Feature matrix

Story and Bristlecone Construction run separate instances of KI, and the two do not have the same modules switched on. This page is the side-by-side.

Unlike the rest of these docs, it deliberately shows both entities at once rather than following the header switch — comparing them is the whole point.

Story and Bristlecone differ here

Where the work happens matters as much as whether a capability exists. “Legacy KI” in the tables below means the older admin portal, which is live and points at the same database as the company’s other interfaces. It is not an archive. See The software.

How to read the tables

Every row is a capability. The mark tells you whether it is in use; the words after it tell you where the work happens.

Mark	Meaning
✅	In use, in KI
🟡	In use, but the work happens outside KI
❌	Not in use

The short version

What each has switched on

	Story	Bristlecone Construction
Client Portal	✅	❌ Not set up
Vendor Portal	✅ Purchase orders only	❌ Not set up
Field App	✅	❌ Field work runs in Autodesk
Retention	❌ Not used	✅ Used

How they differ

	Story	Bristlecone Construction
Primary admin portal	Admin Portal	Legacy KI
Still in Legacy KI	Pricing proposals, Admin Setup, Accounting	Everything
Commits subcontractors via	Purchase Orders	Commitments
Prices a change via	Change Order, created directly	Change Estimate, then Change Order
Vocabulary	Residential	Commercial general contracting
Work that happens outside KI	The general ledger, in QuickBooks	Issues, safety and daily updates, in Autodesk; the general ledger, in QuickBooks

By area

Sales and leads

	Story	Bristlecone
Intake	✅ Admin Portal, which creates a client and project directly	✅ Legacy KI (Leads)
Triage — priority, likelihood, target dates, Lead Champion	✅ Legacy KI	✅ Legacy KI
Pipeline board	✅ Legacy KI	✅ Legacy KI
Design-specific lead fields — phase, scope, home type	✅ Admin Portal	❌ Not used
Meetings and visioning questionnaires	✅ Admin Portal	❌ Not used
Invitations to bid, bid tabulation	❌ Off	✅ Legacy KI

Estimating and proposals

	Story	Bristlecone
Construction pricing proposals	✅ Legacy KI (Estimating)	✅ Legacy KI (Estimating)
Proposal PDF upload, client review and approval	✅ Admin Portal, then the Client Portal	❌ Not set up
Proposal templates and trend log	✅ Legacy KI	✅ Legacy KI
Selections module	❌ Finishes are settled in the Phase 3 presentations	❌

Bristlecone prices behind a competitive bid: Invitations to Bid go out, subcontractor numbers come back, and bid tabulation picks the winners. All of it runs in Legacy KI alongside Estimating.

Contracts and change orders

	Story	Bristlecone
Contracts	✅ Admin Portal	✅ Legacy KI
Change Orders	✅ Admin Portal	✅ Legacy KI
Change Estimates	❌ The Change Order is created directly	✅ Legacy KI (Issues), priced first
Client signs the change order	✅ Client Portal	❌ Not set up

Budgets and cost control

	Story	Bristlecone
Budget Adjustments	✅ Admin Portal	✅ Legacy KI
Cost Control	✅ Admin Portal	✅ Legacy KI
Margin analysis and forecast	✅ Admin Portal	✅ Legacy KI
Labor reporting	❌ Not used	❌ In Legacy KI, but it computes incorrectly

Both enforce the same underlying rules on budget adjustments — internal ones must net to zero once the Fee is included, change order ones must total the change order.

Billing and pay applications

	Story	Bristlecone
Billing Items	✅ Admin Portal	✅ Legacy KI
Pay Applications	✅ Admin Portal	✅ Legacy KI
Retention withheld from billings	❌ Not used	✅ Used
Client pays online	✅ Client Portal	❌ Not set up

Story — retention

KI can handle retention, but Story does not use it, so billings here are not withheld against it.

Bristlecone — subcontractor pay apps

Subcontractor pay applications are a manual exchange today. Bringing them into the Vendor Portal, so a sub fills one out and it feeds the pay application directly, is a stated goal rather than something that exists.

Purchasing and subcontractors

	Story	Bristlecone
Purchase Orders	✅ Admin Portal, and on the Legacy menu	❌ Off — Commitments instead
Commitments — signed subcontracts	❌ Off	✅ Legacy KI
Subcontract reconciliation	❌ Off	✅ Legacy KI
Vendor receives and approves	✅ Vendor Portal and email	🟡 Email
Company-level compliance — insurance, W-9, Master Agreement	✅ Admin Portal (Companies)	✅ Legacy KI (Companies)

This is the sharpest split in the two configurations. Bristlecone’s menu has no Purchase Orders entry at all; a subcontractor is committed through Commitments, which carries the signed subcontract. A sub signs a task order and provides insurance before starting.

Commitments is a Legacy KI module only. It has no counterpart in the Admin Portal, on either instance.

Design deliverables

	Story	Bristlecone
Design section — Project Proposal, Visioning, Final Design	✅ Admin Portal	❌
Visioning questionnaires	✅ Admin Portal (Forms)	❌
Finish presentation and showroom visits	✅ Admin Portal	❌
Client reviews and approves packages	✅ Client Portal	❌ Not set up

Bristlecone does not run a design phase, so the whole Design section is absent rather than switched off.

