Overview and Background
Fieldwire Submittals streamline the approval process for material and equipment that will need to be installed on-site. Submittals are centralized and accessible to all individuals on the Project.
Note: Currently, this feature is only available to Enterprise level customers.
Table of Contents
- How to Enable PM on a Project
- Submittal Onboarding
- The Submittal Log Page
- The Submittal Workflow
- Quicker Workflow for Submittals
- Submittals on Mobile
How to Enable PM on a Project
For information on companies and how to enable PM on a project, please see this article.
At present for Submittals, there is no distinction between Managers and Contributors. All users in the Submittal assignee’s company can take action on the submittal in its current state. There are 3 groups of users that have different views, actions, and edit permissions depending on the Submittal ‘Status’:
- Assignee company’s users - Any user in the current assignee’s company can take action on the Submittal.
- User’s not in assignee’s company
- Submittal creator company’s users
Submittal Onboarding
If you are a new user on a Project, and you open the Submittals tab for the first time, you will see a pop-up to help get you started in setting up your “Company” on the project. If you are already familiar with Submittals from another Fieldwire project, feel free to click the “X” in the upper right-hand corner of this pop-up and skip this section.
First, you’ll need to click “Get started”.
Next, you’ll be asked to enter your “Company” name. This will be the same name for both RFIs and Submittals on the project. However, it is not automatically filled by the “Company” information you put into your profile settings.
Next, you’ll be asked to enter in your “company code”.
And, that’s it!
The Submittal Log Page
Any individual associated with a Company, as either a Manager or Contributor, can access the ‘Submittals’ tab - here, they are able to access each submittal in the project, independent of the ‘Status’.
The headers in this tab provide a high-level overview on the nature, order, subject, and status of the Submittals across the project. More specifically, these headers are defined below:
- Section: The specification section which is a combination of the specification section number (CSI MasterFormat) and a specification section name.
- #: The 'Company Code' is assigned by the company the submittal is being requested from, added when the submittal moves from Draft to Requested status.
- Name: The title of the submittal, added when the Submittal is created.
- Status: The current state of the submittal, which dictates what actions are available to the users - can be ‘Draft’, ‘Requested’, ‘Pending review’, ‘Pending approval’, ‘Pending close’, ‘Closed’, and ‘Void’.
- Submit by: Added by the user requesting the submittal. It reflects the date the submitter should send the submittal to the user requesting it.
- Approve by: The date the approver should provide a response by.
- Assignee: The current owner of the Submittal’s next actions.
Import Submittal Logs
With the addition of the Specifications tab, users now have the ability to extract Submittal information from Specifications. For more information on extracting Submittal information, please see this article.
Users can bulk import submittals from these Submittal extractions or from using our CSV import template. The CSV template has 4 columns:
- Specification Section: user should input the number associated with the Specification Section number in the Specifications tab. If the number on the CSV cell matches with a Specification Section number in the Specifications tab, then the two will automatically be linked within Fieldwire.
- Name: text field to name the submittal.
- Type: users can fill in a type supported within Fieldwire. If they match, the type will automatically be filled when imported. Below is a list of supported submittal types:
- Shop drawings
- Sample
- Product data
- O&M manual
- Warranty
- Report
- Certificate
- Mockup
- Other
- Description: text field to describe the submittal.
To ensure the import is successful, follow the format of the columns listed above.
When your CSV file is ready for import, click on "+ Import submittals".
Then, you'll have the ability to upload the extracted submittal log .CSV.
The Submittal Workflow
The Activity Feed
Throughout the Submittal workflow process, all users will be able to keep track of the status of the Submittal, when information was requested/submitted as well as who requested/submitted that information.
Watchers
In addition to the “Activity” feed, within the “Watchers” tab you’ll be able to add and remove “Watchers” at each step of the workflow. In order to do so, you’ll need to click on “+Watcher” and enter in the name of the person in your project’s Company. You can also remove that Watcher by clicking the “x” that appears by hovering over their name.
