Creating a Project

This guide walks through the complete project creation process using the project wizard.

Starting the Wizard

From your dashboard, click New Project. The wizard guides you through five steps.

Step 1: Define Your Project

Enter the basic project information:

• Project name — a descriptive name (e.g., "42 Park Avenue - CC Certification")
• Project address — the physical location of the construction project
• Applicant email — the email address of the person who will submit documents

Then choose your creation method for the approval list:

Method	Best For
Choose a Project Type	The standard path — pick a pre-built project type and have items, tasks, fields, and document sets populated in one click
Based on Previous Project	A project similar to one you've completed before
Upload a PDF	You have a checklist PDF whose conditions you want extracted
Add Items Manually	A one-off project that doesn't fit any of the above

Step 2: Build the Approval List

What you see depends on the creation method chosen:

Choose a Project Type

1. Select a project type from your list.
2. The wizard previews the approval items and tasks that will be copied into the project.
3. Click Use this project type to apply it. Approval items, tasks, project information fields, document sets, and any linked approval-pack template are snapshotted into the project.
4. Review the resulting list — add, remove, or edit entries as needed. Your edits only affect this project.

See Using Project Types and Configuring a Project Type for more.

Based on Previous Project

1. Pick the source project from the list of copyable projects.
2. All approval items are copied (without the submitted documents).
3. Review and adjust as needed.

Upload a PDF

1. Upload the document containing your requirements (e.g., consent conditions).
2. Optionally provide custom instructions to guide the AI extraction (e.g., "Extract each numbered condition as a separate item").
3. The AI analyses the document and creates individual approval items.
4. Review the extracted items — edit descriptions, remove irrelevant items, add missing ones.

Add Items Manually

1. Click Add Item to create each requirement.
2. Enter a title and description for each item.
3. Optionally add document checks and reference documents.

For all methods

Regardless of creation method, you can:

• Reorder items by dragging and dropping
• Edit descriptions to clarify requirements
• Add document checks for AI-powered verification
• Upload reference documents to help applicants understand what's needed
• Set review sequences to suggest a submission order
• Add tasks — internal checklist entries only visible to approvers and co-approvers

Step 3: Invite Your Team

Add team members who will participate in the project:

Co-approvers

Invite other professionals to help review documents:

• Enter their email address
• They receive an invitation email
• Once accepted, they can review documents, change statuses, and stamp approvals
• Co-approvers have most approver permissions except managing invitations

Collaborators

Invite external parties who need project visibility:

• Enter their email address
• They can view the project, upload documents, and add comments
• Useful for subconsultants, project managers, or other stakeholders

The applicant invitation is sent automatically based on the email entered in Step 1.

Step 4: Review and Confirm

Review everything before proceeding:

• Project name and address
• Applicant email
• Approval list items and tasks (with check counts)
• Team members

Make any final adjustments by navigating back to previous steps.

Step 5: Payment

Complete the payment via Stripe:

• Review the project cost
• Enter payment details
• On success: the project is activated and all invitations are sent
• On cancel: return to Step 4 (the project remains in Draft)

What happens after creation

Once the project is active, ApprovIQ runs two background pipelines automatically over any documents the applicant has uploaded:

1. Project information extraction — for each project information field that has an extraction prompt, the AI reads the uploaded documents and proposes a value. For per-document fields (fields linked to a document set), it fans out and proposes a value per document in the linked set.
2. Document set classification — for each document set that has an AI prompt, the AI reads the uploaded documents and sorts them into the set based on the prompt.

Both pipelines produce proposals for the approver to review — nothing is silently applied. You can re-run classification on demand from the project's document-set page after new documents are uploaded.

In parallel:

1. Invitations are sent to the applicant, co-approvers, and collaborators.
2. The project appears on everyone's dashboard.
3. The applicant can begin uploading documents.
4. You receive notifications as documents are submitted.
5. AI document checks run against newly uploaded documents.