This article provides information about how eplansoft REVIEW (EPR) manages projects, plan review documents, supporting attachments and the plan review cycle.
Additionally, information about how EPR typically integrates to other back-office applications is described below.
In this article:
High Level Overview
A typical plan review Project undergoes this basic process:
- Create a Project: A project record is created that includes at minimum, one primary Contact.
Conduct Intake on the new plan review documents.- Plan review documents (in PDF format) are uploaded to the project.
- Supporting attachments (any file type) are uploaded to the project.
- Trigger Distribution Workflows to create group and/or named-user assignments.
- Multiple assignments are created for each plan review document.
- Conduct plan review.
- Complete assignments.
- Each assignment is given a pass/fail status by the reviewers.
- A deliverable package with the marked up documents is prepared, this completes the 1st submittal cycle.
- Return the deliverable package to the customer for corrections.
- Corrected documents are provided by the customer as the next submittal. Repeat from step 2.
- Existing assignments are reopened with a Not Started status and markups are carried forward to the latest version.
- Comments found to be resolved are marked ‘closed’.
- Plan Review Assignments are completed.
- The process repeats until all noted issues are resolved.
- The project is closed.
Integrated Environments
Variations on the process described above include the following scenarios when EPR is integrated to another application using our Connect API toolkit:
Integration Option 1:
The integrated application pushes project data, documents and plan review assignments to EPR. The integrated application manages document versioning.
No manual data entry of projects, upload of documents or creating plan review assignments is necessary in EPR.
Plan review is conducted in EPR.
Plan review deliverables are checked in to the integrated application using API calls.
Integration Option 2:
The integrated application pushes project data and documents to EPR using API calls.
EPR manages document versioning.
EPR's Workflow Distribution module is configured and enabled to auto-create assignments.
Plan review is conducted in EPR.
Plan review deliverables are checked in to the integrated application using API calls or downloaded to another network location.
Integration Option 3:
EPR is connected to the e-PlanSoft goPost Customer Portal.
goPost pushes new project data and documents created by the customer to EPR using Connect API.
goPost manages document versioning.
Manual data entry of projects/contacts and uploading documents to EPR is unnecessary.
Plan review is conducted in EPR.
Plan review deliverables are sent back to goPost. The customer logs into goPost to download the reviewed plans, etc. and can optionally be downloaded to another network location.
Best Practices
In some cases, a project may need to be reopened for plan review of revised drawings after a project has been closed. For instructions on how to handle documents submitted as revisions, see: XXXXX
The Project Status Workflow
Project statuses are configured by your site administrator and mapped to an internal project status workflow.
The example below demonstrates how custom statuses have been entered for each internal workflow process.
| Sample Rename Project Status | Internal Workflow | Status Description |
|---|---|---|
| In Process | OPEN | The status for open projects. |
| Review Complete | Cycle Complete | EPR automatically changes the project status from Open status to Cycle Complete status when all plan review assignment statuses are marked complete. |
| Accepted | Pass | This internal status is used to indicate the project is successfully completed. For permitting projects, a Pass status would infer that a permit can be issued. |
| Denied | Fail | This internal status is used to indicate the project is completed, but some plan review assignments were not accepted/approved. For permitting projects, a Fail status would infer that a permit cannot be issued. |
| On Hold | On Hold | Use this workflow status to halt plan review temporarily. EPR then restricts editing of the reviewer comments and project data except to allow the project Status to be modified. Document upload/intake is disabled as well. |
| Canceled | Withdrawn | Use this workflow status for projects that will not be completed. EPR restricts editing of the reviewer comments and project data. Document upload/intake is disabled as well. The project is essentially closed. |
When a project is placed On Hold or given a Withdrawn status, intake and plan review functionality is disabled.
Best Practices
For stand alone deployments, email notifications should be configured to alert the appropriate project team members when a project cycle is set to Cycle Complete so that a deliverable package can be prepared.
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