This is a step-by-step guide to Maindeck to help you see the bigger picture of the overall project flow. The focus of this guide is on a project, not the organisation account on Maindeck.

First thing first, begin by understanding organisational roles and project roles, and how to invite people to your account and project respectively. Read about how to invite a user to Maindeck here and see our roles and permissions matrixes for the organisation here and for the project here.

1. Getting started

1.1 - Create a new project

From the home page - Choose “New project”. Select the vessel and the project type. You will also need to set a new. Maindeck will automatically suggest a name based on the vessel and project type. 

If your project is an in-water repair or any other project types which does not involve a yard, remember to select "Exclude yards". Once the project is created, you can no longer exclude yards or vice versa. 

Specify planned start and planned end date. These dates can be adjusted later. 

Also specify the project’s base currency. The base currency is what all costs will be converted to and presented in.

If you use account codes on your projects, you can select the list of account codes before creating the project.This is not required to create the project and it can added later on as well.

1.2 - Set exchange rates

Begin by adding the different currencies that you will receive cost in. You will have owner supplies in various currencies and likely also receive yard quotations in different currencies. You will need to add these currencies with their respective exchange rate. To do this, go to Settings inside the project, and then in the tab Currencies you can add the different currencies and their respective exchange rates. This is required so that any quotes and supplies you add are converted correctly. 

1.3 - Access

Then go to manage access and invite your colleagues to the project. Invite anyone you want to help you with information on the project, ie the crew, purchasers, the fleet manager etc. Do not invite external users yet, unless you want to involve any external parties in the planning phase (preparing the specification). 

You can add external users later once the project moved to the Execution phase. 

2. Planning phase

2.1 - Add work orders

When starting a new project, this page will be blank. There are many ways to add work orders, and all of them are covered below. 

When adding work orders, you need to ensure that all work orders that are to be executed by the yard, or that will need prices quoted by the yard, has the Yard tag in the field "To be executed by". 

Additionally, all work orders that will require prices by the yard should have at least one cost item added to them. If you later want a smooth tendering process where shipyard’s can fill out a quotation form that you can quickly import, then you need to add cost items for each work order. You can read more about it here and here.

2.1.1 - From templates

You can easily add work orders to a project by utilising the templates available on your account. On the work orders page, there is a button called Templates. To read more about how to do this, you can read a separate article on this topic here. 

2.1.2 - Entirely new work orders

There are two main ways of adding work orders, (1) via the web app (on your laptop) or (2) via your mobile phone using our inspection app. You can read about adding new work orders on the web app here and about how to add them on the mobile app here. 

2.1.3 - From PMS

If your company has established an integration with your PMS, then work orders will appear inside your project automatically. If no such integration exists, then the best option is to import from Excel. Need help importing, you can read more about it here.

2.1.4 - Other sources

You can also copy work orders from another project by using the “move” function or by exporting from another project and importing to the new one. 

2.2 - Add owner’s supply

The easiest way to add owner’s supply is to import it via Excel. You can use Excel export & import to easily and quickly update several supplies at once. Once the supplies have been added, you can add additional information such as images and documents to them. Remember to connect each owner supply to at least one work order. 

2.3 - Add general project information

On the page “General project info” there are several fields that are good to fill out. One of them “About project”, will be included when exporting the project specification to PDF General project information. For most of the other fields, the values are used in various data tables on the Digital shelf which is available to you during execution phase when you are preparing reports.

3. Yard selection (Tendering phase)

3.1 - Add shipyard candidates

Add shipyard candidates on the page called "Yards". For each of the yards you add, a separate page will be created where you will handle their quotation while in tendering phase. You can read more about it here. 

3.2 - Share quotation form

Once the shipyard candidate is added, you have two routes to choose from. One route is to generate (A) an online quotation page for the shipyard and share it with them.  The other route is to make a complete export of the project, including the Excel quotation page, and share that with the yard candidate. The other route

3.2.A - Using the online quotation form

The online quotation form is being rolled out to customers. If your company has access to it, it will be visible on the yard specific page. Articles on this topic will be released shortly.

By sharing an online quotation form with a shipyard, they can view the scope of work (including images and files), add prices with detailed information and also add additional cost items.

3.2.B - Using the Excel quotation form

3.2.B.1 - Export project

Once the shipyard candidates have been added, you need to send them the project specification and quotation form. Read this article if you need to see how to export a project specification. To get the quotation form, export this for each yard from their respective yard page. 

Then send it off to the shipyards. Also include this article which will answer any questions they might have on how to fill out the quotation form.

3.2.B.2 - Import

When you receive the quotations in return, import them to their respective shipyard page, like shown here.

3.3 - Review the quotation

Once the quotation has been imported, you can review it. Warning signs will appear for cost items that you need to be careful about. You can confirm the work orders where the cost items are properly quoted.

If you need the shipyard to add additional price information, download the quotation and have them update that Excel sheet. You can then import it and that will update the quotation with the latest data.

On the “Comparison matrix” page you can also create a yard comparison report at the click of a button.

Once you have decided which shipyard you are going for, go to that shipyard’s page and press “Select candidate”.

