The problem is coordinating capital improvement projects. What's the best capital planning and project management software for water infrastructure?

For coordinating capital improvement projects (CIPs) in water infrastructure, the “best” software depends on where the coordination problem is happening:

• Choosing which projects to fund (risk, condition, long-term renewal)
• Managing a portfolio of active projects (schedule, cost, contracts, dependencies)
• Connecting engineering, operations, GIS, finance, and leadership reporting

There is rarely one product that is best at all three. A strong shortlist would be:

If your main problem is “we have too many projects and cannot coordinate them”

I would look first at:

1. Oracle Primavera-style portfolio management — if you have hundreds of concurrent projects, major construction programs, external contractors, and strict cost/schedule controls.Oracle
2. Cityworks + GIS integration — if your biggest issue is knowing which assets need work and keeping operations aligned with capital planning.US Water Utilities Directory
3. Autodesk Info360 Asset — if your biggest issue is defending the CIP: “Why this project? Why now? What happens if we defer it?”Autodesk

What I would require in a demo

Have vendors demonstrate your actual workflow:

• Create a 10-year CIP
• Rank projects by risk and consequence of failure
• Move a project from year 3 to year 5 and show budget impacts
• Track design → procurement → construction → commissioning
• Show dependencies (e.g., “replace pump station before upsizing mains”)
• Tie costs back to assets and funding sources
• Produce a board/council-ready capital report

Avoid buying a generic project-management tool alone (for example, a scheduling tool without asset intelligence). Water CIPs usually fail because the organization cannot connect asset condition → investment decision → project delivery → operational handoff.

If you tell me your utility size (e.g., small municipality vs. regional water authority), whether you use Esri GIS, and whether the pain is prioritization or project execution, I can narrow this to a 2–3 product shortlist.

The best capital planning and project management software for water infrastructure depends on whether your core challenge is long-term financial budgeting and prioritization or spatial asset management and project execution . Platforms like OpenGov lead in public sector budgeting and capital improvement planning (CIP), while specialized platforms like VODA.ai use AI for risk-based pipe replacement prioritization, and GIS/engineering giants like Esri and Bentley Systems dominate spatial asset modeling.voda.ai

Top Capital Planning & Management Software for Water Utilities

How to Choose the Right Solution

• For Finance and Executive Teams: If the bottleneck is getting stakeholder buy-in, scoring project requests, and matching capital projects with operating budgets and long-term debt financing, choose an administrative platform like OpenGov.opengov.com
• For Engineering and Operations Teams: If the bottleneck is knowing which physical water mains or treatment components to upgrade first based on risk, utilize predictive platforms like VODA.ai or hydraulic tools like Bentley Systems.
• For Field Execution and GIS Integration: If your projects must tie directly into a live map of valves, hydrants, and pipe networks, an ecosystem built on Esri ensures asset intelligence flows smoothly from design to construction closeout.

To help narrow down the ideal platform, tell me:

• Are you a municipality, private utility, or special district?
• Is your primary hurdle budget approvals and financial forecasting or tracking physical construction and engineering designs?

Coordinating capital improvement projects (CIP) for water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure requires a unique blend of GIS spatial data, asset risk modeling (likelihood/consequence of failure), long-range financial planning , and heavy civil project controls.

Because no single tool handles everything perfectly, the "best" software depends on where your primary bottleneck lies—asset prioritization, spatial mapping, or construction execution.

The top-tier software solutions for water infrastructure capital planning and project management are categorized below by their core strengths:

1. Best for Infrastructure Risk & Capital Plan Modeling

• VODA.ai (Planner): Excellent if your biggest challenge is transitioning from reactive pipe breaks to defensible, data-driven capital replacement plans. It uses machine learning to predict pipe risk, build dynamic budget scenarios, and show the exact trade-offs between capital spend and risk reduction. It eliminates guesswork and heavy reliance on outside consultants.voda.ai+2
• Aquasight: Tailored specifically for water and wastewater utilities. It pulls live data from GIS, CMMS, and CCTV inspection systems to automate Business Risk Exposure (BRE) scoring, helping you dynamically build capital plans that are ready for state revolving fund (SRF) and rate-case reporting.aquasight.io+1

