Evidence & Claim Documentation: Workflows in PlanRadar

Overview

This article walks through the evidence process from Evidence & Claim Documentation: Overview in the order it happens: set up once in the office, record an event on site, assess and notify, freeze the record, and retrieve the evidence when the claim is prepared.

The example is the general contractor building a school extension, with a 14-day notice period, one Evidence form, one plan per floor plus a site plan, and a weekly SiteView run. The steps assume you know how the individual features work. Each step links to the feature article.

Access & Permissions

Set Up the Record (Office, Webapp)

Create the List

• Claim category: Late information, Access, Instruction, Damage by others, Unforeseen conditions, Weather, Other.

Create the Form

Create a form named Evidence. Keep attachments, comments and plan position enabled. Enable Locking, and Signatures if the other party's staff will sign on site. Enable the numbering sequence with the prefix EV, so that each event has a number to quote in the notice.

General photos of the event go into the ticket's general attachments. Read more in Create & Edit Forms, Field Types and Edit Form Settings.

Roles and Users

• Site manager and foremen: in-house users with a role that has tickets Create, View all tickets, Edit all tickets that the user can view.
• Project manager and commercial manager: as site manager. The commercial manager also needs access to the Documents folders for notices.
• Keep the Account user permission, which allows unlocking, with as few people as possible.

Upload the Plans

Upload one plan per floor and a site plan that shows access routes, the compound and the neighbouring properties.

To upload plans in the webapp:

1. Click Plans in the main menu.
2. Select the folder the plans should go into.
3. Click Add new item.
4. Click Upload plans.
5. Select the files on your computer. Plans can be PDF, JPG or PNG files. A PDF with several pages becomes one plan per page.
6. Click Upload.

Read more in Upload Plans in the Webapp.

Set Up the Project

• Add the Evidence form to the project. Read more in Manage Forms of a Project.
• In Documents, create a folder "Notices and correspondence" with one sub-folder per claim category. Enable access control so that only the project team can see it. Read more in Add & Manage Files/Folders and File/Folder Access Control.
• Add the Evidence form to the favourites on the mobile app, so that recording an event is one tap away. Read more in Manage Favourite Forms for the Quick Access Menu.
• On every site manager's phone, allow GPS positions for photos. Read more in Application Settings in the Mobile App.

Record an Event (Site, Mobile App)

On the day it happens, before leaving site, in the mobile app.

1. Tap the position of the event on the plan, for example the site entrance on the site plan, and choose the Evidence form. The ticket gets its number, for example EV-7.
2. Tap the Camera icon and take a wide photo that shows where.
3. Take a close photo that shows what, and tap the upload icon to attach the photos to the ticket. Read more in Add Attachments to Tickets > Take a Single Photo.
4. For damage, scroll to Photos after, tap + Add attachment and add the photos there instead. Add any earlier photo of the same spot to Photos before. Read more in Add Attachments to Tickets.
5. Fill in the fields:
   Title: "Access road closed by school, deliveries turned away".
   Claim category: Access.
   Event date: today.
   Assignee: the project manager.
   Due date: today plus 14 days.
   Description: "Access road closed by the school from 07:30 for exams. Concrete delivery for slab level 2 turned away at 08:10. School caretaker said closure is planned for all of next week."
   Effect: "Slab pour level 2 postponed. Concrete gang of 6 idle from 08:00. Formwork crew moved to stair core."
   Dictate the description and effect if that is quicker. Read more in Fill Ticket Fields with Voice.
6. Save. The project manager is notified by email and push notification.

If the event continues over several days, open the same ticket each day, add the day's photos and write a comment with what happened that day. Do not create a new ticket for each day. Read more in Comment a Ticket.

Without signal, keep recording. The app stores the ticket and photos and syncs when it is back online. Read more in Working Offline.

Damage by Others

Where another contractor damages your work and their site staff agree the facts on site:

1. Record the event as above, with Claim category Damage by others.
2. Let their representative check the photos and the description on your phone.
3. Tap + Add signature and activate the Sign as someone else toggle.
4. Enter their name, let them draw their signature and tap Sign.
5. Tap + Add signature again, draw your own signature and tap Sign.
6. Tap the arrow button to close and save the ticket. It is now locked with both signatures.

Read more in Sign a Ticket.

Assess and Notify (Project Manager, Webapp)

Every week, and always before the notice deadline.

1. Filter for Evidence tickets with status Open and save the filter as "Evidence to assess". Read more in Filter Tickets.
2. In the list view, sort the tickets by Due date.
3. For each ticket, set the status to In Progress and decide whether a notice is needed.
4. If yes, write the notice in the form your contract prescribes, quoting the ticket number, for example "EV-7", and send it.
5. Store the notice in Documents under the claim category, and attach it to the ticket from Documents. Read more in Attach Documents to Tickets via Document Management in the Webapp.
6. Fill in Notice sent on and set the status to Resolved.
7. If no notice is needed, write a comment with the reason and set the status to Closed.

Due date reminders reach the assignee before the deadline, according to their notification settings. Filter for Due in 3 days to see which notices are about to expire. Read more in Configure E-Mail Notifications.

Freeze the Record

Once the notice is sent, lock the ticket so that its fields and attachments can no longer be changed.

1. Open the ticket.
2. Open the More menu, then click Lock ticket.

To find the tickets that still have to be locked, filter for Resolved Evidence tickets with the Is locked filter criterion set to No. Read more in Lock a Ticket.

After locking, add later developments as comments. The other party's reply, a revised effect, the outcome of a meeting: each one is a dated comment on the ticket, next to the original record. Status, assignee, receivers, progress and comments stay editable on a locked ticket.

The journal shows every change to the ticket with user and time, including when it was locked. Read more in Track Activity on a Ticket in the Journal.

See Who Changed a Ticket and When

The ticket journal lists every change to the ticket, every comment and every attachment added or removed, each with the user and the time.

The journal is not available in the mobile app while offline. Read more in Track Activity on a Ticket in the Journal.

Retrieve the Evidence for a Claim (Office, Webapp)

When the extension of time claim is prepared at the end of the project:

1. Filter for Evidence tickets with Claim category Access and Late information, created in the claim period. Read more in Filter Tickets.
2. Create a ticket report as PDF of these tickets, with all photos, the description, the effect, the comments, the signatures and the journal. In a basic ticket report template, add Description, Effect, Photos before and Photos after as attributes, select Show signatures, and set Journal to Include activity log and comments. Read more in Create a Ticket Report (PDF) and Create Basic Ticket Report Templates.
3. Export the same tickets to Excel for the programme analysis. Read more in Export Tickets to Excel in the Webapp.
4. For each event, open SiteView, select the plan and the run of that week, and capture the state of the area. Read more in View & Manage Runs.
5. Pull the site reports of the same days for weather, workforce and hours lost. Read more in Site Reports: Workflows in PlanRadar.
6. Collect the notices from the Documents folders.

To find all photos added in a given week across every ticket of the project, use the ticket attachments view in Documents and filter by Created on. Read more in View & Filter Attachments of All Tickets in the Webapp.

If your lawyer or claims consultant needs everything, export the whole project as a ZIP file, with all tickets in Excel, the photos, the plans with the ticket positions, all project reports and, optionally, all documents. Read more in Export a Project in the Webapp.