April 2023
Welcome to The APOST Times! The information we will share affects all users of AASHTOWare Project (AWP). We look forward to moving everyone to a better understanding of how we’ll be working in AWP. Whether you are an internal ODOT user, a consultant working with ODOT, a contractor, subcontractor, vendor or any other person who needs to access information in the contract, we want to keep you informed.
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Our AWP Pilot projects have been completed and here’s the update: We learned a lot!
The original intent was to work with our two previously completed projects from start to finish in AWP and compare the differences between the paper process and with the AWP execution. What happened instead was even better.
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We had an opportunity to look at how we do our work and how we will do our work in AWP. There were also areas revealed that had some gaps in a process or did not have the information going to or coming from the right role. Thanks to the great feedback received, newly identified improvements will be incorporated into the system that will be helpful as we press on to the implementation of AWP and ODOT projects.
 The first pilot project week at our Barlow offices with consultants and ITI.
Our first project in Portland was a consultant contract under Bryan Strasser. A big shout out to the Barlow Construction office for hosting us at their location. The consultant, Consor (Portland), and representatives from the prime contractor, Nelson Construction (Walla Walla, WA), were able to attend a day in person. The Infotech (ITI) staff and some of the ODOT System Admin group were also present on site. Some of our training extended to Teams meetings with civil rights, system administration work, and additional contractor staff. During the week, we overcame some technical and system issues, and shared important, useful information to the consultant and contractor. Data was added to the Test Site by the contractor and consultants. Everyone walked away from the experience with a positive outlook and more confidence in the workflows as well as the AWP system.
 Bend pilot participants in the RE Office and joining on Teams.
The second project was a Resident Engineer Bend office contract. We met them in Bend and their office staff attended in person. Our contractor this week was Knife River (Corvallis). Their personnel participated via Teams. With all that we learned from the first week, we were ready to tackle our next pilot project. We covered civil rights, materials and construction processes and added more data to be used for future exercises in the Test Site for AWP. ODOT inspectors, quality assurance specialists, contract admin specialists and others worked closely with different Infotech staff who attended the 4-day pilot experience. ODOT AWP Sys Admin staff was also present to assist. As with our first week, the different module areas broke into small work groups to focus on their particular needs.
We learned so much from both weeks! We look forward to taking this knowledge and applying it to future training events, and continued testing.
We will be working on a small dual entry project this summer, adding data into AWP and electronic forms into Doc Express while completing the project in the traditional fashion at the same time. Then, we’ll be even more successful going into the full AWP implementation. We’ll also be working on some more specific areas in our Test Site to determine what adjustments we can make to utilize AWP to the fullest.
This is the place to discover what’s happening as we continue our work to implement AWP. We’ll continue to keep you up to date. Contact us if you have any questions or if you’d like to participate.
OregonBuys is an end to end eProcurement system that automates the procurement process from request through payment including: workflows and approvals, solicitations, bid submissions, purchase orders, invoicing, and reporting. OregonBuys is the way the state of Oregon does business with consultants, contractors, subcontractors, vendors and more. In order to work with ODOT, it is now required that all businesses register in OregonBuys.
We will rely on OregonBuys for AWP to verify that external groups are allowed to work in Oregon. That means that every contractor needs to be in OregonBuys and that the contractor needs to verify that all of their vendors, subcontractors and more also have accounts in OregonBuys to work on ODOT projects.
As a contractor working with ODOT, now’s the time to make sure that all of the businesses working with you and for you on an ODOT contract in Oregon have completed their company’s registration with OregonBuys.
For details, visit the OregonBuys website about requesting access and other program questions.
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ODOT employees have a Workday account. Among other features, it’s where we go to register and take training classes, including training for AWP. Workday is the place where external customers can register for training as well.
We will have quick reference guides (QRGs) describing AWP processes for every module using step-by-step instructions. In addition, we will have computer based training (CBTs) used in our virtual and in-person training classes. The CBTs will also be available on Workday. The training QRGs and CBTs are role specific for your work in AWP. These will give you autonomy to find your own answers to AWP by reviewing what you’ve learned and refreshing your memory.
If you are an external learner to ODOT, you will need to set up a Workday Learning account to access our courses. Please set up your account here and be sure to choose "State of Oregon" as your affiliation.
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Rumor #1: Doc Express is going away.
FALSE! Doc Express will still be in our e-Construction toolbox. We will not be using it as extensively as we do on our current projects. We will use it for things that cannot fit into the data-driven AWP. That means we’ll upload things like plans, letters, RFIs, and some forms like the green and blue sheets. Doc Express will have a different, reduced drawer structure for those AWP projects. This drawer structure will be determined soon.
Rumor #2: We will have double entry of forms into Doc Express and AWP.
FALSE! We will have an AWP Directory outlining naming conventions, where to upload documents and enter data, and what goes into AWP or DE. The AWP Directory will also tell you where to add attachments and worksheets. If you use DE now, you should be familiar with the Doc Express Document Directory. We’ll use a similar process with the AWP Directory.
Shout out to the March 2023 Pilot participants Nelson Contracting, Consor Consultants & the ODOT Barlow Office (Portland) and Knife River & the RE Office (Bend): Our pilots were successful due in great part to your active and constructive help during the pilot projects. Your positive attitudes and willingness to try new things helped us to discover areas we can improve the customer experience.
Shout out to our ODOT Subject Matter Experts at our Pilots: Shout out to the SMEs at ODOT who participated in-person and through our various Teams meetings. Your expertise was invaluable as we walked through roles, responsibilities and processes. We appreciate that you were able to assist with the contractors and consultants during our 2-week pilot experience.
Shout out to Infotech personnel who participated in-person at our Pilots: John Oberdiek (ITI Program Manager), Steven Behrmann (ITI), Scotty Guernsey (ITI) in Portland and Michael McDaniel (ITI Business Services), Jaclyn Elmes (ITI), Jason White (ITI) in Bend. Thank you for spending your time in Oregon as we worked through processes and technical questions. You were often able to fix things on the fly and kept us on-track throughout the projects.
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We’ve worked for several years to prepare you for the AWP implementation. When the road is that long, it’s easy to forget the reason we started the journey in the first place. So, here’s a quick reminder, and something you can use to share with others.
AASHTOWare Project is the last leg of our 3-part plan for ODOT e-Construction.
In step 1, we introduced Doc Express. This provided a huge leap in managing documents for a contract. Stacks of papers and forms required for a project have been reduced dramatically. And, images like the one above, have become less frequent, saving us time, space and money.
Step 2 brought us iPads as field tools. The iPads added more flexibility for in-field work, and laptops and desktops are still effective tools in the office as well.
Now, we’re coming into the homestretch with AWP, a tool designed to manage data from Pre-Construction to Final Acceptance of a contract. With one common location for data, we promote one source of truth with this unified database. It also provides flexibility for making accurate and useful reports, and tracks the history of projects, contractors and materials. In addition, AWP will help us reduce the growing gap between ODOT’s aging systems and new software technology..
With AWP and DE, we will continue to be good stewards of what has been entrusted to us by the people of Oregon.
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Questions? Comments? Interested in becoming a team member?
Check out our website at
https://www.oregon.gov/odot/Construction/Pages/AW-Construction.aspx
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