Maintaining Project Workflow

A workflow describes the relationships between tasks and the order in which those tasks are performed throughout the lifecycle of an agency cost estimate, project, proposal, or contract, and the relationships between those tasks. Each task is a workflow phase.

Workflows align AASHTOWare Project with your business processes. The system includes sample workflows you can customize. You can also add new workflows to describe agency-specific business processes. For example, if your agency organizes new roadway construction projects differently than roadway maintenance projects, you may choose to create one workflow for new projects and another workflow for maintenance projects.

In most cases, the workflow assigned to a project or proposal remains the same throughout the preconstruction life cycle, but the phase is updated as work progresses.

Workflow and phases are set by each agency according to agency-specific procedures. As a user, it is important to understand which phases apply to the work that you do, and when to change the phase. Certain phases can have rules associated with them which cause the system to perform certain functions. For example, the Addenda rule restricts certain fields from being changed if an addendum is open, and the system displays a banner alerting you that the proposal is in an addenda phase.

Security constraints can be associated with phases, so that your access can be denied or restricted during certain phases. You might find that you can no longer make changes to, or even view, a project or proposal after you progress it to a certain phase.

Caution: Unless you understand all the rules associated with workflow phases, it is not recommended to move a phase backward in progression. For more information, see Workflow Phase Rules.

The Workflow tab on the Project Summary component contains the current workflow and phase for the project. As the work on managing the project progresses, update the workflow information in the following fields as appropriate:

Click in a field and add, change, or delete information as required.

Note: You cannot change the workflow or phase for a project that is currently associated with a proposal. The system automatically updates the project’s workflow and phase to correspond to the associated proposal’s workflow and phase.

Click Save when you are finished. The system displays a message to confirm that your changes were saved in the database.