What is e-PlanReview?

e-PlanREVIEW® (EPR) is an industry-leading, collaborative plan review platform designed for teams to conduct their reviews concurrently from anywhere they can access the web. EPR improves results and lowers the cost of plan reviews by replacing paper printing, packaging, shipping, and storage expenses from traditional reviews with convenient online document storage and concurrent, collaborative web-based plan reviews that simplify distribution needs. EPR allows Agency, county, and state agencies to make documents easily available to review staff across departments so everyone can view plans concurrently and complete reviews in less time and with less effort. EPR goes beyond the “standard” process efficiency gained with electronic submission, review, and approvals as it is a full life cycle solution, serving agencies across submittals, resubmittals, and revisions, all while keeping a historical record of each review cycle’s results. The system can be used in conjunction with our goPost™ Public Portal for applicants to submit applications and receive results from anywhere at any time, or it can be integrated to a permitting solution that provides similar functionality.

Deployed in e-PlanSoft’s Amazon Cloud, and running entirely in the browser, EPR does not require The Agency nor applicants to install any specialized software onto their servers or workstations. Instead, users simply access the system directly through a secure login or via an integrated partner. Staff can then view, markup, and evaluate plans, while e-PlanSoft’s document versioning tracks this activity across the entire resubmittal lifecycle. This allows Staff to build upon their previous reviews when looking at a resubmittal while also providing an audit trail viewable by system administrators.

EPR’s document assignment workflow features allow a shared document to have separate review assignments for multiple users - or user groups - across departments but still allows each to provide their own assessment of the document and track their own review. And unlike traditional separate reviews that require tedious consolidation, all markups and comments are aggregated automatically by the system for return to the applicant.

EPR's submittal versioning, along with built-in workflow assignment distribution and the ability to conduct concurrent reviews for a shared set of plans, breaks down the traditional silo effect between Agency Departments as well as any outside consultants by making it much easier to work together. EPR eliminates the need to either make multiple copies of plans, send them out, and ultimately merge comments from many separate sources, or to manage an onerous check-in and check-out document process that would prevent concurrent review.

User Interface

Agency Staff will access e-PlanREVIEW by either logging in directly or being directed to a particular project assignment page (depending on integration). Project information is organized in clearly labeled tabs that provide details, list documents, display assignments, gather comments, or provide access to features such as intake or deliverable packaging processes.

Most pages, such as Project Assignments, display records and tasks in clear, straightforward tables that include options for sorting or filtering results in addition to scrolling through all of the records presented. Navigation options are consistent (tabs for viewing related data or right facing arrow buttons to "go to" a specific record) so Staff have an easier time learning and remembering how to get around. Colors - which can be defined by the Agency - are used on most pages to highlight important details, such as which user Group an assignment belongs to, what is its current review Status, and whether the assignment is past due.

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To help Staff focus on the plans being reviewed, the Review page presentation contrasts the typically white plans with a darker surrounding, aiding with contrast while still allowing important information to pop using color. Since the page is viewed in a browser, staff can resize the page to the extent their hardware allows, and collapsible side panels allow them to control how much of the page they see on screen at any time. Essential markup tools and features are readily available from the toolbar or review page header without forcing staff to dig into extensive menus or away from the page.

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Reviewer Experience and Markup Tools

EPR runs entirely in your Chrome or Edge browser (Mac users are recommended to install either browser and will then have the same experience) and requires no EPR software to be installed on the user workstations. Reviewers who are part of a project team will have access to all project files, but their default view is filtered so they can focus on their assignments to manage their workload more efficiently. All assigned reviewers work on the same document at the same time, with the ability for reviewers to record how much time they have spent on review in addition to providing a status for their review.

EPR offers an intuitive set of markup and measurement tools designed specifically for plan review. The Review page allows reviewers to add sketches in their group's pre-designated color through simple shapes as well as add polygons, clouds, lines with and without endpoints, and add highlights. They can add short text labels using a Text Box tool directly onto plans. Reviewers can also calculate distances and areas using EPR's measurement tools after calibrating one or more scales for the plans. In addition, existing sketches become measurements once the scale is set.

