Frequently Asked Questions

We are here to answer your questions on how to use the Orrekie platform, and make the most out of the tools it offers. If you don’t see your question here, drop us a line below and join the discussion!

What is Orrekie?

Orrekie is a data driven cloud based Project Information Management database for architects, engineers, project managers, design managers and other construction professionals. It provides the correspondence, document management, and search tools that are essential to a professional and efficient studio, guided by four fundamental concepts:

Issue: Capture every decision required and made with a Memo. Focus efforts on the most important tasks, minimise distractions, and maximise the use of available resources.

Track: An auditable trail provides accountability, transparency, and an easily accessible record of actions taken, decisions made, and progress achieved. An intuitive, user-friendly interface that facilitates access to the tools and information needed to complete tasks.

Monitor: automatically monitor how key issues are cleared once a Memo is issued. Simplify repetitive tasks, reduce errors, and free up everyone to focus on more complex, value-added activities. Avoid issues arising before they occur and protect yourself from problems including claims.

Search: Automatically create a record of everything that happens within a project and that every team member can search within projects or between projects. Create your own knowledge base automatically. Increase knowledge availability, become a learning organisation.

  • After you have signed up for a new account and entered your credit card details you will need to input organisation information to ensure a smooth start, please follow these steps right after creating your account:

    1. Input Your Organisation Details: Go to the 'Organisation Information' tab in Global Settings and fill in all the necessary information about your organisation. This will help customise your experience on our platform and is very important as this information appears on your memos.

    2. Invite Team Members: Go to the 'Users and Permissions' tab and start adding your team members to the organisation. Each user uses one seat tied to your subscription.

    3. Set your Organisation signature: In the 'Correspondence Settings' tab, edit the relevant information for your organisation's signature. Some fields are automatic for each user. 

    4. Add Document Tags and Types: You can learn how to classify your documents in the  'Document Numbering' tab, and customise document types and tags. 

    5. Add new Contacts: You can start adding your contacts into the 'Global Contacts' any time as you go along.

  • The Memo is at the core of the Orrekie system.

    Memos are single page uniquely numbered documents that contain key information created and sent by an internal member of the team to an external contact of the project or third party. A Memo has a Number (auto-generated) and a Title (manually added) that identifies it inside the project, and includes a body of text and attachments. A Memo is only 1 page long, it is never longer.

    The text of the Memo has a thorough explanation of the matter of the Memo, and any crucial information that needs to be on record; it is independent from the actual email to which the Memo will be attached when sent.

    A key concept of the Memo is that it is a short element of text, which is why the main text box is restricted to half a side or so, if you need to write more then you are writing a document which needs a number, revision and is then attached to a Memo.

    The attachments of a Memo can be selected from the Documents, Files and Photos uploaded in the project, and a list of all attachments will appear at the bottom of the Memo. These attachments will be available for direct download (max 20 MB per memo) or under a share link which you will need to add to the Memo (as one normally does if you want to send a large file by email).

    A Memo can be copied to any number of the contacts in the project, and custom receivers can be also added while sending the Memo.

    Once sent, Memos are saved as tasks to complete in a project and can be reviewed at any time to check their content, attachments, and status in the Orrekie dashboard or in their respective projects.

  • Your body of work in Orrekie is managed through Projects and Pot-Jobs (short for potential jobs or projects), where all the data regarding a particular job is stored and managed.

    A Project is a live, running job, in which all the parties are appointed and documentation and correspondence imply contractual responsibility. It includes an Internal Team, a Project Directory (with contacts related to that project), and all Memos and Documents, Files and Photos unique to that project. Project Stage and Status refer to the phases of an ongoing job.

    A Pot-Job, or Potential Job, is a simplified version of a Project for keeping track of jobs that are not yet secured (such as competitions or contracts under-negotiation or even possible work that you wish to keep track of) but already produce documentation and correspondence. You can still assign a Team and Contacts to them, upload Documents, Files and Photos, and send Memos; though the tracking information is more limited. Pot-Job Stage and Status refer to the phases of getting a job started.

    To keep the work flow in the correct direction, Pot-Jobs have the option ‘Make into Project‘, that lets you migrate all of that Pot-Job information into a new Project if the Potential Job is secured. Project Number and Code will be assigned, and you will be able to manage that job from your Projects tab from then onwards.

  • If you have Admin User permission you will be able to create new projects in the ‘Projects’ tab.

