1Get your information together (30 min)

Collect current ITPs, reference material, and identify who needs to be involved.

Start by creating a small shortlist of candidate ITPs that could be suitable for a digital approach. Then collect all the related materials such as:

• Forms
• Checklists
• Process documentation
• Work Instructions
• Completed examples

Now determine who the players are. Who does this impact, and who is involved?

The specific roles will vary by project, but typically include:

• Quality Manager
• Construction Manager
• Site Supervisor
• Document Controller
• Consultants

This becomes your invite list to your workshop sessions.

2Conduct workshops (90-120 mins each)

Create a shared understanding of the current process, then redesign it for digital use.

This step consists of two consecutive workshops. They should be close together in time, but not combined.

Each has a different purpose.

Workshop 1 - Review the current process

Purpose: This is about fully understanding the existing "real world" process, you are not designing anything new yet.

The goal of this session is to discuss broadly and get a clear picture of how the process works today, not what the procedure document or flow diagram shows.

This workshop allows those involved to share and understand how the process actually works today. The intent is to surface assumptions, inconsistencies, and informal workarounds that paper-based (or disconnected digital) processes often hide.

Review the materials you collected in step 1, and focus on:

• How inspections are performed
• Where decisions are made
• Who is responsible at each point
• What is driven by contract or specification
• What is challenging about the process

Draw it out on a whiteboard to facilitate the discussion. You could use stepped process diagrams for a good way to visualize.

As part of this discussion, agree on a single ITP from the shortlist to configure as a Test Plan Template in Aconex.

By the end of this session, everyone should have the same understanding of how the process works today and where the pain points are.

Workshop 2 - Design the digital version

Purpose: You're not configuring anything yet. This is where you design what the digital version of your ITP will look like.

In this session, you'll take the ITP you selected at the end of workshop 1 and work through how it would function digitally in Aconex Test Plans.

Watch the What is Test Plans video, and read through the Get started with Test Plans article, which will give you a foundational level of understanding.

Walk through the ITP step by step and identify the activities required to complete the work. For each activity, focus on what must happen for the work to be considered acceptable, not how it has historically been recorded.

As you work through the ITP, use the following prompts to guide discussion:

Control and hold points

• Why does this hold point exist?
• What risk is it managing?
• Does it need to stop the collection of information, or just notify someone?
• What does it mean on site if the next activity cannot proceed until this is released?
• If this control point didn't exist what would break?

Roles and responsibility

• Who is the person responsible for completing the step?
• Who contractually needs to review or approve this step?
• Who needs visibility after the fact?

Activity structure

• Which activities always happen together on site?
• Which activities are separate only because of the paper format?
• What could reasonably be collapsed into a single activity?

Digital application realities

• Who completes this action, and where are they when they do it?
• Do they realistically have access to a device at that point?
• What happens if it can't be completed immediately?

These discussions help determine which parts of the process you are prepared to enforce digitally, and which may need to change before they can be.

Once you're happy with the process design, document the detail needed to configure the Test Plan template in Aconex.

The following is a guide on what you'll need to know:

Across the process

• Which organization needs to oversee the ITP and submit it?
  You'll make this organization the Manager in the template.
• Which organization or user needs to close the test plan?
  You'll make this organization the Approver in the template.
• What needs to be done to successfully complete the work?
  These are the Activities, which are supported by Record Requirements (evidence) like checklists and attachments.

For each activity

• What are the requirements to complete? (Acceptance Criteria)
• How should it be performed, tested or inspected? (Method)
• How often should it be performed? (Frequency)
• Which organization will work on the activity? (Assignee)
• What documents are needed to complete the work? (Reference Documents)
• What records are needed as evidence of the work? e.g. photos, or checklist (Record Requirements)
• Who needs to review after the Assignee completes their work and marks it for review? (Reviewer)
• What actions should the Reviewer take, and how do these impact the flow of the ITP? e.g. hold point, or witness point (Reviewer Actions)

By the end of this session, you'll need to have the following:

• A single ITP with a structured set of Activities
• Clearly defined Reviewer Actions
• Agreed ownership of the ITP
• Enough detail to confidently configure the template in Aconex

3Configure the Test Plan Template in Aconex (60-90 mins)

Configure your template based on agreed decisions from the workshops.

This is where you'll take your outcomes from the workshop sessions and configure into Aconex.

You should set this up in a sandbox project (testing environment) rather than your live projects. Once it has been thoroughly tested you'll be able to copy it into your live projects.