If that user is not currently on that project, you have the ability to invite them. However, please note that if the new user you are inviting is not on your Account, you will be charged an additional fee if you do not have the available license(s) to cover that user.
In addition to adding Watchers in the “Activity” feed, you’ll also be able to add/remove Watchers within certain Submittal status pop-up boxes.
Create a Submittal
Any user that is a part of a “Company” can create a Submittal. To create a Submittal, navigate to the Submittals tab, and select “+ New submittal” or click on “Create a submittal”:
Add a “Name” for the Submittal, choose the “Type”, search for the relevant “Specification” section name or number, and enter the ‘Description’ of the Submittal. Of these, only the “Name” is required in order to create the Draft. Users can still add or edit the “Name”, “Section”, “Type”, and “Details” in a Draft Submittal. The ‘Section’ and ‘Type’ of Submittal is required prior to moving to the “Request” stage.
Note: It is only possible to Delete a submittal while it is in “Draft” status. To do so, click the “Actions” button next to the “Request” button, and you’ll see an option to “Delete”. You’ll then be asked to confirm the deletion of the Submittal. If a Submittal is deleted, you will not be able to retrieve it.
Note: The “Specification” is only linked to the specifications that you have uploaded to the “Specifications” tab. To edit the “Specification”, hover over the linked specification file and click on the gear icon that appears, and click “Remove”.
Request Submission
After completing the ‘Draft’, a blue ‘Send’ dropdown button will be available. By clicking the blue dropdown button, you'll see two options, "Request Submission" and "Submit for Approval". This workflow will be going over the 'Request Submission' option. After selecting ‘Request Submission’, enter the “Company” and “Assignee”, add “Watchers” and the “Submit by” date, and an optional “Message”. In addition, there is a checkbox that you can select/deselect to enable assignee email reminders.
The list of available Companies and Assignees is populated by the Companies (and users within each) organized under the ‘People’ tab.
After satisfying the required fields, select “Request”, to change the status of the Submittal to “Requested” - the Submittal will then be sent to the ‘Assignee’ for review.
An email notification will be sent to the new Assignee directing them to upload their submittal attachment to the submittal:
Submit for Review
After the Assignee receives the Submittal, they are prompted to ‘Submit’ the relevant files for review. To do this, the Assignee will need to upload one or more relevant ‘Attachment(s)’, either from their device, or from the project ‘Files’, and optionally provide ‘Submission notes’.
After the ‘Submission’ Attachments and optional Messages are provided, the ‘Submit’ option becomes available. Once the ‘Assignee’ selects this, they will be prompted to submit the Submittal back to the user who requested it from them. They can also provide an optional message to include in the email notification:
Once the Submittal is sent for review, the new Assignee will receive an email notification, and the Submittal will move to the ‘Pending Review’ status.
Submit on behalf
After the Submittal has been advanced to the “Requested” status, any user in the submittal creator’s company can submit information on behalf of the Assignee.
This allows the creator to take over the document and submit on behalf of the user that was asked to respond. In other words, if the requested submission gets sent via email, and you need to download it, this allows the creator (or any user in the creator’s company) to upload it to Fieldwire so that the Submittal can be moved on to the next step, ‘Pending Review’. When the submittal response is returned, it will be delivered to the original user that it was requested from.
Submit for Approval
When the Submittal adopts the ‘Pending Review’ status, the new Assignee will review and download the attachment included in the original submission. In the ‘Review’ section, the Assignee will need to upload a new copy of the original attachment with any of their comments and can optionally provide a message for context.
After satisfying the ‘Attachment’ section, the Assignee can select ‘Submit’ to send the Submittal to a relevant approver. This does not necessarily need to be the individual that created, or sent, the Submittal for review:
An Email Notification is sent to the Assignee after the status changes.
