The 2022.5 Release of Kahua will be deployed to our Production environments on July 30, 2022. A preview of this functionality can be accessed at https://earlyaccesslaunch.kahua.com/ beginning on July 17, 2022. Please click here for more information on the Early Access program. The release notes below are preliminary and subject to change. For any changes to these notes, please see the change log at the bottom of the article.

In addition to various performance improvements, user interface updates and error corrections, this release will also include:

Desktop 

MESSAGES APP 

The Messages App has been converted to a new, modern architecture resulting in significant performance improvements, and now includes the ability to create custom views.

The print icon at the top right of the Message list has been replaced by a new icon which will open the Message list via a new reporting engine and Reporting app.  The Reporting app will open in the left navigation toolbar and render the list in a print-friendly format while also allowing downloading, saving to Kahua, and sending the list.

The new Reporting app features a tabbed interface such that multiple reports or list views can be opened at once. While this app will only open via the Messages log view currently, other application log views and reports will leverage this Reporting app in the future.  Closing the last open tab in the Reporting app will effectively close the app as well.

List and View management:

Working with Messages:

New Reporting app displaying the Message log report: 

USERS APP – ADD MULTIPLE USERS

A new ‘ADD MUTIPLE USERS’ action has been added to the Users app, which enables your Domain Admin to ‘bulk add’ batches of users to your Kahua domain. The intent is to significantly improve the efficiency associated with this administrative task that previously required each user to be added one-at-a-time. 

The new process involves first creating a list of candidate users. This list can be manually entered or imported; a combination of these methods may be used as well. From this list is where each candidate user will be assigned a default Partition and Role.

NOTE: this tool will not allow you to add contacts associated with other companies unless they are already users on another domain (e.g., in the Community). This tool should only be used for adding users to your Domain that are:

1. Any Community Member (whether they're in your Domain or not)

2. Contacts associated with one of the companies listed in the Company Profiles app, and applies to:

a. Contacts listed in the Companies/Contacts app but not in the Community

b. New Contacts

Once the import process is initiated, all candidate users will be checked against existing users and contacts to ensure that there are no duplicates, and that all necessary information has been input correctly. Because the process can handle the creation of hundreds of users, the process will run in the background so that your Domain Admin can work on other tasks, or even leave Kahua. They will receive an email when the process is complete, indicating which users were successfully added.

NOTE:  any user added with this tool will also be added to the 'Domain User' group, regardless of what other group(s) they are initially invited to.

WORK BREAKDOWN APP PERMISSIONS

Users with Administrator permission to the Work Breakdown app are now permitted to import the column configuration for their project. Previously, this was limited to members of the Domain Admin group only.

Work Breakdown Configuration: 

VIEWER/MARKUP TOOL

When a Markup is selected (clicked on), a new Palette icon will appear in the Markup Toolbar, that when selected, will enable all applicable properties of that Markup to be modified, such as:

• Text Size & Color

• Line Color, Thickness, and Opacity

• Fill Color, Thickness, and Opacity

Markup Copy/Paste is now also more powerful than ever! In addition to the basic Copy/Paste (using CTRL-C and CTRL-V), the following Copy/Paste capabilities are also being introduced:

• Using copy/paste on the same page of a document, the copied Markup will be offset slightly so that it is not copied on top of the source Markup, making it clear which was the original markup, and which is the copy
• Markups can now be copied to other pages of a multi-page document (to the same coordinates as the source Markup)
• Markups can now be copied from one document to a completely different document
• Using Markup multi-select (also a new feature), multiple Markups can be copied at once
• All copied Markups will have new corresponding entries in the Markup Table, with an indication of Page #, date/time of the copy, and the user who made the copy.

Additionally, the table of markups is now ‘toggled off’ by default. The markup table can easily be toggled back on at any time to view/change markup status and any associated comments.

PUNCH LIST APP ENHANCEMENTS

The Punch List App has been updated with enhanced functionality for the Field and Office user, including a new mechanism to visualize the punch list items on your drawings directly in the Punch List app.  For further details, please visit: July 2022 Punch List Enhancements

EXPENSE CHANGE REQUEST APP UPDATES

The Expense Change Request app has been updated with a new attribute, "CC/Notification", which is used to pre-populate Message recipients when using the Send action.  Additionally, when processing an Issue Item, users can now select the Expense Change Request app as a destination document.  

