Avolve Blog

Investing in More Than Markups: Unlocking Advanced Electronic Plan Review with ProjectDox

Written by Becky Tamashasky | Oct 9, 2025 2:52:32 PM

When it comes to managing community development projects, many government organizations start by seeking a simple tool to digitize their construction plan markups. But when an organization begins this search, what is evaluated beyond viewing and commenting on submitted plans? Is there consideration that the plan review solution could handle the entire lifecycle — from application intake to final approval — while also increasing efficiency, boosting transparency, and improving the applicant experience? That’s where ProjectDox adds immediate and lasting value. 

As the first-to-market electronic plan review solution in 2005, ProjectDox has been purpose-built for the unique complexities of municipal plan review. Serving hundreds of government customers, ProjectDox isn’t just a document markup tool it’s a comprehensive plan review solution that streamlines workflows, enhances collaboration, and leverages advanced technologies like AI and embedded GIS to future-proof your operations. 

Local Governments Need More Than Simple Markups 

For many agencies, the initial leap into electronic plan review is driven by a desire to move away from paper-based processes and improve efficiency. But if the evaluation is focused on viewing and creating markups, agencies often settle for solutions that provide tools to digitize the markup process and miss the capabilities that support holistic workflows. This results in the rest of review lifecycle being fragmented and inefficient without access to the full integrated digitalization of plan review. 

These “Markup-Centric” solutions present a number of drawbacks. 

  • Unvalidated Applicant Submissions lead to incomplete plans entering the process, causing delays and rework. 
  • Disjointed Workflows between departments slow things down and create bottlenecks. 
  • Limited Transparency keeps both applicants and staff in the dark, leading to miscommunication. 
  • Inefficient Resubmittals & Version Control cause errors and create costly back-and-forth. 
  • Minimal Integration Capabilities with existing permitting systems create data silos and migration headaches. 
  • Siloed Data prevents reviewers from accessing other organizational data that is needed for the comprehensive review.  

By contrast, ProjectDox fills these gaps by offering an end-to-end plan review solution, while integrating seamlessly with the existing permitting system or running standalone for departmental flexibility. 

A Purpose-Built Plan Review Solution

Designed for mid- to large-sized government organizations requiring structured workflows, scalable permit volume management, and precise oversight, ProjectDox goes beyond basic markup plan review. It manages the entire process — from the moment an application is submitted to the final stamp of approval, ensuring your agency maintains transparency, compliance, and efficiency at every stage. 

  • Online Plan Review Submission via an applicant-friendly portal that makes submitting plans simple, reducing in-person visits and data entry errors for an overall reduction in the time to complete submissions and initiate the review process. 
  • Configurable Workflows that route plans to the right departments — with parallel or sequential routing tailored to each organization’s unique process. 
  • Parallel Reviews & Version Control enables departments to review plans at the same time while maintaining version integrity and reducing the time needed to capture feedback across all divisions. 
  • Collaboration & Communication with built-in tools like the ‘Comments List’ and ‘Discuss Feature’ to keep everyone aligned and reduce redundancies. 
  • Streamlined Resubmittals & Approvals that keep applicants in the loop, responding to feedback quickly, to manage revisions and speed up approvals. 

 The result? A process that’s faster, smarter, and designed to scale as your community grows.  

 

“What we’re getting with the ProjectDox solution isn’t just the latest and greatest technology. It’s the latest and greatest technology applied directly to the business pains we felt as a city government, trying to provide the best possible service to our customers.”  

Kent Overly, Technology Consultant for Salt Lake City 

 

Reducing Friction for Applicants and Staff 

A smooth plan review process isn’t just about internal efficiency; it’s about making the process easier for applicants and enabling development across a municipality. ProjectDox simplifies submissions with guided steps and automated checks that catch errors before plans even enter the review process, cutting down on frustrating rework and those constant “Where’s my permit?” calls. 

But it doesn’t stop there. ProjectDox makes it easy for everyone — applicants, contractors, and staff — to stay on the same page. With centralized comments, digital tracking, and instant alerts, staff have immediate access to status to understand where the review is in the workflow and organization. Government organizations can also control who sees what. Role-based access lets stakeholders like owners or contractors follow the process in ‘View-Only’ mode, keeping everyone informed without risking unauthorized edits. 

This results in fewer delays, faster decisions, and a better experience for everyone involved from submission to final approval. 

 

“ProjectDox checked all the boxes for what we felt was important… ease of use for reviewers… features that make review quicker, faster, easier.”  

Kevin ‘KC’ Collins, Building Official, New Braunfels, Texas 

 

Why Invest in Advanced Plan Review Capabilities? 

The core markup features of ProjectDox are robust, but advanced electronic plan review capabilities enable your organization’s tools to scale efficiently, adapt to complex multi-department workflows, and integrate seamlessly with your Land Management System. Whether you’re managing hundreds or thousands of permits, our Cloud-based solution ensures your team can handle rising demand, maintain data security, support remote access, and enable your community to build faster. 

These enhanced features also ensure better collaboration across departments, especially on those extremely large-scale projects — resulting in faster approvals without compromising quality. With real-time dashboards to spot bottlenecks, balance workloads, and guide smarter decisions, agencies can reduce errors, cut costs, and elevate community satisfaction. 

 

“Adding CDOT’s Project Coordination Office as a reviewer in ProjectDox helped us realize almost $24 million in potential savings in 2022.”

Jai Kalayil, Deputy Commissioner, Division of Infrastructure Management, CDOT 

 

Beyond the Features Themselves, ProjectDox Delivers Unmatched Innovation and Reliability

More than just solving today’s challenges, ProjectDox prepares agencies for the future—empowering your team to keep pace as technologies and community needs evolve.  

Our ongoing investment in innovation means you gain far more than best-in-class markup tools.  

  • AI-Powered Plan Review: Our first commercial AI capability, AI Submit, catches submission errors at the gate, reducing first-cycle rejections and freeing reviewers for higher-value work. 
  • Spatial Intelligence: Avolve GIS, our integration with Esri’s ArcGIS® brings essential geospatial context into every review, streamlining code checks, and improving decision speed. 
  • Field Mobility: With Avolve Mobile, field teams can access, mark up, and sync plans anywhere—saving time, boosting transparency, and ensuring a continuous digital record. 
  • Actionable Insights: Powerful dashboards and analytics turn your data into decision-ready intelligence, helping you identify trends early, measure performance, and guide smarter strategies. 

Our deep partnership with Esri reflects our leadership in local government solutions—ArcGIS is foundational across municipalities, and our collaboration ensures integrated, location-driven intelligence is at the core of every workflow and review process. 

All of this is delivered with industry-leading support, proactive customer success management, and a hosted environment you can trust—with 99.999% uptime to keep your community moving.  

By investing in a full-featured electronic plan review platform that continuously evolves with technology— rather than relying solely on a basic digital markup tool—you gain the strategic advantage of automation to reduce manual work, integrated data to optimize transparency, and continuous process optimization. 

Is it time for you to explore ProjectDox’s advanced capabilities? 

Contact us today to request a personalized demonstration and harness modern electronic plan review technology to drive sustainable community growth.