2. Best for Spatial Capital Improvement Planning (GIS-Centric)

• Esri ArcGIS (Capital Improvement Planning Solution): If your engineering and planning teams already live in ArcGIS, Esri’s out-of-the-box CIP solution is hard to beat. It allows water and sewer engineers to spatially map, create, and modify project footprints, link funding sources, and automatically estimate asset replacement costs based on underlying GIS feature attributes.youtube.com+1

3. Best for Enterprise Asset Management & Work Execution

• Cityworks: The gold standard for local governments and water utilities that need to tie capital planning directly to an enterprise GIS (Esri). It bridges the gap between daily asset maintenance/work orders and long-term capital improvement tracking.
• Oracle Utilities: A massive enterprise suite well-suited for very large municipal or regional water authorities needing robust work and asset management, though it comes with a high implementation and overhead cost.

4. Best for Heavy Infrastructure Project Controls & Delivery

• InEight: Built specifically for heavy civil and infrastructure construction tracking. If your struggle isn't choosing which pipes to replace, but rather managing the massive budgets, field progress, document controls, and cost-schedule integration of the actual capital projects once they are funded, InEight is exceptional.optimalitypro.com+1
• Oracle Primavera P6: The long-standing enterprise heavyweight for complex, multi-million-dollar scheduling and critical path method (CPM) tracking across massive water treatment plant builds or pipeline expansions.optimalitypro.com+1

To help narrow down the ideal platform for your utility, tell me:

• What is your primary pain point (e.g., justifying project selection to the board, tracking field construction costs, or mapping assets)?
• Are you a municipality, private utility, or special district , and what is your approximate annual CIP budget?

If the core problem is coordinating a water utility’s capital improvement program—not merely building a capital budget—I’d put Kahua and Trimble Unity Construct at the top of the shortlist. The better choice depends on where your biggest pain is.

My shortlist

🥇 Best overall for coordinating the CIP: Kahua

kahua.com

I'd start here if your problem sounds like:

"We have hundreds of projects, multiple funding sources, consultants and contractors, changing scopes and budgets, and nobody has one reliable view of what's happening." Kahua connects multi-year capital planning → funding → project controls → contracts/change orders → construction → asset handover. Its water-utility offering specifically addresses plant upgrades, linear infrastructure, funding, approvals, reporting and asset data.Kahua+1

A particularly important capability for utilities is tracking grants, bonds, appropriations, rate-funded work and capital budgets against projects.Kahua

I would choose Kahua when cross-project coordination and program-level visibility are the primary requirements.

🥈 Trimble Unity Construct — strongest alternative

trimble.com

Unity Construct is the current name for e-Builder, and it's particularly strong for owner-controlled capital programs: funding allocation, approvals, procurement, schedules, documents, costs, reporting and project handover.Kahua

I'd lean toward Unity Construct over Kahua if your organization wants a highly structured, standardized PMIS and has relatively mature capital-delivery processes.

🧠 If the real problem is "Which projects should we fund?"

Then I'd look seriously at Autodesk Info360 Asset or VODA.ai, rather than trying to make a project-management system solve an asset-planning problem.

autodesk.com

Info360 is particularly interesting for water utilities because it connects asset condition/inspection information with risk models and capital prioritization. A recent water-utility implementation describes using it to replace spreadsheet-based scenario planning and connect asset information with GIS and CMMS data.Autodesk+1

voda.ai

VODA is much more specialized: it takes pipe risk information and turns it into prioritized, budget-constrained replacement/rehabilitation projects, including multi-year CIP scenarios.VODA.ai

What I'd recommend for a water utility

If you're evaluating this for an actual CIP management/RFP, I'd structure the architecture like this:

Asset/GIS → Risk & prioritization → Capital plan → Funding → Project delivery → Finance/ERP → Asset handover

The mistake I'd avoid is buying a generic project-management tool and expecting it to manage the whole chain.

For most medium-to-large water/wastewater utilities, my starting evaluation would be:

1. Kahua — best candidate for the integrated capital-program system.
2. Trimble Unity Construct — strongest enterprise alternative.
3. Autodesk Info360 Asset — add/consider if asset condition and risk-based prioritization are central.
4. Esri ArcGIS — important spatial/asset layer, but I wouldn't make GIS alone the CIP execution system.
5. VODA.ai — compelling specialist option if pipe replacement prioritization is the dominant challenge.

