Document Loop
Portal
Portal is the structured document loop with the parties outside your organisation — subcontractors, trades and consultants. It collects the files coming in, tracks the documents you issue out, and keeps requests for information moving to a close.
Portal workspace showing the submissions, transmittals and RFI tabs for a project
Overview
Most document exchange with subcontractors happens over email and shared drives, where nothing is tracked and the status of any given file is a matter of memory. Portal replaces that with a single project workspace: the documents a trade sends you, the packages you issue to them, and the open questions between you all sit in one place, each with a status you can see at a glance.
External parties do not need an Alloovium account. You invite them with a secure link, and they upload, download and answer from a guest page scoped to their trade package. Everything they do is attributed and recorded on your side of the loop.
Availability
Portal is a capability that may need enabling for your workspace. It is controlled by a feature flag and is off by default, and the RFI area can be enabled or hidden independently. If you do not see Portal in your project navigation, ask your administrator or your Alloovium contact to turn it on.Trade packages and invitations
A trade package is the container for one scope of work — a name, an optional trade type and a due date. It groups the documents a subcontractor submits and the invitations you extend to them. A package moves through draft, active and closed as the work progresses.
Create the package
Give it a name and, optionally, a trade type and due date so the deadline is visible to everyone.
Invite the trade
Add the subcontractor by email. Portal generates a unique, time-bound guest link — no account required on their side.
They open the guest page
The link opens a page scoped to their package, where they can download issued documents and upload their own.
Submissions
Submissions are the inbound side of the loop. A subcontractor uploads a document to their trade package through the guest link, and it arrives on your side marked for review. You then approve it, reject it, or ask for a revision without a full rejection, which keeps the round-trip clear rather than restarting it.
| Review status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| pending | Received and awaiting your review. |
| approved | Accepted as submitted. |
| rejected | Not accepted; the trade is expected to submit again. |
| revise & resubmit | Accepted in principle, with changes requested before it is final. |
Each submission records who reviewed it and when, along with any notes you leave, so the history of a document is never lost to an email thread.
Transmittals
Transmittals are the outbound side. You bundle a set of documents — a drawing set, a revised specification — and issue it to named recipients. A transmittal starts as a draft and becomes issuedwhen you send it, at which point recipients can download the documents and acknowledge receipt from their guest page.
Because acknowledgement is tracked per recipient, you can see who has received a package and who is still outstanding, rather than assuming a document landed because you attached it to an email.
RFIs
A request for information (RFI) is a numbered, trackable question between you and an external party. Each RFI carries a code, a subject, a discipline and a priority, and moves through open,answered and closed. Either side can raise one, and the party who owes the next response — the ball-in-court — is always visible.
Answering and drafting
An external party answers an RFI directly from their guest link. On your side, Portal can draft a cited response from the project documents as a starting point, and can run a triage pass that estimates cost and schedule impact and matches the question to a specification section. These are advisory aids — a person reviews and sends the answer.
RFIs may be enabled separately
The RFI area is controlled independently of the rest of Portal. It is possible to run submissions and transmittals with RFIs hidden, so treat RFIs as a capability to confirm rather than assume.The overview board
The overview pulls the loop together into a single status view for the project: open, answered and overdue RFIs with average turnaround; submissions by status and trade; transmittals issued versus acknowledged; and trade packages by state. It is the answer to “where does everything stand” without opening each tab in turn.
Portal sits alongside Exchange, which handles versioned document sharing across company boundaries. Portal is the structured intake and issue loop with your trades; Exchange is peer-to-peer sharing with an audit trail. They are separate capabilities and are enabled independently.