Field teams and GIS teams often seem like they speak entirely different languages. Your GIS teams rely on precise data, accurate coordinates, and timely geospatial information to guide important decisions. Field teams need straightforward, simple-to-use field data collection software that let them execute their workflows while quickly and unobtrusively capturing important data.
Managing assets without location data leaves gaps. Infrastructure, utilities, and property don’t exist in isolation. Each one is part of a network with defined routes, connections, and boundaries. Yet many asset management systems treat geospatial data as optional, leading to inefficiencies, incomplete records, and planning mistakes.
Every year brings new rules and shifting governmental agency priorities, leaving businesses with a choice: wait and react, or prepare proactively. The challenge isn’t just staying compliant today. It’s also maintaining operational efficiency while ensuring your team can quickly adjust to future regulatory demands. Without the right tools, last-minute changes can slow work down, introduce errors, and create compliance risks. FieldTech for regulatory compliance helps teams stay ahead by providing the flexibility to adapt without sacrificing accuracy or productivity.
The Fulcrum Insider, Issue 46 delivers essential insights for AEC firms, inspectors, and infrastructure teams navigating 2025’s biggest challenges. This edition highlights how leading firms are increasing efficiency, overcoming delays, and integrating technology to stay competitive. From AI-powered inspections to the true cost of outdated workflows, Issue 46 covers the strategies and tools reshaping field operations.
Utility pole inspections are essential for keeping the grid running, the lights on, and crews safe. However, many electric utilities still rely on outdated methods. Inspectors often struggle with disconnected systems, static spreadsheets, or paper-based records—hindering efficiency and accuracy. By leveraging GIS-powered field maps, utilities can modernize inspections, enhance safety, and reduce operational risks.
Vegetation management software helps utilities move beyond outdated, cycle-based trimming by integrating GIS with real-time field data. This approach improves accuracy, reduces outages, and enhances decision-making by enabling risk-based, data-driven vegetation control strategies.
Engineering and consulting firms rely on GIS field data, but how they apply it makes all the difference. The firms that use advanced GIS tools gain a competitive edge by improving efficiency, reducing costly errors, and delivering precise, real-time insights.
Field teams across industries rely on location data to get work done. Whether they’re maintaining power lines, monitoring ecosystems, or planning new infrastructure, they need more than static maps. GIS for field operations ensures they have actionable spatial data to collect, analyze, and make informed decisions in the field.
Field teams rely on GIS to map infrastructure, assets, and environmental features, but too often, those maps don’t match reality. Pipelines, power lines, roads, and land boundaries shift over time, while GIS data lags behind, leading to costly mistakes.
Aging infrastructures like roads, bridges, and pipelines need constant attention. Outdated infrastructure inspection methods make the job harder. When teams rely on slow, disconnected tools, critical issues go unnoticed. Maintenance falls behind. Small problems turn into major failures because inspections take too long.
Is your team overwhelmed by juggling multiple mobile apps and disconnected systems for field operations? You’re not alone. This webinar will highlight the challenges that led our customers to move away from “mobile versions” of enterprise tools and costly homegrown systems — and how purpose-built fieldwork software offers a better solution.
Issue 45 of The Fulcrum Insider is live, and if you’re running field operations, you need this one. We’re talking about Audio FastFill, the new AI-powered voice input that’s turning field data collection on its head. No typing. No tapping. Just talk, and the data lands right where it belongs.
Optimizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for field management goes far beyond basic GIS mapping. GIS improvements focus on customization, automation, mobile apps, and clean data. These changes turn GIS from a static storage tool into a platform that drives operational efficiency and smarter decisions.
Fulcrum Audio FastFill is transforming how field teams collect data, offering faster, hands-free workflows through AI-powered voice input. Before this feature became widely available, early adopters were already putting it to the test on their custom Fulcrum apps. Their feedback has given us valuable insights into how organizations can optimize their forms and workflows for this game-changing tool.
Fulcrum Audio FastFill is a voice-powered AI feature that replaces manual typing with real-time, structured voice dictation for field data capture. It solves common problems in the field by turning spoken input into accurate records, helping teams move faster and stay focused on their work.
Energy keeps the world running, but keeping energy systems running has never been more complex. Demand is rising, infrastructure is aging, and the push for lower emissions is reshaping how power is generated and delivered. At the same time, supply chains are strained, regulations are tightening, and skilled labor shortages make efficiency more critical than ever. The energy industry is in the middle of a digital transformation for fieldwork, with new technologies reshaping how field teams operate and respond to these challenges.
Digital transformation promises to revolutionize field operations, unlocking unprecedented efficiency, precision, and insight. But as exciting as this future sounds, the path to get there can be fraught with challenges. From unclear goals to resistance among team members, even the most promising field technology initiatives can falter. The good news? By anticipating these pitfalls, your organization can sidestep them and pave the way for meaningful, lasting change.