Part 1: Prerequisite Setup

Before you dive in to creating the template you'll need to set up a few other items in Aconex.

Add Inspection Templates

To maximize your use of the Aconex platform and the connected collaboration it brings you can use Field's Inspection Templates. This approach allows you to link your existing checklists or PDF forms, enabling assignees to use them for completion of Record Requirements or evidence of their work.

If you have not already done so, you can digitize your Inspections (Checklists) in Field. There are a couple of ways you could do this. Follow the guides on Support Central for detailed step-by-step instructions.

1. Adding a checklist template to your project
2. Adding a PDF Form template to your project

Configure Test Plan Categories

Test Plan categories help you organize templates. They'll also make it easier to filter and search as your library of Test Plan Templates grows.

There's no fixed rule for how categories must be set up. The key is choosing a structure that makes sense not only to you, but to everyone involved in creating and using Test Plans across the project.

The best category structure is the one your team actually uses.

You might organize templates around disciplines. This mirrors how work is typically packaged on site.

• Architectural
• Electrical
• Fire
• Health & Safety
• Mechanical
• Structural

Or the elements of work on the project. This might look like:

• Early Works
• Demolition
• Temporary Works
• Construction
• Fit Out
• Commissioning

Configure Reviewer Actions

Aconex Test Plans comes pre-configured with Hold Points and Witness Points as Reviewer Actions, reflecting standard practices across the industry.

1. Hold Point: Reviewer will be notified to review, and this must be released before any subsequent activities can be 'started' (in the Test Plan).
2. Witness Point: Reviewer will be notified to review, but doesn't stop the next activities from being 'started' (in the Test Plan).

If you determined the need for additional actions, then you'll need to create them as custom reviewer actions. These will operate in the same way as a Witness Point, allowing subsequent Activities to be 'started'.

Add users and assign roles

1. Add required Users

2. Assign Test Plan Roles

• For Your Organization
• For Organizations you'll work with

3. Assign Participant Roles

• For Your Organization
• For Organizations you'll work with

Participant roles can be assigned at an individual or organizational level. Check Support Central for full details on Test Plan and Participant Roles.

Part 2: Setting up the Test Plan Template

Follow the step-by-step instructions on how to do this.

4Run parallel testing (3-4 weeks)

Trial the new digital process alongside the existing.

This step is about building confidence in the digital process without putting delivery at risk. Rather than switching over to your newly created Test Plan Template, run the Test Plan alongside the existing paper process for a short period.

Use the Test Plan end-to-end, from starting each activity through to review and completion.

Let your existing process continue in parallel.

Things to look for

• Activities that are not clearly defined
• Instructions that are unclear
• Roles or responsibilities that slow things down
• Record requirements that are easy to capture, and those that are not

5Update and apply across other templates (60 min)

Incorporate learnings and apply the approach to similar ITPs.

Once parallel testing is complete, review what worked, what didn't, and what surprised you.

Making changes and copying to your live project

Focus on the structure of the Test Plan Template, not edge cases.

Make targeted changes to:

• Activity sequencing
• Reviewer actions
• Record requirements
• Role assignments
• Language and clarity

You're now in a position to copy this template from your sandbox into your live projects.

Apply across other ITPs

When the approach feels stable, apply the same pattern to other ITPs.

The project team should now have a good understanding of how to build and test a Test Plan Template.

You don't need to redesign every template from scratch. But you should still review each one before adding as a Test Plan Template in Aconex.

6Determine how you'll deploy on the project (60-90 min)

At this point, the focus shifts from configuration (how to set up) to adoption (how to encourage use).

Before rolling Test Plans out more broadly, take time to agree how they'll be introduced on the project.

Start with ownership

Decide who is responsible for maintaining templates, approving changes, and supporting teams if template or configuration issues arise.

Then consider enablement and support

Think about who needs to be trained, how that training will happen, and what additional support people will need.

You won't always require a formal training session. In some cases informal methods may work better, for example toolbox talks, site-walks, or providing simple reference material. You'll likely need a mix of these methods to reinforce learning and support ongoing improvement.

Decide who people go to when they get stuck, and how quickly issues need to be resolved.

Finally, think about timing

Decide when using Test Plans for the management of quality on your projects becomes mandatory and whether the rollout should be phased by discipline, area, or subcontractor.

Be clear about how existing work in progress will be handled.