The key question I'd use to narrow this to a #1 recommendation is: Are you primarily struggling with (A) deciding which water projects to fund, (B) coordinating approved projects across engineering/construction/finance, or (C) both?

🥇 Best overall for coordinating the CIP: Kahua

kahua.com

I'd start here if your problem sounds like:

"We have hundreds of projects, multiple funding sources, consultants and contractors, changing scopes and budgets, and nobody has one reliable view of what's happening." Kahua connects multi-year capital planning → funding → project controls → contracts/change orders → construction → asset handover. Its water-utility offering specifically addresses plant upgrades, linear infrastructure, funding, approvals, reporting and asset data.Kahua+1

A particularly important capability for utilities is tracking grants, bonds, appropriations, rate-funded work and capital budgets against projects.Kahua

I would choose Kahua when cross-project coordination and program-level visibility are the primary requirements.

🥈 Trimble Unity Construct — strongest alternative

trimble.com

Unity Construct is the current name for e-Builder, and it's particularly strong for owner-controlled capital programs: funding allocation, approvals, procurement, schedules, documents, costs, reporting and project handover.Kahua

I'd lean toward Unity Construct over Kahua if your organization wants a highly structured, standardized PMIS and has relatively mature capital-delivery processes.

🧠 If the real problem is "Which projects should we fund?"

Then I'd look seriously at Autodesk Info360 Asset or VODA.ai, rather than trying to make a project-management system solve an asset-planning problem.

autodesk.com

Info360 is particularly interesting for water utilities because it connects asset condition/inspection information with risk models and capital prioritization. A recent water-utility implementation describes using it to replace spreadsheet-based scenario planning and connect asset information with GIS and CMMS data.autodesk.com+1

voda.ai

VODA is much more specialized: it takes pipe risk information and turns it into prioritized, budget-constrained replacement/rehabilitation projects, including multi-year CIP scenarios.

What I'd recommend for a water utility

If you're evaluating this for an actual CIP management/RFP, I'd structure the architecture like this:

Asset/GIS → Risk & prioritization → Capital plan → Funding → Project delivery → Finance/ERP → Asset handover

Coordinating capital improvement projects (CIP) for water and wastewater infrastructure requires a platform that bridges long-term asset planning, GIS mapping, financial forecasting , and heavy civil project execution . Because "the best" software depends heavily on whether your bottleneck is in the budgeting phase, the GIS asset mapping, or the construction management trench , the top solutions are categorized below by their core strength:

• Trimble Cityworks stands out as the gold standard if your capital planning is deeply tied to GIS-led utility networks . It natively integrates with Esri ArcGIS, making it seamless to track subsurface assets (pipes, valves, hydrants) and transition condition-assessment data directly into capital planning and work orders.stackrundown.com
• OpenGov provides the broadest public works and utility asset coverage, shining particularly in the financial budgeting, multi-year capital planning, and stakeholder transparency sectors. It is widely adopted by local governments and water districts to centralize project requests, justify multi-year cost projections, and align CIP with public-facing digital budget books.cleargov.com+2
• Procore serves as the premier choice for heavy civil construction and project management once a capital improvement project moves from planning to shovel-in-the-ground execution. While traditionally known for commercial construction, its owner-focused tools give water utilities complete financial, document, and vendor control over major plant expansions or pipeline replacements.
• Cartegraph leans heavily into a planning-first maintenance and prioritization methodology. It is ideal for operations and engineering teams that want to model the lifecycle of water assets and score capital projects based on risk, deterioration data, and priority matrixes.stackrundown.com
• VODA.ai (Planner) represents the emerging class of AI-driven water capital planning tools. It uses machine learning models built on industry best practices to predict pipe failures and automatically recommend optimal water main replacement schedules without needing external data scientists.voda.ai+1

To help narrow down the best fit, tell me:

• Are you a municipality, private water utility, or special district?
• What is your primary bottleneck right now (securing funding/budgeting, GIS asset prioritization, or construction tracking)?
• Do you currently rely on Esri ArcGIS for your spatial data?