Provide Response (Pending Approval)
When the Submittal moves into ‘Pending Approval’ the Assignee, or individual associated with the Assignee’s company, will need to respond to the Submittal. To provide a response to the Submittal, the assignee, or an individual at the assignee’s company, will need to choose a response, from the ‘Response’ drop-down menu:
In addition to the response drop-down menu, the Assignee, or individual associated with the Assignee’s company will need to approve or reject the review. To do so, you'll need to click on the blue "Add review" drop-down menu. By clicking on that drop-down menu, you'll see three options: "Review in Fieldwire", "Attach from Files", and "+ Upload new file".
If you select, "Review in Fieldwire", the Assignee, or individual associated with the Assignee’s company will be able to review that submittal's attachment(s). During that review process, they'll be able to add markups, download the attachment, etc. Once they are finished, they'll need to click "Save and attach".
The assignee can then optionally include ‘Notes’, but must include an attachment, in order to ‘Send’ the Submittal, back to the user that submitted it to them or another user in their company.
Independent of the ‘Response’ that is selected, the Submittal will be moved to ‘Pending Close’.
An Email Notification is sent to the Assignee after the status changes.
Accept and Close (Pending Close)
After the Submittal moves to ‘Pending close’, the Assignee will need to ‘Close’ the Submittal, this will move the Submittal into a non-editable state. After selecting ‘Close’ the Assignee has the option to send an optional email message to the original creator and any additional Watchers they want to include on the “Distribution list”:
An Email Notification is sent to the Assignee after the status changes.
Request Resubmission (Requested)
However, if the Assignee does not want to close the Submittal, but instead wants modifications made to the Submittal, they can choose to “Create revision”.
After clicking on “Create revision”, the Assignee will see a pop-up asking them to fill in the “Assignee” “Watchers” and “Submit by” fields. (The “Company” field will be greyed out and cannot be changed).
Creating this revision will move the Submittal back into the “Requested” status, and this will be reflected in the Activity feed.
Closed
After the Submittal is closed, an email notification will be sent to the Submitter to view the response and download the attachment. No further action is required.
Quicker Workflow for Submittals
Draft (Create a Submittal)
Any user that is part of a “Company” can create a Submittal. To create a Submittal, navigate to the Submittals tab, and select “+ New submittal” or click on “Create a submittal”:
Add a “Name” for the Submittal, choose the “Type”, search for the relevant “Specification” section name or number, and enter the ‘Description’ of the Submittal. Of these, only the “Name” is required in order to create the Draft. Users can still add or edit the “Name”, “Section”, “Type”, and “Details” in a Draft Submittal. The ‘Section’ and ‘Type’ of Submittal is required prior to moving to the next stage.
Submit for Approval
Once the Submittal has been created and is in Draft status, you can speed up the Submittal process by submitting it for approval. This skips the "Requested" and "Pending review" steps. To do so, you need to click on the blue "Add submission" dropdown button and either attach an existing file on the project or upload a new file from your computer.
Once you have attached or uploaded a file, you need to click on the blue "Send" dropdown button and select "Submit for approval".
After clicking "Submit for approval", enter the “Company” and “Assignee”, add “Watchers” and the “Approve by” date, and an optional “Message”. In addition, there is a checkbox that you can select/deselect to enable assignee email reminders. Once you click "Submit", notice that the status of the Submittal is now "Pending approval".
At this point, the Submittal will follow the same workflow as the "Provide Response (Pending Approval)" section above.
Submittals on Mobile
Although most functionality with Submittals is currently limited to the web version of Fieldwire, they can still be viewed on Android and iOS devices.
Android
Open the "Submittals" tab to view any submittals that have been created on the web.
Most items within the submittal will be greyed out, but the "see all history" link is clickable on mobile.
iOS
Open the "Submittals" tab to view any submittals that have been created on the web.
Most items within the submittal will not be clickable, but the "show all history" link is viewable on mobile.