    To create a new Project you’ll need to fill in some initial key information, like Project Name, Project Code, Project Address and Project Office. A project number will be auto-generated.

    While creating the project you will also be able to set some extra information, like Status, Stage, Project Sector and Starting Date, and set up some default tags for the projects memos. All this information will be editable in the future.

    Once the project is created, you will be navigate to the ‘Project Information‘ page, and will be able to start managing your project team, contacts, memos and files, or edit the project information.

    Projects can also be created from Pot-Jobs, by clicking the ‘Make into project’ button in the ‘Pot-Job Information’ page.

  • In the ‘Documents’ tab in a project, you will be able to manage your current documents and upload a new one by clicking ‘New Document’.

    To create documents, just drag your files into the uploading box, and they will appear referred at the top as new documents. Assign them a Title, Type and Revision to identify them; when uploading, documents will be automatically assigned a Reference Number (based on the file name) and a Version Number (based on the number of existing documents with the same name).

    You can also add Tags to the documents. Remember you can upload Documents one by one or in batches, so tags will apply to all files you are uploading.

    Once you click ‘Save and Upload’ the new documents will be added to your project and visible in the ‘Documents’ tab. Newer versions of existing documents will be seen alongside older versions of documents.

  • When you log in as a user you will be taken to your personal dashboard which shows you the recent projects you have been working on, the summary of the memos you have that are outstanding and uncleared and from this page you can search for information in your project(s) and across all projects.

Getting Started

  • Global Settings let users manage the Company information depending on their user permissions. You can find the settings by clicking the Cog symbol on the top right corner of the page.

    Here there are defined six tabs that control different aspects of the central management of the company in Orrekie:

    Organisation Information: Name, Registration number, Address and other important information are set up here. All users can see this information but only Admin Users can edit it. This information appears at the bottom of every memo.

    Billing and Invoices: here the subscription to Orrekie can be managed, including invoices and number of users. Only Admin users can see or edit this information.

    Users and Permissions: this menu displays a list of all members of the team, including their email address, their Role within the company and their User Permission. This information can be seen by all members, and edited by Admin users only.

    Correspondence Settings: this helps you create some default settings for your future memos, including format, company signature and templated texts. Only Admin Users can see or edit this information.

    Document Numbering: includes an easy guide to Orrekie’s document numbering system, and lets Admin Users manage by-default Document Types and Tags for uploaded documents. All users can see this information.

    Global Contacts: a directory of all the company’s contacts and their personal details. All users can see this information, add new contacts or edit existing ones, and assign these contacts to projects.

  • When opening a project in Orrekie you will find a set of seven tabs containing all necessary information for the project.

    Project Information: it displays core information of the project, like Project Number and Name, Address, Status, Stage and Sector of the project. This information can be edited by Admin and Expert Users, and appears in memos.

    Memos: the Memo dashboard lets users navigate through all of the project’s memos, both sent and draft, sort them and filter Uncleared or Overdue ones. You can also create new memos from this page, save drafts and send completed memos.

    Documents: a list of all the documents in a project, showing their latest versions, that also lets users preview and edit documents, check their version history and upload new documents.

    Files: a list of all non-document files, where users can preview existing files and upload new ones.

    Photos: a list of all photo files and Photo Sets in a project; users can preview and upload photos, and create and edit Photo sets.

    Internal Team: this menu shows all the company members that are part of the Project Team. Here you can add new team members, manage their Project Roles and see their User Permissions to manage hierarchies and responsibilities within a project. You can also distinguish between active or inactive members of the team .

    Project Directory: a directory of all the external contacts assigned to the project, be it team members from other companies, client or third parties. Here you can check their details, assign them roles within the project, and mark them as Top 16 Contacts. All users will be able to assign new contacts to the project from Global Contacts, or create new contacts from scratch.

  • In the ‘Users and Permissions’ tab in ‘Global Settings’ you will find that all team members can be marked under permission categories that will define their level of access and editing power within your Orrekie environment.

    There are three permission categories to be assigned to:

    Admin: can access and change billing information, modify global information, create and set up projects, manage users and define project standards.

    Expert: can modify project information, add team members and send memos.

    Standard: upload files, add contacts to the global directory and assign them to projects, write and send memos.

  • There are two tabs in the Project Settings that are key for tracking and managing who’s working on a project and what are they doing: the Internal Team tab and the Project Directory tab.

