SpaceDox Electronic Plan Review
The SpaceDox electronic plan review process is patterned to closely emulate best practices, existing work flow patterns and business procedures of a typical building department.
Although building and review departments from different municipalities and agences will have differences in their work flow processes, we hope you can relate to the example below of how one of our valued customers has mapped out their existing work flow process into SpaceDox:
This municipality used to have a paper review system which would start with a pre-construction meeting, and continue with six sets of plans submitted to an intake person, who would distribute them to reviewers. The reviewers would comment on the plan sets, and the intake person would collate those comments into one letter, and send it back with a marked-up set of plans to applicant. This process used to repeat until the plan was in an accepted form, at which point the municipality would place its seal on the paper drawing, which was to be used on-site.
By using SpaceDox to manage the flow of electronically submitted drawings, the municipality mapped out the following process:
Step 1
The building applicant uploads his drawings onto the web upload engine created by SpaceDox, for the city. Instead of paying for printing multiple sets of paper, the applicant pays a per-page upload fee that is calculated to be less than the cost of paper.
Step 2
The intake person is notified over email that a new plan submission has arrived.
Step 3
Using the SpaceDox interface, the intake person distributes the drawings to the appropriate plan reviewers.
Step 4
The plan reviewers review the submission, and make their comments on a layer over the drawings. Each reviewer can share his or her layer with other reviewers, and they can combine layers if they so choose.
Step 5
Once the review is complete, the plan reviewers notify the intake person.
Step 6
The intake person combines all the layers of each plan reviewer onto one drawing, using a simple function in the SpaceDox interface.
Step 7
The intake person sends back the reviewed drawing with comments on it to the building applicant.
Step 8
The applicant makes his or her changes and resubmits. There is no re-submittal fee with SpaceDox.
Step 9
Once a plan set is accepted by the musicality or agency and ready for permitting, an electronic stamp may be placed on the drawing, or a paper copy may be printed for use on-site.
As you can see, the municipality was able to replicate their legacy process with SpaceDox. They are still using paper at the very end of the electronic plan review. The point here is to minimize paper in areas of plan review where it yields the highest returns on productivity.
At SpaceDox, we believe that electronic plan review is part of the natural progression in the evolution of building departments. It's going to happen, and SpaceDox is committed to being there when you are ready for it.
Please contact us if you have any questions. You may use the links in the upper right column of this website to schedule a Q&A call, to book a demo, or to even start a trial e-review.
We look forward to hearing from you.
