A few years ago, I was working for a General Contractor using Procore’s Coordination Issues tool right after it had come out. We wanted to show our ROI as a BIM department on how many of the coordination issues we had created had turned into RFI’s. The only way this was possible was making direct calls to Procore’s API to get data on both the Coordination Issues and the RFI’s.
I had some previous experience tapping into the Revit API through DynamoBIM and was familiar with how API reference pages worked. I found that all I needed to do was do a little bit of light coding, learn Power BI and create a dashboard and show how those two were intertwined.
The only problems were: I didn’t know how to code, and I didn’t know Power BI.
I reached out to my IT department (because they’re computer people, they obviously know how to code, right?) and found that they didn’t know how to code, and had never used Power BI.
I spent the next few months making time to learn more about making API requests through forums, abusing the kindness of my brother-in-law (who is incredible at this stuff, as well as making scrumptious cheesecake), and a LOT of trial and error.
Finally, I got the code to do what I needed it to do, I went to one of PragmaticWorks’ in-person “Dashboard In A Day” training sessions at the start of covid to learn Power BI. A few weeks later, I got the dashboard set up, and the results were impressive. We found that around a third of our Coordination Issues because legitimate RFI’s and that our efforts were paying off.
And I was hooked.
I just was amazed by how a spoonful of sugar, and a little bit of code, was able to make a HUGE difference in how our department presented and proved our value to the projects we were on.
Since that day, I’ve coded Dynamo scripts, custom Python scripts for Procore, C# add-ins for Navisworks, BIM 360/ACC Integrations using Forge (APS), and made a lot of Power BI dashboards.
I just love this stuff. Construction is such a wildly fun industry with so much going on, that being able to make a difference in making life easier for the people out there in the field, makes it all worth it.
If you have any burning questions on Procore’s API, want to automate some of the mind-numbing stuff that makes you scream into a pillow every day, or just want to see some of the cool stuff you are working on, shoot me an email at info@utahbim.com and I’d love to talk to you about this stuff.