If the core problem is coordinating a water utility’s entire capital improvement program (CIP)—not just managing individual construction projects—I’d put CIPPlanner/CIPAce at the top of the shortlist, with Trimble Unity Construct, Autodesk Info360 Asset, and Oracle Primavera Cloud as the other serious contenders.

One particularly strong reference point is San Antonio Water System: CIPPlanner says its CIPAce system supports roughly 3,000 capital projects and 1,029 active users, spanning planning/budgeting, procurement, design, construction, and closeout.CIPPlanner

My shortlist

1. CIPPlanner — my first demo

For your stated problem—coordination—this is the one I'd investigate first.

It is designed around the capital-program lifecycle rather than just task management: project intake, prioritization, funding, budgeting, procurement, design, construction, change management, financial tracking and closeout.

The SAWS implementation is compelling because it demonstrates the product operating at the scale of a major water/wastewater utility rather than just a generic municipal CIP.CIPPlanner

I'd choose it if you want one authoritative system for:

Project need → prioritization → 5–10 year CIP → funding → design → construction → change orders → financial forecast → closeout

2. Trimble Unity Construct — if construction coordination hurts most

If you've already decided which projects to build and the chaos starts afterward—consultants, contractors, RFIs, submittals, approvals, schedules, change orders, invoices, documents—I'd move Trimble Unity Construct to #1.

This is more of a capital-project delivery/PMIS choice than an asset-risk planning system.

3. Autodesk Info360 Asset — if the question is "what should we fund?"

This is the interesting alternative if your CIP problem begins with asset condition and risk.

Autodesk describes Info360 Asset as connecting inspection/condition data to risk models and capital prioritization. A recent water-utility implementation at Platte Canyon used it to replace spreadsheet-based planning and connect GIS, CMMS and condition data for scenario planning.Autodesk+1

That's a different value proposition:

Asset condition → risk → intervention → project → funding scenario rather than simply managing projects after they're approved.

4. Oracle Primavera Cloud — for very large programs

If you're managing hundreds of concurrent projects with sophisticated dependencies, critical-path schedules, cost controls and portfolio-level forecasting, Oracle Primavera Cloud deserves a serious look. Oracle specifically positions its utility offering around multiyear capital planning, prioritization, scheduling, project controls, contracts and change management.Oracle

5. VODA.ai — a very interesting specialist

I'd add VODA.ai if a major part of your CIP is water-main renewal.

Its approach is unusually focused: take pipe-level risk rankings and turn them into actual fundable projects, constrained by budget, timing, crew capacity and other parameters. It supports 1–20 year capital programs and can export projects back to GIS.VODA.ai

So it's excellent for the question:

"Given $30M/year, which pipes should become projects?" It's not what I'd buy as the sole system for managing a $500M construction program.

What I'd recommend

For a typical municipal water/wastewater utility, I'd run demos in this order:

1. CIPPlanner/CIPAce — strongest candidate for the overall CIP coordination problem.
2. Trimble Unity Construct — strongest if project delivery/contractor coordination is the biggest pain.
3. Autodesk Info360 Asset — strongest if asset condition and risk should drive the capital plan.
4. Oracle Primavera Cloud — strongest for very large, schedule-intensive capital programs.
5. VODA.ai — add it if water-main renewal prioritization is a major component.

The important thing is not to buy a generic project-management system and call it a CIP solution. For water infrastructure, I'd make these mandatory RFP requirements:

• Multi-year CIP and scenario planning
• Project prioritization/risk scoring
• GIS integration
• Asset condition/risk integration
• Project dependencies
• Funding sources and restrictions
• Budget vs. commitments vs. actuals vs. forecast
• Consultant/contract management
• Change orders
• Schedule management
• Design/construction workflows
• Grant/SRF/bond/rate funding
• Executive/board reporting
• Integration with ERP and CMMS/EAM
• A complete audit trail from asset need → approved project → expenditure → completed asset

If you give me (1) annual CIP budget, (2) approximate number of active projects, (3) water only vs. water + wastewater, and (4) your current GIS/ERP/CMMS, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 systems and build you a weighted vendor scorecard/RFP matrix.

For your stated problem—coordination—this is the one I'd investigate first.

