Articles in this section

FastDraft Administrative Features

Tom Levitt
  • Updated
Follow

This article provides answers to frequently asked questions in relation to the FastDraft administration features.

This articles contains the following:

Does FastDraft provide for a system administrator role that allows them to allocate users to contracts and allocating user permissions on a per contract basis and bulk upload new users and bulk assign existing users onto multiple contracts?

FastDraft has a comprehensive set of user Admin tools and Admin roles who can allocate users to contracts and allocating user permissions on a per contract basis and bulk upload new users and bulk assign users onto multiple contracts and a number of areas of added value.

Designated Admin users will be granted admin permission on FastDraft.  A total of 10 system/admin role types are provided by FastDraft as part of its three tier roles and permission controls.  The Admin users can allocate users to contracts as well as companies, projects and hubs or both for all organisations including their entire supply chain.

FastDraft allows designated Admin users to allocate users to multiple contracts as well as allocating the user’s role per contract (and workflow).

FastDraft also supports bulk updates and upload of new and existing users onto multiple contracts via its API or templates or admin tools.

FastDraft also allows access to be controlled individually for a specific workflow.
The workflow/template configurator allows for an admin user to amend the permissions for all workflows or a contract template at a master level and on individual contracts. The admin users have complete flexibility to adjust which users can view, edit, create, notify or reply and approve each workflow in the FastDraft system. Please see the screenshots below:

FastDraft allows Admins to activate and deactivate users in bulk either across projects, contracts, or companies.

Is user access to FastDraft controlled via a role-based or user group profile mechanism so that the access of all users in a role or group can be maintained and modified as requirements evolve?

User access to FastDraft (and its APIs) is controlled via a three-tier role-based security layer so that users in a given role or group can be managed and modified as requirements develop.

FastDraft provides a three-tier hierarchy for roles: with system, contracts and supplementary contract roles. This provides a great deal of flexibility for administration of users and is explained in detail in our FastDraft handbook.

  1. System permissions are the top tier of permissions and determine what areas of FastDraft a user can access and what contracts they can see. They do not grant any permission to a user to do anything on a contract, but a user can be granted view-only role for all contracts, all contracts for a company or all contracts within a hub/area.
  2. Contract Party roles are closely aligned to the form of contract used, so are defined by the contract terms e.g. NEC3/NEC4. They are used to drive the permissions at a contract level or workflow level. Because a user can be assigned to multiple contracts, their role on each contract can be different.
  3. Supplementary contract roles – This third tier of roles, like the second tier, are closely aligned to the forms of contract used. They are used to drive the permissions at a contract or workflow level, but they provide extra flexibility for partial contractual delegations, to facilitate collaborators, and departmental or admin roles and business needs, such as seniority of staff, financial delegation, holiday leave, sick leave and joint ventures.

Our workflow editor controls the logic for who can access, view, edit and communicate or accept information for each workflow and contract. This can be configured by workflow, company entity, department, programme, site, project or contract simply by creating separate templates for each of those entities.

FastDraft supports Administrator and Standard user roles. FastDraft has several different levels of administrators and only the highest level role can complete high risk tasks such as amend financial thresholds or delete attachments when a security breach has occurred.

Administrators can assign users to roles/profiles for all tiers below their own permission tier and customise individual access to contracts and workflows on specific contracts.

Does FastDraft support standard roles required for the effective operation of the NEC contract families, as well as flexibly configured roles to support the management of other contracts on the system.

FastDraft supports the standard contract roles in the NEC3/4 family of contracts such as for an NEC3/NEC4 ECC contract the PM, Contractor and Supervisor, or for an NEC3/NEC4 TSC the Service Manager, or for an NEC3/NEC4 PSC the Consultant, and for an NEC3/NEC4 ECS the Subcontractor, as well as standard roles under other standard forms of contract, JCT, IChemE and FIDIC, such as Contract Administrator and Engineer. We also support custom role names for bespoke forms of contracts.

FastDraft also provides a further layer of granularity to support internal roles like Quantity Surveyor or Admin Support roles. The screenshot below shows a workflow which includes both NEC Contractor role and internal Cost Manager role.

FastDraft supports escalating draft notices for review to key internal people so it is flagged and notified for their attention.

All registers support filtering and searching to allow users to quickly find the information relevant to them.

