Throughout The Workflow Series, we have shown you many ways you can use workflows to automate and customise your use of IPM. As we are continually adjusting and changing IPM in our development process, new ways to use workflows are appearing all the time and one such way is the conversion of Site Diary information into official Change Requests.
During the development of IPM, we have added the SD Change Requests section to the Site Diary form, so users can quickly and easily add details of any changes that arise on site to their Site Diary. However, what happens if they then need to create an official Change Request in the Contract Control section, and send it on to relevant stakeholders to be approved? The SD Change Request is merely a record of potential changes, so would this mean users would have to duplicate all the information into the Change Request form? Not likely, and it’s all due to workflows.
To make the best use of the SD Change Request feature, users can create a workflow that will automatically take the information from the SD Change Request and create an official Change Request in the Contract Control section. The workflow can be set to run on demand, or when a new SD Change Request is added, whichever suits the user best. This means there is no duplication of data and your site diary records are an accurate reflection of happenings on site and your Change Requests are ready and waiting in Contract Control for you.
If you want to see how this process can be taken even further, check out another post in the Workflow Series, Converting Change Requests to Change Orders.
Note: for simplicity, I refer only to Change Requests and Change Orders in this post, but please note these are referred to as Variation Requests and Variations in countries outside the USA.