How It Works

How ROW Engine runs your right-of-way project — start to finish

ROW Engine follows the acquisition process you already know — setup, outreach, negotiation, and closing. The difference is that doing the work builds your record at the same time. Open any aspect below to see how it works.

The Process

From project kickoff to final closing

01

Set up your project

Create the project, define phases, import parcel data, and invite your team with role-based access.

02

Begin outreach

Contact owners, log every interaction in the legal diary, deliver documents, and track parcel status.

03

Negotiate & document

Upload appraisals, manage offers and counters, route approvals — and step into condemnation if needed.

04

Close & archive

Complete acquisitions, generate compliance reports, and export audit-ready project records.

Deep Dive

Open any part of the platform

Each aspect of ROW Engine, explained. Click a heading to expand it.

Parcel tracking & multi-project management

Parcels are the atomic unit of every ROW project, so they’re the atomic unit of ROW Engine. Create parcels inside any project and manage owner information, contact history, valuations, documents, and offer status from one cloud-based workspace. Run multiple projects from a single login and see real-time status across all of them.

  • One record per parcel — owner, contacts, valuation, documents, offers, and status
  • Multi-project support — every active acquisition in one place
  • Real-time status visible to your whole team, with no manual syncing
Full guide: parcel status tracking
Legal diary & self-building audit trail

This is the heart of ROW Engine, and the first thing we built. Every action — a parcel update, a document upload, a permission change, a contact with an owner — is timestamped and attributed to a user, automatically. The result is a complete, review-ready history you didn’t have to maintain by hand.

  • Compliant diary format for court and municipal review
  • Every action logged — who, what, and when, with no extra steps
  • Generate diary reports for legal review and litigation support
  • Public-records-ready exports in a click
Full guide: the ROW audit trail & agent diary
Condemnation & eminent domain workflow

When a parcel moves toward acquisition by eminent domain, the margin for error disappears. ROW Engine’s structured condemnation workflow tracks each parcel through seven stages — from notice of intent through final award — and actively warns you about missing offers and documentation gaps.

  • Seven-stage stepper, tracked parcel by parcel
  • Gap warnings for missing offers and required documents
  • A clean due-process record at every stage, ready for legal
Full guide: condemnation & eminent domain
Offers, counter-offers & negotiation tracking

Negotiation is where ROW projects are won or lost — and where records get messy. ROW Engine keeps every offer and counter-offer attached to the parcel, with the contact history that led to it. You always know what was offered, what came back, and what’s outstanding.

  • Offer and counter-offer tracking tied to each parcel
  • Contact log that captures every negotiation touchpoint
  • Nothing lost to an inbox or a sticky note
See how this replaces your offer spreadsheet
Document management & approval workflows

Store, organize, and control every project and parcel document in one secure place — appraisals, agreements, offer letters, and more. Route documents and decisions through configurable approval chains so you can track who approved what, when, and why. Vendors only access the documents the account owner authorizes.

  • Centralized, secure storage for project and parcel documents
  • Approval workflows with a full record of every decision
  • Permissioned access — vendors see only what they should
On the roadmap: in-platform document generation
Property owner portal

Property owners are part of every acquisition, but they shouldn’t need an account — or a phone call every week — to know what’s happening. The owner portal gives them secure, link-based access to review documents, track their parcel’s status, and submit requested information.

  • No account required — secure access by link
  • Owners see status and documents, never your internal data
  • A documented communication trail that supports good-faith negotiation
Team, roles & multi-vendor collaboration

ROW work spans organizations — a city, a prime, subs, agents, appraisers, attorneys. ROW Engine is multi-tenant by design: invite anyone and give them exactly the access they need through a four-tier permission system (Admin, Member, Project-Level Support, Parcel-Level Support).

  • Role-based permissions down to the parcel level
  • Cross-organization collaboration for cities, primes, and subs
  • Seat-based plans that scale from solo operator to enterprise agency
Built for municipal, DOT & consultant teams
Dashboards, reporting & data ownership

See project health at a glance and keep control of your data. Dashboards surface parcel progress and project status, and because every action is logged, your reports and exports are always grounded in the real record. At project close, export everything in one click.

  • Real-time project dashboards and parcel progress views
  • Audit-ready exports for reviews, audits, and closeout
  • Full data ownership and one-click export — no lock-in
Questions

How It Works FAQ

How do you track parcel acquisitions in ROW Engine?
You create parcels inside a project and manage each one’s owner information, contact history, valuations, documents, and offer status from a single workspace. Status is visible in real time to your whole team, and every change is timestamped in the audit trail — so parcel tracking and recordkeeping happen at the same time.
How does ROW Engine handle right-of-way negotiations?
Every owner contact and negotiation is logged to the parcel’s legal diary in a compliant, timestamped format. You manage offers and counter-offers, route offer letters and documents through approval chains, and keep a defensible record of good-faith negotiation from first contact through agreement or condemnation.
What is the right-of-way acquisition workflow?
The standard ROW acquisition workflow has four phases: project setup, outreach, negotiation, and closing. ROW Engine provides tools built for each phase and builds your audit-ready record as you move through them.

See it run on your own project

Start a free trial, import a handful of parcels, and watch the record build itself as you work.