BID SOLICITATION APP – INVITATION TO BID

Prior to this release, Kahua’s Bid Solicitation app would generate an email notification with 2 links: one to indicate ‘Intent to Bid’ and a second to indicate ‘Intent to Not Bid’. While generally very effective, some organizations utilize tools to analyze incoming emails and detect malicious URLs including malware and phishing links. When these types of tools are used, bid recipients unknowingly sent an ‘"Intent to Not Bid’ back to Kahua as these URLs were tested/executed.

The release solves this problem by including only a single link in the email, which directs the user to a webpage. The link to the webpage will ‘pass’ the malware checks, but also does not trigger any indication of an intent to ‘Bid’ or ‘Not Bid’. The webpage itself now includes the necessary information for the bid recipient to indicate their intent.

NOTE:  Clients who have extensions to the "Bid Solicitations" app may need to modify their extension to activate this feature.

Kahua Provided Extensions

To continuously improve our best-in-class Kahua provided extensions, we will be updating offerings to include the following features:

Kahua for General Contractors, Kahua for Owners, and Kahua for Program Managers

PACKAGED SUBMITTALS ENHANCEMENTS:

The following updates are being added to Kahua’s Packaged Submittals extension:

• Default Workflow, Non-Sequential Review, Message to Official Reviewer Includes List of Consultant Reviewers– In the Kahua Submittal Package Workflow, the message the official reviewer receives when a package or item is sent into review now includes a list of pending consultant reviewers. Note, this list only displays if the consultants receive their tasks at the same time as the official, which only happens in non-sequential review.
  
  
  
  
• Default Workflow, Notify Response Distribution on Submit to Review– In the Kahua Submittal Package Workflow, a new “Notify Response Distribution on Submit to Review” checkbox has been added to both items and packages.
  
  
  When this field is enabled, contacts in the response distribution list are notified with the following message when the package/item is submitted or re-submitted to reviewers.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Default Workflow, Sequential Review Update – In the Kahua Submittal Package Workflow & Kahua Submittal Item Workflow, the following actions are being added to sequential review. 
  • Continue Review: After a sequential review is completed, the official reviewer can now add new consultant reviewers and click a continue action to continue the sequential review. This sends new tasks to the newly added consultant reviewers in the order specified in the grid. The order specified for these new consultants must start with a number greater than that of the last consultant from the original sequential review. When continuing a sequential review, the consultants who have already responded to their tasks do not receive additional tasks (to send to all reviewers, old and new, the official can add new reviewers and then use the “Restart Review” action).
    
    
  • Return to Consultant: After sequential review is completed, the official reviewer can now return tasks to individual consultant reviewers for update without restarting the sequential review. If the official reviewer restarts or continues the sequential review while an individual consultant reviewer’s task is outstanding (the official reviewer returned to one or more consultant reviewer, and they have yet to respond), the individual consultant task is canceled (when restarting review, the consultant is then re-inserted into their order in the sequential review). Consultant reviewers with pending tasks are notified if their outstanding tasks are canceled by these official reviewer actions.
    
    
    

These updates will be available when work-flowing from both the package and the item in the default workflow.

Default Workflow, Submitter Initiated Submittal Packages and Items Field Access Updates - The following updates have been made to the new and edit views users with the submitter role access when initiating submittal packages and items (this functionality explained in the June 2022 Release notes for release 2022.4).

• Revision Number is now read only for submitters if admin has configured a default value for the field (remains editable if no default value is provided)
  
• Submittal Coordinator field is now fully editable for submitters (even if default value is provided)
  
• The Response Distribution and Notes fields have been removed from the submitter initiation views.
• In the submitter initiated views for submittal packages, the "Response" and "Status" fields in the submittal items grid have been removed. 
• The Reviewers, consultant Reviewers, and Submittal Dates sections now appear collapsed by default to submitters during submitter record initiation.
  
  

QUANTITY CENTRIC UPGRADES

Over the next few releases, we are upgrading quantity-centric functionality in the Kahua cost applications. 

