This article provides information about using the project Comments page. Open a project record by selecting the right arrow icon, and select the COMMENTS tab or, select Comments from the menu on the Plan Review page

Prerequisites:

1. A Project must already exist.
2. The user must be a member of the Project or have Global Access permissions to the project.
3. To add comments:
   1. The user must belong to at least one Group.
   2. The user's Role must be granted view and add permissions to Project Comment-Details

A Comment record requires:

1. A Project.
2. A Group.
3. A Disposition.
4. Content (comment text).

In this article:

Opening the Project Comments page 

Option 1: Open a Project record and select COMMENTS.

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Option 2: From the Plan Review page, open the menu on the upper left corner and choose Comments. 

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Overview of the Comments page

The Comments page indexes all comments that exist for a single project across all groups and users, all plan review documents and all document submittals, including any standard comments inserted from the Standard Comment Library. 

Comments may added to the project from here that are not associated to plan review documents. 

Several filtering options are provided to view, manage and export comment records.

For example, the screen shot below shows comments with filtered for an OPEN disposition. Note that each comment record displays the Reviewer's name, the Group and optionally, a Review Type.

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For information about each of the list filters, see Permitting and Design Review List Types.

Inserting Comments

Follow these steps to insert comments. These comments will not be associated to a plan review document but can be included in a Correction Report or for exporting.

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Click on 'Comment As' to choose the appropriate Group that your new comment will be associated to. The Group cannot be changed after the comment record has been saved.

(Comment As is for inserting new comments, not to filter the comment records.)

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Select the Add a new Comment icon to open the New Comment form to create one new comment. Complete the form and select the Save button (required).

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Optionally, select the Insert Standard comments icon to open the Insert Standard Comments page.

Choose one or many standard comments to insert into the project Comments page.  The comments will be inserted using the Group displayed under 'COMMENT AS' shown at the top of the page. 

Search, Filter and Sorting Comments 

Use the left panel of the Comments page to search and filter comment records in the project.

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Using search

Enter full or partial keywords in the search field. Records with matching comment content will be returned.

Applied filters and/or date ranges will also affect the search results.

Applying optional filters

Several filtering options are provided. 

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Sorting comments

In addition to filtering, comments can be sorted in ascending or descending order.

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Batch Actions

All reports and exported comment records utilize whatever filters have been applied. 

To activate the Batch Action menu, select one or many comment records.

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Generating a Correction Report

Preparing a Correction Report requires these steps below.

1. Set a filter on the Comment Disposition to include open comments. Closed comments should be excluded from Correction Reports. 
2. Optionally, choose other filters to define which comment records to include in the report.
3. Choose the REPORTt option at the upper right corner of the page, as shown below.
4. The Generate Report form will open.
   1. Choose the appropriate Report name.
5. Select 'SAVE AS ATTACHMENT' to generate the report and save it as a project attachment.
   1. Optionally, select SHOW PREVIEW to generate the report and open it for viewing.

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Export Selected Comments to CSV

1. Select one or many comment records to export.

2. Choose the EXPORT SELECTED COMMENTS TO CSV FILE option.

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Best Practices for Permitting Agencies

Correction reports should include only comments whose disposition is open (unresolved) because the marked up plans returned to the customer will include only open comments.

Preparing Correction Reports and Plan Review Deliverables

Correction reports should be created when all plan review assignments have been completed prior to packaging reviewed documents for return to the customer.

See Preparing Document Deliverables for instructions.

Generating Correction Reports for specific Groups

Some agencies may prefer to generate separate Correction reports filtered by Group, to return to the customer prior to all assignments being completed.

In this case, be sure to modify the Printer Render settings when preparing your deliverable package to choose the same Group(s).

Receiving corrected documents for the next submittal

In a situation where the customer has provided a new submittal that is uploaded and processed through intake, the following will occur:

1. Comments and sketches created in prior submittals will be carried forward to the latest submittal. Users will no longer be allowed to mark up the prior submittal.
2. Previously created plan review assignments will be pointed to the latest submittal so the reviewers may continue their work using the latest submittal.
   1. Plan review assignments that were unfinished will be reset to a 'Not Started' status. 
   2. Plan review assignments that were finished will be reset to a 'Not Started' status.
3. Plan review assignments that were Approved in the prior submittal may also be reset to a 'Not Started' status to trigger a review on the latest submittal, depending on configured settings.
   1. See 'Reset Approved Assignments' for instructions.