Most importantly, however, reviewers have extensive commenting capabilities in EPR. Comments can be placed on a document page, either as reference points or pinned open to display their full text, using the reviewer group's predefined color. Comments can also be added to the overall project from the Project Comments tab while still referencing the review group by label. Any or all of these comments can then be automatically integrated into a comment corrections report generated whenever Agency staff decide they are ready to send them back to the applicant.

Every markup (sketches, comments, measurements, and stamps) is securely created and recorded in EPR as database records. This provides added security, tying them directly to the database and ensures that any edits can only be performed by authorized users. Markups are carried forward from the previous submittal to the next, and EPR allows staff to either "close" or remove these markups to indicate they have been addressed by the applicant. If a markup is closed by accident, or if an applicant reintroduces a problem in a later resubmittal, staff have the ability to restore the markup without having to recreate it from scratch. "Open" markups, meaning comments or sketches that require attention, are solid and visually distinct from "closed" markups, which will display as see-through objects for staff in the review page. These same "closed" markups are not visible to applicants whenever they receive updated or approved plans, however.

EPR also includes a Standard Comment Library feature in which the Agency can upload their existing standard comments for reviewers to have easy access to consistent, pre-written comments (which they can still fully modify as needed) during the course of their review. Because the standard comment library can be as large as the Agency would like, EPR ensures that it is also searchable. This makes it quick and easy for a reviewer to find any comment they want to use. Once in the comment form it can be edited to add bold italics, underline, bulleted or numbered lists, and hyperlinks clickable from the comment or the pdf deliverables sent back to the applicant.

 At any point in a review, staff can also use EPR's incredibly flexible comparison tools to either overlay in one view or compare document pages in separate windows. EPR's Overlay comparison feature can put any version of any page of any document in any project on top of the existing page, making it extremely useful for any kind of comparison. The layers are rendered in different colors and where they line up exactly, they blend into a third color, allowing reviewers to visually identify any differences quickly. Sometimes documents coming in don’t line up perfectly, so EPR allows reviewers to "nudge" the overlay layer up, down, left or right, and also scale the page to be larger or smaller until it overlays exactly right. In addition to overlay, a side-by-side comparison mode enables users to open any two pages of any document in separate windows and have any movement or resizing mirrored across both windows to make review or similar areas easier for users. The mirroring can also be disengaged to allow a reviewer to move through each page separately and compare. Most importantly, reviewers still have the ability to markup plans while overlaying or comparing pages.

 Once a reviewer is ready, they can apply a stamp if appropriate, then status an assignment to indicate approval or if corrections are required. A comment corrections letter relaying feedback to the applicant can be generated by Agency staff for inclusion in the deliverable package returned to applicants along with the marked-up plans.

Subsequent submittals will be linked to the original document upon resubmittal without the need for files to have the same filename so long as applicants follow the recommended process. As noted, all prior sketches, comments, measurements, etc. are carried forward to the latest document version so that plan review can pick up where they left off in the previous submittal. Strong document versioning is key to the efficiency of electronic plan review, as it allows the system to do the tracking instead of complex file name devices, or manually printing, comparing, and storing versions on paper.

Reporting

EPR allows administrative staff and management to run a variety of holistic reports as needed. At the assignment level, the Agency can examine current open assignments, check for what's overdue, and also review time spent on review tasks. For a more holistic project view, the Agency can export full project lists; focus on projects that have been completed, remain open, are on hold, or may be overdue; or even assess the overall time spent reviewing projects. Management also has the ability to determine the time spent on reviews by a particular user, if desired. All of this is of course in addition to the comment reporting available to reviewers as part of the standard plan review process.

Use with goPost or Integrated to a Permitting System

e-PlanREVIEW can be implemented together with the goPost Public Portal to provide a straightforward solution for applicants to submit files and retrieve marked-up or approved plans from the Agency. It can also be integrated with a Agency's permitting system using our APIs to leverage the features of both products. In either situation, EPR APIs can help streamline intake of documents, manage document versioning without the need for files to keep the same name, and maintain review assignments synced up by following recommended guidelines. EPR can also be used to send email notifications of key events (such as status updates) to staff, or an integrated permitting system can be allowed to manage notifications instead.