Commitments: Allow Collaborators to Submit Site-initiated Variations

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This announcement represents a single point in time. Future releases may impact the information below.
Beta Released: October 11, 2021 | Beta Updated: May 2, 2022 | Feature Released: Coming Soon!

Allow Collaborators to Submit Site-initiated Variations

In response to a popular request received from our Procore users on feedback.procore.com, you can now configure Procore to provide your project collaborators with the permission they need to create and submit their own Commitment Variations when the project's Change Events tool is enabled.

Prior to this update, Procore customers who wanted to enable the Change Events tool on a project were managing potential changes outside of Procore. For example, teams were receiving change-related information from their contractors and vendors through email. In addition, performed double-entry by first creating the required change event and then creating a Commitment Variation.

With this new release, your team can now grant your collaborators the appropriate access permissions--which allows your contractors and vendors to submit their own Commitment Variations. To eliminate double-entry, Procore also automatically creates the required change event using the information from the Commitment Variation.

How does this new feature work?

The table below details how the current version and new beta version of Procore work when the Change Events tool is added to your project.

Previous Version - Two (2) Tier Variations	Site-initiated Variations - Two (2) Tier Variations
Your collaborator discovers a work condition in the field that reveals a potential contract modification.	Your collaborator discovers a work condition in the field that reveals a potential contract modification.
Your collaborator assembles documentation about that change and sends it to your project team by email.	Since your collaborator has been granted access permissions to Procore, they can create a Commitment Potential Variation in Procore and update its Bill of Quantities directly.
Your team member receives the information and creates a new change event in Procore.	After clicking 'Save' in the Commitment Potential Variations Bill of Quantities, Procore automatically generates a change event in Procore and populates it with the information from the Commitment Potential Variation. Note: The system also labels the new change event as "(created by system)", so your internal team can quickly identify any change events created as a result of a field-initiated variation.
Your team member creates a Commitment Potential Variation from the change event.	-
Your team member creates a Commitment Variation.	Your team member creates a Commitment Variation.
Your team member edits a Commitment Variation.	Your team member edits a Commitment Variation.
Your team member approves a Commitment Variation	Your team member approves a Commitment Variation. See Approve or Reject Commitment Variations. In Beta Note to users participating in the 'Subcontractor Estimated Completion' limited release beta program. When a user places a variation in the 'Approved' status and it includes a value in 'Schedule Impact' field of the variation, Procore automatically updates the 'Estimated Completion Date' field in the commitment contract by the number of days entered. To learn more about this programme, see Commitments: (Beta) Subcontractor Estimated Completion Date.

What are the benefits?

With this update, you can now:

Add the Change Events tool to your company's project. This update allows customers who have previously turned the Change Events tool off on projects, to both turn the tool ON and allow collaborators to submit variations. To learn about enabling this tool, see Can I enable the Change Events tool on my existing project?
Manage contractor and vendor-initiated variations directly in the Procore application. Prior to this release, project teams often chose to manage the variation request and notification outside of Procore—by receiving submitted variation requests through a third-party email program or employing a workaround using the project's Correspondence tool. Now, site-initiated changes can be directly input into Procore, simply by providing your collaborators with the appropriate access permissions to their contract in the Commitments tool.
Eliminate inefficient double-entry. With your collaborators performing the data entry, your project team saves time by no longer performing repetitive, data entry. Now, when a collaborator saves the BOQ line items on a Commitment Variation, Procore automatically generates a change event using that data. In addition, Procore labels the change event '(created by System)' to help your team quickly identify the events originating from a site-initiated variation.
Identify financial impacts faster. Now that your collaborators submit variations to you directly, teams can leverage the full power of the project's Change Events tool to track the financial impacts and avert potential risks. Your team also has the option to generate reports that can be sent to your team members on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Who can use this feature?

While this feature was specifically requested by Owners who manage their construction projects in Procore and who have added the Change Events tool to the project. See Can I enable the Change Events tool on my existing project? This feature can also be used by Main Contractors and Speciality Contractors.

What are the requirements for using this feature?

To configure this feature on a project:

The project's Change Events tool must be added to the project.
A user with 'Admin' level permissions on the project's Commitments tool must mark the 'Enable Site Initiated Variations' and 'Allow Standard Level Users to Create CVs' setting in the Contract Configuration page of the Commitments tool. For instructions, see Allow Collaborators to Submit Site-initiated Variations (Beta).

What are the required user access permissions for collaborators?

Typically, a user with 'Admin' level permissions on the Project Directory will assign the appropriate permissions and privileges to your collaborators using a project permissions template. To learn how to work with project permissions templates in Procore, see Manage Project Permissions Templates. The following permissions must be configured for each collaborator or on the permissions template assigned to your collaborators:

'Read Only' level permissions on the Project Home page.
'Standard' level permissions on the project's Commitments tool.
To create new budget codes on a variation that were not previously in the contract's scope, the user account must be granted edit access to the contract's Bill of Quantities (BOQ) with the following granular permissions: 'Update Work Order Contract' and 'Update Purchase Order Contract'.
'None' level permissions on the project's Change Events tool (Most Procore customers assign 'None' permissions on all tools where they want to restrict collaborator access).

How do I activate the feature in Procore?

Follow the steps in Allow Collaborators to Submit Site-initiated Variations (Beta).