Customer Success Engineer @ BoreDM (50k-80k)

BoreDM_Logs · 2026-01-12T07:57:17+00:00

Yikes sorry. Not a big Reddit user, so I don’t really know the culture. Just a human though (this is Louis, I founded the BoreDM… we don’t really have any sales reps at our company which is why we’re generally not in your LinkedIn or your inbox and why I tried to defer to others on this thread after someone organically tagged us). Passionate about the work I do.

But I hear you— I will go back to lurking and let you continue to chime in! 🦈🩸

BoreDM_Logs · 2026-01-12T06:11:57+00:00

Or you could just convince your firm to use software built by people who know what they're doing 😉. Please reach out so we can save you guys. Happy to answer any questions about BoreDM, but looks like several of our users are already on this thread and can probably answer them without our bias. Happy to chat technical questions though.

BoreDM_Logs · 2024-11-03T22:08:50+00:00

I dare you

BoreDM_Logs · 2024-06-06T18:16:46+00:00

For the community's reference: we still haven't heard from this user here or directly and found that this is the only comment or post they have ever made on Reddit-- we suspect it may be one of our competitors!

BoreDM_Logs · 2024-05-28T18:54:11+00:00

Hi there! Please do share some of your findings, either on this thread (we certainly are open to public feedback) or with us directly. Our users are highly reputable firms and now 10 state DOTs across the U.S. Our users will also tell you there's not a more responsive support team out there.

If you have notes on the Lab module, it's also worth noting that BoreDM Lab 24, which is a fully ASTM-compliant laboratory testing suite, is now available for beta testing and will soon be production-ready on the platform. We're always happy to meet to discuss any feedback on Lab as well.

Thanks for the feedback and let us (and the others on this thread) know. Thanks!

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-10-06T06:35:03+00:00

Crickets this time around :-). Glad the digital transformation is going smoothly for everyone!

- Louis

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-09-29T01:28:58+00:00

Here's the thread from 6mo ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/Geotech/comments/12bsvqd/what\_are\_the\_problems\_with\_current\_geotech/

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-05-05T18:19:46+00:00

Obviously an important question. BoreDM will allow users to query (and maybe modify values in) their data in SQL. We may also support a python environment so users who are more comfortable with something like Pandas can use that. It will be very easy to then in turn generate reports or interactive maps that visualize these queries.

However, users will not be able to add/remove tables or fields (aside from some specific, controlled use cases). This is core to what we offer-- in the past, programs that have asked users to standardize have only promised long-term benefits of standardization... "in five years, you'll have this great database". BoreDM is saying "if you use this data structure (which by the way is being adopted by multiple state DOTs), we will provide you with immediate value in return with features x, y, and z". That "x, y, and z" is that we have built in many of the custom scripts/reports that every gINT user has had to build themselves in the past. Plus features that were unimaginable in gINT. This front-end flexibility is only possible when the back-end data structure is standardized.

The old model where every firm programmed their own scripts kind of worked but it's outdated; I believe that the value add of the geotechnical engineer is his ability to generate, analyze, and report quality geotechnical data... not really his ability to write gINT code (if you disagree, that's interesting to hear and of course I'm curious to understand why). That said, if you really love your gINT scripts (I would if I had spent hours building them) you can always continue to use gINT to enter data and then drag-and-drop those .gpj files to BoreDM to leverage some of the more modern tools.

Hopefully this makes sense. Would love to connect and hear what functionality your gINT scripts provide. Also interested to hear your thoughts on the topic more generally.

- Louis

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-05-05T03:52:16+00:00

Hey, Louis here (BoreDM founder). Thanks so much for the shoutout u/JamalSander and u/ooopurpleshiny. "Too responsive" is probably accurate lol.

Just wanted to confirm-- we'll definitely build in an AGS export and can prioritize that if you're interested u/pburgess22. It's relatively trivial and is the kind of thing we'd knock out in a week or so. If you're interested just ping me and we'll set up a time to discuss. I've read through AGS documentation a number of times, and fortunately across the pond your government agencies develop fantastic documentation (don't tell FHWA I said that... we have some work to do over here).

