Managing List Types and List Items
This article provides information about the Settings/Configuration/Lists page.
Lists are used for a variety of reasons including managing project and assignment workflows, comment dispositions and project types. New deployments of eplansoft REVIEW include sample list records that can be modified as needed.
Read this article carefully before modifying the seed records provided in your deployment. Failure to follow best practices here will negatively impact the user experience.
Prerequisites:
None
A List record requires:
- A Label
- An Abbreviation (4 char. max.)
- A List Type
A List Type requires:
- A Purpose
- A Display Name
In this article:
Overview
Introducing List Types and Purposes
List records are used in drop down controls throughout the application. Each list record is associated to a List Type and List Types are associated to one of three Purposes.
- General Purpose
- For Permitting Purpose
- For Design Review Purpose
Some List Types are 'parents' of other List Types, as shown in the image below. The Country List Type is a parent for the State List Type records. This allows state records to be filtered by Country.
General Purpose List Types
Below are the list types that fall under the General purpose. These list types are commonly shared for permitting and design review projects.
List Type | Usage Summary | Ability to Set Default? |
Construction Type | For Projects (optional). The classification and fire rating for the project's buildings or structures. | No |
Contact Role | For Projects (optional). A reference person's association to a project. | No |
Country | For Projects, users and contacts (optional). Used for address records. | Yes. The Country marked as 'Default' will be used for new projects. |
Occupancy | For Projects, building occupancy classifications refer to categorizing structures based on their usage and are primarily used for building and fire code enforcement. | No |
Source | For Standard Comments (optional). Typically, the year and name of code base from which content is sourced for Standard Comments (IBC 2012); see Standard Comment Library. | No |
State | Optional. Used for address records. States are filtered by Country. | Yes. The State marked as 'Default' will be used for new projects. |
Street Direction | Optional. Used for address records. | No |
Street Type | Optional. Used for address records. | No |
About Internal Parent List Types
List Types that manage workflows rely on internal Parent List Types that are read-only.
See Project Status, Assignment Status and Comment Disposition, below.
Permitting and Design Review List Types
Every plan review Project is associated to either the For Permitting or For Design Review purpose.
- For Permitting: The purpose of the plan review project results in a permit being issued.
- For Design Review: The purpose of the plan review project is for peer review, QA/QC review, value engineering, constructability review, etc.
Whether you choose to create projects for one or both purposes, functionality and workflow processes are the same.
Because ‘terminology’ often varies based on the purpose of the projects, we provide the ability to configure list records by Purpose, and to rename Lists, as desired.
List Type | Usage Summary | Ability to Set Default? |
Application Type | For Projects. Optional list. | No |
Assignment Status | Required. Denotes the current standing of assignment records. There must be exactly one active and 'default' record mapped to each Parent List Item internal mapping for controlling workflow. Additional, non-default statuses may also be created. | Yes, though every Parent Item (Not Started, Active, Canceled, Rejected, Approved) must have exactly one default selection. |
Category | Optional. If used, sort order is important. A comment affiliation; used as the primary heading and to sort comments within Correction Reports. Ex: comments in the General Requirements category (Sort Order = 1) typically sort first on Correction Reports. See Standard Comment Library. | No |
Comment Disposition | Required. Denotes the current standing or evaluation of the project comment record. There must be exactly one active and 'default' Disposition list record mapped to each Parent List Item internal mapping for controlling workflow. Additional, non-default dispositions may be created. | Yes, though every Parent Item (Open, Closed) must have exactly one default selection. |
Document Cycle | Required. Sort Order must be incremental. Denotes the current review cycle for the document. During intake, new document versions will automatically increased the document cycle by one, to the next available value based on Sort Order. We recommend creating document cycle records for the highest cycle you anticipate needing. For example, in some permitting agencies, a maximum of 4 cycles (submittals) is allowed per document. | Yes. The Document Cycle marked as 'Default' will be used for new documents. |
Groups | Required. Denotes user affiliation; often a discipline, division, department, or equivalent. Users who conduct plan review must belong to at least one group. Each plan review assignments must be associated to a Group. Select Configuration/Settings/Group to open the Group lists. Plan review markups use the Group's color. Select a color for each Group list record. | No |
Impact | Optional. Denotes relative importance of a project comment. | No |
Priority | Optional. Denotes relative urgency of a project. | No |
Project Cycle | Required. Sort Order must be incremental. Denotes the Projects cycle/phase. | Yes. The Project Cycle marked as 'Default' will be used for new projects. |
Project Status | Required. Denotes the current standing or evaluation of the project record. There must be exactly one active and 'default' record mapped to each Parent List Item internal mapping for controlling workflow. Additional, non-default statuses may also be created. | Yes, though each Parent Item (Open, On Hold, Withdrawn, Cycle Complete, Pass, Fail) must have exactly one default selection. |
Project Type | Required. A project classification, usually based on the type of work expected. | No |
Report Type | 'Corrections' as a report type for Correction report templates generated in the Project Comments page. 'Submittal Recommendations' is the report type for the Document Submittal Recommendations reports generated in goPost and from the Project/Documents upload page. | No |
Review Type | Optional. Denotes a specific discipline affiliation for assignments when multiple assignments must exist within a single Group for the same document. Additionally, Distributions rely on the 'abbreviation' to distribute plans during intake. Ex: a file named ‘ELEC_WiringDiagrams.pdf’ can trigger assignments to designated groups or users if the 'Electrical' Review Type abbreviation = 'ELEC'. | No |
Service Area | Optional. Regional/geographical area of a project site/address. | No |
Subcategory | Optional. If used, sort order is important. A comment sub-affiliation; used as a secondary heading and to sort comments within Correction Reports. Ex: comments in the General Requirements category may have a sub-heading for 'Building Envelope Requirements', followed by other subcategory headings. Standard Comment Library | No |
Best Practices
Changing the List Type Display Name to fit your own terminology is recommended.