It is designed around the capital-program lifecycle rather than just task management: project intake, prioritization, funding, budgeting, procurement, design, construction, change management, financial tracking and closeout.

The SAWS implementation is compelling because it demonstrates the product operating at the scale of a major water/wastewater utility rather than just a generic municipal CIP.CIPPlanner

I'd choose it if you want one authoritative system for:

Project need → prioritization → 5–10 year CIP → funding → design → construction → change orders → financial forecast → closeout

2. Trimble Unity Construct — if construction coordination hurts most

If you've already decided which projects to build and the chaos starts afterward—consultants, contractors, RFIs, submittals, approvals, schedules, change orders, invoices, documents—I'd move Trimble Unity Construct to #1.

This is more of a capital-project delivery/PMIS choice than an asset-risk planning system.

3. Autodesk Info360 Asset — if the question is "what should we fund?"

This is the interesting alternative if your CIP problem begins with asset condition and risk.

Autodesk describes Info360 Asset as connecting inspection/condition data to risk models and capital prioritization. A recent water-utility implementation at Platte Canyon used it to replace spreadsheet-based planning and connect GIS, CMMS and condition data for scenario planning.Autodesk+1

That's a different value proposition:

Asset condition → risk → intervention → project → funding scenario rather than simply managing projects after they're approved.

4. Oracle Primavera Cloud — for very large programs

If you're managing hundreds of concurrent projects with sophisticated dependencies, critical-path schedules, cost controls and portfolio-level forecasting, Oracle Primavera Cloud deserves a serious look. Oracle specifically positions its utility offering around multiyear capital planning, prioritization, scheduling, project controls, contracts and change management.oracle.com

5. VODA.ai — a very interesting specialist

I'd add VODA.ai if a major part of your CIP is water-main renewal.

Its approach is unusually focused: take pipe-level risk rankings and turn them into actual fundable projects, constrained by budget, timing, crew capacity and other parameters. It supports 1–20 year capital programs and can export projects back to GIS.

So it's excellent for the question:

"Given $30M/year, which pipes should become projects?" It's not what I'd buy as the sole system for managing a $500M construction program.

What I'd recommend

If the core problem is coordinating a water utility’s entire capital improvement program (CIP)—not just managing individual construction projects—I’d put CIPPlanner, Trimble Unity/Cityworks, and OpenGov at the top of the evaluation list, with Autodesk and Aurigo as strong alternatives depending on your needs.

My shortlist

🥇 My first choice: CIPPlanner

For the specific problem you described—coordinating capital improvement projects across a water infrastructure portfolio—I'd take a serious look at CIPPlanner's CIPAce.

The reason is that it is built around the capital program, rather than treating each project as an isolated construction job. Its utility implementation at San Antonio Water System is particularly compelling: SAWS reportedly uses it for nearly 3,000 capital projects, covering planning/budgeting, procurement, design, construction, closeout, contracts, change orders and financial tracking.CIPPlanner

That's much closer to the problem of:

“How do we coordinate 500+ water, wastewater, treatment, pump station, pipeline and rehabilitation projects across multiple years, funding sources, departments and contractors?” than a conventional project-management application.

🥈 Trimble Unity + Cityworks

I'd choose this if your organization is heavily invested in Esri GIS and asset management.

The strength is the connection between the physical asset and the capital project: this pipe/pump/station → this condition/risk → this proposed project → this funding → this construction → this completed asset. That lifecycle perspective is extremely valuable for water utilities.

Trimble's ecosystem can also bridge construction/project information with Cityworks asset/operations information.

🥉 OpenGov

If your biggest headache is actually getting the CIP prioritized, funded, approved and communicated, rather than construction management, OpenGov becomes very attractive.

It's particularly appropriate when the workflow looks like:

department requests → scoring → prioritization → funding scenario → multi-year CIP → budget → governing-body approval → reporting

rather than:

design → bid → contract → construction → change order → closeout.

An interesting specialist: VODA.ai

If the hardest question is “Which water assets should we spend our limited capital dollars on?”, I'd also evaluate VODA.ai.

It is specifically focused on turning water-main risk analysis into fundable projects and can generate multi-year CIP scenarios based on risk, budget and operational constraints.VODA.ai

I'd view this more as a capital prioritization/risk engine than a complete replacement for a capital-program/project-management platform.