Opening the Comment Detail form

Select the pencil icon to open the Comment Detail form.

For instructions on creating comments, see: Adding a Comment record.

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Jump to the Document Review page

Comment records that were added to plan review documents on the Review page will display the document name and page number, as shown below.

Select the arrow icon to open the Plan Review page in a new tab.

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Advanced Features

Performing Batch Actions

Several batch action features are available for managing comment records.

1. Select all comment records or choose the specific comments you wish to modify.
2. Choose the desired batch action:
   1. Set Disposition: Change the comment disposition for the selected comment records.
   2. Set Flag: Toggle the comment Flag on or off
   3. Copy as New: Duplicate selected comments.

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About Comment Flags

The comment record flag is provided as a means to communicate with external users, called Contributors to request feedback, etc. about the comment.

Comments not flagged do not require attention and will not generate an email alerting Contributors to login to the application.

In most situations, plan review project for permitting purposes will not utilize comment flags or comment responses. 

For more information see The Contributor Role Explained.

About Comment Responses

When the Enable Response feature is on, the reviewer is inviting responses from project Contributors. If the Enable Response feature is off, the Comment record can be viewed, but not responded to.

For instructions on creating comments, see: Adding a Comment record.

Deleting Comments

Comments are managed by the comment Disposition to allow plan reviewers to indicate when a comment has been addressed (resolved).

An event log record is created each time a disposition is changed, who it was changed by.

Additionally, the comment's event log captures changes to each field in the comment record, including who changed it and when it was changed.

Deleted comments will not appear on any deliverables, exported files or correction reports.

Deleting comments should be performed only in very specific situations. For example, when a comment was created in error. 

1. Use the checkboxes to select the comment(s) you wish to delete.
2. Select the ellipsis on the upper right corner of the page, as shown below
3. Choose Delete.

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Like adding comments from the Review page, the project’s COMMENTS tab allows staff to add comments to a project record. Instead of adding comments directly onto document sheets, however, the COMMENTS tab allows users to add comments about the overall application, about the submittal process, or even about deficiencies that apply to either a large number of pages or to multiple documents within the application submittal. The COMMENTS tab is also designed to allow staff to select comments to include in corrections report letters for applicants to address. As long as a user belongs to at least one Group and has rights to comment on a project, they can add comments as explained below.

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Navigating to the Comments Tab

To get to the COMMENTS tab from the Projects page, select a project and click on the right arrow icon ( ) to view the project tabs. Then, click on COMMENTS along the top to view the project’s comments table.

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To get to the COMMENTS tab from the Review page, click on the Navigation menu icon in the upper left ( ), then in the dropdown click on COMMENTS ( ) to open it in a new browser tab.

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Components of the Comments Tab

The COMMENTS Tab consists of three sections:

1. A panel with comment filter options

2. A comment table header:

   1. With Comment sort options (by default)

   2. With Comment batch update options (after one or more comments are selected)

3. A comments table listing project comments:

   1. With Comment Features

   2. With Flags, Responses, and Other Information Icons

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The Filters Panel

The “Filters”Panel on the left side of the comments list includes several options filters for narrowing down the comment results displayed in the table itself. These filters can be useful when trying to look up comments or when manually creating a corrections report letter that only includes a specific subset of comments.

Filter Name	Filter Type	Description
Search	Text Field	Filter for comments that include the typed word or phrase.	Image Added
RESET FILTERS	Button	Click to clear all filters.
Start Date	Date Field	Filter for comments updated after the selected date.
End Date	Date Field	Filter for comments updated before the selected date.
Comment Responses	Checkbox Dropdown	Filter for comments Without Responses, With Read Responses, or With Unread Responses.
Attachments	Checkbox Dropdown	Filter for comments With Attachments or Without Attachments.
Responses Enabled	Checkbox Dropdown	Filter for comments with Responses Enabled or Responses Disabled.
Documents	Checkbox Dropdown	Filter for comments placed on the selected file(s). To select comments not on a file, click Project Comments.
Reviewers	Checkbox Dropdown	Filter for comments placed by the selected user(s).
Group	Checkbox Dropdown	Filter for comments placed by the selected Group(s).
Comment Disposition	Checkbox Dropdown	Filter for comments with the selected Comment Disposition(s). Use this filter to exclude closed comments from reports.
Impact	Checkbox Dropdown	Filter for comments with the selected Impact(s).
Review Type	Checkbox Dropdown	Filter for comments with the selected Review Type(s).
Category	Checkbox Dropdown	Filter for comments with the selected Category(ies).
Subcategory	Checkbox Dropdown	Filter for comments with the selected Subcategory(ies).

