Forward for project managers
The single most cited PM pain we hear: 'My field doesn't have Procore access, so I'm the lookup. Every text is me opening Procore on their behalf and texting back the answer.' Forward removes you from that loop without giving the field write access.
What your day looks like today
Pull up your texts from this week. Count how many start with “hey, what’s the…” or “where’s the…”. We’ve sampled PMs running 4-12 active commercial projects: average is 40-80 inbound texts/day of pure lookup questions. Each one is 60-90 seconds of you opening Procore, finding the thing, screenshotting or typing back the answer.
That’s 60-90 minutes of your day, every day, on questions that have answers already in Procore but the field can’t reach them.
Why the obvious solution doesn’t work
“Just give them Procore access” sounds right and fails for three reasons:
- License cost. Procore is sold by GMV but named-seat overlays exist for some plans — adding 30 tradespeople adds real budget.
- Adoption. Most tradespeople don’t open a project-management app. We’ve watched companies pay for seats that get used twice in six months.
- Permission complexity. You don’t want tradespeople editing RFIs, deleting submittals, or accidentally posting comments to the architect. Procore’s permissioning is granular but a hassle to maintain.
What Forward changes for you
Forward gives your field crew read-only conversational access to the project’s data over SMS — without a Procore login, without an app install, and without losing the audit trail.
Every question is logged. Every answer is sourced. Every draft is queued for your approval before it touches Procore. You haven’t given up control; you’ve given up the forwarding role.
The PM’s actual interface
You sit in front of the Forward dashboard at app.getforward.xyz. Two panes matter:
- Conversations. Every text-thread between your crew and the bot. You can see them all, jump in if you want. Most of the time you don’t need to.
- Approvals. When the bot drafts an RFI, an observation, a punch item, a delivery-window request, or a daily-log entry on the field’s behalf — it lands here. You click approve, edit, or reject. Nothing posts to Procore without your click.
The audit story (for your project executive)
Every Forward interaction is logged with the field user’s phone number, the question, the answer Forward returned, the source it cited, and the timestamp. Procore writes only happen with your approval click. The audit log is exportable + retained per your plan tier (90 days Standard, 365 days Pro, 7 years Enterprise).
Risk story for your PE / compliance: Forward holds an OAuth grant scoped to the company + project you authorize. Revoking the grant in Procore terminates Forward’s access instantly. We don’t copy your Procore data — every Forward query is a live read against Procore’s API.
What the field sees
From the field’s perspective, it’s just texting a phone number. They don’t know whether the answer came from Procore directly, from a parsed spreadsheet in your Documents folder, or from a synthesis of multiple sources.
They don’t know — they shouldn’t need to. That’s the point.
How to try it
Text +1 (682) 300-6750 with anything — what change orders are open, send me a-301, submittal status for 09 51 13. The live demo is wired to a synthetic project; what you experience is exactly what your crew would experience once your real Procore is connected.
Drop your email above for early access on a real project, or text us your PM email and we’ll route a 15-minute scoping call.
Try Forward right now
Drop your email above for early access — or skip the form and text +1 (682) 300-6750 from your phone. The live demo answers anything you can ask a project manager in plain English — no signup needed.