What I'd actually recommend

For a water utility, I wouldn't select software based on generic features like Gantt charts, dashboards and task management. I'd make the vendors demonstrate this exact workflow using your data:

Asset condition/risk → proposed project → scope → estimate → priority score → funding source → 5–10 year schedule → design → procurement → construction → change order → invoice → completion → asset update

And I'd require the system to answer, in real time:

• How much of our CIP is committed vs. forecast?
• Which projects are behind schedule?
• Which projects are likely to exceed budget?
• What projects compete for the same funding?
• What happens if capital funding drops 10%, 20%, or 30%?
• Which projects reduce the most asset/service risk per dollar?
• Which projects are dependent on other projects?
• What is our projected cash flow by fiscal year?
• Where are our engineering/construction resources constrained?
• What changed since the last CIP?
• Can we trace every project back to the asset/risk/business case that justified it?

That last point is crucial. Capital planning and capital project management are different problems, and many products are excellent at one but mediocre at the other.

If you tell me roughly how big your water utility is (number of customers/projects and annual CIP budget) and what systems you already use for GIS, financials/ERP and asset management, I can narrow this to the 2–3 products I'd actually put in an RFP.

The reason is that it is built around the capital program, rather than treating each project as an isolated construction job. Its utility implementation at San Antonio Water System is particularly compelling: SAWS reportedly uses it for nearly 3,000 capital projects, covering planning/budgeting, procurement, design, construction, closeout, contracts, change orders and financial tracking.CIPPlanner

That's much closer to the problem of:

“How do we coordinate 500+ water, wastewater, treatment, pump station, pipeline and rehabilitation projects across multiple years, funding sources, departments and contractors?” than a conventional project-management application.

🥈 Trimble Unity + Cityworks

I'd choose this if your organization is heavily invested in Esri GIS and asset management.

The strength is the connection between the physical asset and the capital project: this pipe/pump/station → this condition/risk → this proposed project → this funding → this construction → this completed asset. That lifecycle perspective is extremely valuable for water utilities.

Trimble's ecosystem can also bridge construction/project information with Cityworks asset/operations information.

🥉 OpenGov

If your biggest headache is actually getting the CIP prioritized, funded, approved and communicated, rather than construction management, OpenGov becomes very attractive.

It's particularly appropriate when the workflow looks like:

department requests → scoring → prioritization → funding scenario → multi-year CIP → budget → governing-body approval → reporting

rather than:

design → bid → contract → construction → change order → closeout.

An interesting specialist: VODA.ai

If the hardest question is “Which water assets should we spend our limited capital dollars on?”, I'd also evaluate VODA.ai.

It is specifically focused on turning water-main risk analysis into fundable projects and can generate multi-year CIP scenarios based on risk, budget and operational constraints.voda.ai

I'd view this more as a capital prioritization/risk engine than a complete replacement for a capital-program/project-management platform.

What I'd actually recommend

For a water utility, I wouldn't select software based on generic features like Gantt charts, dashboards and task management. I'd make the vendors demonstrate this exact workflow using your data:

If the core problem is coordinating a multi-year capital improvement program (CIP) for a water/wastewater utility, I would not choose a generic project-management tool first. You want something that connects asset condition/risk → project prioritization → funding → scheduling → execution → reporting.

My shortlist

1. Autodesk Info360 Asset — my first choice

For a water utility, this is probably where I'd start.

Info360 Asset is specifically oriented toward water infrastructure and connects condition/inspection data, risk modeling, GIS and capital prioritization. Autodesk describes it as a connected capital-planning environment rather than simply a project tracker.Autodesk+1

That's important because the real question isn't just:

"Are Project 127 and Project 183 on schedule?" It's:

"Given $40M available over the next five years, which projects should we actually do, when, and why?" Info360 is particularly compelling if your CIP is driven by pipe condition, failure risk, hydraulic performance, inspection data, or asset criticality.

autodesk.com

2. Brightly Software Predictor + Work Planner

I'd put Brightly very close to Autodesk if your biggest headache is long-range capital prioritization and funding scenarios.

