2023

May 2023

What's New:

• Join Core Improvements
  • Cloud Storage Integrations
    Organize your construction documents by signing into your Autodesk, Egnyte, and Procore accounts within Join and linking your cloud storage documents to Items and Milestones. This ensures you always have access to the most up-to-date version of each document, reduces the need to track multiple copies, and ultimately saves you time and effort.
    
  • Improvements to the Estimate Import Process
    Several improvements have been made to the estimate import process to simplify it and make it more intuitive. Some of the changes include:
    • New blank estimate/budget screen with visual instructions for each supported estimating platform
    • Disable the built-in Join MasterFormat and UniFormat during the import process
    • Show the number of anticipated errors per categorization, and correct the errors during the import process
    • Revised the way categorizations are selected to be included or excluded
    • Several other small improvements
      
  • Item Estimate - Cost Breakdown Options
    Select what level of detail to use for your Item estimate by selecting a cost breakdown type using the icon in the header of the Total column. This matches the functionality of the Milestone estimate and budget tables.
    
  • Apply Markups to Selected Cost Types
    Markups can be applied to selected cost types (Labor, Equipment, Material, Subcontractor, Other, User) in the Applies to... column of the Markups table. For example, you may need to apply a Sales Tax markup only on Material costs.
    
• Join Forecasting Improvements
  • Forecasting Tab
    Users who have purchased Join Forecasting and have company-level permissions to access it will now see a new Forecasting tab in the top navigation bar. On the Forecasting tab, there are two sub-tabs:
    • Explore - Filter and search for projects and add them to a Project Comparisons Report
    • Reports - View a list of all saved Project Comparisons Reports

April 2023

What's New:

• Join Core Improvements
  • In-app Chat Support
    Get access to help quickly by using the in-app chat found in the lower left-hand corner. The chat gives you four options to help you find answers to your questions:
    1. Get help getting started as a new Join user
    2. Search the Join Success Hub for help within the chat window
    3. Submit a support ticket to the Join Technical Support team
    4. Schedule a meeting with the Join Technical Support team

March 2023

What's New:

• Join Core Improvements
  • Login Button Added to join.build Website
    When you go to join.build there is now a Login button in the top right that will redirect you to app.join.build, making it easier for users to find Join's app login page.
    

• • Variance Report Notes
    You can now add notes to individual lines of a saved variance report to document the reasons for a change.
    

• • Improved Attachment Viewer
    The overall experience of opening and viewing attachments in Join has been improved, including the ability to view PDFs without having to open them in a new tab. 
    
• Company Administration Improvements
  • Project Templates
    Project Templates can help ensure consistency across your company, save time creating new projects, and reduce the risk of errors and oversights that can occur when building a project from scratch. Company Administrators can create templates for their company, and all users within the company can start a new project from a list of saved templates.
    
• Project Comparisons Report Improvements
  • Gordian's RSMeans Construction Cost Indexes
    In the Escalation section of the Project Comparisons Report, you can now leverage Gordian's RSMeans Historical Cost Index and City Cost Index to automatically adjust your historical costs for both time and location respectively.
    
  • Break Down Costs Past Level 1 for Built-in Categorizations
    In the Display Settings section, you can now select from levels 1-4 for the built-in UniFormat and MasterFormat categorizations.
    

February 2023

What's New:

• Project Comparisons Report Improvements
  • Show Detailed Breakdown of Markups
    The Markups section of the report now displays the detailed breakdown of markups across all comparison projects instead of a lump sum value.
    
  • View Several Units of Measure
    The Metrics section of the report now allows you to select multiple units of measure to view across all comparison projects, and you can quickly select which one to use in the calculation for the unit price column.
    
  • Hide Rows from Report
    If there are rows that are not applicable to the report, they can now be removed. These rows are hidden and can be added back at any time.
    

January 2023

What's New:

• Join Core Improvements
  • Carry a Running Total Forward as the Next Milestone Estimate/Budget
    Costs from the current Running Total (Milestone Estimate and Approved Items) can be carried forward as the starting point for a new Milestone Estimate or Budget using the Copy from... button on the Milestone Estimate and Budget pages.
    
  • Private Items
    When creating a new Item you can choose to keep it private so you are the only person that can see it, or make it public so it is visible to everyone on the team. This will allow you to work with Items in a "draft" state until they are ready to be published.
    
  • Apply Lump Sum Markups to Specific Categories
    Lump sum markups can be applied to specific categories using the Applies to... column of Markups tables. This will allow lump sum costs to be allocated across specific categories instead of being allocated across all categories. In this example, an allowance is carried for Steel and it is assigned to MasterFormat 050000 - Metals.
    

• Company Administration Improvements
  
  • Project Stats Page
    The project stats page gives you a view of your company's projects and some high-level information about them, including location, status, project costs, project creator, etc.
    
• Project Comparisons Report Improvements
  • Add Notes to Cells with Overriden Unit Prices
    When manually overriding a unit price in the averages column, click the green dot and select Edit description to add a note explaining why the cost was manually changed.
    
  • Highlight Min/Max Values
    The high and low unit prices for each row can be highlighted in red and green respectively by toggling the icon in the header of the Costs section.
    
  • Override Total Costs Column
    Previously only the Unit Price column of the comparison average was editable. Now you can edit either the Unit Price column or the Total column and the other one will recalculate.