The estimator
Heavy drawing sets to open, measure and mark up, and a closing time that does not move. A slow workstation costs bids.
Construction companies
IT for construction companies: the office, the job sites and everything that travels between them
At a contractor’s, half the IT does not stay at the office. It leaves in a truck in the morning, spends the day in a site trailer and comes back at night, when it comes back. In between, drawings change revision, subcontractors send invoices and somebody is waiting on a transfer.
IT for a construction company rests on four things: laptops and tablets managed remotely, drawings kept in one place, email protected against fake-supplier fraud, and a verified backup. OKTO Solutions offers these services to contractors in Quebec on a monthly plan.
Office and job sites
What does a construction company need from its IT?
A construction company needs IT that follows the work to where it happens. At the office, estimators build bids and accounting prepares payroll. On site, the superintendent opens drawings on a tablet, often over a cellular connection. Files are large, devices ride around in trucks, and payments to subcontractors draw fraudsters. OKTO Solutions, an IT services provider from Trois-Rivières, offers construction companies in Quebec a monthly plan that brings together management of laptops and tablets, drawings organized in Microsoft 365, email protection, backups, fleet monitoring and employee support. Service is delivered mostly remotely, and on site when hardware has to be installed. General contractor or trade contractor, the need comes down to the same thing: the right revision of the drawing in the project manager’s hands, and no fake invoice paid. Nothing here replaces the software you already run; it is about what sits underneath.
The project manager
The latest revision, the change orders, the back-and-forth with the client and the subcontractors. She wants all of it in one place, at the office or in the truck.
The superintendent
A tablet that eats dust, a patchy cellular signal, and documents that have to open even when the network drops.
Accounting and payroll
Workers’ hours, subcontractor invoices, wire transfers. This is the desk fraudsters aim for.
On the road
How do you keep control of laptops and tablets that leave for the site?
A site device lives in a truck, a trailer or a gang box. It gets lost, it gets stolen, it changes hands from one project to the next. Nobody will prevent that. What can be decided ahead of time is what happens afterward.
Every laptop and tablet is enrolled in central management: encrypted disk, tracked updates, status checked. If one disappears, it is locked, wiped remotely and the employee’s account is cut off. The drawings were never only on the device anyway. They sit in the company space and sync so they stay readable with no network.
Access follows the person, not the machine. Identity is confirmed with a second factor, and a sign-in from a country where you have no job site is refused. Our page on secure remote work describes these settings; a site trailer raises the same problem as a home office.
- An up-to-date inventory: which device, on which project, in whose hands
- Remote lock and wipe after a loss or a theft
- No password shared among the members of a crew
OKTO support Office folders opened remotely over an encrypted link, from a workstation whose status has been checked.
Drawings and large files
Where do you keep drawings so everyone works from the right revision?
Building from a superseded revision can cost more than an outage. How files are organized matters as much as which application you choose. The applications in the table are named as examples: their publishers support them, not OKTO.
| Common software | What it is for | What it asks of IT |
|---|---|---|
| AutoCAD and Revit | Drafting and building models | Workstations sized for these applications, licences kept track of, and large files to copy every day |
| Bluebeam Revu | Marking up, measuring and comparing PDF drawings | A shared space where the current revision is never in doubt |
| Procore | Online project management and site documents | Accounts opened and closed as projects come and go, protected by a second factor |
| Maestro | Accounting, job costing and management for contractors | A monitored server or hosting, a verified backup and no remote access left open to the whole Internet |
One site per project, rights by group
In our Microsoft 365 services, each project gets its own library and permissions go to a group, not to an individual. When the project closes, subcontractor access is removed in one step. Links open to whoever receives them, created on a rushed day, are found and removed.
A copy that does not depend on Microsoft
A project folder deleted by mistake several months after handover is not always still in the recycle bin. Microsoft 365 backup keeps a separate copy of files and email, with a retention period you choose. Handy the day a client disputes a change order.
Fake supplier
How do you avoid paying a fraudster who announces a change of bank account?
