3 New Engineering Documentation Software Features by Proarc

In 2018, we conducted a webinar that showed how Proarc can help companies digitalize technical engineering documentation processes and streamline collaboration between project members. 

Webinar Overview

First of all, Ascertra would like to thank everyone who attends our webinars. Based on the feedback, we believe it is safe to say that Proarc’s ever-evolving capabilities will be beneficial for many of our customers. This version (as of 2018) was the latest in a series of releases that supports our philosophy of continually creating value for our customers.

For those of you interested in the history of Proarc, you can watch a 3-minute overview of this past update, which covers the three main new functionalities of this release.

• Digitize vendors’ and clients’ documentation reviews and approvals which works to improve effective and efficient collaboration.
  • Business Impact: Reduce cycle time on reviews and collaboration resulting in a shorter cash conversion cycle
• Enhances the review and approval process of engineering documentation using improved functionality for commenting on the handling process.
  • Business Impact: Shorter time to invoice based on documentation deliverable milestones
•  Enable field workers to access technical engineering documentation, annotates, comments, and reports with improved Mobile support.
  • Business Impact: Reduced reprographics and time lost handling paper resulting in higher project margins.

Q&A Session

We always receive several participant interactions during our webinar’s Q&A session. Here are the questions we received as part of this Proarc update webinar, along with their answers:

Has this version of Proarc been released?

Answer: Yes! This version was released and became available for all customers in 2018. Proarc has since had several updates, and continues to add and improve functionality for its users.

How flexible is the workflow activity sequence when transferring documents to Proarc Collaboration from Proarc On-premise?

Answer: You can set up the workflow with different steps and activities than what was shown in the demo. The new functionality will apply the same way.

Can the receivers of the workflow activities get an email notification when they receive a new task?

Answer: Yes, Proarc can be set up to notify recipients by email, including external users such as clients or vendors.

Can we use other PDF editors for the new Proarc Comment Handling features?

Answer: Yes, as long as you are working with the PDF format you can use different PDF editors/viewers

Can the automatically generated comment sheet be in Excel format instead of PDF?

Answer: Yes, it can be generated in Excel and other formats, but you cannot use different formats at the same time.

Can the new parallel commenting capability also handle handwritten comments made via iPad & Apple Pencil or Surface Pro & stylus?

Answer: The pencil tool is available on iPhone/iPad for annotations on PDFs. The annotated file can be uploaded as a comment file or as a screen capture to Proarc.

Are offline files in Proarc Mobile checked out, or just downloaded?

Answer: Files that are made available offline are not marked as checked out.

Is the functionality available both in the desktop and web client?

Answer: It is possible to start workflows as before in the desktop client. In addition, you now get a full view of all the comments made on the doc profiles. Consolidation of comments and generating comment sheet is available in the web client only.

Can Proarc Collaboration communicate with a supplier that uses an earlier version of Proarc?

Answer: Yes, Proarc Collaboration is not dependent on the external users’ version of Proarc. Keep in mind that there is no integration between Proarc Collaboration and the Proarc version that the external user may have.

Can you use both Explorer and Chrome?

Answer: Yes, both browsers are supported in Proarc Collaboration

Is the Proarc Mobile App also available for tablet or laptop?

Answer: The Proarc Mobile app is specifically for tablets and phones. What you saw in the demo was from an iOS tablet.