In this release, we:

• Added Lump-Sum items to Expense Contracts, Change Orders and Change Requests.
• Enabled Item Level Entry Types for Expense Contracts, Change Orders and Change Requests.
• Enabled quantities on SOV Breakdown, including the above Lump-Sum and Item Level Entry Types.
• Ensured the above changes were compatible with the Associated Contract Lines
• NOTE: these capabilities are opt-in via Configuration for each Kahua cost app.

Lump-Sum Items

Kahua supports Total Value items, where the user just enters the total amount for each item. Under the hood, Kahua maintains quantity equals 1 and Unit Price equals the Total for the item. 

Most of the time, where the quantity or unit price isn’t relevant or exposed, Total Value items work perfectly. However, as we expose quantity values throughout, including a quantity of 1 for total value items can affect quantity sums and calculated unit prices. 

We’ve added a new Lump-Sum Entry Type which sets the quantity and unit price of an item to zero. The user only enters the full amount of the item. Where quantity and unit price are hidden, the behavior is similar to Total Value. Where quantity and unit price are exposed, the values are hidden in the user interface.

Sample Lump Sum Item – Quantity and Unit Price are hidden

NOTE: our expectation is Lump Sum items will supersede Total Value items over time. We leave Total Value available for backward compatibility.

Lump-sum is enabled by default in all domains. To disable it, go to via Configuration/ <applicable app>/ Settings/ Cost Unit Settings/ Excluded Entry Types for each application Lump Sum applies to. Check the Exclude Lump-Sum option.

 Lump-Sum Configuration Setting: 

Item Level Entry Types

Item Level Entry Types allow contracts and related documents to have a mix of Item Entry Types, such as Unit Price and Lump Sum items on the same contract. This applies to Expense Contract, Change Requests, and Change Orders and SOV Breakdown.

Item Level Entry Types is disabled by default. To enable it for supported applications, it needs to be enabled via Configuration/ <applicable app>/ Settings/ Cost Unit Settings/ Allow Item Cost Unit Entry Type. Check the option.

 Item Level Entry Type Configuration Setting: 

Example - All Available Item Entry Types enabled for an Expense Contract: 

When Item Level Entry Type is enabled:

• The Entry Type (Formerly Cost Unit Entry Type) above the grid acts as a default Entry Type for new items
• The item Entry Type, Qty, UOM and Unit Price are always displayed in the grid. These cells are tailored based on the item’s Entry Type. For example:
  1. Lump-Sum items hide the Qty and Unit Price cells (saved as 0)
  2. Unit Price items allow editing of Qty and Unit Price but not the total

SOV Breakdown – Quantities and Item Level Entry Types 

The SOV Breakdown allows for the flexible post-approval breakdown of contract and change order items for use on pay requests.  

NOTE: without any configuration changes, the SOV Breakdown will behave the same as Kahua version 2022.4 and earlier.  

The SOV Breakdown consists of two main parts. Commitment items, the first grid on the user interface, and SOV Items which are the child items (i.e., the breakdown part) of Commitment items. Each of these is impacted differently slightly differently with quantity-centric functionality. 

Commitment Items: 

The Commitment items map back to the source Contract Items and Change Order Items from the contract and change orders, respectively.  

Commitment Items – Mix of Entry Types:  
 

SOV Items: 

If Item Level Entry Type is not enabled on the SOV Breakdown per configuration, the SOV items follow the Entry Type of the parent commitment item, i.e., the parent contract or change order item.   

• For example, if the commitment item is Unit Price, the child SOV items are unit price as well, showing Qty, UOM, and Unit Price. In addition, the Allocation validation rules will test that qty isn’t over-allocated as well as total amounts. For example, you can’t allocate more than 120 units in the screen shot below.
  
  • NOTE: in the screenshot above, the Allocation Summary shows the Original and Net Change rows because the contract has Associated Contract Lines activated.

If Item Level Entry Type is enabled on the SOV Breakdown, the SOV items can be set to any Entry Type.  However, they default to the same Entry Type as the parent. 

