Your first project

Developments uses your Atlasly account. Open Developments from the Atlas AI sidebar or go to atlasly.app/developments. With no projects yet, you can start from a site, from documents, or from an existing Atlas AI project.

Create the project. Choose New development. Only a name is required. Add an address if you have one; it places the project on the portfolio map but is never treated as a boundary.
Choose the starting point. Choose a site you may buy (milestones run from parcel checks to purchase terms) or land you already own (surveys to a pre-application pack). Choose currency and units.
Add parcels if you have them. Optionally add parcels with their title number, folio, APN or UPRN, an owner and the team’s next action. All of this can be added later.
Start from the overview. The project opens on its Overview: a suggested next step, the project record showing what is established, in progress, needing attention or not started, and what needs attention.

To bring in an existing Atlas AI project instead, choose Add existing project on the portfolio. Only projects you own or administer are offered. The project keeps its documents, findings, actions and appraisals and gains a stage, parcels and milestones. Nothing is moved automatically.

A first useful result usually means: the site recorded, the documents you hold uploaded with anything unreadable flagged, open questions written down, the next actions assigned, and a first pack you can share.

Site and boundaries

Each parcel keeps its own reference even when studied together; combining parcels in one project never implies a legal merger. On Site, choose Add parcel, then Boundary beside it to draw an outline or import a boundary file.

A saved or edited outline is always unconfirmed. Mark it confirmed only once someone has checked it against a source such as a title plan or measured survey. The outline preview shows confirmed parcels as solid lines and unconfirmed parcels as dashed lines. Parcel areas feed site coverage in option comparisons.

For spatial design, Open in Canvas uses the shared project and returns you to the project’s options.

Address or folio (Hillsborough County, Florida, where switched on): when you add a parcel to a US project, type the listing address, such as 114 S Bungalow Park Ave, Tampa FL 33609, or a folio, and choose Look up. Atlasly lists up to ten parcels from the county parcel record with their folio, site address and land-use code. Each one is marked as an exact or partial match, with how it differs from what you typed, and Atlasly never picks one for you. Choosing a parcel fills in its folio, address and label and adds the source to the parcel’s notes. When exactly one parcel matches exactly, Add and check public records adds it and runs the check in one step. Owner details are never looked up.

Public records (City of Tampa and Hillsborough County, Florida, where switched on): for parcels recorded with a Hillsborough County folio, Check public records reads the county parcel record, City zoning, overlays and historic districts, future land use, the FEMA flood zone and panel, and state cleanup-site and subsidence records. Each result is saved as a finding with its dataset and retrieval date; zoning yield, use routes and yards come from the Tampa Code rules with the section cited; anything the records cannot establish is saved as an open question. Enter existing units to compare them with what current zoning allows. Checking again replaces the earlier results. Missing parcel details (address, area, an unconfirmed outline) are filled from the county record; what your team entered is never overwritten.

Find similar sites (same area, where switched on) searches City of Tampa parcels from the county and City public records for lots like the one checked: same zoning and land-use group, a similar lot area, last sold more than a set number of years ago and within a chosen distance, all adjustable. Lot area, zoning share and distance are measured from the parcel outlines. Results are screening candidates from public records, not recommendations: owner details are never fetched, and whether an owner would sell is not known. Start a development on a row creates a project with that folio as its parcel.

Watch public records is off until an editor turns it on, weekly or monthly. Each re-check records changes to zoning, overlays, historic districts, future land use, the FEMA flood zone and panel, and new state cleanup sites, and notes when the City's zoning code rewrite page changes. Changes appear in the Public records panel and the project activity only; nothing is emailed. A fact that either check could not establish is never reported as a change.

