The process today
How the business does it now
Taken from DID963, the written procedure, not from memory. Fourteen steps, four people, several hours a report, ninety a year. This is the thing being replaced, so it is worth being exact about it.
Who is involved
| Who | What they do |
|---|---|
| Support PAR supportpar@ |
Writes the report. Opens the Word template, looks up every field on the ACT websites, captures and formats every image, assembles the PDF, and sends it out. This is the role the new report replaces most of. |
| Planning Emily Keane |
Owns the planning figures. The site coverage table in the procedure carries her name and the date 7 April 2026 — the figures have been through a planner once already, in the procedure. |
| Support Sales | Confirms the customer may be booked before an appointment is made. |
| Canberra staff | Answer the questions the procedure cannot — it says to contact them when in doubt. |
| The customer | Supplies the Needs Analysis Survey, which decides the property type and forms the meeting agenda. |
The fourteen steps
As numbered in the procedure. The right column is what it costs in hand work.
1
File handling
Never replace an existing document in the checklist — add it as a new one. Amended
11 February 2026, which tells you a document was lost.
A rule, not work
2–3
Objective and key points
What the report is for, and the warning that it is shown to a customer so it must be
accurate and clean.
Background
4
Image and formatting rules
Every image a .jpeg or .gif with a blue border. Landscape 18.1 cm wide and left
aligned, portrait 18 cm tall and centred, square 11 cm and centred. On a project with two
clients, the female name goes first. Update the table of contents last.
Formatting, every image
5
Client Overview: introduction
Open DID964, enable editing, type the customer name, address and date on page one and
again on page two, remove the highlight colours, choose between extension, secondary
residence and dual occupancy from the Needs Analysis Survey.
Typing, twice over
6
Heritage status
Search the ACT Heritage Register by suburb, section and block. The procedure records a
trap: 8 Hazel Street, Oaks Estate matches the register and is still correctly marked No,
because the Council rejected the listing.
A lookup, with judgement
7
Pricefinder link
Property type is available there and the procedure says explicitly not to use
it — it comes from the Needs Analysis Survey, or is taken as owner occupier if there is
no survey.
A link
8
Zone, block size and approval
Block number, section, suburb, zone and area from ACTMapi. Block type from the size:
over 500 m² large, 250–500 mid-sized, under 250 compact. Plot ratio "taken as 50%
or keep the value as TBC". Site coverage from the table Emily signed. Easements plotted
from ACTMapi and copied into the summary page as well.
Lookups, and one figure that is a placeholder
9
ACTMapi images
The legacy Basic Map, every checkbox on, the newest imagery layer unless it fails.
Contours added one layer at a time — 8 m, then 6, 4 and 2 — and the warning that
contour lines vanish when you zoom all the way in, so check before capturing.
The slowest step
10
The thirteen views
Aerial; aerial with contours and easements; building offsets and the building zone;
a 3D roofing envelope; boundary lengths; verge distance; upper-level setbacks; front access;
block dimensions; the Pricefinder floorplan; trees; bushfire; plumbing ties.
Thirteen drawings, by hand, per customer
11
Assembling the PDF
Update the table of contents, convert to PDF, check it. Extract page 1 to the Plumbing
Tie Search page, insert the merged Dial Before You Dig, then the Q&A report, then the rest
of the template. Build the meeting agenda separately as plumbing ties + survey + Q&A +
end. Name both files to the exact format.
Cutting and joining PDFs
12
Booking the meeting
Support Sales confirms first. Upload to GCONS and to the CGFB website client logon.
Set "Planning Assessment Report Meeting Completed" to Yes on the Lead Generation Report.
Email MS 47.1 to info@ from supportpar@ with both files attached. Fill the block area into
GCONS and the client overview into the Property Customer page.
Where the business finds out it happened
13–14
Pressure test, and the resources list
A monthly check, and the list of every website the report depends on: ACTMapi,
Pricefinder, Allhomes, the Access Canberra plumbing tie register, the ACT Heritage
Register.
Housekeeping
What that adds up to
14steps in the procedure
13drawings produced by hand, per customer
5separate websites it depends on
90reports booked in the year to September 2026
Where the time actually goes
Not in the thinking. The planning judgement is a small part of it — most of the work is looking up the same fields on the same five websites, capturing images to a fixed size with a blue border, and cutting and joining PDFs in a fixed order.
That is the part a machine should do, and it is the part that goes wrong quietly: a contour layer that did not load, an imagery layer that failed over to an older one, a figure typed from the wrong block.
And the part that cannot be automated as it stands
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| The percentage probability of a compliant build | The procedure never says how it is arrived at, so it is a judgement the writer makes. A machine cannot reproduce a judgement, and should not pretend to. |
| When the block was approved | A procedure that specifies image border colours never says where to get this date — and the whole front setback schedule depends on it. |
| Verge distance and front access | Two of the thirteen drawings, with no source named anywhere. |
Why this page exists
So the new report can be argued against what actually happens, not against an idea of it — and so that when a step is automated it is obvious which one, and what it used to cost.
Source: DID963 Create Desktop Planning Assessment Report, read 30 September 2026. The template it produces is DID964, revised 25 January 2024.