May 22, 2025

Promise and possibility define the next few summery months in Michigan, with the sun shining endlessly, making our Great Lakes glisten and sparkle, some of our best journeys are when we take unexpected detours. So switch over to a read only role within APCM, make a few new clicks, generate a few new reports, and see where the journey takes you.

System Configurations and Guidance Updates

  • New Home Dashboards for Estimate and Change Order Approvers – The home screen has been updated for roles that approve estimates and change orders. The home screen for these roles now show a section for Estimates and Change Orders needing approval that are ready for that role's approval (contractors should only see change orders ready for contractor approval, construction engineers see only ones ready for the construction engineer approval, etc.)
  • A New Role Established For MDOT LAP Designated Reps – A new role has been created for those MDOT users who are responsible for overseeing local agency contracts with APCM, the new role is: “MDOT_CONSTRDESGREP.” This role will allow the user to update certain aspects of the contract data, along with receive notifications when an LAP Change Order is submitted for Approval, an LAP Estimate is submitted for Approval, an LAP Change Order is submitted for Review (as part of review tracking). The user access request form has been update to include this new addition. Please follow the link MDOT AASHTOWare Project Construction & Materials User Account Request Form to request this role.


Did you know?...

You now can easily, print the page you are viewing in APCM, by simply pressing the CTRL + P on your keyboard. This printing keyboard shortcut brings up the Print dialogue, where you can set how you want to print. In the past when trying to print the screen you were viewing within APCM the system would overlap text and data fields, which made it nearly impossible to read.



April 25, 2025

Spring is in full bloom and with it comes warmer days, blossoming landscapes, and the unmistakable sounds of construction season kicking into high gear. As the world outside transforms, we are also rolling out some exciting updates to enhance your user experience.

Report Updates

  • Several Report Generation Errors – An issue was found after the 5.02 upgrade where several reports would not generate due to some coding issues. These have been resolved, and all reports should now be able to be generated without error.


System Configurations and Guidance Updates

  • MDOT Approved Date on Subcontracts – The MDOT Approved Date is now a required field when entering subcontracts into the system. This date controlled the ability to post to items and was sometimes being left blank. We have made it required to reduce confusion.
  • Recovery Date for Stockpiles – When adding a stockpile to a contract, the Recovery Date field is now automatically populated with the Letting Date of the contract. There was confusion regarding this date. It is recommended that unless you specifically need to exclude certain DWRs from stockpile calculations, it is best to leave the field unchanged and set to the contract's letting date.


Did you know?...

You can create a single pdf report of multiple DWRs, or other documents in the system. Simply follow the steps for Generating A Report, and in step 3, select the DWRs you want to be part of the report. You can even select all the DWRs if you want. This feature works for DWRs, Change Orders, Estimates, and several other types of reports.


March 20, 2025

Happy first day of Spring! Below are the updates made as part of this month’s release train.

Report Updates

  • Contract Item Status Report XLS – The authorized quantity field on the report has been corrected.


System Configurations and Guidance Updates

  • Designating Major Items – A new process has been created that when a new contract is let, the items of work will be designated correctly as major/minor items based on section 101.03 of the spec book.
  • Effective Dates on Person Qualifications – When adding a qualification to a person record, the effective date is now required.


Did you know?...

If you are an Office Tech, you may be able to save time by using the copy sample record feature. If you need to make another sample record that is close to one of your existing sample records, use the copy feature and then edit what you need to without having to enter everything by hand.


To view previous news articles, visit the Construction Technology News Archive.


February 15, 2025

AASHTOWare Project 5.02 is here! On February 15th MDOT upgraded to the 5.02 version of AASHTOWare Project software. By upgrading from version 5.00 to 5.02, MDOT is now able to take advantage of the more than 296 fixes and enhancements that were added across the system. Many of the fixes were behind the scenes and won’t be directly apparent to you as a user. However, there were a few that we would like to point out that will show up in the new version. We have compiled the list below with some matching updates to this manual.

  • Provide Method To Print A Page - Users can now use standard print functionality of supported browsers to print pages of the system. Additionally, users can update their My Settings to allow for multiple expandable record rows to be expanded at a time, so that more content can be printed at once. See updated guidance here: Updating My Settings for Expanding Multiple Rows
  • Provide More Precise Control Over What Is Copied on a DWR – When copying information from an existing DWR to a new DWR, the system now provides construction users with greater flexibility regarding the types of information they can copy. On the Copy Contract Daily Work Report component, users can change the selection options which are: Weather, Remarks, Contractors, Postings, and Comments. See updated guidance here: Copying a Daily Work Report
  • Calendar Time Adjustment Time Units available for update on a Draft Change Order - For contract times with a time type of Calendar Time on draft change orders, construction users can now update the Adjustment Time Units field. When users click Save, the system auto calculates the Adjustment Completion Date field.


Delayed Features

The following fixes and enhancements were delayed due to further testing or extra intra-departmental coordination being needed to ensure no bugs exist or are introduced in the MDOT data network, these will be activated and implemented in a future monthly update.

  • Make Lump Sum Item Estimate Payments for a Specific Dollar Amount or a Specific Quantity - This required more coordination with the Development area and Preconstruction as it requires the flagging of specific pay items this feature affects.
  • Allow User-Generated Quantity-Based Item Pay Estimate Adjustments To Be Made Permanent – This requires more testing and coordination with Finance to ensure this does not introduce payment errors.


Other Announcements

  • Infotech will be taking over the webinars for the Contractor training. They use zoom which is like Microsoft teams. You can sign up for their trainings here: Michigan APCM for Contractors. The link has been added to the Contractor Corner page and provided in the Course description on our Microsoft Bookings Page.
  • We are also happy to announce a new feature in the monthly Construction Technology Newsletter called “Did You Know…?”. This section will showcase some of the advanced features within the system that users may not be aware of and will provide an area to announce and share best business practices that are being used by others within the system.


Did You Know…?

Did you know that you can have more than one window of AASHTOWare Project Open at a time?

When you are already in the system, simply right click on any link and select “Open link in new window.” This will allow you to have two windows open simultaneously.

Review a Change Order while viewing the associated Daily Work Reports, or review estimate items while looking at subcontracts, the combinations are endless!


February 10, 2025

AASHTOWare Project will be upgraded this week to version 5.02. The system will be taken down Thursday, February 13th, at 3 PM. Please complete all work and exit the system by this time. The upgrade will take a few days and should be back up and running by Sunday, February 16, at 6 PM, at the latest.

January 23, 2025

Happy New Year to all. We are happy to announce the following updates for the first release train of 2025.

Announcements

Please remember, a required technical upgrade is coming to FieldNet January 24, 2025 (tomorrow). The upgrade will occur January 24th, from 3:00pm to 6:00pm. The update requires a new agency configuration file to be loaded along with a few other steps. Detailed directions and the new configuration file are at the links provided here:

FieldNet Upgrade Directions for MDOT Offices

FieldNet Upgrade Directions for Local, Consultant, Contractor

Agency Configuration File - Release 5.3 2025 Update


Report Updates

  • Pay Estimate for Contractor Report – Item sorting was updated on the report to list pay items in order by proposal line number.


System Configurations and Guidance Updates

  • Change Order Reviewer Notifications – When adding a reviewer to the review tracking portion of a change order, a notification is now sent to the added reviewer.
  • Daily Work Report Overview Search Update – The search box on the Daily Work Report Overview screen was updated to include the ability to search within DWR remarks.