Case Study: Clark Builders achieves near‑real‑time budget visibility and faster project cost control with Onware

How we created an immersive Tableau dashboard for Project Managers to monitor construction project costs and identify budget variances

Clark Builders, one of Canada’s leading general contractors, faced a time-consuming job-cost reporting process that left Project Managers sifting through 200–300 black-and-white pages across three reports and often waiting over a month to see project progress. Onware used Tableau (Desktop and Server) and connected directly to Clark’s eCMS financial system to build an Actual vs. Committed dashboard that consolidates original and updated budgets, commitments, change orders, actuals and Estimated Cost at Completion (ECAC) into a single interactive view.

Onware’s solution delivered near-real-time, drillable visualizations with transaction-level detail (including linked scanned invoices), searchable filters, and highlighted variances, replacing lengthy static reports and enabling faster, more effective cost control. The outcome was immediate high‑level visibility across projects, quicker identification of overruns and trends (moving from month‑long reporting cycles to near‑real‑time insight), broader Tableau adoption across Clark Builders’ teams, and a repeatable dashboard approach Onware has since applied with other clients.

Clark Builders

Marc Timberman

Chief Financial Officer