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How to Install OpenConstructionERP
How do I install OpenConstructionERP, add my team and create my first project?
Install OpenConstructionERP as the desktop app (Windows, Mac or Linux), with pip on Python 3.12 or newer, or with Docker on a server. On first login pick your language and a start option (Quick Start, country pack or profile). Invite your team under Users with a role: Admin, Manager, Editor or Viewer. Then click New Project; Quick create needs only a name.
Install OpenConstructionERP on Windows and set up your first construction project. This beginner's guide covers the desktop app, installation with Python/pip, workspace settings and team access.
You will produce
A running OpenConstructionERP install with regional settings, a team with roles and a first project
Transcript
0:00 Why use a construction ERP?
Your estimates live in spreadsheets. Your schedule is in one app, RFIs in another, cost data in a third. When a sub asks for the latest BOQ you dig through email. When the owner asks for project status, you spend an hour pulling numbers from five different tools. Every builder knows this problem. Today we fix it from an empty machine to a running platform, in about fifteen minutes.
0:24 What OpenConstructionERP does
OpenConstructionERP is one platform for the whole job estimating, BOQ BIM, scheduling, procurement. A hundred and ninety-two modules, and every one of them reads the same data. It ships with nine national cost databases, translated for thirty-nine regions you choose yours during setup. It runs on your own hardware, so your numbers never leave the building. Open source, free, no per-seat licence.
0:51 Desktop app, Python or Docker?
There are three ways to install it. The desktop app: one installer for Windows, Mac or Linux, on your own computer. pip, if you already work in Python. Or Docker, on a server, for the whole team. We will show the desktop app on Windows, then pip.
1:07 Download the installer
Option one, the desktop app. On the website, the download section already knows your system here, Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit The Mac build is for Apple Silicon, and on Linux a single command picks the right package for you. Every build is also published on GitHub with a checksum, so you can confirm the file you download is exactly the one that was released. One click, and it is on its way.
1:31 Install on Windows
Run the file and click through the usual steps: the licence, the folder, and the install itself. Your projects are kept in their own data folder, so updates never touch them. The first launch sets up the database only once and then the app opens, ready to work.
1:48 Install with Python/pip
Option two: pip. If you work in Python 3.12 or newer, one command installs the platform with its own PostgreSQL database no Docker, nothing else to set up.
1:59 First launch and sample data
Then you start it. The first run sets up its own database and offers the demo projects say yes. That takes a few minutes, once. Then it prints the address, and you are in.
2:11 Language, profile and regional settings
The first login opens a short setup. Pick your language, then choose how to start: Quick Start, a ready-made country pack, or your own profile. Your profile asks how big your team is and switches on the modules that fit. Last, your data: United States, MasterFormat with the cost database.
2:30 Select your modules
None of that locks you in. On the Modules page, a profile only preselects some modules. The full list has all hundred and ninety-two switch any of them on or off whenever your work changes.
2:42 Add users and set permissions
Now your team. Under Users you invite people and give each one a role: Admin, Manager, Editor or Viewer. Your estimator gets Editor, your PM gets Manager, your client gets Viewer. Behind every role is a permissions grid for each module, which role may do what. Open a module to check: here a Viewer can add to a bid schedule, but only an Editor can delete.
3:07 Set up access for your team
Everyone works in the same instance. One machine runs it and the others reach it over the network an old office PC left switched on, or a VPS from around five dollars a month. Everyone else just opens the address in a browser. Nothing to install on their side, and your data never leaves the machine you picked.
3:25 Create your first project
New Project. Quick create asks for exactly one thing a name. Region, classification and currency are all optional, and you can fill them in later. Then Create. You do not have to start from an empty screen either: thirteen worked projects ship with the platform. Open one and you are looking at a real portfolio thirteen projects, twenty-five bid schedules, totalled across currencies.
3:48 Configure regional data
Two settings matter on day one. Regional sets your country, currency, units and date format. Data and Security shows where your data lives: on your own machine, with no tracking.
4:00 Explore the platform
Now the part worth watching. Takeoff, measuring straight off a PDF BOQ priced from that cost database. The BIM viewer, with quantities read out of the model. Bid schedules, contracts, the catalogue itself. Every one of those is a module in the list you just saw, and they are all reading the same project. That is what one platform means instead of five tools.
4:22 Get started
OpenConstructionERP Free, open source, and self-hosted for good a hundred and ninety-two modules, nine national cost databases translated for thirty-nine regions, no subscription and no per-seat licence. Choose the option that fits you, install it, and start working.
