The DOT sandbox

Try it on a real DOT spec book.

A sandbox is a seeded project on your state DOT's specification regime: the daily report, the pay items, the plan sheets, the calc canvas and the agency forms (IDOT today). Illinois is built today. If your state isn't, tell us; your requests help us decide what to build next.

ProjectFlowLive helps construction engineering and inspection firms organize the work, communicate with project partners, and document the field record in one place. If you would like us to test it or adjust it to your agency, contact us — we will be happy to work with you.

The daily report, as it is written in the field

Captured and calculated in the field on a tablet or phone, and open on your computer when it needs refining.

A site photograph of a conduit trench open in the markup editor: seven conduit runs dimensioned in red on the photo with two notes, and beside it a calc table listing each run in feet with its upright in inches, elbows, and totals of 164.58 feet and 238 inches. — The programA field photo, measured.A photo from the day's report with each conduit run dimensioned on it, and the calc table beside it adding the runs, the uprights and the elbows to the quantity. The picture, the measurements and the arithmetic are one page of the record.

The Personnel tab of a daily report: one subcontractor with a written account of the day, five equipment lines — mini excavator, skid steer, two utility trucks, a straight truck with dump trailer, hand tools — and manpower of two foremen and two electricians at eight hours, totalling 4 workers and 32 man-hours. — The programPersonnel and equipment.Each contractor on site gets its own card: what the crew did, the equipment it brought, and manpower by classification with hours — totalled as you type.

The daily report open for editing at revision 18: tabs for General, Work, Personnel, Equipment, DMT, Pay Items, Issues, Inspection, Drawings, Photos, Files, Checksheets and Skills; the report date; and a captured GPS location. — The programThe daily report.One report, thirteen tabs, and three ways to view it — Enhanced, Diary, Daily Report. The date and the GPS location are captured when it is opened in the field; every save is a numbered revision.

The Weather Conditions section of a daily report filled by Import Weather: cloudy, 49 to 57 degrees, wind 7 mph, no precipitation, no work impact, with the work start and end times beneath. — The programWeather.Import Weather fills the conditions, temperature range, wind and precipitation for the report's date and location; the inspector sets the work impact and the hours.

The Drawings tab of a daily report: depth checks, three ways to start a drawing — mark up a plan page, a blank sheet, a cross-section sketch — and two marked-up sheets already on the report, one a photo and one a two-page annotated document. — The programDrawings.Drawings belong to the report they were made for. Mark up a plan page, start a blank field sketch or a gridded cross-section, or annotate one of the day's photos.

The Photos tab of a daily report with fourteen saved photos: buttons to take a photo or select photos, a note that GPS is attached, and three of the saved site photographs, each with its own row of buttons in the corner. — The programPhotos.Take or select photos on the report; each one carries its GPS position, and any of them can be opened in the markup editor from its own corner.

The calc engine, on the job

Every line is an equation; every result carries its unit — worked in the field on the same tablet or phone, and open on your computer afterwards.

A site photograph of a formed concrete face in the markup editor: three areas shaded and labelled A1, A2 and A3, each dimensioned in inches, an inset close-up joined by a leader, and a calc box on the photo that computes A1 = 1.91 sy, A2 = 0.18 sy and A3 = 0.92 sy from those dimensions and totals 4.01 cubic yards, with a measured-by / calculated-by / checked-by block beneath. — The programA quantity worked on the photo.Three areas shaded and dimensioned on the photo, and the calc box beside them turning those dimensions into square yards and then cubic yards — each line an equation, each result with its unit and the conversion it used. Measured by, calculated by and checked by sit on the same page.

Three calc boxes: ASTM A615 nominal properties for a #4 bar and a #10 bar (diameter, area and weight per foot), a bar weight of 2182.25 lb from a length, a count and the unit weight, and a spiral rebar worksheet that takes height, pitch, core diameter and end turns through body turns, circumference and helix length per turn to a length of 616.53 ft and a weight of 411.84 lb, with its references cited at the foot. — The programFull equations, with their sources.A spiral bar taken from height, pitch and core diameter to its length and weight, one named step per line, beside the bar properties it draws on. The worksheet cites where its method comes from.

The reference library dialog: on the left, groups for rebar and steel, geometry (rectangle, triangle, Heron, trapezoid, irregular quadrilateral, Bretschneider, area by coordinates, circle, circular segment), earthwork volumes (average end area, prismoidal), helical rebar and concrete; on the right, the ASTM A615 table of nominal diameter, area and weight per foot for bar sizes #3 through #18. — The programThe reference library.Civil formulas and quantities already in the program: bar properties by size, areas from a rectangle to a traverse by coordinates, average-end-area and prismoidal volumes, spiral rebar, concrete. Pick one and it drops into the calc box as lines you can read and change.

A calc box: a drilled shaft volume from a 30 ft length and a 36 inch diameter, 7.85 cubic yards; a mud slab of 70 by 98 by 6 inches, 0.88 cubic yards; their total 8.74; and under a clouded heading "Yield Check" the total required for two, 17.47 cubic yards, against 27 delivered, a yield of 1.55. — The programA yield check.A shaft as a cylinder in feet and inches, a slab in inches, both converted to cubic yards by the engine — then the yield against what was delivered, clouded for the checker.

What a sandbox puts in your hands

Pictures of the program itself, on sample data. Each of these can be tried on its own page with no account; a sandbox puts them on one seeded project with the daily report around them.