Project Four Safety Solutions

By connecting Morta via API to common data environments like Viewpoint, the team eliminated the need to manually track and copy file names into spreadsheets. Design files and their metadata are pulled automatically, removing the labour-intensive process of reviewing and cataloguing 2,000-plus drawings and reports per project. Version control problems vanished , every link in Morta points to the most up-to-date information on the CDE, so reviews are always current.

Instead of sharing static, arbitrary spreadsheets with clients, Project Four now provides live Power BI dashboards showing compliance percentages, outstanding items requiring further information, and rejection status , all filterable by regulation section, primary owner, and status. This replaced the wall of text that nobody engaged with, giving clients and design teams a strong visual they can interact with meaningfully.

The most significant shift was cultural rather than technical. Dynamic folders on the CDE now let designers upload evidence into regulation-specific folders themselves. Rather than the principal designer hunting for evidence across the CDE, designers are responsible for demonstrating compliance with relevant requirements , which is both more accurate and more appropriate, given that design compliance is ultimately the designer’s duty. And the approach has become a replicable blueprint: the same filtering, evidence gathering, and reporting workflow is directly applicable to pre-construction information packs under CDM and safety case reports.

The Building Safety Act created an entirely new statutory role , the building regulations principal designer , with evidence-based compliance requirements that had no established workflow or tooling. Allan’s first attempt was a responsibility matrix in Excel that aligned building regulation requirements with design disciplines. It was conceptually sound but crude, and it translated poorly into practical project workflows.

The tracker that followed listed building regulation sections, assigned responsibility, and collected suggested evidence. But like large CDM design risk registers, these spreadsheets were arbitrary, difficult to interpret, and lacked visual impact. On complex projects, the principal designer might need to review around 2,000 drawings and reports. A manual plan check would take two or more weeks, and by the time it was complete, the design information on the CDE had already moved on , making the review contribution effectively mute.

Copying and pasting file names into individual Excel cells created enormous version control problems. Every time a file was updated on the CDE, the Excel reference became stale. And the tracker approach inadvertently promoted the idea that compliance was the principal designer’s responsibility alone. In reality, ensuring design complies with building regulations is the designer’s duty , the principal designer’s role is oversight, not evidence collection. With a live API link to the CDE, files update constantly, and the team found themselves stuck on a hamster wheel where they could be midway through reviewing a file only for someone to update it.

The current approach separates information provision from information review and puts evidence ownership back on designers.

The core technical breakthrough was connecting Morta via API to common data environments , Viewpoint and others , to pull all design files and their metadata into Morta automatically. The compliance tracker was rebuilt in Morta with section, subsection, functional requirements, applicability status, ownership, and evidence columns. From this single source, the team can produce CSV exports, PDF benchmark documents with clickable links back to Viewpoint, and live Power BI dashboards , giving different stakeholders the format that works best for them.

The most significant innovation was the creation of dynamic folders on the CDE. When a designer uploads general arrangement drawings to their architectural folder, those files dynamically link into the relevant building control folder , Part M for access, Part A2 for ground conditions, and so on. Morta then filters by file path to produce evidence views for each regulation section. The hub was restructured into two distinct areas: one for design input that pulls information from the CDE and filters it by regulation section, and a separate workspace where the principal designer conducts plan checks on a defined set of information. Using the latest CLC guidance on Gateway Two deliverables, the team communicates clear expectations to designers about what evidence is expected in each folder , putting responsibility back on designers rather than making the principal designer the central evidence collector.

The approach was refined iteratively as it met the realities of live project work. An early responsibility matrix was conceptually sound but didn’t translate well into practical project workflows. The building control tracker that followed brought CDE API connections and Power BI dashboards into the mix, replacing static spreadsheets and proving the value of pulling files directly from the CDE. The critical insight that shaped the current workflow was the need to separate information provision from information review , because connecting live to the CDE meant files were always changing, making it impossible to conduct a stable plan check against a moving target.

The solution was to let designers manage evidence in dynamic CDE folders while the principal designer works from filtered snapshots in Morta. Using CLC Gateway Two guidance, the team communicates clear expectations about what evidence is needed in each regulation folder, making it the designer’s responsibility to demonstrate compliance rather than having the principal designer hunt for evidence. The workflow fits the working processes that projects actually have , and it provides a blueprint for pre-construction information packs under CDM, safety case reports, and construction-phase compliance tracking towards a unified Gateway Three submission.