Contract notices can also be sent into third party systems like Microsoft Teams channels or simply to an email address which is not a registered user i.e. a distribution list to shared inboxes. The screenshot below shows contract notices being escalated to a MS Teams channel.

Does FastDraft allow system administrators to audit every transaction conducted by any user, and report on activity on a user-by-user basis?

FastDraft logs all user activity individually with time and date stamps in our database, so user transactions can be audited by administrators and reports on user activity can be generated. Our contract registers display all key activity with date stamps, username and IDs and status of communications or transactions on each contract notice.

Additionally, admins can also run admin reports across all contracts using our aggregated reporting engine which date stamp all transactions and shows user IDs. Our system security logs provide additional granularity on FastDraft such as IP addresses, etc.

Does FastDraft allow system admins to create, modify and delete templates and process workflows as required so that a tailored set of templates is available?

FastDraft allows administrators to create, copy, edit and delete master templates and workflows as required, so that a tailored set of templates and workflows are available to your organisation. Our preconfigured templates are also provided for the NEC suite and offer a solid foundation to create supplier specific and other tailored templates.

Once a specific contract is created using a master template, it can still be edited if required. These changes can be pushed to multiple contracts if required as a “child” of the “parent” master templates (or not).

FastDraft’s inbuilt workflow editor that allows Admin Users to make amendments to workflows such as changing party names, workflow names, workflow IDs, menu navigation names, timescales, dropdown clauses, workflow rules, the form content and permissions on a workflow-by-workflow basis.

Does FastDraft have designated mandatory fields or check questions / prompts during contract set-up and when managing contracts to ensure accurate input.

FastDraft has designated mandatory fields and in built validation such as, where appropriate, user dropdown menus, check questions, prompts and warning banners during contract set-up to ensure accurate input. This is illustrated in the screenshots below. When custom fields are added to FastDraft set up forms, these fields can also be configured with data validation for accurate data input, including whether fields are mandatory or not, any character limits, etc.

 

This event workflow also mandates the user to complete fields on the form and provide a warning if not completed (see screenshot):

  • Subject
  • Description
  • Relevant risk types under early warning clauses
  • Date you became aware of the issue
  • Whether an early warning meeting is required
  • Risk assessment

Does FastDraft support flexibility by offering customisable fields in contract set-up in order to facilitate the filtering of data for reporting? The fields should include contract type and contract option.

FastDraft supports core fields on contract set up forms, including contract type, contract options and several other ways of categorising contracts such as areas, lots, frameworks and hubs. This can be further expanded using our custom fields function, which allows additional custom fields to be added to the contract set up form.

We provide a multi-tiered tagging engine that allows multiple classes of tags to be applied to contracts or other classes of data in FastDraft. The screenshot below shows the core contract type field and filter functionality using framework categories through our tagging engine.

Both our tagging engine and custom fields function support displaying these classifications in reports and registers so that administrators and end users can filter reports based on these groups. This data is also available via our API if needed in reporting.

Does FastDraft provide a ‘noticeboard’ facility to alert all users to, for example, maintenance times or practice reminders etc. set by admins?

Yes, FastDraft supports in-app notifications function and a notifications centre which serves as a notice board and facilitates:

  • Alerting users to planned maintenance 
  • Delivering non-urgent announcements such as product update webinars and refresher training
  • Users to relaunch previously viewed product walk throughs, guidance and embedded learning
  • Providing on-demand access to relevant tours and guides
  • Targeting content based on user behaviours and attributes e.g. supply chain or customer specific notices
  • Alerting users when new features are released

Does FastDraft support bulk export and import of data by superusers, administered through a visually accessible and clean-designed interface? This should include the bulk upload of multiple documents relating to a contract (rather than loading them one at a time).

We support the bulk import and export via the UI as well as our API. Each workflow has a register of all of the notices within the workflow, which can be exported by selecting the export icon, which will trigger the user’s browser to automatically download a CSV file. This functionality works for the contract register, admin registers and our aggregated reporting engine, where you wish to download all notices across multiple contracts or organisations. There are approximately 35 workflow registers, 25 aggregated reports and 10 admin reports.

FastDraft also provides a document storage function and allows documents to be attached to individual notices. This module also allows bulk upload.

FastDraft has an open API, so all data and attachments can be automatically exported or imported, or transferred to other systems. The screenshot below is an extract of our API documentation for document attachments. Full API documentation and support articles are available on request.