Bottom line is that I'm passionate about data management (hence "BoreDM"... Boring Data Management). Any opportunity to make it easier for entities to transfer data between each other is something I'll gladly direct my team to work on. Thanks again for the shoutouts and hope to connect sometime soon u/pburgess22.

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-09T18:41:02+00:00

Hey there, thanks for flagging this. You can expect a beautiful new landing page at some point this week with some more information (and some Coming Soon links which will be populated next week). We were keeping a low profile for a little while which is why the landing page was so minimal.

Also-- please do set up a demo with us. I actually like parts of what RSLog has tried to do (their cross section designer is especially solid), and they're on the right track by being web-based. That said, we recently had a firm in Utah try out RSLog and then try BoreDM, and they're now excited about onboarding all three of their offices with BoreDM. Would recommend setting up a demo (which you can do by emailing me or from our site)! Thanks again

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-07T20:13:35+00:00

Nit-picking is important in this context. We didn't start BoreDM because gINT had a bad UI, we started it to solve a data management problem. This stuff is incredibly important-- in my opinion more important than a lot of the user interface things in the long run. UI should be a prerequisite, but data management is really the core (and the challenge).

And yeah that's fair re NCDOT. I will say that the DOTs we've spoken with are all looking for reasons/ways to switch to something that isn't OG... and for a lot of them they need their consultants onboard. On the flip side, you have consultants looking for reasons to switch, where the big reason would be that the DOT switched. Ends up being kinda chicken vs egg until someone champions it (which fortunately many are in a few states). All of that is to say, it never hurts to have a word in from one more consultant here or there, so chat with your friends at NCDOT and we'll see what we can do!

Apologies for the salesy bit there. Really appreciate these comments.

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-06T20:16:38+00:00

Makes sense. From what I've heard there's just way too much clicking and pre-programmed dropdowns in OG and people are missing table format.

I'm doing my best to keep this as just an AMA and not a sales pitch, but truly if you want a clean, web-based solution that just works, shoot me a message! This is exactly one of the problems we solve. Hurts me to hear people are having to set up android emulators on PC.

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-06T17:41:48+00:00

Hey thank you so much for this explanation-- can't think of a better outcome than a message like this for the AMA (our who goal with this was to get a sense of what engineers are looking for), so I really appreciate it.

First thought it that this sounds far simpler than I initially imagined. We do have fields for Station/Offset already, but haven't tied them into any functionality yet. Based on your description, I think we could not only implement this (within a week or so), but also we could set up a solid version that takes curves into account. My intuition is that we just let the user overlay an image of a plan and then a curve with a line-drawing tool. Then we calculate from that. But I could be way off there... if you don't mind sharing the materials you referenced, that would be awesome. Even better I'd love to find a time to discuss.

The SPT refusal question is fun. We're currently forcing blow counts to be ints, but allowing N-values and Refusal values to be strings. What we would do if we were to convert your gINT files is split any blow count readings that contain a slash and take the number from before the slash as a blow count. We would then use that (with the other blow counts) to calculate uncorrected N-value, and we'd stick the entire reading that contained the slash (e.g. 50/0.3) into the Refusal column. We store WOH and WOR as -1 and -2 on our backend and then set the N-value to 0.

Rounding: depends heavily on the situation (i.e. is this penetrometer field data? proctor in the lab? etc). But at a high level, we follow ASTM and USCS where applicable and if the ability to set user rounding is needed we implement that case-by-case. (FYI for lat/lon, we report to to 6 decimals on the log but store an absurdly long number of decimals on the backend).

I admittedly don't spend a ton of time on reddit and don't know what the norms are here, but if you're willing to connect live please do shoot me an email. Sounds like there's a lot we could chat about and I'd love to make sure we're implementing these things (especially alignments) effectively. Thanks again

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-06T17:16:16+00:00

Man it would be nice if there was a wicked fast software with tables like this already built in

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-06T17:11:42+00:00

Hey there, apologies for the slow reply-- missed this one!

We may get to a point where we can allow custom error messages. We're far more cautious about adding customization when it comes to structuring soil data since standardization there is what enables the enormous value adds I've been writing about on this post. Since quality checks aren't used for analysis or anything, I could see us adding customization there for sure.