Associated Contract Lines (ACL) with Lump Sum and Item Level Entry Types 

Associated Contract Lines allow change orders to be associated with Contract Items. With our enhanced quantity-centric support, you can use ACL to modify the total amount and the quantity on an original contract line. And, with the flexibility of SOV Breakdown, you can include price differences for a blended unit rate, or separate out old rates and new rates into different rows.

The full description of all the permutations of leveraging ACL with quantities is beyond the scope of release notes. See support article TBD (note: available for final release notes). 

In 2022.5, ACL can be used to manage the quantity breakdown of SOV items against the original contract item. The most common scenario is when both the contract item and the change order item are Unit Price. 

For example: see item “scenario 1” in the following scenario for an SOV-based contract.

Scenario 1:

• The original contract was for 100 widgets at $100 each – See contract item 01 below. 
• Scenario 1 is to add 20 widgets at $100 each via a change order.

Original Contract Items on Contract

Scenario 1 on SOV Breakdown – Before ACL happens: 100 units in a single SOV item (SOV items are what appear on the Pay Request)
 

On a Change Order, add a change order item associated to Contract item 01, to add 20 widgets. (See Change Order item 01)

On the SOV Item Breakdown: The impact of ACL is summarized in the Allocation Summary section. 

The user can control the SOV item breakdown – in this case, the existing SOV item is modified to be 120 widgets (and appears as such on the pay request) 

Kahua for K-12 Expense Change Order App

When the Kahua for K-12 package was created, we created a new Kahua for K-12 Expense Change Orders app to support Board Approval processes. Along the way, we ended up making Board Approval a preference setting, as some customers chose not to use that functionality. Recently, we decided we can support all the required functionality from a single Expense Change Order application, thus simplifying things for everyone.

Kahua for K-12 will now be able to leverage standard Expense Change Order functionality, including new features such as:

• Associated Contract Lines (ACL),
• Enhanced rules for controlling when a Change Order can be deleted
• Support Item Category in the item grid
• Other miscellaneous updates
• All future Expense Change Order updates

Kahua for Subcontractors

Processing Change Order Requests into Funding Change Orders
The Change Orders Request application now allows Change Order Requests to be processed into Funding Change Orders including creating new Funding Change Orders or adding Change Order Requests to existing Funding Change Orders.

When creating a new Funding Change Order from the Change Order Request, some attributes of the Change Order Request will automatically populate the Funding Change Order, and a new Item will be created containing the total amount of the Change Order Request. The new Funding Change Order will have a status of Pending.

When adding a Change Order Request to an existing Funding Change Order, the Funding Change Order will remain unchanged except for the addition of a new Item with the Total set to that of the Change Order Request.

This is the first of a series of enhancements that will allow provide more native Kahua cost capabilities to the Kahua for Subcontractors package and more collaboration among subcontractors and general contractors.

Additionally, a new Contract field has been added to the Change Order Request in order to select a Funding Contract to which the Change Order Request is associated.  The contract field will auto-populate with funding contract if there is a single funding contract for the project.   Selecting a contract will additionally auto-populate the Client Company and Client Contact fields with the From Company and From Contact values from the selected contract.  The contract field, if populated, will also populate the contract field on the Funding Change Order when the Change Order Request is processed.

Process a Change Order Request to a Funding Change Order: 

Process a Change Order Request to a Funding Change Order: 

The Funding Change Order receives data from the Change Order Request and a single Item containing the total of the Change Order Request:

DAILY REPORTS ENHANCEMENTS:
  
 The following updates are being added to Kahua’s Daily Report Kahua Extension:
   

• Kahua to Kahua has been enabled in Daily Reports – This is accomplished through a new type of task, Document Tasks, Document Tasks allow both upstream and downstream users to store independent, linked copies of a single daily report on their respective domains.
    
  When viewing a Daily Report Document Task for the first time, users see a “Create Link” link at the top of their task. Users can either respond directly from the task or use the create link to generate a corresponding record in their Daily Reports application.
   
   
   
  
  When creating a document task link, the user can set up automatic linking to a specific project. This auto-links future daily report tasks from the same upstream user to pre-existing matching or newly generated records in the user’s target project based on the criteria they select.
     
      
  The task then displays a link to the corresponding record in the task header, as well as an option to unlink.
      