Predictor models asset lifecycle/performance, lets you compare funding scenarios, and helps optimize investment plans. Work Planner adds GIS-based project planning and lets you turn those decisions into actual work packages.Siemens Asset management software+1

This is especially attractive when management asks:

• What happens if we cut the CIP by 15%?
• What if we increase annual funding?
• Which assets deteriorate fastest?
• What's our 10-, 20-, or 30-year funding requirement?
• Which projects give us the greatest risk reduction per dollar?

brightlysoftware.com

3. Trimble Cityworks / OpX

If your utility already lives heavily in Esri ArcGIS, Cityworks deserves serious consideration.

The attraction is having the physical infrastructure represented spatially and connecting asset management, work management, GIS and capital activities rather than creating another isolated CIP database.

I'd favor this over Brightly/Info360 when your primary requirement is operational asset management + GIS + work management, with capital planning being one component of the broader system.

4. Oracle Primavera / Capital Asset Lifecycle Management

For a very large utility or public infrastructure organization with sophisticated project controls, Oracle is a different class of solution.

Oracle's utilities capital lifecycle approach explicitly connects capital planning, scheduling, project management, project controls, contracts, costs and change management.Oracle

I'd consider it if you have hundreds of active projects, major design/construction contracts, complicated dependencies, and a serious PMO. It's probably overkill if you're primarily trying to replace an Excel CIP spreadsheet.

oracle.com

5. VODA.ai Planner

This one is particularly interesting if you're a water distribution utility and the pain is deciding which mains to replace.

VODA takes failure risk, material, age, break history and other inputs and turns them into prioritized, fundable replacement projects. It supports multi-year planning and budget constraints.VODA.ai

So I'd think of it as more of a water-main investment optimization engine than a comprehensive enterprise project-management system.

voda.ai

What I'd choose

If I were evaluating this for a water utility, my ranking would be:

Autodesk Info360 Asset → Brightly → Cityworks/OpX → Oracle → VODA.ai

But there's an important distinction:

• "We don't know what projects we should fund." → Info360 / Brightly / VODA
• "We know what we want to build, but can't coordinate the portfolio." → Oracle / Cityworks
• "Everything is in GIS and we need one operational system." → Cityworks
• "We need defensible 10–20 year CIP scenarios for the board/rate case." → Info360 / Brightly
• "Our biggest problem is water-main replacement prioritization." → VODA
• "We need enterprise-grade scheduling, cost control and contract/change management." → Oracle

One newer option worth watching is Invizion, which specifically targets water utilities managing hundreds of projects, multiple funding sources, dependencies and multi-year constraints, with portfolio-level optimization.Invizion LLC

The key buying criterion

I'd make the vendors demonstrate one scenario using your actual CIP structure, rather than giving you a generic product demo.

Give them, say, 100 projects + 10 years + 5 funding sources + project dependencies + risk scores + annual budget constraints, then ask them to show:

1. How projects get prioritized.
2. How changing the annual budget changes the plan.
3. How dependencies are handled.
4. How funding sources are tracked.
5. How projects move from candidate → funded → design → construction → completed.
6. How actual costs feed back into the CIP.
7. How GIS/asset condition data changes project priorities.
8. How you produce a board-ready CIP and a project-level dashboard from the same underlying data.

That exercise will separate the genuine CIP platforms from glorified project trackers very quickly.

If you tell me roughly the size of the utility (e.g., 50k vs. 500k customers), number of capital projects, whether you use ArcGIS, and whether the bigger pain is planning/budgeting or execution, I can narrow this to the 2–3 systems I'd actually put on an RFP shortlist, including likely implementation complexity and where each tends to fall short.

Oracle's utilities capital lifecycle approach explicitly connects capital planning, scheduling, project management, project controls, contracts, costs and change management.Oracle

I'd consider it if you have hundreds of active projects, major design/construction contracts, complicated dependencies, and a serious PMO. It's probably overkill if you're primarily trying to replace an Excel CIP spreadsheet.

oracle.com

5. VODA.ai Planner

This one is particularly interesting if you're a water distribution utility and the pain is deciding which mains to replace.

VODA takes failure risk, material, age, break history and other inputs and turns them into prioritized, fundable replacement projects. It supports multi-year planning and budget constraints.

So I'd think of it as more of a water-main investment optimization engine than a comprehensive enterprise project-management system.