A verification plan (sometimes also referred to as a test plan, control plan or commissioning plan) is a plan that explains how you will organize the verification process to demonstrate compliance with the defined requirements.
A verification plan answers the following questions:
- When will requirements be verified?
- How will they be verified?
- By whom will they be verified?
To develop a verification plan in BriefBuilder, you first have to define the overall set-up (phases, methods, roles & outcome categories). Basically, you are defining the columns for your verification table (aka compliance matrix).
After that, you can fill in the plan for the requirements that are meant to be part of your verification process.
Both steps will be explained in this article. You can also watch our tutorival video on how to set up a verification plan.
Overall set-up
Setting up the verification plan begins with defining the relevant options for the when, how and by whom questions mentioned earlier. Furthermore, you may already want to define the possible outcome categories for verifications (compliant, non-compliant, etc.).
When? (verification phases)
To define when a verification should take place, you are able to create verification phases in BriefBuilder.
To define verification phases, you have to head to Settings > Verifications and then click on Verification phases.

There, you can simply add a phase by clicking on + Add phase.

Once you have defined the relevant phases, these will show up in the verification table in the column Phases.



How? (verification methods)
You may also want to define how a verification should be performed. What should be done to demonstrate compliance?
Examples of verification methods are document review, calculation, inspection, simulation, performance test, and functional test.
To define verification methods, you have to head over to: Settings > Verification > Standard Properties.

And then select Verification plan.

There, you can create a property (such as Method) by clicking on + Add standard property and setting the input type to Picklist.
Click on the Picklist value field to be able to add a number of predefined methods. You are also able to add a description for every individual picklist option (the methods, in this case).

Click on the Picklist value Field to be able to add or edit the available methods.
Once you have defined the relevant methods, these will show up in the verification table as a drop-down menu in the column Method.

Who? (users, organisations, roles)
For reasons of accountability, it is important that there is a particular person or actor that is responsible for a verification. In BriefBuilder, this responsibility can be assigned on different levels. You can link verifications to:
- Users (specific persons who are registered as BriefBuilder users for your project)
- Organisations (e.g., Architecture firm A or Contractor B).
- Roles (e.g., architect, engineer, indoor climate consultant)
When assigning verifications to users you have to make sure that their accounts are linked to the right verification roles and permissions.
When specific users and organisations aren’t known yet, you can choose to assign verifications to functional roles (e.g., architect, supplier, contractor etc.). These roles can be added via the roles menu:
Go to Settings > Project model > Roles.

Verification result categories
The different outcome possibilities for verification results can also be part of setting up your verification plan. By default, BriefBuilder provides the following outcome options for verifications:
- Compliant
- Partially compliant
- Non-compliant

You can easily edit these categories via the Settings menu. You may, for example, want to add an outcome option called Not yet verifiable. Or perhaps you want to add an extra field called Approval if your verification procedure follows a ‘four eyes’ set-up.
To define and edit verification result properties, you have to go back to Settings again and click on Standard properties below Verifications.

Then select Verification result (not plan!).

If you want to change the outcome categories, click on the Picklist values field for the property Outcome.
If you want to add a new property, click on + Add standard property. Set the input type to Picklist if you want to have a drop-down menu.



Making the actual plan
Once you have defined the overall set-up, you can start creating the actual verification plan.
To make the verification plan, go to the Verification table under Verifications in the main menu.

In this table, you are able to find all the requirements in the entire model. For each individual requirement you can define how, when, and by whom it should be verified.
Typically, you do this in batches: you select groups of requirements that have to be verified in the same way. For example: you select all requirements concerning floor sizes and then define that all these should be verified during the concept design phase, by means of a calculation, with Architect Firm X as responsible party.
You can make these selections by means of the table’s selections and filters.
Selections
The selections are shown before you get to see the actual table.

Selections for verifications
- Phase: relevant when wanting to define verifications for a particular phase.
- Verification plan: relevant for finding requirements that don’t have a verification plan.
- Responsible: relevant for finding verifications that haven’t been assigned yet.
- Outcome: relevant for verifications with a particular outcome (or lack thereof).
Selections for requirements
- Tree: the tree or tree part that your set of requirements is part of (e.g., Spaces & Locations).
- Object type: relevant when interested in a particular object type (e.g., only spaces).
- Labels: relevant when looking for requirements that related to objects with a particular label (e.g., “new” or “existing”).
- Requirement subject: relevant when looking for a particular type of requirement.
For the verification plan, you will typically start with selecting a phase and then finding a particular set of requirements by selecting a tree (or tree part) and a requirement subject.
Once you have made you selections, click on Show, and you will get to see the set of requirements for which you want to define your verification plan details.
In the table itself, you can narrow your selection further down by using the column filters (the little filter icon above each column).
Especially the filter in the column Requirement type will be relevant as it allows you to make a very specific selection of requirements.

Adding verification plan details
Once you have selected the set of requirements that you had in mind, you can start filling in the verification plan details for these requirements.
You can define who is Responsible.

And you can add other kinds of details (such as verification method), depending on the verification plan properties that you have defined in the settings menu.



Moving or cloning verifications to another phase
When working on your verification plan, it might occur that you suddenly realize that it would be better to verify a particular set of requirements in another phase than where they currently are.
Or, when already doing verifications, you might realize that you want to re-verify a particular set of requirements (e.g., those that had ‘non-compliant’ as a result) in the next phase.
In both cases, you want to transfer verification data from one phase to another. In BriefBuilder, this can be done with the clone/move verifications button () in the verification table.

To move or clone verification data to another phase, you have to do the following:
1. In the selection window, select the phase for which you want to clone/move verification data.

2. In the same window, use the other selections to get the set of requirements for which you want to move/clone verification data. When done, click on Show.
3. In the table itself, you may want to use the filter options to further narrow your selection.

4. When you have the right set of data on your screen, click on the clone/move verifications button ().

5. In the pop-up, choose whether you want to clone (= duplicate) the verification data in another phase, or really want to move the data to another phase.

6. Select the ‘target phase’ to which the data should be moved/cloned to. (Note: the ‘source phase’ is a given as you have selected that in step 1).

7. Choose whether you want to include the verification results or whether you only want to move/clone the verification plans.

8. Click on Next and check the impact summary to ascertain yourself that you are doing what you intend to do.

9. Last: click on the clone/move button in the lower right corner of the pop-up.
Please note: once you have completed the operation, you are still in the table selection that you started with. To see the moved/cloned verifications, you have to go back to the selection screen and select the appropriate phase.
Cloning a verification phase
It’s also a possibility that you might like to clone an entire verification phase as a new phase. To do so, you have to navigate to the verification phases in the settings menu (Menu > Settings > Verification > Verification phases).

There, you will see the verification phases that you have defined.
By clicking on the clone button (), you will get a copy of that phase plus the related verification data.

When making the clone, you get the option to include or exclude the verification results. The default settings is that verification results are not included.

Doing the actual verifications
Once your verification plan is set up, it is time to do the actual verification and fill in the results. How to do so is explained in a separate article.