FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

The entire community of those involved in the construction process can use Pantera Tools. This includes Architects, Retailers, General Contractors, and Subcontractors.

In all projects, the documents are central to the construction process. While much of today’s bidding is done with file sharing and digital downloads, we still offer the print capability for the plans needs for the Subcontractor as well as the hard copy plans needed on the Job Site.

These invites are from Subs and General Contractors who have gone through the process of creating a Profile Page and attaching Pre-Qualification Data. If you accept them by clicking on the link they will be imported into your address book with their data attached and shown with icons. Their contact info and Pre-quals will remain updated anytime there is a change.

We maintain the privacy of all Address Books put into our system. We are building a community. Please understand that we have built our database by faxing 100’s of thousand of subs from lists obtained by mailing houses. We have done numerous email campaigns to drive membership, and we have marketed our website using all the new methods. We have 10’s of thousands of Directory subcontractors, many of them surely are also subs of yours. It is not realistic to think that a sub of yours is not listed in the phone book, or won’t become a member of the Directory if he sees the benefit of joining to get project leads from other contractors.

There are dozens of companies listing project leads for subs. However, our successful contractors also know that the so-called “private” sub is largely a myth. It is the relationship you have developed with a particular sub that will win you the job. However, understand that under no circumstance do we ever share your private subcontractor data.

It is built into the system. We invented the first Planroom with built-in printing and distribution technology back in the late ’90s. We understand it and have seamlessly blended printing and logistics into PanteraTools.

Owners, Architects, and Contractors have figured out that they can use their own contact tools such as Outlook in combo with an FTP to make the “pay to play Planroom” irrelevant. Companies like Google, Craigslist, Wikipedia, and hundreds more have demonstrated that as Moore’s law and bandwidth makes technology cheaper every year. A customer can use these free or inexpensive services, he is unlikely to choose to do all the work required to manage the naming, revisions, and reporting necessary to protect him from the liability of getting bad bids, or making old docs available during the building phase. Hosting your own FTP has a cost. It has Risks. It will continue to chew up your bandwidth and make it increasingly difficult for your subs to download. You end up with near a full-time employee keeping it up. Why not free your company from that burden, get better tools, and get happier contractors and vendors, using a system that is constantly upgraded and improved?