Sanerakennus Oy is a renovation and civil engineering company operating in the Helsinki metropolitan area. One of its current major projects involves the installation of fiber-optic cables in Etu- and Taka-Töölö. With Pictue, Sanerakennus saves construction site photos by project and work phase—and can easily find the right photos later on.
“We currently have five teams working on fiber-optic projects in the Töölö area. There are about 200 individual job sites in the area,” says Jiri-Waltteri Vallenius, who is responsible for Sanerakennus’s operations and systems development.
Documenting so many job sites requires a systematic approach. Photography begins even before work starts. The photos show the site’s initial condition, the progress of the work, and how the environment was restored.
It’s especially important to document the intermediate stages of the work as well.
“If we take a photo of the street before work begins and another one of the finished asphalt, the photos don’t show what was done in between. With Pictue, we can also verify what happened between those two photos,” Vallenius explains.
Before Pictue was introduced, construction site photos were shared via WhatsApp, email, and other instant messaging apps. If a supervisor needed a photo of a specific location, finding it might have required exchanging messages with several people.
“Without an app like Pictue, we’d have to go through the camera galleries on our phones to figure out if any photos of the work were taken at all,” Vallenius describes the challenge.
According to Pictue CEO Ville Hyvärinen, the app’s goal is to ensure that photos end up in the right place the moment they’re taken.
“Taking a photo with Pictue has to be as easy as possible. If you know how to take a photo in WhatsApp, you know how to use Pictue, too. The photo is saved directly to the correct location with the relevant details and appears on the map. At the same time, supervisors don’t have to ask for the photos later or wonder which location they pertain to.”
In addition to the cable work in Töölö, the company performs a wide variety of construction projects. Previously, photos from different job sites were sent to the company’s shared email address, where material accumulated from, among other things, earthwork, renovation, demolition, and electrical work.
“When photos from every business area end up in the same email inbox, it’s hard to find the right ones quickly when you need them,” Vallenius notes.
Sanerakennus began using Pictue during the Töölö fiber-optic project due to the client’s documentation requirements. The client was already using the app and wanted Sanerakennus to document its work using it as well.
Sanerakennus could have taken the photos using the client’s login credentials. However, Vallenius wanted the company to manage its own image data.
“I thought that if we used the client’s login credentials, all the photos would be visible to them as soon as they were taken. That didn’t seem like a good solution. We wanted to ensure that we only share image documentation with the client that is genuinely important to them.”
Sanerakennus set up its own Pictue environment in collaboration with the team developing the app. Since then, Sanerakennus’s project management team has been able to use the photos stored in the app not only for reporting to the client but also for monitoring project sites and determining billing criteria.
Having its own platform allows Sanerakennus to refine its photography practices for future projects as well.
“In that sense, it’s also a matter of professionalism. We want to convey to the outside world that we carry out our work properly and that we have a consistent approach to documentation,” Vallenius explains.
The term “keyword path” is emphasized repeatedly in Vallenius’s remarks.
In Pictue, this refers to a predefined set of options visible to the photographer. The company uses it to specify how construction site images are archived. For example, the photographer can select the site and work phase, after which these selections are saved in the image’s metadata. Additionally, the image is automatically tagged with the capture time, location, and photographer.
With approximately 200 sites in total, consistent tagging makes it easier to find images. When employees tag the same work phase in the same way, supervisors can filter images by site and work phase.
“The implementation is simple in the sense that every employee follows a specific process when saving an image,” says Vallenius.
According to Hyvärinen, taking and categorizing photos must be so effortless on the job site that photos are captured during the correct work phase. This is also important for the reliability of the documentation. With Pictue’s mobile app, photos are taken directly within the app, so the time, location, and photographer are automatically recorded with each photo. This metadata cannot be changed afterward.
“This allows project stakeholders to verify where and when a photo was taken and to trust the information regarding its origin.”
Sanerakennus needs the photos taken in Töölö for reporting to the client. They can also be referred to later when the progress of the work needs to be clarified.
From the shared Pictue view, Sanerakennus’s project management can track which sites photos have been added to and how the work is progressing. According to Vallenius, the photos also facilitate communication between the field and the office.
“With Pictue, we can see what stage the construction site is at and when new photos have been added via the app. It greatly streamlines our operations,” Vallenius explains.
The photos have already been helpful in answering follow-up questions regarding installations and excavation work. According to Vallenius, these questions have related, for example, to work methods and the materials used.
“We’ve been asked, among other things, how the cable was routed through the foundation and what products were used in the work. In those cases, we’ve been able to go back to the photos and data stored in Picture and find the answers there,” Vallenius notes, adding:
“With the help of the images, we can show what was actually done on the job site. At the same time, the discussion is based on documented facts.”
For now, Sanerakennus is using Pictue only for its fiber-optic projects in the Töölö area. With its own Pictue environment, documentation could later be easily expanded to other areas of Sanerakennus’s business, such as renovation and electrical work.
For example, separate keyword paths could be created for each type of work to guide users in documenting the necessary work steps.
In addition to reporting to clients, Sanerakennus uses the images to compile billing data. Vallenius has even considered whether unit prices could be linked to work steps in the future. This could make it easier to compile a list of completed tasks and their quantities for invoicing purposes.
According to Hyvärinen, it is precisely these kinds of customer requests and user experiences that help determine which features to add to the app next.
“We develop the app together with our customers and are constantly gathering suggestions for improving it. If the same need arises across multiple companies, it moves up higher on our development list as well.”
Based on his current experience, Vallenius encourages other contractors to review their documentation practices.
“I would especially recommend that smaller earthwork companies consider how they currently document their work and how an app like Pictue could benefit them.”