Field teams face constant challenges in keeping up with data demands. Typing on mobile devices in the field feels like fighting with one hand tied behind your back — slow, prone to errors, and frustrating when speed is critical. That’s where voice data collection takes the spotlight.
As the first Fulcrum Insider of 2025, Issue 44 delivers practical insights and tools to help you embrace digital transformation, streamline field operations, and maximize efficiency.
Field teams encounter challenges that demand immediate solutions. They often struggle with disconnected tools, fragmented workflows, and inefficiencies that delay results. Achieving efficient process management requires more than patchwork systems. Many organizations rely on bolt-on solutions or homegrown systems to address these issues. However, these approaches frequently create more problems than they solve, leaving teams overburdened and operations stagnant.
Fieldwork doesn’t have to be a constant struggle. Yet, many teams deal with outdated tools, disconnected workflows, and tedious manual processes that create more problems than solutions. To overcome these challenges, your team needs smarter tools and systems. This infographic outlines how Fulcrum software helps field teams simplify their work, eliminate inefficiencies, and achieve more.
The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry faces unique challenges: complex projects, tight deadlines, and ever-increasing client demands. But a digital revolution is underway, offering solutions to these challenges and reshaping how we design, build, and manage the world around us. This transformation is leading to a fundamental rethinking of workflows, collaboration, and the very nature of construction itself. To understand why, let’s explore the forces driving this digital revolution and how it’s changing the AEC landscape.
The landscape of utility field inspections is rapidly evolving. AI-powered UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle), aka drones, are taking center stage, offering a safer, faster, and more efficient alternative to traditional ground-based methods.
The utility industry is at a crossroads. Energy demand is rising, but the skilled workforce needed to maintain the grid is shrinking. Much of the infrastructure is decades old and increasingly prone to issues, while extreme weather and tighter regulations add even more pressure. Transmission and distribution (T&D) field teams, tasked with keeping everything running, are being stretched thin. Artificial intelligence (AI) is providing a path forward. Advances in AI in utilities are modernizing how utilities handle inspections, maintenance, and field operations, AI is helping teams work smarter, faster, and safer. This blog dives into how AI is transforming T&D field strategies to boost grid reliability, streamline tasks, and even reshape the future of fieldwork.
Infrastructure inspections have always been essential to maintaining the structures that connect and sustain modern society. These field inspections are critical for bridges, pipelines, power grids, and roadways, but they have traditionally been slow, expensive, and risky. Teams conducting inspections often rely on labor-intensive processes that involve scaling dangerous heights or working in hazardous environments. These methods are not only inefficient but often fail to capture the full picture needed for accurate maintenance planning.
Stay at the forefront of technology with Issue 43 of the Fulcrum Insider featuring the latest advancements in artificial intelligence, privacy compliance, and streamlined workflows. This edition offers practical tools and strategies to help you transform your field operations and achieve measurable results.
Manual data entry wastes time and slows teams down. Fulcrum Audio FastFill field data collection changes the game. This voice-powered AI field data solution helps teams collect data faster, more accurately, and with less hassle. Unlike standard talk-to-text tools, Audio FastFill doesn’t just transcribe; it organizes. It automatically maps your inputs to multiple fields at once, turning your voice dictation into structured data.
Fulcrum’s Audio FastFill transforms how teams collect and organize data in the field. Designed to make workflows faster and more accurate, Audio FastFill uses AI to convert voice observations into structured form entries. This eliminates the need for manual typing or clunky tools that can slow you down. Instead, field teams can focus on their work while Fulcrum ensures the data is captured seamlessly.
Preventive maintenance is a cornerstone of asset management, and for many organizations, integrating AI into their maintenance programs seems like a no-brainer. Yet, while businesses race to harness AI’s analytical power, they’re often overlooking a critical factor: their data. In fact, many teams are falling into a common trap—focusing on AI’s potential without addressing the data quality issues that undermine its effectiveness.
Field teams today face challenges with tools that don’t meet their specific operational needs. These tools often fragment data, disrupt workflows, and fail to support real productivity in the field. Fulcrum changes that with a field software platform crafted to meet the real-world demands of field and office teams alike. Join CEO Jim Grady as he introduces Fulcrum’s fresh, field-first approach to operations technology.
Field operations teams work in dynamic environments that demand more than generic software. Many organizations struggle because enterprise applications often ignore unique business needs like offline access. Generic platforms frequently present a complex user interface that frustrates users working on mobile devices
Welcome to Issue 42 of the Fulcrum Insider! This month’s edition focuses on how AI is revolutionizing field operations, offering tools and strategies to automate workflows, improve data accuracy, and ensure privacy compliance. Field teams across industries are adopting these innovations to streamline operations and make smarter decisions.
