Running a project
How a job moves through Complied from the moment a violation or duty comes due to the moment it is billed and closed. It is written for project managers, dispatchers and back-office staff. Each stage has its own guide: field visits, documents and filing and proposals and invoices.
A project is one unit of billable work on one building, and optionally one apartment. It always records why it exists (its origin) and works through four stages that are always open: Decide → Work → File → Money, plus a Timeline of everything that happened.
Before you start
- The building must be tracked by your company and assigned to a client. A project belongs
to its building's client. Track a building from its page (
/buildings/:id, Track building), then choose its client in the Client card. - To create a project you need the permission to manage projects. To change the phase or side state you need the permission to advance projects. An inspector or dispatcher who lacks a permission simply does not see the control.
- Recording decisions needs the manage-projects permission; scheduling visits needs the manage-inspections permission. See team and roles.
Start a project
There are four ways in. All of them create the same kind of project.
| From | How | What is prefilled |
|---|---|---|
| A violation | Open the violation (/violations, then a row) and choose Start the work | The project is created at once with that violation linked, and opens on Decide |
| A building | On the building page, Start a project (in "Our work here") opens a drawer | The building and its client |
| The Projects list | New project (/projects/new) | Nothing: pick the client, then one of their tracked buildings |
| A need on Deadlines | Create project beside a need on /deadlines, or on the Needs tab of an apartment page (/units/:id) | The apartment, the building and the reason, and the project is recorded against that need |
The form asks for:
- Origin. Violation (an agency cited the property) or Obligation (a recurring duty came due). The origin cannot be changed later. Ticking a violation sets the origin to Violation.
- Violations (Violation origin only). The building's open violations are grouped by apartment. Search by order, apartment or violation number, narrow by order code, class or overdue, and tick the ones this job answers. Hovering a row previews it. At least one is required.
- Project reason (optional chips such as HPD Violation, Local Law 31, Tenant Turnover), and how the request was received and any client notes.
Link every order now. Orders are linked to a project when it is created. An obligation project starts with none, and there is no way to attach orders to a project afterwards; Decide stays empty for such a project.
The project page
The header shows the building address, the client, the apartment (or "Building-wide"), the origin and the program. Two controls sit in the header for people who can advance projects:
- Phase: Intake, Scheduling, Field, Docs & QA, Billing, Closed.
- Side state: Blocked, On hold or Cancelled, or none.
Both are labels you set by hand. Nothing moves them, nothing checks them, and every stage stays open whatever they say. A change is recorded in the project's history. The four stage cards under the header show where each stage stands (for example "2 undecided", "Next visit Oct 3", "3 documents missing", "1 unpaid of 2") and never block you from opening any of them.
The right-hand rail holds Collaborators and Recent activity. Timeline lists every event on the project: decisions, visits, documents, packages, proposals, invoices and collaborators.
Collaborators
To involve another company on this one project, choose Invite in the Collaborators card, pick the company from the list and a role:
| Role | What the company can do |
|---|---|
| Field execution | See this project and run its field visits |
| Abatement | Perform the abatement work |
| Clearance sampling | Take the post-abatement clearance wipes |
| Lab coordination | Handle chain of custody and lab submission for the samples |
A collaborator sees only this project and never its invoices, proposals, rate cards or vendor payments. The dialog warns when the same company would hold both the abatement and the clearance role, because clearance must be independent of the abater (rulebook §7); the invite is still allowed. Revoke removes access.
Decide
Decide lists the project's HPD lead orders on the left, worst first: overdue, then blocked, then open, then closed, with decided orders last. Pick an order to see its family, its correct-by date and penalty on the right, then choose how it will be resolved:
- Contest, with the ground (building age, exemption, tenancy, XRF, paint-chip, surface condition, as the order allows).
- Cure, with the certification option where the form has them (Option 3 abate, 4 XRF, 5 paint-chip).
- Postpone, with the filing deadline shown.
- Dismissal, when the order is overdue.
Each path shows the documents it requires. A path that is not available says why: an order blocked by another open order in the same apartment (a 622 while a 617 is open, a 625 while a 624 is open) shows a red banner, and the only workable route is offered. Choose a path with Choose this, or expand the path to pick a ground or option.
A recorded decision shows once at the top with its date. Change decision reopens the options; the new choice replaces the old one and the old one stays in the record. The per-order paths and documents come from the HPD rulebook.
The Numbers section shows how many orders are linked and decided, how many are still open at the agency, the nearest correct-by date and how many are blocked.
Decisions drive everything downstream: the tracks and visits on Work, the proposal's services, and the required documents on File. Until an order is decided, the project shows an estimate from the cheapest cure and says so.
Work
Work has two sections: Field work and Proposal.
Field work is built from the decided orders. Orders that resolve the same way are grouped into a track (for example "XRF Inspection, orders 616, 621"), and each track lists the visits it needs, with the fix-by date and an Overdue pill when it has passed. A track whose orders need different forms shows a Form conflict pill and offers no document to generate. The Next up card at the top names the one thing to do next and has the button for it.
Each visit moves through four steps in its drawer, which opens from a track row. The full flow is in field visits:
- Outreach — log each attempt to reach the tenant or management, and mark Access agreed or No access.
- Date and time — unlocked once access is agreed.
- Inspector — unlocked once a date is set; only people holding a current license for the service on that date are offered.
- Field work — the inspector runs the job (Open field job).
A visit that belongs to no current track appears under Other visits; it can be relinked to a track, kept as prior data, or cancelled. Visits are never deleted.
Proposal prices the decided services. See proposals and invoices.
File
File collects the paperwork: a Compliance checklist of the documents each decided order still needs, the Document library for the project, and the Filing package. See documents and filing.
Money
Money holds the project's Invoices and Vendor payments. See proposals and invoices. It is visible only with the permission to view financials.
End states
| State | What it means | How you get there |
|---|---|---|
| Closed | A label meaning commercially finished. Every control stays live. | The Phase menu, at any time |
| Cancelled | The job was abandoned | The Side state menu |
| On hold / Blocked | Paused, with the phase unchanged | The Side state menu |
Setting Closed does not wait for HPD to accept a filing and does not check documents, licenses, invoices or signatures. Agency acceptance is not recorded in Complied, so a project may stay Closed while HPD still shows the violation open.