The Definitive Restoration Workflow Guide: How to Make Every Job Flow Seamlessly
Restoration
5 min read
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If you look across your recent projects, you’ll probably notice that the biggest friction rarely comes from the work itself; it comes from chasing information, rebuilding files, mishandling handoffs, and smoothing over miscommunications. But when you design your workflow so that data is captured once in the field, stays connected across the full mitigation/reconstruction process, and is instantly usable in your estimating and back-office systems, every job starts to feel more predictable and less chaotic.
The key to making that happen is to use a digital app that allows you to centralize and manage information seamlessly through every stage of each project. Here is a helpful, 12-stage guide that explains exactly how that’s done:
1. Complete the initial intake
Every job starts with a single call or message from a homeowner, property manager, or program partner describing what happened and how urgent it is. During this intake stage, you capture essential details (location, contact info, cause of loss, access, safety concerns, insurance information) and create a job record that becomes the anchor for everything that follows. Using a digital app, such as magicplan, to open the project during intake means your field team sees the same information you collected at your office — instead of relying on handwritten notes or scattered emails or text message.
2. Prepare for the first job-site visit
3. Perform the initial site inspection and safety check
4. Document the loss with sketches, photos, and notes
Next, perform a high-level inspection to understand the source, category, and extent of damage at the job site. This is where you must create detailed visual documentation to record your findings. And you can save all of that information in one, centralized place with a connected app like magicplan restoration software: room sketches, room labels, photos, instrument readings, and notations are captured, connected and stored together, so you only document everything once and then reuse that data later for planning, estimating and reporting.
5. Define the mitigation plan and start work
With the loss documented, you decide on the mitigation strategy: what needs extraction, what items must be removed, which materials can be saved, and what containment or safety measures are required. You outline specific details, such as demolition steps, equipment types and counts, and necessary PPE, while communicating the plan to both the homeowner and your team. When your plan is built directly on top of the proper documentation within your app, your crew can see exactly what to do, where to do it, and why, reducing confusion and rework.
6. Set up equipment, monitor progress, and update documentation
During active mitigation, your team gets to work. For instance, when addressing water damage, they will likely need to extract water, set up equipment, install containment barriers. Someone will also need to return to the job site to monitor and document progress. Each visit should include updated moisture readings, photo evidence of progress, and notes about any changes or surprises on site. Recording those readings, photos and notes in the same project documentation you created on day one keeps your drying log organized, and it also makes it easy to generate reports that justify your mitigation decisions and duration.
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7. Build and refine scopes for mitigation and reconstruction
As mitigation stabilizes the property, you must refine scopes for both the work you’ve done (or are finishing) and the repairs needed to return the structure to its original condition. This includes room-by-room line items, material types, and quantities that will drive your estimate in whichever estimating platform you use. Because your scopes are built on structured field data — i.e., accurate measurements, detailed sketches, labeled rooms, and linked photo documentation — your estimates will be more defensible and will require fewer revisions.
8. Create estimates and submit for approval
Once the entire scope is solid, you turn it into a formal estimate. The goal is to tell a clear story of what was damaged, what was done, and what must be rebuilt, supported by consistent documentation. Using a tool like magicplan restoration management software as the source of truth for claims documentation means you can pull quantities, room details, and annotated photos directly into Cotality or Xactimate software without manually retyping or re-measuring. That capability speeds approvals and reduces errors.
