For this documentation, we will focus on performing standard plan reviews, however, the process would be the same regardless of what the Plan Review step is being utilized for.
Table of Contents
Overview
Once a Review step is added to a case (either manually or automatically) a new process step object will be displayed on the Process Steps tab.
Review steps allow for one or more departments to review a submitted plan and note any issues or concerns relating to their department. If issues are found, a “Comment Letter” can be generated and sent to the citizen to let them know what problems were found so they can amend the plan as needed. Review steps allow for an unlimited number of “rounds” of review to track each time the plans are submitted and the outcome of each review. Additionally, any issues identified in a round are brought forward to the next round to make it easy for the reviewer to identify previous issues and make sure they have been resolved.
Setting up Review
This section reviews the initial steps that are needed in order to setup the Review object and release it to the appropriate departments for their review.
Reviewers can be added or removed at any time. However, once a department begins a review, that department can no longer be removed from the Review unless the departments review is reset. (See Review Worksheet section for details on resetting a review)
Managing Reviewers
The first element of a Review step are the “Reviewers” that should review this case. Depending on your configuration, the step will be added with the default configured review departments.
To change or add reviewers on the Review step, click on the “Assign Reviewers” button as highlighted above.
After clicking this button, you will be presented with a list of all possible departments that can be assigned to this Review step.
Assigning Reviewers
On this screen, you are able to indicate which departments should review this case as well as assign specific users (if available), when the individual department review should be completed and control the order of the reviews as well as if a department has “Veto” (this will be explained further below).
To assign a department, simply click on the checkbox in the “Assign” column for all departments that should review this case. By default, the “Reviewer” dropdown will show “Department”, which means that any user in the assigned department can accept this review. If configured, this dropdown will also allow for the selection of individual users to assign this Review step to.
The “Due Days” column specifies the number of days from when the review is released that each department is expected to complete the review. By default, this value is typically “0” which means there is no specific due date for the review group.
The “Order” column allows for the managing of the order in which this review must be completed. Typically, the order of all departments is set to “1”, which means that any department can review this item in any order. If you had a situation that one department should review this case before another one, you would simply adjust the order to indicate which department must review first.
For example: If Planning must review a case before any other department, the “Planning and Zoning” department would be set to an order of “1” and all other selected departments would be set to an order of “2”. This would prevent any other department from starting their review until the “Planning and Zoning” review has been completed.
By default, when a department completes their review, regardless of if they approve or deny their review, the remaining departments will still be able to complete their review. In situation where one department should be the primary reviewer (such as the example above where “Planning and Zoning” is set to be the first reviewer), you may want the review to stop completely if a department find issues in their review. This is done by clicking the “Veto” checkbox for the intended department. When this option is selected, if any of the departments that are set with the “Veto” option deny the review, the remaining reviews for any other department will be canceled.
The other departments will still have an opportunity to review the step in subsequent review rounds which will be detailed further below.
Releasing Reviews
After assigning the appropriate departments, the Review step is ready to be released for review.
To release the review, simply click on the “Release Submission” button highlighted below.
After clicking this button, the review will be open for users to accept and begin the Review.
After clicking the “Release Submission” button, if any notifications are configured to be sent, they will be sent at this time.
Performing Reviews
This section details the process in which reviewers will accept a Review step, add any issues, and complete their department review.
When a Review is available for a department, the Process Step will display a “Start Review” button for each department that was configured to do this review as highlighted in red below.
In this example, the Planning and Zoning department has already begun their review, while the other departments are still waiting for them to complete it.
Once ready to begin a review for the department, the user will click on the “Start Review” button. This will log that the review has begun for this department and open the review for comments and ruling.
By default, any user with access to the plan review object is able to start any of the available reviews.
If preferred, the reviews can be limited to only users that can be assigned to the review, to prevent other users from starting a review they are not a part of.
If you would like this changed or require more details, just reach out to your friendly MAGNET Support representative.
(Added in v6.4.1)
After starting the review, the user would perform whatever departmental duties are required as part of their review (Reviewing plans, case details, etc.).