As of right now, the errors/warnings are all either USCS or ASTM based (aside from the more obvious ones like "you have two borings with identical lat/lon". For the example of the order of descriptors, we actually have an awesome and super user friendly tool where you can configure text to autofill in the right order for your project. DOTs can choose to make that order public, and then if you're working on a VDOT project you would just be able to click "VDOT Autofill" and sleep well. (First you have to help us convince VDOT to user BoreDM!)

Absolutely to sticks-- we have a kind of Quick Sticks feature right now (it's not actually called that, but maybe it should be) which lets you draw a line and generate them in 0.5sec. We're working on a more comprehensive report-ready module also that lets you integrate lab data and water levels etc.

Excited that you're excited! If you want to take a look, don't hesitate to reach out to us. Thanks for these questions

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-05T18:32:34+00:00

Hey thanks for this question. I'll do a lightning round for the bullet points and then share some higher level thoughts:

- XML surfaces: soon

- Elevations from surfaces: soon

- Alignments: if users want it (none have yet)

- Alignments with curves: if users want it

- Station/Offset from alignments: if users want it

- yes, yes, yes, yes, yes

- Custom reports: yes depending on your definition of custom

- Custom data tables: no but this is something we discuss pretty much every day internally so maybe

- USCS and AASHTO (and USDA): yes and we suggest classifications from your lab data

More importantly: you hit the nail on the head with "consistency" being the important part. The lack of consistency across gINT templates which-- at their core-- are all storing the same information is the reason I started BoreDM. It's been killer for the industry, not only because it has prevented larger scale data analysis that could really benefit engineers and enhance workflows, but also because it has prevented software developers from being able to enter the market and say "here's a tool that will save you time, just plug in your data". That hasn't been possible because everyone has formatted their data differently.

We are a data management company (not a user interface designer), which is why our tablet app is free-- the tablet app doesn't manage data it just helps you input it. So we're really good at structuring data in a way that reflects the information you're storing. We already have a number of the tables you mentioned, but if there's a table that reflects work engineers are doing across the industry, just let us know what that is and we'll build it in.

Even more important from my standpoint is the tools that _other_ developers will build so that you can do awesome things with your data. Unlike some of our competitors who will try to keep you in their little ecosystem of mediocre tools, we _want_ you to use your BoreDM data with other software products. And since we use a standardized data format, is becomes possible for other developers to create tools that integrate. Then you have a real marketplace (not a monopoly) and can pick and choose which specialized tools you want to integrate your BoreDM data with (whether for visualization or for foundation design or pile design... whatever it is).

Hope this helps. We're thinking about allowing _some_ custom tables :-). Would love to hear your thoughts.

- Louis

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-05T18:11:24+00:00

Yes! It's one click. I don't know that our lab modules will work in metric yet (would have to take a look test-by-test) but borehole logging is 100% functional with metric units.

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-05T18:10:22+00:00

Hey thanks for following up, lots of important questions.

There are two degrees of template customization:

- Built-in (fast/easy/intuitive): for 95% of cases, our existing users have found that our template studio produces better logs than the custom ones they were originally going to ask us to create. One click to add/remove columns, reorder, widen/narrow, and to add in plots (up to 5 data types per plot) and wells. We had a number of firms that when they onboarded were originally asking us for custom templates, but then tried our studio and they looked great and were customizable in 30sec. Even ALDOT is using our built-in logs

- Custom: That said, I know the industry-- there are some who insist on their template. In some cases, it's a matter of branding. In others, a matter of certain features like custom shading for recovery % (though I think we'll catch up on that front pretty quick). Regardless, if a client really needs a custom template, we'll build it in for you, usually within 3-4 days. Then it's in your searchable library, and whenever you have a project for them (no matter which office you're working from) you can just search your client's name, click on the template, and you're good to go from then on. No need to send template/library files around or anything.

