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Best Practices: Submittal Imports

 Note
This page describes recommended best practices for importing submittals to Procore. Click here to view tutorials, videos and more about the project's Submittals tool.

Introduction

Submittal Imports is the most efficient method to bulk generate a submittal registry with detailed data for your project’s submittals and packages. This guide will show you the best practices to help you maximise efficiency when using Submittal Imports. Are you ready?

Why should I use Submittal Imports?

You can add many details to the submittal items at the creation time by utilising an XLSX or CSV spreadsheet and the Procore Imports application. Duplicating data across multiple items is much more efficient to do within a spreadsheet compared to adding the data individually for each submittal item.

 Tip
Submittal Imports are done using Procore Imports, which is only available for computers running Windows 7 or higher. See Import Submittals into your Project Level Submittals Tool (Procore Imports). For Mac users, our Customer Support team is available to assist with these imports. See Send a Completed Submittals Import Template to Procore.

Before you Begin

  • Ensure the user or users assigned as Submittal Manager have been added to the project's Directory tool. See Add a User Account to the Project Directory.
  • If you will be assigning another company as the 'Responsible Contractor' for one or more submittals, ensure that each company has been added to the project's Directory tool. See Add a Company to the Project Directory.
  • If your project is using locations and you want to add location information to your submittals, the location tiers must already exist in Procore. See Add Tiered Locations to a Project.
  • If your company is using the project's Specifications tool to manage specs, upload the project specs to Procore (see Upload Specifications) or manually add them to Procore.
  • If you will be using the Submittal Programme Calculations feature, be sure to enable it within the project's Submittals configuration settings prior to import. See Enable Submittal Programme Calculations.

Using the Import Template

First, download the submittals import template directly from the Procore Imports app or from our Support site here: Download the Submittals Import Template.

Best Practices

  • Do not delete or move any columns in the template. Doing so will cause the import to fail. You can, however, hide any unused columns.
  • Submittal Imports can only be used to create new submittals, not to update existing ones.
  • All date formats must be entered using the date format MM/DD/YYYY, regardless of the project’s settings. Other fields, such as Spec Section Number, can be formatted as needed.
  • For most fields referencing existing data in Procore, the data entered on the import must match exactly what is in Procore. Otherwise, the import will display an error message or create unwanted new records.
  • If you prefer to number submittals as you receive them, you can leave the Submittal Number cells blank or add the number 0 to all of them. 
  • Completed import templates do not need to be unique for each project. If you consistently create the same or similar submittal items for each project, you can create a master template to duplicate and edit as needed for each new project. This can act as a template submittal registry and will save you considerable time on future projects. 
  • There are no limits to the number of submittal imports you can perform on a project. It might be useful to separate the imports by priority for large projects. 
  • Submittal Packages (Columns A-D in the template) are not required but highly recommended. See Best Practices: Submittal Packages - Introduction for more information.
  • Submittal Programme Calculation fields (Columns R-U in the template) are highly recommended to help you understand whether your submittals are on target. See Best Practices: Submittal Project Configurations for more information.

See Prepare Submittals for Import to the Procore Imports App for additional information.

Submittal Imports Compared to Submittal Builder

Procore's Submittal Imports and Submittal Builder are the two most efficient methods to create a Submittal Registry, but they should not be used in tandem. The lists below show advantages and disadvantages for each option to help you determine which is the best choice for your projects.

Submittal Builder

Advantages
  • Submittal Builder can drastically minimise the time to generate a Submittal registry.
  • Submittal Builder uses OCR to identify and add  the Submittal text from the Spec Section into the Submittal Description.
Disadvantages
  • Submittal Builder creates submittals with very limited details, so  there will likely be more work required to add missing data (either manually or via bulk edit)
  • Submittal Builder can only be run once per Spec Section revision
  • Submittal Builder is only available in English for the United States, Canada and Australia.
  • There are strict requirements regarding Spec Book formatting in order to use Submittal Builder effectively.
Consider Use If:
  • You require a simple and quick submittal registry without a lot of detailed information.

Submittal Imports

Advantages
  • Imports are significantly more detailed in the amount of data that can be included on the initial creation. 
  • Imported submittals require less manual or bulk editing for their data such as:
    • Submittal Packages
    • Material Procurement Milestone dates
    • Locations
  • You can import as many completed templates as needed
Disadvantages
  • Creating the registry on the import template is manual and does not automatically pull in any data from within Procore (such as Spec Sections or other text)
  • Imports require a third-party program to edit an XLSX or CSV file, such as Excel or Google Sheets
Consider Use If:
  • You decide to use Submittal Packages
  • You want to utilise Procore's Submittal Programme Calculation fields to determine "Planned Submit By" dates. 
  • You  have a complex project, such as multiple phases, where you require separate submittals for each phase
     
 Tip
For more information and recommendations about creating a Submittal Registry using Submittal Builder, see Best Practices: Submittal Builder.

Next Steps

Now that your submittal registry has been created from the import, we recommend using Procore's Submittal Packages feature to initiate a workflow for multiple submittal items. See Best Practices: Submittal Packages - Creation and Review.

Alternatively, Procore's bulk actions feature can add a workflow to multiple submittal items from the list view. See Best Practices: Submittal Project Configurations.