Trees: record each tree from the arborist report, including off-site trees whose protective radius reaches the lot. Enter what the arborist recorded (species, trunk diameter, condition rating, protective radius); protection status and the removal route are worked out from the local code, and only for parcels a public-record check confirmed inside the City of Tampa. Place trees by hand from the survey on the site map (satellite imagery, where canopies help, or a drawn plan where the map is unavailable) to see how much of each lot lies inside protective radii. For City of Tampa lots the panel also gives the buildable area after tree radii, in sq ft and m² and drawn on the map: the zoning yards set in from the county outline, less the protective radii. Record which side of the lot faces the street (and, for a corner lot, the second street) from the survey or plat: the front yard goes on the outline edge facing that side, the rear yard on the opposite edge and side yards on the rest, with a corner lot's second street taking the corner-side yard. Where the street side is not recorded, both ends take the larger of the front and rear yards (every edge takes the largest yard when the outline does not match the recorded width and depth), and the panel says which placement it used; a lot turned diagonally to the recorded side, or a side that contradicts the recorded width, reads as Not known. Area that a Tree Removal Zone permit could release is shown separately and never added to the by-right figure. Lot width, depth, corner status and street side, from the survey or plat, feed the zoning and tree rules.

Nearby sales, rents and fees (same area, where switched on): once a public-record check has read a parcel, Check nearby sales and rents lists the last recorded sales around it from the county property appraiser, with distance, date, price and price per square foot, and the census tract’s median rent from the latest five-year American Community Survey. Sales are last recorded sales with no arm’s-length flag, not an appraisal; the rent is an area benchmark, not this property’s rent. In Appraisal, Suggest fees from local rules estimates the City of Tampa multi-modal impact fee and the Hillsborough County school impact fee for the option you choose, citing the code section, and fills Fees and planning obligations only when you apply it. Water and wastewater connection fees, credits for existing homes and affordable-housing relief are not included.

Documents, correspondence and findings

Evidence has four views. Documents lists every PDF with its readable status, current version, parcel and page count. Drop PDFs onto the list or choose Upload PDFs. Open a document to read its text by page, switch between versions, replace it with a new version or record a finding from a page.

Ready: the text was read and can be cited by page.
Needs review: some or all pages were read by OCR, or have no readable text at all. OCR text is labelled OCR wherever it is cited, with a reminder to check figures against the page image; pages OCR could not read cannot support findings or answers until checked. OCR runs in your browser when you upload a PDF, in English, on up to 40 scanned pages per document; files imported from Drive or from email attachments are not read by OCR yet.
Failed: the file could not be processed; the reason is shown and you can retry or upload again.
Replacing a document keeps earlier versions readable. A newer upload that fails does not replace the working version. Opening a later version shows What changed from version N: pages inserted, removed, moved or changed, with changed figures (trunk diameters, dimensions, dates and dollar amounts) named, and findings that cite the earlier version listed as possibly needing a re-check.

Read this document (editors, on a document whose text was read) proposes values from it for you to check: each tree row of an arborist report, the folio, land area, buildings and sales of a property record, a survey's lot dimensions, rights-of-way, encroachments and flood note, or up to 20 key facts from anything else. Each proposal shows the page and the passage it came from; anything that cannot be matched to the page text is left out and counted. Nothing is recorded until you accept it. Accepted items become facts cited to the document, version and page; accepted trees can go straight into the tree register, where the local rules (not the report) decide their status on parcels a public-record check placed in the City of Tampa, and a survey's lot width and depth can be set on the parcel the document belongs to. An old flood note is recorded as what the survey said on its date, not as today's flood position. Rejected proposals are kept as a record.

Correspondence holds saved email. Choose Choose .eml file, check the sender, date and attachments shown, then Copy email to project; nothing is saved until you copy it. The sender and date come from the file and are not verified. PDF attachments are ticked by default and become documents that record which email they came from; untick any you do not want. Images and other files are listed with the reason they were not imported. A file already in Documents is not copied twice: the email is linked to the existing document. To import another attachment later, choose the same .eml file again.

