Stone Grid Software

[Caleb]

Spent a good portion of the day setting up our new software called Stone Grid. -- I'm totally blown away with the functionality, speed and complexity of the program. Far and away the best software I have seen to date!!

Here are a few screen shots of what its capable of

Sales Dashboard.jpg (138.47KiB)Viewed 3732 times

quote screen.jpg (278KiB)Viewed 3732 times

Project Management Edit Screen.jpg (249.22KiB)Viewed 3732 times

Project Management Edit Barcodes.jpg (110.57KiB)Viewed 3732 times

Project Management Dashboard.jpg (14.37KiB)Viewed 3732 times

PO Dashboard.jpg (223.52KiB)Viewed 3732 times

INVENTORY Dashboard.jpg (184.43KiB)Viewed 3732 times

Edit Quote Screen.jpg (270.89KiB)Viewed 3732 times

[T.J. Henderson]

Woah! Where did this come from?

Is this something you developed Caleb.

How does it compare to what you where doing with Focus?

[Caleb]

Woah! Where did this come from?

Is this something you developed Caleb.

How does it compare to what you where doing with Focus?

Tj,
I had nothing to do with developing it. It has all the important functionality that we were getting from focus but a ton of other useful functions as well. Plus it had a substantially more polished look and is far more responsive as well.

[RBatstone]

Looks great
Who sells it?

[steven nenzel]

Hi Caleb,

How can we get more info about this software?

I imagine it has estimating, production and installation scheduling, job tickets, etc.? Will it integrate with QB?

[crobb]

Ohhh, very nice! Please share some more information when you have some time. I have been looking for a new solution for over a year and yet to find the one-all solution for our quirky setup.

[Caleb]

Hi Caleb,

How can we get more info about this software?

I imagine it has estimating, production and installation scheduling, job tickets, etc.? Will it integrate with QB?

Steve,
The developers have asked myself, and a couple others, to help them bring this product to market- we are in negotiations now.

It does have estimating, production (with bar code), installation schedule, job tickets, time clock, Dashboards for every area and a lot more. It will be integrated with QB but they are working out the last few bugs on how it syncs. etc.

All in all some development still needs to be completed but I feel like its far ahead of where Focus was.

I will be at Stone Expo for anyone who wants a demo - I hope to be fully up and running with the software by then.

[steven nenzel]

Will be hosted on a offsite server?

[Caleb]

Will be hosted on a offsite server?

Yes, 3rd party

[steven nenzel]

Definitely interested in learning more.

[steven nenzel]

Will it export PO's and inventory to QB in addition to customer data?

[Caleb]

Will it export PO's and inventory to QB in addition to customer data?

Yes. All customer information, invoice and po's will sync with QB. If there is not a job or item created in QB then it will create that item for you.

[steven nenzel]

Last question... when can we expect they will be ready to roll it out?

[Israel]

I would love a demo at Expo.

[Caleb]

Last question... when can we expect they will be ready to roll it out?

Once I get into it a little more I will have a better answer, but so far I haven't seen any major road blocks. We are Not implementing inventory, quick books or slab Smith right now (until we get everything up and running for ourselves)

I think the quoting and scheduling modules are ready to go now. I'll know more in the next few days on the rest.

[CustomMarbleGraniteToo]

I am not making Expo but I am very interested. Is there a way to see it other than Expo?

[Caleb]

I am not making Expo but I am very interested. Is there a way to see it other than Expo?

Sure, I can give you a run through on team viewer. Just email me and we'll set up a time.

[CustomMarbleGraniteToo]

Will do . Thank you.

[Alex DiPietro]

We are also involved in the testing of this product. It is a good system and I have enormously more confidence in it than I do Focus... But talk is cheap... So I will not "reccomend" the software until it actually funcitons as promised. I've been down this slippery slope once already.
It is still a few months away from full functionality. Here's how its going to work and it will blow all other systems out of the water in terms of capability and ease of use. It truly will handle our industry from leads---->sales -->inventory---->production-->scheduling--->accounting


LEADS
1. Customer comes into your showroom and signs a "digital guestbook" on a tablet. They enter some brief information and automatically a lead is generated within the system.
OR
2. A lead is generated via your websites contact us form
OR
3. A lead is manually entered into the system

You will be able to create customized follow up lead tasks for sales staff to complete.

So lets say Mrs. Smith comes in and signs the guest book. Your sales person grabs a tablet (or iphone or android phone) and you walk the yard or warehouse. You pull up the lead on the tablet. As your customer picks materials for various areas of her house you note the materials selected using the serial numbers you have generated and labeled the slabs with. The whole time you are able to see which slabs are available, on hold, on order or sold etc... Right in an app on a handheld device. (note you would most likely have to have a wireless LTE connection unless you have perfect wifi outside or in your warehouse)

Quotes:

Mrs Smith emails you her kitchen plan. You save it (to the cloud) to the lead. You open the drawing and either import into the software and use scale pdf to calculate the size or you make a drawing of the kitchen right on the screen. You can also just enter in sq ft or preset shapes with sizes...

You create a comprehensive quote for an entire house in one place. All the customer info, area info, and material information has been carried over from the lead.

Once she approves the quote (or declines, which is a good metric to track..) you approve it within the software and it moves over to Production.

