This article provides intake instructions for manually uploading plan review documents in PDF format and supporting attachments in any format, to a Project.
Incoming plan review documents will undergo an inspection via our PDF Scout tool.
Pre-configured workflow distributions may be triggered.
The user may manually create plan review assignments.
Assignments will be created.
Prerequisites:
- An open project record exists. See Add a Project record, Step 1.
- Plan review documents in PDF format and supporting documents, in any file format, are accessible to the user.
In this article:
Step 2 - Upload Documents
- Navigate to the Projects page and select the Documents tab.
- Click the upload icon on the bottom of the Documents tab.
- Browse and select the PDF’s for plan review and supporting attachments (in other file formats).
- Drag PDF’s not intended for plan review to the ‘Attachments Here’ panel, as shown below.
- Supporting attachments will not be used to create plan review assignments. They are considered reference material only.
- Confirm that the plans and supporting documents are on the correct panels.
- Select the PROCESS button to launch the PDF inspector for the incoming plan review files.
- Drag PDF’s not intended for plan review to the ‘Attachments Here’ panel, as shown below.
- After the PDF inspection completes, results are displayed on the REVIEW PROCESSED DOCUMENTS tab, shown below.
- For files flagged with a warning icon or X status,
- Select the eye icon to see the inspection results.
- For files flagged with a warning icon or X status,
Delete plan review files marked with an X status
- PDF's that do not pass inspection will not proceed to plan review.
Finishing upload for Plan Review files that pass inspection
For plan review files that pass inspection are flagged with a green check mark as shown above.
- Select the FINISH button to complete the upload process.
- Plan review documents will be sent to the rendering server.
- An optical character recognition (OCR) process is then performed to capture the sheet numbers.
- Attachments/supporting documents will be visible on the ATTACHMENTS page.
- OCR is not performed on attachments.
Step 3 - Intake
The Intake Page Described
The Intake page (below), will display a thumbnail image of all plan review files that have yet to be assigned.
After assignments are created, the document thumbnail is removed from the Intake page and made visible on the Documents page.
PRIOR: Expands the right panel to show a list of plan review documents previously assigned for review.
PREVIEW: Open the PDF for viewing/download.
Prior Submittals: List of plan review files that have already been assigned for review.
Document Versioning
The filename of the incoming document is checked against previously uploaded files to look for other files with exactly the same filename.
If a matching document does not exist for the project, the new file is assumed to be a 1st submittal.
When a matching document is found, the new file is assumed to be the next submittal.
Select the 'Prior Submittals' dropdown to associate the new document to an earlier document when the filenames do not match.
Workflow Distributions
In addition to the filename being important for managing document versions, it is also evaluated to determine whether preconfigured workflow distributions are triggered to preload assignments on this Intake page. See Workflow Distributions.
In the image above, the document ARCH_Floor Demolition Plan.pdf triggered the autocreation of assignments for the Fire and Building groups because a workflow was configured to create these assignments for documents prefixed with 'ARCH_'.
The user may choose to accept the distribution records, or modify them as desire.
Best Practices
It is critical that incoming documents are properly versioned from 1st, to 2nd, to 3rd, etc.
This is because reviewer's markups and comments are carried forward from prior versions to the latest version automatically, significantly reducing the effort needed to complete plan review.
Creating Assignments for the 1st Submittal
- Click on the expand control (triangle) to view any assignment suggestions triggered by automatic workflow distributions.
- Add new assignments or edit existing suggestions as desired.
- Select the appropriate Group from the dropdown.
- Optionally, select a Review Type if more than one assignment needs to be created for a single Group.
- Optionally, chose a specific user as an Assignee. If this user is subscribed to receive assignment notifications, they will receive a notification that they have a review task.
- Once ready, click CREATE ASSIGNMENTS for this document.
- Repeat these steps for any remaining documents that you wish to create assignments for.
Best Practices
Choose a Review Type when you want to provide additional information about an assignment. For example, create one assignment to the Building department with a Grading review type and another assignment to the Building department with a Landscape review type. This allows the same department/group to approve or deny a document for different reasons.
Batch Creating Assignments for the 1st Submittal
As an alternative to individually creating assignments for each document, the intake page allows users to batch create one set of assignments for multiple documents at the same time.
- Select one or more documents using their individual checkboxes or use the 'Select All' checkbox next to the Search field.
- Click on the CREATE ASSIGNMENTS button that appears to the right of the Search field to open a form for batch creating assignments.
- Add new assignments as desired.
- Select the appropriate Group from the dropdown.
- Optionally, select a Review Type if more than one assignment needs to be created for a single Group.
- Optionally, chose a specific user as an Assignee. If this user is subscribed to receive assignment notifications, they will receive a notification that they have a review task.
Once ready, click CREATE ASSIGNMENTS for these documents.
Creating Assignments for the next Submittal
When an incoming document filename matches to a prior plan review document, or when you have manually selected a file from the Prior Submittals dropdown to make that association, assignments that were previously handled, whether they are closed or still in process, will be pointed to the latest version.
Although you cannot change the Group/Review Type/Assignee for these records, you may set a Due date.
Setting Assignment Due Dates
Use the calendar control to set a future due date, as desired.
Select 'SET DUE DATE' to choose a future due date that you wish applied to all assignment records, or to records which have an empty due date.
If appropriate, set due dates for each document.
Step 4 - Create Assignments
Before continuing, confirm the following:
- Does each document you intend to assign have a checkmark?
- Does each document you intend to assign have the correct Document Cycle (Submittal)?
- Does each document you intend to assign have the correct Groups, and optional Review Types and Assigned user?
- Does each document you intend to assign have the correct Due Dates?
- Select CREATE ASSIGNMENTS to process these documents.
- Files that do not have checkmark will be ignored.
Intake is now complete.
Deleting a Document from the Intake Page
Select the ellipsis menu to the right of the PREVIEW button to delete a document from Intake.
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