Daily Reports Overview

Daily reports are a necessary responsibility for every superintendent across the industry. A daily report captures the official record of the job site status, people on site, and work accomplished during the day. Some companies also track rental equipment being used on site. These reports can seem like a paperwork hassle, and repetitive from day-to-day.  However, whenever a dispute or legal problem crops up, the daily report is the first piece of information that is requested by management and eventually lawyers. 

Daily reports are also very helpful for jogging the project team’s memory weeks or months later, such as needing to know when was a piece of equipment delivered, what day the snowstorm that cancelled work fell on, or how many workers did a sub-contractor provide every week.

Current practices for daily reports include handwritten paper forms, Excel or Word forms, project management database programs (such as Prolog), and even dictation services (Notevault, Procore).

Issues with daily reports can include:

Superintendents not completing a daily report (or within a reasonable time frame).

Superintendents writing all of their reports at the end of the week when their memories may not be as accurate.

Electronic reports being copied verbatim from one day to the next with no real review.

Superintendents swearing they did the reports, but no one can find them when needed – hard copies missing from files, or the files not saved centrally on the network.

Important events undocumented because of faulty memory or a superintendent inundated with work. 

Too much time spent documenting issues with words when a photo would have been faster or more effective.

Dissociation of the report from any other important media.

Not getting distributed effectively/timely to project decision makers such as the project manager.

Objectives

Record what was accomplished on the job site that day, especially anything unusual that could be a point of contention later. Important information includes:

Companies and number of employees on site, both subcontractors and GCs.

Visitors, including the owner or design representatives, inspectors, or testing agencies.

A general description of where each company is working on-site and what they are working on.

Significant deliveries of equipment and materials.

Safety issues, corrective actions, and training.

Instructions received from the owner/design personnel, or given to subcontractors.

Rental equipment on-site by tag number, and planned return dates.

Photos as appropriate for important progress milestones or problems.

Anything that could affect the project schedule, including subcontractor complaints.

Meetings held on site, attendees, and general discussion items (separate detailed minutes).

Project superintendent

Creates the official record of job site status and progress.

Complies with corporate requirements to complete a daily report every day in the least time and with the least effort. 

Provides enough detail that the project team can look up important job site developments/events at a later point.

Construction management

Ensures consistent compliance across all projects in completing the report on a daily basis. 

Retrieves reports from the database if needed to support a legal case.

Permissions

You must have a Professional User role to have full access to daily reports.

Workflow

Getting started

You can log daily reports from the following locations:

The Daily Reports activity center in Project Center;

The Field Notes Activity Center in Project Center;

The Daily Reports log in Info Exchange;

An iOS or Android-based Smartphone or tablet via field notes entered in the Field Notes app.