The submittals workflow in PlanGrid - PlanGrid Tutorial

- Let's begin by reviewing the basic submittal workflow. So the workflow for submittals, that is, the path that a submittal takes as it gets created and goes in for approval and then published, that workflow is basically the same whether you're using a paper process, tracking it on a spreadsheet or using PlanGrid. So to start out, let's talk about that workflow and make sure we're all on the same page with regards to the steps that are included in that workflow. So step one really is that somebody has to go through the plans and the project specifications and determine which items on this construction project require a submittal package to be turned in and reviewed by the design team for approval. So that step one is you have to hunt through the project documentation and find out, again, which items, finishes, materials, carpeting, windows, those kinds of things, which one of them requires a submittal before being delivered to the project. So I'm going to say that in PlanGrid, the person that finds these items and creates each one of these items in PlanGrid submittals is called the submittal manager. And that's step one. Step two is each one of those items has to be assigned to somebody. You might assign that to a vendor, a materials supplier, or a trade contractor, one of your subcontractors. And I'm going to say that the person that you assign each individual item to, we're going to call them the submitter, okay? Once the submitter has that assignment in their hands, they have to assemble the package and in PlanGrid, the package is assembled when the submitter creates the documentation and then uploads it into PlanGrid. Once they're done doing that, they then move it forward back to the submittal manager who reviews it and sends it on to the person that I'm going to call the reviewer, probably somebody on the design team, the architect, or one of the engineers on the project that's responsible for reviewing all that documentation to make sure that it meets their design intent. Now the reviewer can either send that package back as rejected, they can send it back with questions, or hopefully, eventually, they'll approve it. When the reviewer approves a submittal package, it goes back to the submittal manager who then looks that package over, makes sure that it meets all the requirements and then moves it to the final step, which is publishing that submittal package for everybody on the project team to see. So that's the basic submittal workflow and again, that submittal workflow is about the same whether you're using a paper process or you're using PlanGrid to make that process more efficient. So now that you understand that basic workflow, let's go ahead and dive into each one of those steps in detail so you can learn how to use PlanGrid submittals to be more efficient.