Production:

Custom processes, BOTH calendar based and activity based are in here. What this means is not every task is something that is necessarily something that should show up on a calendar. Some things are just tasks that should be done as soon as time presents itself. For example, moving material from the inventory area to the sold rack. This is how we are setting it up:

When a quote is approved the user will be prompted to either allocate the material from inventory for the project or generate a PO for special order slabs. If either of these aren't done you will be prompted repeatedly to do so until its complete.

When a quote is approved and material is allocated a wifi connected label printer will automatically print new slab labels indicating project name/number/material info/location. These are the labels for the sold slabs. A "pull material" task will be assigned to whoever is designated (they can even recieve a text message or email) to pull material in from the yard and label with sold labels and put into sold job racks. That person will mark the task as complete and the project will enter a "Job Sold" status.

When Mrs. Smith finally calls and says she's ready for a template. Whoever fields the call the person presses a button and the job enters a "ready for template" status at which point an alert is sent to whatever people are able to schedule the the template. Once the template is scheduled the project enters a "Template" status.

Once the template is made (templator has tablet showing all pertinent info and can get on screen sign offs done and save job site photos directly to the cloud...) the project enters a CAD status. keep in mind, this is our custom process and however you schedule will be accommodated. The template is cross referenced with the parts originally indicated on the quote. Any price change due to a discrepancy can me made. The quote is adjusted and a shop drawing is emailed to the client. Once the drawing is approved (or you could schedule a layout/slabmsith) we schedule the install.

All phases of production are "auto scheduled", we work backwards in reverse from installation. Based on whatever dependencies (max activities/max ft/job complexity) you have set in the system. At this point you can print out a sheet of labels for each part and each slab(if you choose to do this/we probably won't be tracking parts but I'll illustrate how it works): You have a tablet with scanner at whatever "stations" you wish. For example the saw can have a scanner, a cnc can have a scanner, hand fab, sirio, line machine etc etc. It depends on how much you want to track and report. When a slab enters a saw it is scanned in and scanned out. The system tracks the time and spits out reports based on footage. You can use this system for job costing over long periods of time. I think this is more geared for high-production based environments.

You would be able to display "shop sheets" on tablets or large screens in the shop if you desired.

After the job is cut the sawyer measures any remaining remnants and enters it onto the tablet. A new label for the slab is automatically printed and the partial slab is put back into inventory so you know its available when another job is sold.

Once the project is ready to be installed, the installers would have all the parts and job information available on a tablet, including maps, and daily routing. They get a sign off when the job is complete. An invoice can be generated right on a tablet from within the software.

The invoicing and payments sync with quickbooks online and quickbooks. I am not sure if inventory syncs with quickbooks.

This was a super long post for me and I got tired of typing... I may have missed something. Again, in theory this software is awesome. I think within two months all features will be available along with the mobile apps.

I have no fiscal interest in the success of this software. Any post I make regarding it is my candid opinion. I am happy to answer any questions regarding the software.

[Israel]

Thanks for the description Alex. I think we all have high hopes that something better than Moraware will come along.

[BellaTerra]

Is this software being designed just for th larger shops in mind or will there be a more basic affordable version for the smaller shops that still wish to be highly organized?

[GuyboR]

Is this software being designed just for th larger shops in mind or will there bea more basic affordable version for the smaller shops that still wish to be highly organized?

I have stressed to Caleb that he needs to tell the software company this is paramount.

Thank you for the post Alex.

[Alex DiPietro]

What would you consider affordable?

[GuyboR]

What would you consider affordable?

I can't say how high I would go. I HATE thinking about $600 for Moraware...or any other product. I pay $60ish a month for 10 users of Office 365...Outlook, Excel, Word, etc, etc. How many users would Microsoft have if they were charging $500-$1000 per month for their product?

I would like to see it in the $1000 a year range.($1200 for a round number) I think you would get a TON of users...maybe not all active...but at $1000, they would be customers (think of health club type pricing).

$500 would probably be top side where it starts to get iffy as a slam dunk.

I HATE subscription based pricing by the way even though that is where everything is transitioning to. I would rather pay $X thousand, own the right to use it, and then pay for updates if they prove they are worth buying (think AlphaCam)

[Alex DiPietro]

What would you consider affordable?

I can't say how high I would go. I HATE thinking about $600 for Moraware...or any other product. I pay $60ish a month for 10 users of Office 365...Outlook, Excel, Word, etc, etc. How many users would Microsoft have if they were charging $500-$1000 per month for their product?

I would like to see it in the $1000 a year range.($1200 for a round number) I think you would get a TON of users...maybe not all active...but at $1000, they would be customers (think of health club type pricing).

$500 would probably be top side where it starts to get iffy as a slam dunk.

I HATE subscription based pricing by the way even though that is where everything is transitioning to. I would rather pay $X thousand, own the right to use it, and then pay for updates if they prove they are worth buying (think AlphaCam)

I have no idea what the pricing is going to be, but I think it's safe to assume that there's no chance any small software company could ever survive in a tiny industry selling a software @ $80/month. I can't even buy dinner for two for $80... You have to look at software as a tool. Like any tool it needs to make you more efficient one way or another.

I am sure there will be an affordable version. But there won't be a free version...