    
  Users can then complete and submit their own daily report in their Daily Reports app. Submitting their report sends the data back to the requestor via the task and closes the task.
     
      
  One of the primary benefits of linking document tasks to daily reports records, is that after submitting the record (and even after the end of the project, where an application share might be revoked), the downstream user still has this record on their project. 
  
  If the upstream user returns the task for any reason, the same document is automatically re-linked to the task.
  
  After initial document task configuration, subsequent document tasks are linked to existing daily reports with matching criteria in the downstream user‘s project (if matching record exists). This allows the downstream user to create their daily reports ahead of time for tasks which they have not yet received. These reports then automatically link to the document tasks they receive as they receive them. Users can also automate their daily report submission by automatically creating daily reports from an automation script (which then link to new tasks as they are received). Daily report record/task matching is done based on shift, date, and author. If a matching document is not identified, a new record is created and linked to the task automatically (based on the downstream user’s configuration).
      
    
  In the above example, the downstream user has already configured automatic document task linking, and a new record is automatically generated in their daily reports application upon receiving this document task.
      
    
  A help icon with a link to more information about how to set up document task links and benefit from the use of document tasks has been added to daily reports tasks.
  
  
  
  
  
• Downstream Companies and Labor Rollup – If a user wishes to take their daily report record and send it out to downstream users to input labor information, they can turn on downstream users in Daily Reports configuration on the Settings tab. 
   
   
  When “Use Downstream Companies” is enabled, the user sees the “Companies” grid in their daily reports records and can workflow their daily reports further downstream to collect data from multiple companies. Only sections enabled on the settings panel under the “Use Downstream Companies” setting are accepted back into the current user’s record from downstream users (ex: if Equipment section is not checked on the settings page, Equipment data submitted by companies added to the companies table is not added to the upstream user‘s record).
      
    
  Users with the subcontractor package installed have “Use Downstream Companies” disabled by default but can enable this setting in configuration in order to add further downstream companies to records sent to them by upstream users/general contractors.
      
    
  
  When multiple levels of downstream companies exist on a single record, the top-level (GC) user sees a rolled-up labor summary of their immediate downstream company (sub) and all that company’s downstream companies (sub’s subs). All labor of the same labor type and classification will be combined into a single labor item in the upstream user’s companies record.
  
  Example:
  
  Level 3 – Sub’s Sub
  
  The 3rd level downstream user submits their labor type to the 2nd level downstream user (sub’s sub submits to sub).
   
  
  Level 2 – Sub
   
  The 2nd level downstream user sees the submitted labor from the 3rd level user in the ”Companies” grid of their Daily Report and adds their own internal labor to the internal labor tracking grid before submitting to the 1st level upstream user (GC).
      
    
  
  Level 1 – GC
  
  The upstream user sees all 3rd and 2nd level labor summed up in the single item in their “Companies“ grid for the 2nd downstream user. The GC does not view any data as directly belonging to the sub’s sub, but instead sees all the sub and sub’s subs data rolled up together.
     
   
  

Project Bid Proposal Templates

Introducing Project bid templates to help manage your bid proposals. These templates can be configured and used in the Project’s BIDS SENT section, as shown below. Use the templates to easily send a proposal. Clicking the Bid Proposal command will generate the proposal for that company.  

NOTE: Only one proposal template can be used on a project but you can edit the proposal before sending to a company.  

Customize the Bid Proposal template in the Project’s Configuration App by uploading your own word document. 

Two additional portable views have been added to the View drop-down for Project Summary and Bid Summary. They can also be configured in the Project’s Configuration App but cannot be changed per project.  

Additionally, the company attribute in the BIDS SENT section has been configured as a Company select to simplify data entry. 

Kahua Host Updates  

All Kahua hosts have been updated with various enhancements and bug fixes. The Windows host will automatically update upon first launch after the release. 

Download the appropriate app for your device: 

• Kahua Mobile for iOS on iTunes
• Kahua Mobile for Android on Google Play

NOTE:  Kahua will transition users of our Mac host to use the browser based access beginning on July 30, 2022 and the Mac host will no longer be available after this date.  Users on the Mac OS should utilize the Kahua Web Host.

Release Note Changes