Review Worksheet
When ready to assign comments or rulings to the review, the user simply clicks on their department’s review to open the review worksheet screen.
The Review Worksheet screen allows for the managing of “issues” for a department as well as completing the review and issuing a ruling.
Worksheet Overview
The Worksheet screen features three tabs, a “Create Issue”, “Issue Ruling” and “Reset Review” buttons.
Tabs
Open Issues
This tab lists out any issues that were added in a previous review round that still need to be resolved.
This tab will always have “0” issues on the first round
New Issues
This tab shows any issues that have been added in the current round of review
Resolved Issues
This tab shows any issued that were added in a previous round and marked as resolved.
Buttons
Create Issue
This button allows for the entering of any new issues for this department review.
Issue Ruling
This button allows for the completion of the departments review and the issuing of the departments ruling.
Reset Review
This button will reset the current rounds review and reset it to be back in it’s initial state prior to the review being started.
Creating Issues
To add issues to a review round, from the worksheet, click the “Create Issue” button as highlighted below:
This will open the issue creation menu, allowing for the entry of the details of the issue that you are adding.
Each issue identified during the review should be added individually. Do not add details for multiple issues in a single issue.
The main text area on the left allows for entry of the exact details of the issue. Additionally, the fields on the right of the text area allow for additional information relating to the issue described:
Document
This field allows for typing in any document that further explains the issue.
Code
This field allows for the selecting of any previously configured codes that further identify the issue being described.
References
This field allows for any further code references to further clarify the issue being added.
After typing in the details of the issue, click on the “Save” button as highlighted above. This will add the issue to the “New Issues” tab as shown below. This should be repeated as needed to add all identified issues.
Completing Department Review
After all identified issues have been added and the user has completed their departmental review, the user can issue their ruling by clicking on the “Issue Ruling” button. This allows for the assigning of the final ruling for this departments review.
After clicking the “Issue Ruling” button, you will see the following screen which allows for the selection of the final reviewing for the current department review.
The available rulings are configurable per client and may differ from the ruling shown above. However, there will always be a ruling to denote “Approved” (Recommend for Issuance) and “Corrections Required” (Recommend Return for Corrections) regardless of the label.
If no issues were identified, the user should select the ruling indicating “Approved”, otherwise if issues are present that would require the citizen to make corrections, the ruling indicating “Corrections Required” should be selected.
After selecting the ruling and clicking “Issue Ruling”, the Review will update to indicate the selected ruling of the department.
This process would be repeated for all other departments required to review this item.
Finalizing Review
After all departments have completed their review, or the reviews are canceled due to a “Veto”, the overall Review can be finalized. This is done by clicking the “Finalize Submission” button on the Plan Review. After doing this, the date of the review completion will be logged, and the review will be closed and ready for final decision.
Completing Review Round
After finalizing the review, the “Comments Letter” can be generated if any issues were identified, or the review can be marked as completed if no issues were identified.
If no issues were identified, once the review is set to complete, the review is done.
Pass/Approve Review
To approve the overall Review, select the option for “Pass” or “Approve”. This will close the review step with no further action required.
Depending on the configuration, the label for the “Approve” option may be different than the images shown in this documentation.
Waive Requirement
In a situation where the workflow requires a Review step, but the case does not merit the need for a Review, the requirement to complete the Review can be waived by selecting the option, if available, labeled “Waive Requirement”. This will close the review step with no further action required.
Depending on the configuration, the label for the “Waive Requirements” option may be different than the images shown in this documentation. Additionally, not all clients allow for a Review to be waived, so this option may not be available.
Fail
If the Review step has been completed and rejected, and for whatever reason the items will not be returned to the citizen for corrections, the review can be failed by selecting the option for “Fail” or “Deny”. This will close the review step with no further action required.
Depending on the configuration, the label for the “Fail” option may be different than the images shown in this documentation.
Pass/Approve Review
To approve the overall Review, select the option for “Pass” or “Approve”. This will close the review step with no further action required.
Depending on configuration, the label for the “Approve” option may be different than the images shown in this documentation.