Field operations and safety

	Story	Bristlecone
Where field work is recorded	✅ Field App	🟡 Autodesk
Safety inspections	✅ Admin Portal — not the Field App	🟡 Autodesk
Job Hazard Analyses	❌ Not used	✅ Used
Daily site record	✅ Project Updates, posted from the Field App	🟡 Daily Logs exist in Legacy KI; Autodesk in practice
Punch List	❌ Off	✅ Legacy KI
Work Orders	✅ Available on the Legacy menu	✅ Available on the Legacy menu

Bristlecone — Autodesk

Autodesk holds field management, issues, safety and project updates today — everything except Job Hazard Analyses, which Bristlecone runs but not in Autodesk. Bringing that work back into KI is a stated goal, and depends on KI covering what Autodesk covers now.

Scheduling

	Story	Bristlecone
Milestone schedule	✅ Admin Portal	✅ Legacy KI
Client sees the schedule	✅ Client Portal	❌ Not set up
CPM (critical path method) schedule	❌ Not used	🟡 Primavera Cloud
Four-week look-ahead	❌ Not used	🟡 Email

Project communication

	Story	Bristlecone
Issues	✅ Admin Portal	🟡 Autodesk
Requests for Information	❌ Off — an Issue covers it	✅ Legacy KI, as its own module
Submittals and transmittals	❌ Off	✅ Legacy KI
Client logs an issue	❌ Not today — the Client Portal tab is hidden	❌ Not set up
Team Members on a project	✅ Admin Portal	✅ Legacy KI

Bristlecone — Team Members

Team Members is where the individuals on a project are designated, including the subcontractor side. Story does not use it the same way. A Bristlecone project carries twenty or more subcontractors, most with several individuals who each need their own access.

Accounting

Accounting runs in Legacy KI for both entities and integrates with QuickBooks, and each entity has its own QuickBooks company.

	Story	Bristlecone
Accounts Payable approval	✅ Admin Portal, then Legacy KI	✅ Legacy KI
Accounts Receivable	✅ Legacy KI	✅ Legacy KI
Journal entries, WIP (work in progress), payroll	✅ Legacy KI	✅ Legacy KI
General ledger	🟡 QuickBooks	🟡 QuickBooks

Company-wide and admin

	Story	Bristlecone
Dashboard, Time Entry, Forms, Reports, Contacts, Companies	✅ Admin Portal	✅ Legacy KI
Admin Setup — Standard Codes, Cost Code library, Divisions	✅ Legacy KI	✅ Legacy KI
Roles and permissions	✅ Six account roles in the Admin Portal; ~90 granular permissions in Legacy KI	✅ Legacy KI, ~90 granular permissions

Roles and permissions in detail

Story now has two permission models, one per interface. Since 29 September 2026 every Story account carries one of six account roles, and the role decides what the Admin Portal opens. Legacy KI’s screens are still governed by its own ~90 per-account permissions. Bristlecone has only the Legacy KI model.

	Story	Bristlecone
Project roles	✅ Four fixed roles — Project Planner, Design Manager, Site Manager, Interior Designer	❌ No fixed list; job titles are conventions, not software objects
Permission administration	✅ Account role per person (Admin Portal); Legacy KI permissions per account	✅ Legacy KI
Granularity	~90 permissions, each Full / Read / None	~90 permissions, each Full / Read / None
Role templates to assign from	✅ Six account roles, Admin Portal only	❌ Permissions are set per account
Approval routing	✅ Legacy KI	✅ Legacy KI
Client and vendor access	✅ Client Portal, Vendor Portal	❌ Neither portal set up

Four things about the Legacy KI model are worth knowing before you rely on it:

• Every permission is set on one account at a time. Nothing groups them, so two people doing the same job can end up with different access, and a new starter is set up by copying somebody.
• Seeing actual cost is granted separately. Can View Actuals is its own permission, distinct from seeing the budget.
• Approvals are recorded rather than enforced. Eligibility decides which buttons are drawn; the routine that advances a document does not re-check it.
• The default for a new permission is not consistent. Whether it arrives granted or denied depends on a technical distinction that is invisible on the configuration screen, so new permissions should be checked rather than assumed.

Bristlecone has an open decision here: whether to reuse Story’s roles and permission sets or define its own. It is sequenced behind building Bristlecone Construction’s people model, which project controls flagged as a blocker for the rest of the Admin Portal work.

Roles and access is the plain-English version.

Switched off in both

Several modules exist in Legacy KI, were built for a customer the business no longer serves, and are off in both instances: Shipping and containers, Inventory, and a separate Compliance module. They are not gaps. Nobody here has ever used them, and they are not part of the port.

That Compliance module is not where subcontractor compliance is tracked. Insurance, W-9 and Master Agreement sit on the company record — the Admin Portal (Companies) for Story, Legacy KI (Companies) for Bristlecone — and both entities use them.

How this page was compiled

From four sources, in decreasing order of confidence:

1. Project controls’ own build-out matrix, 19 August 2026, which walks all twenty-three product tabs. It scopes what Bristlecone needs built in the Admin Portal, so its “not used” answers mean not in the Admin Portal — they are not statements about Legacy KI, where most of Bristlecone’s work happens. Read that way it corrected this page on issues, safety, daily updates and labor reporting.
2. The Legacy KI source, where the per-entity configuration is explicit — the menu is gated on flags that differ between the two instances, and those gates are what the Purchase Orders, Commitments, Submittals, RFI (request for information) and Punch List rows above record.
3. The KI system guide (Story / Bristlecone Construction), for the Admin Portal, Client Portal and Field App. Where this page and the guide disagree, the guide wins — it is the source of truth for KI’s objects, rules and vocabulary.
4. A conversation with project controls, 18 August 2026, for how Bristlecone works day to day.

Where a row is wrong, the software is right and this page is wrong. Highlight it and leave a comment.