Upload and Manage Project Drawings: Guide

User Personas: Admin | Project Manager

Drawings in eSUB Fusion gives your team one place to upload project drawings, keep track of which revision is current, mark up sheets, and turn what you find on a drawing into an RFI, from the office or the field.

This article is the starting point. It covers getting Drawings turned on for your users and finding your way around, then points you to the article that owns each task in depth.

Setting up Drawings users requires the User Admin - Full User Management permission. See the Permissions table at the end of this article.

Use the links below to jump to a topic:

• Set Up Drawings Users
  • Assign a Drawings License to a User
  • Grant Drawings Permissions to a User
  • Sign Out and Back In
• Access the Drawings Tool
• Where to Go for Each Task
• A Typical Drawings Workflow
• Permissions
• FAQ
  • Drawings does not appear on my project menu. Why?
  • What is the difference between a Drawings license and Drawings permissions?
  • How do we get more Drawings licenses?
  • What is the difference between Sheets, Snapshots and Version Sets?
  • Which article do I need?
  • A new revision of the drawings just came in. Do I start a new project?

Set Up Drawings Users

Drawings is a separately licensed module. Your company holds a set number of Drawings licenses, and a user needs one of those licenses and the right permissions before the tool appears for them. Both halves are required, which is the single most common reason a new user cannot find Drawings.

Once Drawings has been added to your company's eSUB Fusion subscription, set each user up in this order:

1. Assign a Drawings license to the user.
2. Grant Drawings permissions to the user's permission group.
3. Have the user sign out and back in so the change takes effect.

Assign a Drawings License to a User

Go to Company Settings>User Admin > Users. From the User list you can add a new user or edit an existing one, and assign them one of your company's available Drawings licenses.

While creating or editing a user:

1. Select the Drawings checkbox under Licenses.
2. Make any other changes you need, then select Save.

For full guidance on user management, see Create and Manage Users and Crew Members.

The number of Drawings licenses your company has is part of your subscription, not something you can raise from inside eSUB Fusion. If every license is assigned and you need another seat, contact your eSUB CSM.

Grant Drawings Permissions to a User

Go to Company Settings > User Admin > Permission Groups. From here you grant the specific Drawings permissions a team member needs to their permission group.

While creating or editing a permission group:

1. Select the permissions you want under the Drawings - General Permissions section.
2. Select the checkmark when finished.

A permission group grants what a user is allowed to do. It does not grant access to the tool by itself: without a license, Drawings will not appear on that user's project menu no matter what their group allows.

For full guidance on permission groups, see Set Up User Permissions. For what every permission controls, see Permission Group Descriptions.

Sign Out and Back In

Changes to your organization's configuration, including turning Drawings on, only take effect for a user after they sign out and back in.

1. Select the user icon on the global navigation menu, then select Logout.
2. Go to the eSUB Fusion login page, enter your credentials, and select Sign In.

Access the Drawings Tool

1. Select Projects on the global navigation menu, then choose the project from the list.
2. Choose a destination under Drawings on the slide-out menu.

There are three destinations, and knowing which one to open saves most of the hunting:

Where to Go for Each Task

Drawings is documented across four articles. This one gets you set up; the other three each own one level of the tool. Find your task below.

A Typical Drawings Workflow

If you are setting up a project for the first time, this is the arc from a PDF in your inbox to an RFI on a contractor's desk.

1. Upload the set. Drop your multi-page or single-page PDFs into the Sheets log and create a new version set for the release. See Upload Sheets.
2. Check the sheet numbers. eSUB reads sheet numbers and names off each drawing using OCR, and sheets start out with placeholder numbers such as pg_1 until that capture runs. Correct anything it got wrong before you move on, because sheet numbers are what link a drawing to its future revisions. See Auto-Capture Sheet Details.
3. Organize the set. Assign a discipline to each sheet and add tags so people can find drawings by trade instead of scrolling. Do it in bulk. See Bulk-Edit a Drawing Set.
4. Work the drawings. Mark up sheets, take measurements, and compare a revision against the one before it. See Annotations and Compare Sheets.
5. Turn a question into an RFI. Crop the part of the sheet in question as a snapshot and attach it to an RFI so the question arrives with its drawing. See Link a New Snapshot to an RFI.

When the next revision arrives, you upload it as a new version set and the organizing work follows the sheets across. See What Carries Forward to a New Version Set.

Permissions

Two different things control access to Drawings, and both have to be right.

Attaching a snapshot to an RFI that already exists also requires RFI Create, because it adds to that RFI. Permission groups are managed by your account Admin in Company Settings > User Administration > Permission Groups. See Permission Group Descriptions for the full reference.

FAQ

Drawings does not appear on my project menu. Why?

Work through it in this order, because it is almost always the third one. First, confirm you have been assigned a Drawings license in Company Settings > User Admin > Users. Second, confirm your permission group has Drawings - General Permissions. Third, sign out and back in, since configuration changes do not reach a signed-in session. See Sign Out and Back In.

What is the difference between a Drawings license and Drawings permissions?

The license decides whether a user gets the tool. The permissions decide what they can do with it. A user with permissions but no license sees no Drawings menu at all, and a user with a license but no permissions sees the menu but cannot do much. Both are required.

How do we get more Drawings licenses?

The total number of Drawings licenses is part of your eSUB Fusion subscription and is not something you can raise from inside the application. If all of your licenses are assigned, contact your eSUB CSM. Freeing a license by clearing the Drawings checkbox on a user who no longer needs it works immediately.

What is the difference between Sheets, Snapshots and Version Sets?

A sheet is one drawing. A version set is one dated release containing many sheets. A snapshot is a cropped image taken off a sheet, usually to attach to an RFI. You work sheet by sheet under Sheets, on a whole release under Version Sets, and review captured crops under Snapshots.

Which article do I need?

See Where to Go for Each Task. In short: sheet-level work is in Sheets: Viewing, Uploading, and Managing, whole-set work is in Version Sets: Managing Set Names, Issue Dates, and Bulk Edits, and anything you draw on a sheet is in Markups: Annotations, Measurements, Snapshots and Callouts.

A new revision of the drawings just came in. Do I start a new project?

No. Upload it as a new version set on the same project. Sheets are matched to their previous versions by sheet number, so disciplines, tags and published markups follow each drawing across, and the Sheets log keeps showing you the current revision. See What Carries Forward to a New Version Set.