A reply buried in a reply
The architect writes approved with comments somewhere in a long thread. Three weeks later nobody can say which revision that reply was about, or whether the contractor ever saw the comments.
Document approval
Construction document approval workflow, from draft to approved
A document is approved when someone with the right to say so has decided, and the project can see who and when. This page follows the path in Fidrel from a working draft to Approved or Rejected: the review with its deadline, the outcome it is closed with, and the status the document ends up in.
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Where approvals lose their trail
A status that means different things
One person marks a sheet approved when the first reviewer is happy, another waits for all of them. Without a rule, the label on a drawing no longer says whether the project can build from it.
Deadlines that only the sender knows
A review goes out with a date in the email and nowhere else. When the date passes, the sender chases by hand, and the participants who were already late are never shown as late.
The status path
A document moves through Working, Shared, For review, Reviewed, Approved or Rejected, then Issued for construction, Record (as-built) and Archived. A document’s status is the status of its current revision. Only a project administrator or a member who is a document controller can set Approved, Issued for construction or Record (as-built).
Reviews, RFIs & issues
One review, with a deadline and a decision record
A review gathers the files and the participants in one package, shows Time remaining and Overdue against the deadline, and counts how many of the participants have approved. When every reviewer has approved, Fidrel tells the person who started the review to close it when ready, and the closing is what writes the outcome to the document. If the closer may not approve documents and not every reviewer has approved, the outcome is recorded but the status is not written.
From working draft to approved in Fidrel
Step 1
Share the draft for review
Move the document through its early statuses, Working and Shared, then start a review on that document or on a whole folder, choose the participants and set a deadline for the responses.
Step 2
Collect decisions
Each participant approves the document or requests changes, with comments in the same thread as the markups. Participants receive a notification and an email when the review starts and when someone comments.
Step 3
Close the review with an outcome
When the deadline has passed or everyone has answered, the person who started the review chooses Close with an outcome: Approved, Approved with comments or Not approved. A reason is required for Not approved.
Step 4
Write the status
With Write the outcome to the revisions’ status ticked, the reviewed revisions become Approved or Rejected, and the review shows who closed it and when.
Where markups fit
Markups, goals and the review report belong to the review itself and are covered by the design review page. This page is about the decision, not the drawing tools: what ends a review, who may write the status, and where the record of it is kept.
What the workflow does not do
A participant’s approval does not change a document’s status by itself; the person who started the review closes it with an outcome. There are no sequential routing steps: every participant in a review can decide at the same time, and no step releases the next. Fidrel has no e-signature, so an approval is a recorded decision with a name and a date, not a signed one.
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Document approval
Frequently asked questions
Anything else on your mind? We are happy to help.
Talk to usNot by itself. Fidrel tells the person who started the review that every reviewer has approved. Closing the review with an outcome is what writes the status, and it takes someone who may approve documents or every other reviewer’s approval.
A project administrator or a member who is a document controller. Other members see the approved statuses disabled and a note saying it takes an administrator or a document controller.
Approved with comments gives the revisions the status Approved and carries the comments to the next revision. Not approved needs a reason and gives the revisions the status Rejected.
Yes. The review shows each participant’s decision, the closing records who closed it and the outcome, and the document’s status history lists every status with its date and name.
No. All participants of a review can answer at the same time. If your process needs a fixed order, run two reviews one after the other and close the first before you start the second.
The deadline can be changed, and participants get a notice that the review deadline changed. A review past its deadline shows as Overdue.