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The Comments Table Header

The Comments Table Header features will switch between two layouts, depending on the scenario: the default Sort Options (when no comments are selected) and the Batch Update Options (when one or more comments are selected).

Sort Options (Default Layout)

The Comments table header displays a set of default options when no comments are selected. These options include the ability to add new comments that are not tied to a document page as well as options to sort existing comments.

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Feature	Icon	Description
Select All	🔲	Click to select all comments within the comments table list.
COMMENT AS [ ]	Image Added	Click to change the group you represent while adding or editing comments.
Insert Comment		Click to add a new comment tied to this project but not to a specific document page.
Insert Standard Comment(s)		Click to add one or several new comment(s) tied to this project but not to a specific document page (best for inserting a standard checklist of comments).
SORT BY FLAG	Image Added	Sort comments by Flagged () or Not Flagged () status.
SORT BY COMMENT#	Image Added	Sort comments by comment number (ascending or descending).
SORT BY GROUP	Image Added	Sort comments by group.

Batch Update Options (Layout Once Comments Are Selected)

After one or more comments are selected in the comments list table, the sort options in the header are replaced by alternative choices. Instead of sorting, these additional features allow for batch updating multiple comments quickly as well as generating corrections reports that include only the selected comments.

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The Comments Table List

Beneath the header, the Comments Table lists every comment that exists for the current project, across every submittal, every document, for every group and user by default. This includes comments placed on specific document pages (from the Review page) and also comments that do not need to be associated to an individual plan review page.

• Project-level comments can be created on the COMMENTS tab itself.

• Comments are listed sequentially, starting with number 00001.

• The comment table shows up to the first four lines of each comment’s text, with the full text visible by either double-clicking on the record to expand it or clicking on (Edit) to view the full text in the Comment Form pop-up.

• Each comment record in the table also displays “Comment Number”, “Document Name” (if applicable), “Page Number” (if applicable), “Reviewer”, “Group”, “Disposition”, “Review Type”, and “Created At” information.

• If a comment has responses, the latest response can be previewed beneath the main comment text, usually in red (as shown).

• By default, the table shows up to 100 comments, with additional comments viewable by clicking on NEXT PAGE or PREVIOUS PAGE. Changing the number of Rows per page at the bottom is also an option, though this may result in longer load times.

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Comment Features in the Table

Hovering over a comment record with a mouse cursor will display additional features that can be clicked on to the right of the record. You can also add new comments by clicking on (Add Comment) at the bottom right of the table.

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Flags, Responses, and Other Information Icons

Comment records may also display a variety of information icons to alert users to various conditions.

Additional Considerations When Creating Comments

When adding a new comment from the COMMENTS tab, keep the following in mind.

Feature	Icon	Description
Group	Image Added	For users who belong to multiple groups, the earliest Group value (based on when group records were created) will be selected by default. Any new comment you create will use this selection unless you change it, so it is important to check which group is currently selected for you at the top of the comments table. Info To change between your profile groups, click on COMMENT AS then choose another from the dropdown.
Add Comment	or	Click either or to open the “New Comment” form. For either, the steps to add a comment are nearly the same as adding a comment from the review page.
Moveable Comment Form	N/A	Like within the Review page, the “New Comment” form in the Comments tab can be moved by grabbing it (anywhere except within the text and dropdown fields) and dragging it elsewhere so you can view information behind it as needed.

Additional Considerations When Editing Comments

A few features unique to the COMMENTS Tab may make it easier to go through comments quickly, making updates along the way.

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Assigning Comments

As part of the Comment Form, users can go beyond just making a comment “Response Enabled” and can also assign comments to other Project Team Members to request a response.

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Users who have been assigned comments will see a notification badge next to the COMMENTS tab. This badge shows the number of assigned comments at the top of the page for the project.

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Unlike when using “Response Enabled” alone, assigning a comment adds a checkbox field into the comment’s RESPONSES tab which the assignee is expected to click on to acknowledge the request and close it out. This acknowledgement is a good way to ensure the intended person has seen specific or high priority comments that may require a response.

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Once the comment assignment is checked (to mark it “Completed”), or if it is unassigned, the icon will disappear and the badge showing number of assigned comments will update.

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