About List Records
As stated, List records are associated to a List Type and at minimum, a List record must contain a Label and Abbreviation.
Additional functionality for List records includes:
- Creating new list records and inactivating existing list records.
- Associating a ‘workflow’ related list record to a parent item record, as in the case of Project Status and Assignment status lists which are ‘mapped’ to an internal workflows.
- Providing a 4 character Abbreviation for list records and choosing a color code, if appropriate.
- We strongly recommend that Project Status, Assignment Status, Groups and Comment Disposition list records are assigned a Color code.
- Choosing a ‘default’ list record to be used in situations such as a new comment record being given an ‘Open’ comment disposition or a document being uploaded as the ‘1st Submittal’.
- Controlling the sort order for lists that require incremental steps, as in document versioning.
- Associating a list record to a dependent parent item list, as in the case where States/Provinces are associated to a Country.
See the example below for the ‘Document Cycle’ list types that are used to manage document versions.
In design review projects, ‘cycles’ may be referred to as Phases.
Note that the Sort Order value of the list record determines how to increment the next submittal.
And, for permitting projects, as Submittals.
When a new project is created, either the For Permitting or For Design Review ‘Purpose’ is chosen. This determines which set of lists will be used for the project going forward. Changing the purpose is not allowed once the new project record is saved.
Adding List Records
- From the Configuration/Lists page, choose the appropriate Purpose and List Type.
- Select the + button to open the List record detail form.
- Enter a descriptive Label (alphanumeric characters, dash, underscore, and forward slash characters).
- Enter a four (4) character Abbreviation. (Alpha and numeric characters only.)
- The abbreviation must be unique, with the exception of Project Type list records.
Order Value:
- For Document Cycle, Category, Project Cycle, and Subcategory lists, enter the appropriate sort Order value. For example, if the highest Document Cycle order value is 5, enter 6.
- For the Document Cycle lists, do not create records with duplicate Order values. During intake, new versions of documents have their Cycle automatically increased by one, to the next available value based on the sort Order.
- For other List Types, the order value is used as an optional means to sort the lists records in dropdown controls, reports, etc. Lists are sorted primarily by the Order value, then alphabetically by Abbreviation.
Item Color:
- For Assignment Status lists, choose an Item Color. Colors are utilized for Assignment Status and Group list records only. The Group color is used for drawing markup/sketch colors in the Review Page.
Parent List Item (Workflow Lists):
- For Assignment Status, Comment Disposition, Project Status lists only, choose the appropriate Parent List Item. This is used for managing workflows internally (required).
Setting 'Is Default'
- Each internal Parent List Item must map to a single external workflow List record whose List Item is ‘Default’ is on.
- Add other List items mapped to an internal Parent workflow list as desired -and ensure their ‘is Default’ toggle is off.
Click the Save button (required).
Assignment Status Example
The image below shows the default settings for the Assignment Status list records in the For Permitting purpose.
Recap of the business rules for Workflow Lists (Project Status, Assignment Status and Comment Dispositions)
- Choose the appropriate Parent List Item to manage workflow.
- Each internal Parent list record requires one list record that is Active and is Default.
- Provide a descriptive Label and Abbreviation.
- Choose a color to be used through the application.
- Add alternate List records as desired, and ensure their 'Default' toggle is off.
Example of an 'Approved w Conditions' assignment status for Permitting.
New assignments will be created with the default, active 'Not Started' status. The assignment status will automatically change to the default, 'Active' status when users begin their plan review.
Managing Project Type List Records with goPost in a multi-tenant environment
As described above, each list record requires a (maximum 4-character) Abbreviation - and the Abbreviation value must be unique, except the following situation:
Clients whose EPR application connects to e-PlanSoft's goPost Customer Portal configured for multiple tenants, should configure Project Type records that are specific to their goPost 'client' portals.
This allows a goPost Applicant the ability to choose from a list of Project Types that are specific to the agency/firm to which they are submitting their project.
For example, goPost Agency A can offer different project types to their customers than Agency B.
Follow these recommendations when creating Project Type list records when goPost has been configured for multiple portals/
- Create one EPR Project Type record for each goPost client/tenant.
- Enter the same Abbreviation in the Project Type record as is recorded in the goPost Portal Settings page.
See the goPost Wiki page: /wiki/spaces/GopKB/pages/258474131 for more information.
Inactivating or Deleting List Items
- Toggle off the List Item is Active option to prevent it from being used in the future.
- List records that are inactivated will not appear in the dropdown controls.
- When a list record is inactivated, any project, document, assignment records that rely on the list record will show the list abbreviation and or list Label as a read-only value.
- In this situation, we recommend choosing another active list record.
- Inactivated records can be restored at anytime by toggling the 'Is Active' setting to On.
Deleting a list record also removes it from the dropdown controls, however should it be necessary, deleted records cannot be restored without assistance from e-PlanSoft.
Best Practices
Inactivating or deleting list item records should be performed when users are logged out of the application so as not to cause confusion.
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