To start a project from a listing or broker email, choose Start from an email on the portfolio and drop the .eml. The project name comes from the subject line, and parcels are proposed only from folio numbers (such as 116905-0000) and street addresses that appear in the email, each marked Found in the email until you edit it. Other addresses, such as a signature, are offered unticked. Creating the project saves the email and imports the attachments you ticked. When the email gives addresses but no folio, each proposed parcel offers the same Look up; nothing is looked up until you press it.

Findings keeps what the project knows apart by how it is known: facts cited to a document page, assumptions taken as given, calculations and open questions. Resolve a finding with a note naming the source; resolved and superseded findings stay in the record.

Options and revisions

Record each scheme as an option with use, homes, footprint, floorspace, storeys and the assumptions behind the figures. Leave a figure blank if it is not known; it shows as not known, never as zero. Revise creates a new revision and keeps the earlier ones; Revisions shows the history.

With two or more options, the Comparison table sets them side by side, including floorspace per home and site coverage from parcel areas. Choose Select for appraisal on the option to take forward, or select an earlier revision from its history. Use a Canvas option creates an option from a saved Canvas design with its exact version recorded; later Canvas edits do not change it.

When every parcel has a public-record check that confirmed the City of Tampa, Start from zoning drafts options from the Tampa Code rules: keep the existing units, the by-right units on each lot, and the lots combined as one zoning lot (which, at three or more units in RM-16, needs a special use permit). The preview shows each rule statement with its code section. The options you create keep those statements in their assumptions, each marked as a public-record fact, an estimate or an assumption; the buildable area is an estimate from the required yards only, footprint and floorspace are left not known, and any right-of-way between the lots is recorded as an open question rather than answered. In Canvas, US projects enter and show lengths in feet, and Tampa projects offer the RM-16 yards as a setback preset.

Appraisal

The appraisal prices one exact option revision and starts from its homes and floorspace. Enter land, build, finance and sales figures; tag each as supplied, an estimate or an assumption and note where it came from. Rates are entered as percentages.

The result, cost breakdown and the mix of supplied, estimated and assumed inputs stay in view. Missing inputs are listed as not known and results that depend on them are not calculated. Sensitivity shows profit if sales revenue, build cost or land price move by 5% or 10%, or the programme runs 3 or 6 months longer.

Enter Fees and planning obligations as one amount: impact, school and connection fees in the US, or CIL and Section 106 in the UK. Set a target margin, on cost or on revenue, and the appraisal solves for the residual land value: the most the land can cost, with its acquisition costs and finance, for profit to meet that margin. It is shown against the land price you entered, and a negative value is shown rather than hidden. For sites with existing homes, Keep and rent values the current rent at a cap rate and gives the yield on the land price plus acquisition costs.

Save scenario keeps a version. Each later save is a new version; Save as new scenario starts another. If the selected option revision changes, the appraisal shows that it prices an earlier revision and offers to switch.

The answer. Once an appraisal has a target margin, the project overview opens with a screening verdict (Go, Go, with conditions, Pass or Not known yet) and a max offer: the residual land value of your best option at your target margin, set against the asking price. Each reason names its source, such as the county record, the zoning code section, the arborist report page or your appraisal. Below it, a Before you offer checklist is worked out from what the records show: a survey when lot-area figures disagree, the status of a right-of-way between lots, a special use route, protected trees, title, an asbestos survey for older buildings and the rent roll. Add any item to your actions and choose the owner; nothing is created or sent until you do. When a checklist action is marked done, that item stops blocking and its note is shown, not interpreted. The verdict comes from fixed rules applied to the records and assumptions you entered; it is not advice, a valuation or a planning determination.

Outputs follow from the inputs by fixed formulas shared with Atlasly’s servers. They are not a valuation and say nothing about planning approval. New to appraisals? Read what a development appraisal is, including profit on cost versus profit on GDV.

Actions, milestones and reviews

On Work, choose New action and give it an owner and due date; an action can wait for another. Overdue actions appear on the project overview and the portfolio. Marking an action done asks how it was resolved. Proposed actions must be accepted before they count.

