How Kapitol scaled planning, from tenders to delivery with the Asta suite of solutions
Kapitol uses Asta to underpin both pre-construction planning and live project delivery, supporting over 50 users across the business.
Company Overview
Kapitol is an Australian head contractor operating as a Tier 1 builder across multiple sectors including data centres and critical infrastructure, residential, commercial, education, sports projects and recently modular. The business runs 10–15 live projects in Asta at any one time, alongside a strong new business pipeline in the states of Victoria and the Northern Territory.
Garret Jackson, Planning Manager, joined Kapitol in January 2023 to lead pre-construction planning and to support on-site delivery teams with robust, standardised programmes. With over 10 years’ experience using Asta, plus extensive exposure to Oracle Primavera P6 and Microsoft Project, he was tasked with modernising Kapitol’s planning tools and workflows.
The challenge – finding a scalable solution
Kapitol struggled to keep pace as programmes became more detailed and the project portfolio grew. The company needed:
- An intuitive tool that project managers and coordinators could learn quickly, not just the specialist Planners.
- Cloud-based programme management to support multi-project visibility, and portfolio reporting and to be a single source of truth.
- Integration with existing Power BI dashboards so programme performance could sit alongside design, procurement, quality and workplace health & safety reporting.
- A platform that would evolve with the business, including APIs, AI capabilities and mobile progress capture.
At the same time, Kapitol wanted to avoid disruption and “tool fatigue” when moving teams away from familiar software. Any new solution had to be easy to adopt and clearly beneficial for both office and site users.
The solution – Asta Powerproject & Asta Vision
Drawing on his experience, Garret led a review of several alternative options, before recommending Asta as the best fit for Kapitol. After a short internal trial, it became clear that Asta offered the right balance of power, usability and value for money, with a roadmap aligned to Kapitol’s digital strategy.
The rollout followed a phased approach:
- Migration: live and historical projects were converted into Asta Powerproject, with new tenders created in Asta from day one.
- Planner-led foundation: Garret initially used Asta Powerproject as a standalone tool, building robust templates and standards for both tender and delivery programmes.
- Transition to the cloud: Kapitol then implemented Asta Vision so programmes could “live” in a controlled, cloud-based environment, forming a single source of truth across the project portfolio.
- BI integration: Asta Vision was integrated with Power BI, allowing programme data to feed directly into Kapitol’s existing dashboard suite alongside design, procurement, quality and workplace health & safety.
- Enabling project teams: Using Asta Vision, project managers now check out programmes, update status and publish changes back to the central dashboards, with Planners providing auditing and hands-on support where needed.
Comprehensive, tailored training and highly responsive support from the local Asta partner, Solid Support were critical to the change programme. Kapitol’s onboarding model gives project managers training first, then access to an Asta licence, building confidence and reducing the perceived leap to new systems.
Adoption and ways of working
What began as a Planner-led initiative has grown into an organisation-wide deployment. Around fifty users now access Asta across Kapitol, including:
- Planning team – new business (1), construction delivery (3).
- Project managers, assistant PMs and project coordinators– responsible for regular status updates and using dashboards in reviews.
- Site teams – using Asta outputs to understand sequence, dates and constraints on live projects.
- Senior management – reviewing weekly performance via Power BI dashboards fed from Asta Vision, with a clear view of project status, remaining work and emerging risks.
Asta Powerproject’s ability to import and export Microsoft Project & P6 files means Planners can work natively in Asta while still exchanging programmes in agreed format for clients and partners. This allows Kapitol to support existing Project-based workflows without sacrificing the benefits of its new, Asta‑centred planning environment.
Impact – from better tenders to smarter delivery
Asta has delivered tangible benefits from tender stage through to project completion.
Stronger bids and clearer client communication
For new business, Asta’s presentation flexibility is a standout feature. Garret uses high-level dashboard programmes and task-per-line views to produce one-page, branded schedules that clearly tell the story of design, procurement and construction across complex schemes. This has enhanced the quality and impact of Kapitol’s tender proposals and supports more compelling conversations with clients at an early stage.
Single source of truth and portfolio visibility
With programmes stored and controlled in Asta Vision, Kapitol now has a single, auditable source of truth for every live project. Controlled editing where Planner manage core logic and PMs update progress protects data integrity while still empowering project teams. Bi-weekly reviews use Power BI dashboards connected to Asta Vision to assess project health, remaining work vs remaining time, and critical path movement across the portfolio.
Freed-up Planners and empowered project managers
By shifting routine progress reporting to project managers via Asta Vision and Asta Siteprogress, Planners have been able to focus on higher-value activities such as major programme revisions. scenario planning, risk analysis and improving templates and standards. Clear processes and internal planning guidelines now set out how to check out programmes, update them and complete weekly or bi-weekly reporting. All these efforts result in raising the planning capability of the whole business.
Partnership, support and future readiness
Kapitol highlights the responsiveness and hands-on nature of both Solid Support and the Eleco team, from troubleshooting through to workshops on Asta Vision and APIs. Trial periods for new capabilities, along with training content and user groups, have helped the business adopt features such as Vision and dashboard integration at its own pace.
Looking ahead, Kapitol sees Asta as a platform that can evolve with the industry. Planned and emerging capabilities around APIs, AI and deeper integration with other construction systems will further strengthen the “single source of truth” model and support increasingly data-driven decision making.
Why Kapitol recommends Asta
When peers in the industry ask about planning software, Kapitol’s message is clear: Asta provides a one-stop ecosystem for programme management that balances ease of use with enterprise-grade capability. For organisations seeking a single version of the truth, strong BI integration and tools that both Planners and project managers want to use, Asta has proven to be a future-proof choice.
“From a future business perspective, having that one source of truth and the connectivity through APIs and BI is huge.”
Garret Jackson,
Planning Manager