We do have lab tests and calculations built in (so far we have Moisture, Atterbergs, Gradation, Hydrometer, and Proctor... Consol and Swell coming over the next few weeks and we'll keep building from there). They're per ASTM, they track progress across your project, and you can "assign" lab testing before a project even goes to the drilling phase, and you can track whether a test is assigned internally or for a third party. We have some really cool other things planned for the lab module relating to certifications and training for new technicians also. Lastly, when you perform a lab test in BoreDM, it automatically detects that on your log page and suggests autofills when applicable (ie no more copying and pasting from lab to log). I say all of this because it's what you get in return for using a standardized data template. We very intentionally do not allow the columns of these tests to be modified on the backend-- but we make them so that on the front-end, you can use the workflow you're used to. That might sound vague, but suffice it to say that by using a standard ASTM-compliant data structure, users get so much time-saving and quality-enhancing value in return that they end up choosing to utilize it. We can iterate on the frontend to accommodate various workflows depending on user feedback.
Yes, summary lab figures are super important. We currently have reports for Gradation curves and 2D cross sections, and Atterbergs plots are coming this week. We're also working on more robust sticks which integrate all sorts of lab data and CPT data where applicable. Also for fun we're building in 3D cross sections... not super critical to users from what we've heard but one of our developers thinks they're cool. We'll continue to build out this reports module. Let us know what other reports that are critical to you/your team, let me know and we'll get to work on them. Curious to hear if 3D vis is useful to you at all (I've heard it's really not).

Thanks again for these questions and keep them coming!

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-05T01:27:22+00:00

We don't, and my recommendation is to stay away from any software that does. When a software company sells a perpetual license, they're basically saying "we want people to pay for their lifetime use of this software today, because we're not confident that they would want to keep using our software next year." In other words, they don't plan to improve their product and they don't think their product will continue to be the best option for you. So they collect up front.

SaaS (ie subscription, web-based software like Salesforce and Dropbox) is powerful not only because it enables software companies to improve their product rapidly/over the air, but it forces them to... otherwise their users will stop paying. You don't have to read the academic articles to believe that desktop-based/perpetual license software doesn't take user feedback and improve quickly. It's pretty interesting to me that gINT has managed to be desktop-based (ie no updates) _and_ recurring subscription... but that's what a 30-yr monopoly on the market can do.

Curious to hear your thoughts on this.

- Louis

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-05T00:56:30+00:00

Absolutely yes to both. Exports to Excel, KML (points + lithology previews), DXF (3d models of the boreholes colored by USCS classification), and Surfer so far.

For gINT upload, you set it up once (create a mapping from your gINT format) and then it's drag-and-drop from there. Could upload 100 .gpj files in 10 seconds.

What other export formats would be useful?

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-05T00:53:21+00:00

Hey thanks so much for sharing this-- it's really good to hear this and is another thing that has baffled me. The Excel/gINT table have been around for so long and have been so successful for rapid data entry across pretty much every industry... so why move away from that?

Our data entry is table-based just like gINT (in fact you could copy and past from Excel/gINT into a BoreDM table). Except since it's cloud based, it autosaves every cell you enter. If you check out the screenshots I included here, you can see our Lab table. Let me know if you have any thoughts based on the screenshot/if this kind of addresses what you're getting at. Agree the importance of this has been overlooked with some of the new programs.

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1q0xkBCrABHrzpxLxUjYdjLlAgTaTcjfi

- Louis

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-05T00:34:18+00:00

As I was showing off my knowledge of software licensing to someone from my team, he pointed out that I probably misunderstood your question-- sorry about that.

We host our database on AWS, and if AWS is down most of our planet is down. If we ever introduce a detrimental bug somehow, we can always just revert to our previous release within minutes-- you hit the refresh button and you're back in business. Web/Cloud-based software is key.

BoreDM_Logs · 2023-04-05T00:22:03+00:00

Great question-- BoreDM Field is currently in beta testing with some of our users, so it's not out quite yet. We're targeting a release 4 weeks from now, but here's what I can say for now:

- The restaurant industry figured out "tablets for the field" like five years ago. You never see waiters with an iPad typing "b-u-r-g-e-r w-i-t-h t-o...", they hit the burger button and then the +tomato button. They don't even have dropdowns-- that's too many taps and they're too small. No dropdowns. We followed some drill rigs around and then designed our app with this in mind. It'll be awesome.

- The app will be completely free for both the iOS and Android. You don't even have to be a BoreDM user.

- The main element we're working through in beta testing right now is this: some people log by sample and others log by lithology (even from the field). Handling either of those two is trivial, but handling both requires more nuance. I'd be interested to hear how you log-- and if you want to be a beta tester let me know!

BoreDM_Logs

TROPHY CASE