Managing Plan Review Cycles
The plan coordinator manages the plan review cycle, which is a series of plan reviews for a permit or planning application completed by multiple reviewers.
You manage review cycles on the Plan Reviews page in the permit or planning application details. This topic discusses these review cycle tasks:
Add plan review cycles.
Add plan review due dates.
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Finalize or cancel plan review cycles.
View the different plan review cycles.
Record time for plan reviews.
Access conditions of approvals for planning applications.
Your agency can conduct reviews that contain both manual cycles and electronic cycles using Bluebeam Studio™. For information about starting a Bluebeam Studio™ Session during a review cycle, see Working with Electronic Plan Reviews.
To access the Plan Reviews page for a transaction:
Select the Plan Reviews tile on the Agency Springboard.
Select a plan review row on the All Reviews, Open Reviews, or Unassigned Reviews tabs.
In the navigation panel of the permit or planning application details, select or .
Adding Plan Review Cycles
The first cycle of a plan review is automatically created when a permit technician or assigned planner moves the transaction into Plan Review status. If you manually create a plan review cycle before the Plan Review status, the system won't automatically create the cycle. You add subsequent cycles until the plan review is complete.
Review cycles can be added and updated in application statuses in addition to Plan Review as long as the permit or planning application isn't in a presubmittal or terminal status. For more information, see Plan Review Overview.
On the Plan Reviews page, click the Add Review Cycle button to add a new plan review cycle.
This button is available only when all other plan review cycles for the transaction are complete or canceled.
On the Add Plan Review page, edit or enter the review cycle name.
If Enable Default of Plan Review Name is turned on for the agency, the default review cycle name is the name of the previous cycle. Otherwise, there is no default name. You can update the cycle name at any time on the Plan Review page.
Select Copy reviewers from most recent cycle if you want to copy the reviewers from the previous cycle, whether the previous cycle was manual or electronic.
If your agency integrates with Bluebeam Studio™, you have two additional options:
Click Copy Documents to copy documents from the previous cycle if the cycle was electronic.
Click Create Studio Session to start a Bluebeam Studio™ Session, which makes the new cycle electronic.
You can also start a Studio Session later, while the review cycle is in progress. For more information about working with an electronic plan review cycle, see Working with Electronic Plan Reviews.
Click the Add button.
Depending on your agency's plan review setup, plan review cycle and reviewer department due dates may be generated. Due dates may be automatically generated when a plan review is manually added or a first plan review cycle is automatically created.
The cycle must be canceled or completed before you can add another new plan review cycle. That is, you can have only one active plan review cycle at a time. The number of review cycles is shown in the Plan Reviews page header details, and you can switch between multiple cycles to view reviewer and decision details.
Automatically Adding Plan Review Due Dates
Agencies can configure the plan review system to automatically calculate cycle and plan reviewer department due dates for a permit or planning application type. The due dates are populated on the Plan Reviews page in the application details and on the Plan Reviews console page when a plan review is created. The generated due dates can also be manually updated.
An Overdue icon appears next to due dates that are past due:
A Reviewer Due Date After Cycle Due Date clock icon appears
for reviewer due dates that have been configured to be after the cycle due date:
Due dates are calculated using time rules and time policies set up by your agency. Time rules can be leveraged to define the maximum review time for first or subsequent reviews as well as due dates based on plan reviewer department turnaround times. You associate the time rules with the permit type or planning application type so that different application types can have different due dates. For more information about using time rules to calculate due dates, see Setting Up Plan Review Due Dates.
If there are no time rules but the agency has turned on the Enable Cascading Cycle Due Date switch for permit or planning application plan reviews, then the system uses the cycle due date that you enter to fill in for the reviewer due dates that are blank.
For more information on agency-level plan review options for permits and planning applications, including cascading cycle due dates, see Setting Up Agency-Level Options for Permits and Setting Up Agency-Level Options for Planning Applications.
Manually Adding Plan Review Due Dates
If you want to manually add a due date for a plan review cycle, click Edit next to the Due Date field and select a due date.
If the Enable Cascading Cycle Due Date switch is turned on for the agency, then the system uses the cycle due date that you enter to fill in any reviewer due dates that are blank. However, if there are time rules defined for the application type to automatically add plan review due dates, the time rules are used to calculate the plan review due dates instead. If there are no time rules, then the cascading due date applies.
You can set up the system to send communications when cycle or reviewer due dates are approaching. For more information, see Setting Up Notifications for Plan Review Due Dates.
Finalizing or Canceling Plan Review Cycles
On the Plan Reviews page of an electronic plan review cycle, click the Finalize Review Cycle button when all of the review decisions have been provided and the cycle is still active. At this point, the electronic plan review cycle status is Complete. After you finalize the cycle, marked up documents copied back from the Bluebeam Studio™ Session can't be edited. For more information, see Working with Electronic Plan Reviews and Managing Plan Review Documents.
Click the Cancel Review Cycle button to cancel a manual or electronic plan review cycle that is active. This button is available when a manual plan review cycle has a status of In Progress or until an electronic plan review has been finalized.
Your agency may require comments for review cycle cancellations.
Canceling a cycle sets the review cycle status to Canceled. After canceling, the cycle and review details are read-only. All active tasks associated with the plan review are canceled when the plan review cycle is canceled.
Viewing the Different Plan Review Cycles
You can switch between plan review cycles to view details for each cycle, including the Reviewers and Documents grids.
Click the Switch Cycle link in the plan review header details.
This link is available only when there are two or more plan review cycles.
On the Switch Cycle page, click the Select button for the cycle you would like to view.
The refreshed page shows the cycle header details and reviewers for the selected cycle.
Recording Time for Plan Reviews
Agency staff can use the Record Time section to record the time they spend on their plan reviews. For more information, see Adding Time Entries.
Accessing Conditions of Approval for Planning Applications
Click the Conditions of Approval link on the Plan Reviews page to access the Conditions of Approval page for the planning application. This link is available only for planning applications. For more information on conditions of approval, see Working with Conditions of Approval.