Waive Requirement
In situation where the workflow requires a Review step, but the case does not merit the need for a Review, the requirement to complete the Review can be waived by selecting the option, if available, labeled “Waive Requirement”. This will close the review step with no further action required.
Depending on configuration, the label for the “Waive Requirements” option may be different than the images shown in this documentation. Additionally, not all clients allow for a Review to be waived, so this option may not be available.
Fail
If the Review step has been completed and rejected, and for whatever reason the items will not be returned to the citizen for corrections, the review can be failed by selecting the option for “Fail” or “Deny”. This will close the review step with no further action required.
Depending on configuration, the label for the “Fail” option may be different than the images shown in this documentation.
Generating Comments Letter
In situations where issues were identified by one or more departments during the review, the next step to complete the review round is to generate the comments letter. This is accomplished by selecting the option “Generate Comments Letter”. This will close the review step and allow for the items to be returned to the citizen and resubmitted for additional review.
After selecting the “Generate Comments Letter” button, you will see a preview of the letter being generated.
Typically, the Comments Letter would have municipal letterhead/logo. This is not shown on the demo letter above.
After reviewing the letter, you can select to either “Generate Template” or “Generate Template & Send Email”.
Generate Template
This will generate a PDF of the letter and attach it to the case. This letter can then be printed or emailed manually as needed.
Generate Template & Send Email
If the contact on the case has a valid email address entered, this option will generate a PDF of the letter, attach it to the case, as well as automatically email a copy of the letter to the select contacts on the left side of the screen.
After making a selection, the system will generate the documents (and email if selected), then provide a report to show the process has been completed.
You can now close this window by clicking on the red X in the lower right-hand corner.
The Review Step will now update and make available the “Return Submission” button.
Returning Submission
Once the Review step is completed and issues are logged, the next step is to return the items to the citizen. This step is logged on the Review step to keep track of the current status. When the items are returned to the citizen, click on the “Return Submission” button as highlighted below:
After clicking the “Return Submission” button, you will be prompted to enter the name of the party who picked up the items.
By default, the Applicant's name will be populated, but can be changed as needed.
After entering the name of the person picking up the items, click “Submit”. This will update the review step to log the date the submission was returned and make the “Receive Submission” button available.
Receiving New Submission
Once the citizen makes the needed corrections and submits the new items for review, you can log the receipt of the new items and start a new round of review by clicking on the “Receive Submission” button highlighted below.
After clicking on “Receive Submission”, you will be prompted to enter the name of the party submitting the new items.
By default, the Applicants name will be populated, but can be changed as needed.
After entering the name of the person submitting the new items, click “Submit”. This will update the review step to log the date the submission was received and start the next round of the Review.
After the review step refreshes, you will notice that all previous ruling and dates appear to no longer show. This is because you have now initiated the submission of a new review round. You can always navigate between all current and previous reviews, using the “Submission” tabs on the bottom of the Review as highlighted below:
The process for any subsequent round is generally identical to the previous round, with the primary differences being the Review Worksheet will already be populated with any open issues from the previous rounds and the Comment Letter will clearly indicate previous issues that have been completed or new items that have been added.
Submission Rounds
Resolving previous rounds issues
After starting the new review for the department and opening the Review Worksheet, any items previously entered on past rounds will show up on the “Open Issues” tab.
After reviewing the open items and determining if the issue has been resolved or not, you can make the needed updates to the open items.
If the item was resolved, simply click on the “Resolve” icon as highlighted below:
If the issue has not been resolved, you can simply leave the issue alone on the Open Issues tab. Additionally, if needed you can also edit the original issue to provide additional details or clarifications by clicking the “Edit” icon as highlighted below:
After resolving any completed open issues and adding any new issues as needed, you can issue a ruling on the review.
After all reviews are complete, if additional or preexisting issues remain, you can once again generate the comments letter and return the items to the citizen.
As you can see in the example above, any new issues added during the round will be Bold and Italicized, while any completed issue will be struck out, finally any pre-existing issues that were not resolved will appear as normal text. This is also clarified on the comments letter itself in the “Comments Legend”.