Milestones come from the project’s starting point; add your own, set due dates or mark them not applicable. Reviews record a decision on an exact document version, option revision or appraisal version. A completed milestone or internal review records your team’s work; it is never an approval from any authority.

Team and permissions

Choose Share on a project. Owners and admins add colleagues who already use Atlasly by the email they sign in with, and choose a role:

Viewer: reads everything, including documents and packs.
Editor: adds evidence, options, appraisals, actions and packs.
Admin: everything an editor can do, plus managing members.

If the address has no Atlasly account yet, for example your CEO, a broker or an arborist, choose Send an invitation. Atlasly sends one email saying who invited them, the project name, the role and a link that expires after 14 days; nothing is sent until you choose it, and the email carries no other project information. They accept by signing in, or creating an account, with the address you invited; another account is refused. If email is not available, the Share dialog says no email was sent and shows the link for you to copy and send yourself.

Pending invitations are listed in the Share dialog with their role, when they were sent and when they expire. Resend sends a new link (at most once every 10 minutes) and the earlier link stops working; Revoke withdraws it. A project can send up to 20 invitations a day, and pending invitations count toward the 50-member limit. Adding or removing someone directly withdraws any invitation still pending for their address, and an invitation never changes the role of someone who is already a member. Removing a member takes effect immediately. Archived projects are read-only for everyone.

Read-only link for people outside the project: owners and admins can publish a page a seller, buyer or lender opens without signing in. It shows the findings with their sources, the open questions, parcels, trees, options, appraisals and the documents held, with your reply-to email. Saved messages, comments, activity and member details are never included. Publish again to refresh it behind the same link; turning it off stops the link for good. The screening verdict and max offer are included unless you untick them, for example before sending the link to a seller. The reader can choose Download PDF to save the page on A4 or US Letter with its sources, open questions and a footer showing the date and link.

Project packs

On Packs, the panel shows what the next pack will include. Generate pack fixes the current record, with the exact document versions, option revisions and appraisal versions it used, and states gaps rather than hiding them. Existing packs never change. Open Print view to print or save as a PDF, or download Markdown. Choose a layout for the reader: the investment committee layout opens with the decision you are asking for (in your words), the key appraisal figures and the open questions; the lender layout opens with the parcels, the scheme figures with their sensitivity range, and the documents held. The records are the same in every layout.

Connections

Uploading PDFs and importing email files work today and need no connection. Google Drive, Microsoft 365 (OneDrive and SharePoint), Gmail and Outlook connections are built but are not available yet: each needs Atlasly to complete the provider’s registration first. Until then they are shown as not available on Evidence › Sources.

When available, you choose each file or message; nothing is copied in the background. A connection belongs to the person who made it and is never shared with project members, and the same signed-in Atlasly account that started a connection must finish it. Disconnecting stops future access without removing evidence already saved to the project.

Coming back to a project

On the portfolio, Board shows every project in a column for its stage. Each card shows the parcels, the land price and the residual land value at your target margin from the latest saved appraisal, the next action and who owns it, and how long the project has been in its stage. Editors drag a card to another stage, or use Move to… on the card from the keyboard.

The portfolio shows what needs attention across projects, work due in the next 14 days, which projects changed since your last visit and a link to continue where you left off. A project’s overview lists what changed since you last opened it. Visit history is kept in your browser, so a new device or private window starts without it.

Glossary

Parcel: A piece of land with its own reference (title number, folio, APN or UPRN).
Confirmed boundary: An outline someone has checked against a source. Not a legal determination.
Option / revision: A scheme you are considering; each change to its figures is a new, permanent revision.
Scenario / version: A saved appraisal; each save is a new version pinned to an option revision.
Finding: A recorded fact, assumption, calculation or open question, with its source.
Pack: A fixed, readable record of the project at the time it was generated.

Something unclear or not working as described? Contact us.

Getting started with Developments