Spectrum Engineers, a civil engineering firm managing multiple complex projects across multiple states, faced a common AEC problem: they were paying Newforma platform costs for one primary capability.
As their CEO, David Wesemann explained:
"We purchased the Newforma system primarily for email filing. Because as a sub-consultant, we didn't really drive the other features of Newforma - we just kind of fall into line with what our clients wanted to do when it came to project management."
They're not alone. And if you're using Newforma Project Center - or evaluating a move to Konekt - they're likely describing your situation too.
The real problem with Newforma's pricing
Newforma is a project management platform. That means it's built to handle documents, financials, scheduling, compliance tracking, resource management and email. Dozens of modules maintained by dozens of engineers. Decades of feature integration. Comprehensive but expensive.
If your firm uses all of those capabilities, the platform approach makes sense. But most AEC firms don't. Most use Newforma for one thing: email management and project filing. Everything else — the financial modules, the scheduling dashboards, the resource planning features — sits partially implemented or completely unused.
You know which modules your teams actually touch daily. You probably also know that email and project filing are at the top of the list. The correspondence that links your projects together. The record of who agreed to what, when. The proof that you flagged a risk months before a problem surfaced.
That's the problem that matters. And it's not where Newforma excels.
Why Newforma handles email poorly
For Newforma, email is one module among many. That means resources are divided — the product team spreads engineering effort across multiple domains. Email gets its share, but it competes for attention with financial modules, scheduling, compliance dashboards and a dozen other features.
Integration is compromised. Tight Outlook integration would require significant engineering effort. But that effort competes with maintenance of other modules. So email integration is "good enough," not exceptional.
Search is secondary. The search that finds your project emails quickly isn't Newforma's primary focus. Indexing and retrieval gets less optimization than the core platform features.
And you pay for everything, regardless. Newforma's pricing reflects the entire platform cost. You subsidize features you don't deploy.
The result: Spectrum's situation. You're paying for a comprehensive platform when what you actually need is a tool that does email and project filing exceptionally well.
What Spectrum Engineers did
Spectrum moved to Ideagen Mail Manager, a purpose-built email management solution designed specifically for AEC firms. Here's what changed.
Search now takes seconds. Where Newforma's search would take minutes to find old correspondence, Ideagen Mail Manager returns results instantly.
Filing became automatic. Instead of hoping team members remember to file consistently, Ideagen Mail Manager suggests the correct project folder at the point of sending. One click. Filed. No navigation required.
Compliance became simple. When audits happen or disputes arise, producing complete email records is immediate, not a weeks-long process.
The cost dropped significantly. A tool designed specifically for email filing and search costs a fraction of what Newforma charges for its platform.
They didn't lose anything they actually used. They gained better performance and lower cost on the problem that actually matters to their business.
The difference between a platform and a specialist tool
When you file an email into a project using Newforma:
- You leave Outlook
- Navigate to the project library
- Select the correct folder structure
- Upload manually
- Return to Outlook
That's many clicks. Nobody does it consistently. So emails end up scattered across personal inboxes, inconsistent network drives and project repositories. The knowledge stays fragmented.
When you file an email into a project using Ideagen Mail Manager:
- You're in Outlook
- A suggestion appears for the correct project
- One click
- Filed
That's it. The difference is architectural. Ideagen Mail Manager is built entirely around one purpose: making email filing frictionless. Newforma's email module is one of dozens of features competing for engineering resources.
This matters because filing consistency is what determines whether you can actually retrieve project correspondence when you need it. And filing consistency only happens when the tool makes it easier to file than not to file.
Ideagen Mail Manager does that. Newforma's email module doesn't.
The Newforma conversation you're about to have
If you're on Project Center, Newforma is pushing you to migrate to Konekt. That conversation will include a new pricing proposal. When you see it, ask yourself: are we paying for this because we use it, or because we have to?
Then ask: what would it cost to move to a tool designed specifically for the problem we actually have?
For firms like Spectrum — where email is the bottleneck and the other modules aren't core to operations — the answer is clear. A specialist tool designed for AEC email management delivers better results at a fraction of Newforma's cost.
What actually matters
Here are the questions that will answer whether Newforma is right for you:
- Are you using Newforma primarily for email management and project filing? If yes, you're overpaying for a platform.
- Do your scheduling, financial and resource management functions happen in other systems anyway? If yes, Newforma's modules are redundant.
- When your team needs to find a project email from months or years ago, does it take longer than it should? If yes, Newforma's email module isn't solving your actual problem.
- Have you calculated what percentage of your Newforma spend goes to modules teams don't actively use? Most firms haven't.
If email is your primary use case and the other modules aren't driving business value, you're in Spectrum's position. Newforma is the wrong tool.
The email specialist alternative
Ideagen Mail Manager is purpose-built for AEC email management. Email filing happens automatically, directly from Outlook, with intelligent suggestions based on your project structure. Search returns any project email in seconds, regardless of how old it is or who sent it. Data lives on your infrastructure, not in vendor systems — your data sovereignty stays intact. Compliance and audit-readiness are built in, not bolted on. And pricing reflects what you actually use, not what a platform offers.
This isn't a trade-off. It's a better solution to your actual problem, at lower cost, with better performance.
Before you migrate to Konekt
Spectrum made the move to Ideagen Mail Manager. They reduced costs, improved search by orders of magnitude and eliminated the complexity of managing a platform they barely used.
The question isn't whether to evaluate alternatives - it's whether you're in Spectrum's situation. If you are, the answer is clear: move from a platform that costs more and delivers less on the problem you actually have, to a tool designed specifically for AEC email management.
You're paying for a platform. If you only use email, stop paying for everything else.