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre files the scheme under spear phishing. The fraudster targets a business that deals with a supplier, a wholesaler or contractors. A spoofed message announces a change in payment arrangements, with new banking details. The next payment lands in the fraudster’s account.
Construction lends itself to it: many subcontractors, progress payments and people in a hurry. The message carries no link and no booby-trapped file, so no filter recognizes it every time. The defence comes down to one internal rule and a few settings.
- Call back before changing anythingAny change of banking details is confirmed by voice, at a number already on file.
- Lock the mailboxesThe fraud can start from a compromised mailbox, yours or the supplier’s. A second factor on every account closes that path.
- Sign your domainSPF, DKIM and DMARC keep others from writing to your clients in your name. That is part of our email protection.
- Train the staffThe vCIO module includes four phishing simulations a year.
A phishing message taken apart: the real address behind the link, the look-alike domain, then quarantine.
Deadlines
Which dates must IT never cause you to miss?
Three moments come up in a contractor’s year. The first two do not forgive an outage. The third is an opportunity.
Monthly report to the CCQ
The employer files it no later than the 15th day of the month after the period covered, even when no work was carried out. It must go in electronically. A payroll computer that dies on the 14th becomes a company problem.
Submitting a bid
When a municipal body accepts bids electronically, they have to be deposited in SEAO, the Quebec government’s tendering system, before the closing date and time. The ministry’s model clauses put the burden of Internet traffic on the bidder.
Mandatory annual holidays
Collective agreements set the dates: December 20, 2026 to January 2, 2027 in winter, July 25 to August 7, 2027 in summer, with some exceptions. Sites stop and the office empties. It is the ideal window for a migration or a server replacement.
The service
What OKTO offers a construction company
- Office workstations and site devices monitored and kept up to date through our managed IT services, billed per workstation or server
- An IT support line for employees, starting with the Standard plan
- Accounts created at hiring and closed at departure, season after season, following our method for employee arrivals and departures
- The layers of managed cybersecurity: second factor, monitored endpoint protection, patching
- Technical measures that support your obligations, explained on our Law 25 page for small businesses
- A website that shows your job sites and your RBQ licence: see our website examples for contractors
One office, in Trois-Rivières. Our services are offered to contractors across Quebec. Most of the work is settled remotely, and a technician travels when hands are needed on equipment. If your sites call for someone there every day, we will tell you plainly that a provider closer to you will do better. Details by territory: Mauricie, Quebec City area, Greater Montreal.
Questions and answers
Questions construction contractors ask
How do we work on a site where the Internet is poor?
By keeping drawings in a company space that syncs to the device. The superintendent opens documents with no network, and changes go back up when the connection returns. What does not work: drawings sent around by email, where nobody knows which one is current.
What do we do if a tablet goes missing from a site or a truck?
When the device is under central management, we lock it and wipe it remotely, and the employee’s account is revoked from the portal. If the disk is encrypted and the drawings live in the company space, you are replacing hardware, not files. Without that management, you do not even know what was on it.
A supplier emails to say their bank account has changed. What now?
Call them back at a number you already had on file, never the one in the email, and pay nothing until they confirm out loud. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre describes the scheme: a spoofed message announces a change in payment arrangements and supplies new banking details. No email filter stops it every time.
Do you take care of our estimating or job-cost accounting software?
Its publisher supports it. We look after what makes it run: workstations, the server or hosting, the network, access and backups. The vCIO module, available from ten workstations or servers, adds vendor management, billed separately, which covers the technical conversations with that publisher.
Does Law 25 concern a construction contractor?
Yes, like any private business in Quebec that holds personal information. Employee files and the contact details of residential clients are part of it. We put in place technical measures that support your obligations; how they are characterized in law is for your advisor.
Do we still need a server at the office for drawings?
Not necessarily. Many project folders sit comfortably in Microsoft 365. A server still earns its place when an accounting application requires one, or when very large drafting files stay open all day. We look at your software before recommending anything.
Let us count your workstations, tablets and job sites
We look at how many devices are out there, where your drawings are kept and who approves transfers. You leave with a list: the urgent items first, then what can be done over the next construction holiday.
Reviewed by Antonio Pazzi, president of OKTO Solutions · updated