The Fulcrum field data collection and process management platform streamlines field operations by supporting AI technologies that improve task efficiency, enhance data accuracy, and increase productivity. With built-in functionalities and the flexibility to integrate bespoke AI models, the platform adapts to meet your specific operational needs, ensuring seamless AI integration for optimal performance.
Greetings, everyone. Today, I’m thrilled to share an important step forward for Fulcrum, one that brings to life our vision of enabling field efficiency and unifying the field with the office.
AI-driven field data collection makes fieldwork smoother, faster, and error-free. With modern tools at their fingertips, field teams now capture real-time insights and act on data directly in the field. Industries like utilities, engineering, telecom, and environmental management are getting actionable information on the spot, cutting out delays and transforming raw data into instant solutions.
Field data fraud leads to major safety issues, expensive repairs, and lost public trust. Each fake report or reused photo allows critical issues to go unnoticed, often until a failure occurs. Unfortunately, these risks stay hidden without the right tools to catch red flags early.
Ready to streamline your field operations? Download our data sheet to see how Fulcrum’s field services can support every aspect of your team’s work. From tailored onboarding to seamless integrations and continuous support, this data sheet provides all the details.
Urban infrastructure is in serious trouble. Decades-old bridges, pipes, roads, and grids are buckling under the weight of growing populations and years of neglect. Potholes that swallow cars, bridges hanging on by a thread, water mains bursting—this isn’t the future anyone had in mind. For the engineers, city planners, and field ops teams on the front lines, aging infrastructure is like playing a never-ending game of whack-a-mole with crises popping up faster than they can handle.
In Issue 41 of the Fulcrum Insider, we’re focusing on innovations in water utility management and how technology is helping teams streamline their processes. Whether you’re managing infrastructure, tackling stormwater challenges, or improving leak detection, this issue offers practical, real-world insights to keep your operations running smoothly.
It’s frustrating to see hardworking water utility field teams, responsible for delivering clean, abundant water, stuck using outdated tools that don’t live up to their promise. This upcoming webinar will help you change that. Join us to explore AI for water utility and learn how it can transform the way your teams work in the field.
When it comes to managing your GIS systems, control is everything. Esri ArcGIS Enterprise gives you full command over your GIS infrastructure, and now with Fulcrum’s integration, that control extends seamlessly to your field data collection. Whether it’s GIS, IT, or field operations, Fulcrum ensures that your data stays secure and fully within your grasp—just the way you need it.
For GIS professionals, managing geospatial data can be a complex, multi-step process. Fulcrum’s seamless integration with ArcGIS simplifies this by allowing teams to collect and sync data directly into the ArcGIS platform. This eliminates manual data transfers, reduces errors, and speeds up data management for faster decision-making. With Fulcrum, field teams and GIS analysts collaborate easily, ensuring accurate, consistent data across both platforms.
Empower your field operations with improved productivity and accuracy through location intelligence. This infographic demonstrates how automated, real-time location data delivers essential insights for every member of your team. From inspectors in the field to directors overseeing operations, location intelligence brings new levels of efficiency, accuracy, and cost control.
By using AI to automatically identify and blur out faces in photo fields, Fulcrum makes it easy to protect privacy when collecting data.
Managing architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) projects has always been a high-wire balancing act. Coordinating site inspections, managing project timelines, and ensuring safety compliance are just a few of the challenges project managers face daily.
Managing field operations in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) is no small task. From keeping projects on schedule to ensuring compliance with evolving regulations, there’s no room for error. highlights the core field challenges AEC professionals face and provides solutions designed to keep your team running smoothly.
Welcome to the Issue 40 of the Fulcrum Insider, packed with insights to enhance your water management. From AI-driven tools to cloud-based solutions, we’re all about making your field teams more efficient and smarter on the job.
Get ready to see AI for field work in action, transforming your field operations! This demo takes you beyond the hype and shows exactly how AI-driven tools boost productivity, automate routine tasks, and eliminate manual data entry for field teams.
The fieldwork landscape is changing fast, evolving from outdated manual processes into a domain driven by AI-powered solutions. What used to be a slow, error-filled, paper-based process has evolved into a system driven by digital precision, efficiency, and real-time decision-making. As the leap from paper to tech, and now to field AI, transforms how on-site operations are conducted, the result is not just faster processes, but smarter, more reliable workflows.
Transform your field inspections with AI dictation in the field—no typing required. This demo highlights a sample task: a wood utility pole inspection. By integrating OpenAI’s ChatGPT API, we convert spoken observations into structured form data, streamlining your workflow and cutting down on manual entry.
AI has advanced beyond the “figuring it out” phase and is now delivering clear, measurable benefits. As a result of recent technological advancements, field teams can now achieve significant ROI from AI by enhancing efficiency, boosting team productivity, and improving resiliency. Furthermore, these improvements are highly cost-effective, with every dollar invested in AI returning $8 to $18. Consequently, this significant return on investment frees up resources for other critical initiatives, making AI an indispensable tool for modern field operations.