    The Internal Team tab shows a list of all the company members currently assigned to work on the project, and whether they are Project Principal, Project Director or Project Team (that will help define the hierarchy of the team throughout the project). It also displays the User permission level of the team members, and if they are active or inactive in the project at the moment. Admin and Expert users can modify this information and add new team members.

    The Project Directory tab keeps all the external contacts (saved in Global Contacts) that are assigned to the project. All users can see contacts details, assign them specific Project Roles and mark them as Top 16 Contacts, and assign new contacts to the project from existing Global Contacts (or adding new contacts first). Contacts assigned to projects will appear as options for receiving or being copied in when creating and sending a memo.

  • When assigning contacts to a Project, you will have the option of marking them as ‘Top 16’. This means they will appear at the bottom of each and every Memo with a check box aginst their name as key external team members who should be considered to be copied in outgoing memos.

    At the time of drafting a Memo to send, there is a first section ‘Copied to’ in which these Top 16 Contacts will appear; you only have to check the box next to each name for that person to receive the Memo. There’s also a second section ‘And to’ that lets you select other project contacts to copy in the Memo.

    Top 16 Contacts lets you have access to quick copying-in of contacts to whom you usually send memos in a project.

    The main receiver and all contacts copied in will receive the Memo and its attachments.

Settings

  • All memos in a project are listed in the ‘Memos’ tab inside the project. Memos are recorded as actions to be completed unless issued ‘for information‘, in which case they will be automatically marked as Cleared), and will appear under an Uncleared, Overdue or Cleared status.

    Uncleared memos are those that have been sent, but which have not been closed by an action (e.g. a memo asking for confirmation on a construction detail where confirmation has not (yet) been received).

    Overdue memos are those memos that have remained uncleared for over 14 days (or whichever overdue period time is set). They are highlighted in red in the dashboards.

    Cleared memos are those whose specific topic has been dealt with (solved) by an action, or have moved on to a new memo. Memos are manually cleared by a member of the team, and appear greyed out when cleared; to clear a memo a reason must be provided in the form of a short comment linked to the cleared memo.

    Memos can be filtered and sorted by these categories in the project dashboard, and in each user’s personal dashboard.

  • When starting to upload files to a project, you’ll notice that there are several categories within which to upload them. There are substantial differences that will help you manage and classify your files:

    Documents are internally produced data with a certain level of complexity (such as drawings or progress reports), that usually require revision and modification throughout the course of a project. They are identified by a Reference Number (based on the name of the file), a Title, a Revision Code and a Version Number. Documents are progressively updated by uploading new versions of the file, so they can follow the project process and be sent in Memos whilst always remaining identified.

    Files are externally produced data or simple information (such as third party drawings, reference reports or static secondary information), that do not need to follow the process of Documents. They are identified only by a Title, and once uploaded they cannot be updated. This lets you send and keep track of files by others as references in your Memos.

    Photos are jpg or png specific data, external or internal, that can be uploaded and managed in the same way as Files. They are saved separately from files so they can be combined in Photo Sets and batch uploaded.

  • Documents have both Revision and Version codes assigned to them. They serve the purpose of identifying and tracking your files through the project’s life, in two different ways:

    The Revision code is a public reference for everybody working on a project to know what Revision of the documents they are receiving and to be able to compare them; it appears in Memos together with the document’s Reference Number and Title. Revision codes are manually filled in, so you can use any system you like to identify your documents (whether it is ISO 19650 revision codes or a system of your own).

    The Version number is an internal reference for the team members to identify file updates within a document, and following its update history. A new Version Number is automatically generated in a document every time you upload a file to an already existing Document; this new file will override the Document as the latest version, but users will always be able to check previous versions inside the documents preview. Version number does not appear in memos, it’s a reference for your team to track progress of documents.

    When attaching documents to a memo, the latest version of each document will be attached by default, showing their corresponding Revision code. You will be able, nonetheless, to select manually which Revision of a document you want to send (if you want to send a previous iteration of that document).

  • Yes. If you create a New Document and do not upload a file, it will be saved as a Draft Document. You will still be able to change the document information (such as title, tags, or assigned document sets), and once you upload a file it will then be saved as a Document (no longer Draft).

    This lets you set up your desired Documents in a Project before you have the actual files produced, and helps you with your work planning process.

Memos and Documents

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