Pros
The program is effective as long as you pay thousands for their yearly maintenance.
Cons
They have never really finished the program. The help menu is insufficient. The program actually crashes on occasion. Sometimes data does not copy and paste because they have an attachment that you have to use on the back of your computer, It's called a dongle, the program cannot be used without the dongle. If you go out of town you have to keep track of that dongle. Now they are trying to a eliminate the dongle and you have to pay thousands of dollars for the new version. If you don't take their yearly maintenance program when ever they render your program useless you have to pay all of those back years in order to get it to work again. You better be rich if you want to own this program.
Summary
I'm not sure how other programs charge. I would recommend that you look long and hard at the other estimating programs that will not hit you up for thousands every year. They are now telling me that my estimating software Will not be functioning after July 2015 unless I pay them a minimum of $2000.
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Pros
Does everything it says it does
Cons
For $3000 per license, none of the following things should happen:
-Deauthorizes itself if you try to use it from a remote computer.
-Updates from the last five years have been miniscule, even though it's gone from version 3.6 to 3.9
-All my feature requests have gone ignored in each update
Summary
It's the industry standard and does what it's supposed to, but the fact it doesn't allow full remote access via RDP (and is intentionally designed this way) is just absolutely mind-boggling in 2014.
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Pros
On Center Software has provided my firm a solution for every hurdle I personally faced in my daily tasks. Since implementing their complete set of solutions being On Screen Takeoff, Quick Bid, and Digital Production Control. My Estimating Department has increased my revenue production to an entirely new level of productivity. Even my PM's who had been hesitant to the initial change due to being stuck in their methods. The Digital Production Control not only keeps each and every project on schedule to prevent overruns. But resulted in open communication between our PM, FM, and Estimator to fine tune production rates. In all honesty I could go on and on about On Center and the professionalism demonstrated by my Account Manager helping me along the way. And to my fellow Construction Professionals the Industry is rapidly changing we use a solution for our Accounting Department,right? Why don't we use a proven tool for our most critical revenue driven division?
Cons
None I just don't understand the gripe about Maintenance costs. The price is fair the services is superior you pay for what you get. And when I my revenue has been increased so drastically why not spend the necessary money to keep current. I use Windows when they have a upgrade I pay for the new upgrade or if I have a technical issue I pay IT. So why would I think that my Support should be free? If you ask your representative what is included in their Maintenance Agreement you would understand the fee is beyond fair.
Summary
I wish I knew about On Center long ago they have been in business for 25+ years. If you understand "Yes" you have a initial cost to buy each solution needed. As a Owner please look at the big picture which always relates to the ROI. In all honesty when breaking down all my costs Plans, Plotter, Ink, Time, Errors, and so many other things. This all provided me a headache and came with a cost Manually performing Takeoff. Then using Excel to Estimate Material Costs, Labor Costs, and even Production Rates. My initial investment was covered in the first month "fact jack"!
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Pros
Good product, good service
Cons
Maintenance fees, no sustainable way around them
No updates to software without payment of maintenance fees
If you make a dongle inactive, they charge a fee to reinstate plus maintenance fees.
No meaningful improvements
Cannot annotate or perform take off in both view windows(this is really a big deal once you get used to using the software)
Summary
Buyer beware of never ending maintenance fees.
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Pros
Easy to use, tons of features, can link to your excel bid sheet, they've thought of almost everything.
Cons
Only seems to work with Microsoft Excel, won't work with OpenOffice or LibreOffice. And it's a bit pricey - $3000ish/license.
Summary
This is really a great product. I've tried several others and this is the first one that is really useful for roofing takeoffs. It has great grid features which helps with figuring out how many rolls of membrane or sheets of insulation you will need, it even can recognize certain symbols on the print for easy counting. I especially love the feature of being able to calculate the scale from a known measurement. This feature is useful if you want to do a takeoff from a satellite photo.
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Pros
it has several useful tools - some are retarded
Cons
Maintenance fees = You pay for the priveledge of debugging their system.
Summary
When Windows upgrades the OS these guys get a big pay day. pfft
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Pros
Not as clunky as other takeoff programs I've tried. I can open pdfs, tiffs, and CAD files with it. THe demo and training videos were very helpful.
Cons
You have to fill out a short form before you can activate it.
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