Lastly, we also provide an archive function that allows bulk export of all contract notices and registers associated with a contract to be downloaded in a zip file.

We use Accessibe.com software to ensure our UI is visually accessible with WCAG AAA compliance, and our user-experience (UX) manual defines how we maintain our clean-designed interface with, for example, guidance on when to use a green (action) button, red (destructive) action button or grey (secondary) action button.

Does FastDraft support flexible management of reminders such as general communications, allow for reminders to be deleted in bulk by the user when no response is required, flag communications as ‘no reply required’ to avoid the build-up of unresolved communications?

FastDraft supports the flexible management of reminders across all workflows where:

  • Communications can be flagged with no reply via a configurable dropdown for quick actioning
  • Bulk actions/replies/risk mitigations are supported
  • Configurable email reminders by person and workflow pinpoint issues
  • A RAG reminder panel points to outstanding actions by party
  • Configurable workflow replies are turned off by default for users where no reply is required from the start, so users won’t be required to reply unnecessarily

Does FastDraft support assigning appropriate codes to contracts for values for analysis. The system should be capable of multiple codes being assigned?

FastDraft provide a custom fields function, which allows them to be added to contract profiles. We propose UNSPSC, SIC and CPV codes are supported through either a single multiple select field or three custom fields for each code. Our custom fields function also supports control of the logic of these fields, such as whether they are mandatory, and support multi-tiered classification for any other business specific codes that might be needed. FastDraft also allows the code classifications to be displayed in registers and reports in the UI and through our API for reporting purposes.

Custom fields are displayed at the bottom of the form or profile page and then visible in registers.

Does FastDraft support contractors or suppliers managing their own data and profiles through designated admin users who have been assigned the appropriate access?

Yes, FastDraft provides a “Supplier Admin” role to allow suppliers or contractors to manage their own data and profiles through designated users who have been assigned the appropriate access. All supplier or contractor profile data is available via our “Company Details” API so changes will be synchronised via our API with other 3rd party systems like tendering and supply chain management systems. FastDraft will allow lead users within the contractor organisations to add, configure and update their internal team roles on their contracts.

Does FastDraft support adding custom fields or customising the data captured in core fields on the system to cater for organisational specific fields?

FastDraft provides custom fields functionality which will allow all organisational specific custom fields to be added to all forms, including contract notices, people records, contract records, company records and project records. These custom fields compliment the core fields which are supported as standard.

Our custom fields functionality allows admins to configure these extra fields based on a number of settings, including the field name, data type, description, mandatory status and character limits. The custom fields are displayed in the UI and can also be displayed in registers/reports and via our API. The API supports automated sync of data between software. Below is an example of a custom field for ‘VAT Number’.

Can admins change the visible labels for fields in FastDraft to align with organisational needs?

FastDraft has an inbuilt workflow editor that allows admins to change label names on core fields and custom fields as well as a number of other aspects of the UI, such as party names, menu item names, dropdown clauses, workflow names, and permissions on a workflow-by-workflow basis. We typically assist customers in the set-up and configuration of custom fields and relabelling as part of the implementation plan. This is very quick and simple to do in as little as a few clicks.

Does FastDraft support the migration of existing data from legacy systems such as Aconex, Asite, CEMAR and Sypro on mobilisation, including contract data and details of the contractors and other suppliers, projects and contracts details?

We are well placed to support you with the migration of historic contract records into FastDraft from Aconex, Asite, CEMAR or Sypro. We have already imported nearly £4 billion of historic contract management records from legacy systems like Aconex, Asite, CEMAR and Sypro.

User, company, project and contract records can be imported via excel templates or through our API and new bulk import tool. We have standard templates for importing users, company and contract records in bulk which will be provided on request.

FastDraft’s dedicated “Migration” API and bulk import seamlessly supports the automation of bulk uploading information from legacy systems. FastDraft also supports the full import of your data in either raw JSON, XML or CSV files.

For large scale imports (i.e. thousands of records), we propose using our API and bulk import tool, to directly import from Aconex, Asite, CEMAR and Sypro exports. This import functionality is documented in support articles which are available on request.

We outline in our implementation plan the steps we would go through to facilitate a migration, including key milestones. We allow for three instances of FastDraft for enterprise customers, to facilitate the testing of the migrated data before it is pushed into the production instance.

 

Related articles

Comments

0 comments

Article is closed for comments.