3.4 - Request updates to the quotation

This feature is only available when using the online quotation form. If you have used the online quotation form, once the quotation is submitted by the yard, you have the option to request updates by the yard. To request an update, you mark the work order, add a comment or additional information, and that will make the work order open to the yard again allowing them to provide updated price quotations.

3.5 - Select a shipyard

In order to move on to the pre-execution phase, you will need to select one of the yard candidates. This can be done from either the yard specific pages or the yard comparison page. 

Once you have selected a shipyard, you will no longer use the comparison page or the yard specific page to update prices.

4. Pre-execution phase

You can read about the pre-execution in detail here. 

It starts from the moment you select a yard until you move it to the Execution phase. During this time, you can continue adding and editing the yard quotation and it will only update the planned cost. The actual cost will be updated only once the yard visit starts and you move the project to Execution phase. 

When updating the project during the pre-execution phase, do so on the work orders page.

5. Execution phase (the yard visit)

When at the yard, time is of the essence. One thing many spend time on, is running back to the office to note down updates on their laptop. By using our mobile inspection app, you can remove the need to leave the vessel unnecessarily. Particularly if you invite the crew, the yard and any third parties to use the mobile app as well. This way you will also have the data you need to create automatic reports by the end of the day.

5.1 - Add external users

You can invite both internal and external users to your project. External users will only have access to the mobile app and the specific work orders you mark that they should have access to. This was covered earlier in the article. A good reason to add external users who only have access to the mobile app, is to ensure that more people can provide progress updates. 

5.2 - Provide activity updates

You can provide activity updates both via the web app and the mobile app. You can read more about how to do it here.

On the web app, you can in addition to adding new updates, edit existing ones. So if you are not happy with the information provided you can change it or add more to it. Also on the web app, you can add documents and files to your updates. So if a supplier send you a report after completing the job, you can upload it as an activity update. That report will then also automatically by accessible via the Document Centre.

5.3 - Add variation orders 

In general, there are two types of variation orders: (1) variation orders which are a change to an existing work order and (2) variation orders which mean creating an entirely new work order. The former is often initiated by the yard and the former often initiated by the owner.

5.3.1 - Adding a new work order

This is done by simply adding a new work order. This can also be done from the mobile app by selecting the green plus button from the work order list. For the yard cost, add cost items, and for any owner supplies, simply connect them to the work order. Since the project is in execution phase, any new work orders added are automatically registered as variation orders. 

5.3.2 -Change to an existing work order

The latter is done from the sidebar and the tab called “Variation order”. Here is a green plus button again for adding variation orders. The cost (and currency) is important. It can also be a negative number if the scope for whatever reason has been reduced. Remember to write a good explanation of the variation order and add any attachments to it. This is a very important step to make sure you have all necessary information at the billing stage, because then you will not have the time to start looking for that information again. Variation orders added like this will be included in the tables showing variation orders.

5.3.3 - Other cost changes

There are two additional ways to change the cost on a work order. One is to change the consumables, say if you had estimated a quantity of 100 m3 staging but ended up using 120 m2, then you can simply update this cost item on the Budgeting and cost page. Another one is to add an entirely new cost item. This is not recommended, as new cost items during the execution stage will not show as variation orders. The cost will be updated accordingly, but it just won't show as a variation order. This option is available in case the superintendents want to adjust the cost for some reason, then they have the ability to do so.

5.4 - Generate reports

Our reporting module is like a text editor but with two important differences: (1) Intelligent report templates and (2) The Digital shelf.

Our intelligent reporting templates mean that for each customer and each report type, we have a bespoke reporting template set up that is specific for your company. This is not just an empty form for you to fill out, instead it’s connected to the data on Maindeck and fetches the latest for you at the moment you select to create a new report. When a report is generated, it’s generated in a text editor, so you can make any changes that you want like a regular text editor.

You can also add additional data via our Digital shelf. Here, everything is already processed and made available so you can insert it quickly.

Please remember that the data in a report is from the time a report is generated. It’s not updated continuously because a report is a snapshot of the project at a specific time and acts like a historical record.

When you are happy with the report, press save and then select “View report”. From here you can easily share the report directly from within Maindeck.

6. Closing the project

6.1 - Fill out the yard evaluation 

A couple of days before the scheduled end date for the project, an email is automatically sent out to the project owners with a link to a yard evaluation form. You can read more about it here. 

6.2 - Complete, cancel or move work orders

Before closing the project, you want to make sure that you don't have any "open" work orders. Therefore, make sure all work orders are either completed, cancelled or moved to later projects. 

6.3 - Settle on cost 

On the budgeting and cost page, you will have a complete overview of the costs. By asking the shipyard to provide billed cost in the same form as they sent you the quotations, you can quickly import these costs and have them displayed in the same table. If the billed cost is higher than the registered total, the number will become red so that you know which work orders you disagree with the yard on. Then, in the sidebar, you will find all the relevant information you need to prove your case against the yard. You can read more about it here. 

6.4 - Generate and share the final report 

You generate the final report just like you generate the daily report, but using a different report template. You can read more about it here. 

6.5 - Close the project

When everything is set and done, you are ready to close the project. You can at any time revisit the project after it is closed. To close a project, go to the “Close and archive” page.

Did we miss anything? If so, please let us know by issuing a ticket and we will follow up with you.