You've just been assigned a new project in Procore. The company admin created it from a template, so everything should be good to go.
That's where most teams stop. They get their project, they see the tools are active, and they start working.
But there's a gap between what the template gives you and what's actually ready to use. And that gap, it costs you time on every single project.
This series is about creating a repeatable process you can use on every project that hits your account. There are four parts, and this is part one, your role as the project admin.
First, the context. This is for the project admin, you're the main power user at the project level. You might be a project manager, a project engineer, or the person responsible for making sure the project is set up properly for the team.
I'm assuming you've got admin-level access across all the tools in your project. If you don't, talk to your company admin about getting it, you're going to need it for what we're covering.
Here's something most teams miss. If you find things during setup that could be improved in the template, feed that back to your company admin. When they update the template, every project created after that gets the benefit automatically.
One important note, though: template changes aren't retroactive. They only affect new projects created after the update. So the sooner you flag the improvements, the better.
Your company admin sets up and maintains the project templates, the tools, the permissions, the default settings. When a new project is created from that template, a lot carries over. But not everything copies the same way, and some things don't copy at all.
There's a Procore support article that breaks down exactly what gets copied and what doesn't. I'd recommend bookmarking it. Here is the link
Side note: Procore has extended the functionality from project template copying massively in the last six to twelve months. So if you haven't looked at this recently, now's a really good time, especially if you're a company admin.
The way I think about it, the template gives you the rules. You still need to set up the project.
That's what this whole series is about. And we're not just talking about adding in your drawings and documents, we're talking about changing the way Procore operates on your project.
Project Home is the first thing your team sees when they open the project. In fact, it's the first thing everyone sees.
You've got persistent project messages, a great place to put the key information everyone on the project needs in front of them. Your project links, important dates and your team panel sit here too. If you're using Procore Scheduling or a programme integration, you'll see the current scheduled dates and milestones. And you'll get your project weather, as long as you've added a project address.
So take five minutes and set this up properly. It's the front door to your project, make it useful and quick.
Side note: there's an old version and a new version of Project Home. We'd highly recommend upgrading to the new version using Procore Explore.
Now the admin setup. This is where the real configuration happens.
Start with your project information, your dates, project type, stage, square meterage. Make sure these are accurate, because they feed into reports and dashboards across the project and at the company level.
Then your active tools. This is where you toggle tools on and off. Not every project needs every tool, and not every Procore customer uses every tool. We'd generally recommend leaving this untouched, it should be dialled in from the template. But if there's a tool you genuinely shouldn't use, or one that isn't normally used that you do want, have a bit of a chat with your Procore admin to make sure you're aligned on company process.
Next, your WBS, your work breakdown structure. This is where your cost codes, cost types and sub jobs live, your financial structure. Your template should have brought these across, so review them. If for some reason they're not there, get them in and have a chat with your Procore admin. This matters even more if you're using automated integrations with systems like Acumatica and other ERP and accounting systems. That cost code structure is a language Procore speaks back and forth with those systems.
And then there's the other admin, which catches everything else, working days, locations, classifications, webhooks. Most people skip this section entirely. But there are settings in here that affect how the tools behave across your project.
The last, but most certainly not the least, part is reports.
Your company admin can push any company-level reports down to your project automatically, so open up your reports and see what's already there. Hopefully there's something to start with. If not, build your own, and I'd recommend building project-specific reports for the things you need to keep track of on a particular project.
That should include people for your own team, and external parties too, clients, consultants.
A small tip, you can automate these reports to go out by email on a regular basis, and turn off those pesky overdue notifications. It's a much better way to collaborate, especially with external stakeholders.
The reporting tool is really powerful, and project admins aren't using it enough at the project level. So whatever reports you'd like to see automatically when you create new projects, give that feedback to your company admin.
So that's the foundation, understanding your role, knowing what the template gives you, and getting your core project settings dialled in.
In part two, we'll cover universal features and power settings, the configurations that work the same way across virtually every tool in Procore. Things like custom views, tracking notifications, and privacy controls. Once you understand these patterns, you'll know exactly what to look for when we get into the tool-specific setup in parts three and four.
I'm also putting together a Procore project setup checklist that covers everything across all four parts. I'll have it ready to download in part four.