Overview
In the Plans tab, you can view all uploaded plan sheets and add new ones to the project allowing you to begin your journey to build great things! Take a look at the content below for an overview of how you can do so.
Table of Contents
- Plans Tab Functions
- Create Unique Folders
- How to Search for Plans
- 'Actions' Menu
- Rotate Plans
- Export Markup Summary
- QR Codes for Plans
- Tasks on Plans
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More Information
Plans Tab Functions
How to Add Plans
From the "Plans Tab" on the web version of Fieldwire, Project Admins can upload plans that are PDFs (single or multi-page), PNGs, or JPEGs (we do not currently support DWGs). For more information about how to format a plan for Fieldwire, check out this article: How should I format my Plan Files for Fieldwire?
Note: High-resolution plans are available for users on EU servers as of August 28, 2024.
Note: PDFs that are password protected will not be able to be uploaded to the plans tab. Password protected PDFs can be uploaded to the Files Tab and accessed by entering the password.
Step 1: Click the '+ New plan' button in the top-left of the page to upload your plan files to Fieldwire:
Step 2: Choose to upload from your computer or a number of sources where you might already have your plans stored:
You can upload files 'manually' from your computer, Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, One Note, Gmail, and from live hyperlinks. Fieldwire also offers an advanced Dropbox/Box/OneDrive integration. For more information about uploading from our Dropbox/Box/OneDrive 2-way sync (for Business and Premier subscriptions), check out this article: How does Dropbox / Box / OneDrive 2-way syncing work?
If uploading from your computer, select (or drag) the pertinent Plan file(s) in the upload window, and select 'Upload':
Tip: If you are uploading a multipage PDF, make sure the orientation is correct before uploading it, as rotating each sheet afterward can be tedious.
Note: The size limit for plan uploads is 1GB and the upload time can take about 1 minute depending on the size of your plans.
Step 3: The plans will process, and the plan icons will be a spinning circle. This is when the OCR is naming, versioning, and hyperlinking your plans. Please note that this could take a few minutes if you have uploaded a large volume of plans:
After the plans process, you will see a small tile containing a plan preview, along with the plan names, and the contingent descriptions (if there are any). After your plans are uploaded, we process them so that they can be viewed quickly on the mobile app. This is done purposefully to allow for better viewing and zooming:
Note: The time to be able to open the first plan (i.e., the naming is complete) can take about 10 seconds after the end of the upload. The time to be able to open 50% of the plans can be about 2 minutes depending on the size of the plans you're uploading. The time to be able to open all plans (i.e., versioning is complete) can be about 5 minutes. Plan hyperlinks can take several hours to activate depending on the number of plans you uploaded and have already on your project. For more information about plan hyperlinks, please see this article: Why aren't my plan hyperlinks activating?
Confirm Plan Names
When uploading multi-page PDFs, our system will automatically name all of the pages that were uploaded. However, prior to its completion, our system will ask you to confirm the names of the pages you uploaded.
The way to confirm the plan names is by looking at the top of the screen for a yellow bar that provides three options: "Confirm individually", "Confirm all", and "Revert to page numbers". This is particularly helpful when you notice that one or more of the pages were named incorrectly as you'll be able to change/confirm the names/descriptions one at a time or all at once.
Revert to Page Numbers
After the Fieldwire OCR has named several plans, you have the option to revert the names of the plans to chronological page numbers. Simply select the 'Revert to Page Numbers', then specify a naming convention.
Note: This is an extremely useful feature if you do not want the plans to automatically version:
After reverting to page numbers, the plan names will be page numbers instead of plan numbers:
Resolve Version Conflicts
When you upload new plan versions, Fieldwire will scan and name the plans. If the OCR detects the name of a new plan matches with the name of an existing plan, it will trigger version conflicts.
A version conflict is when Fieldwire wants to confirm that the OCR is accurate and the new version will be associated with the existing version. To resolve the conflict, you will need to confirm the sheet name of the new versions so the new sheets will slip-sheet on top of the existing sheets. This action pushes any markups and tasks to the latest version - you'll also be able to reference all of the old versions on any platform, keeping things organized.
When you need to resolve the plan versions, you'll see a red warning at the top of the page.
You are not able to view the plans before resolving the contingent conflicts.
To begin to approve your plan names, click the 'Review sheets' button:
A new screen will appear displaying the new and existing sheets and the plan names of each. Here you can view a cropped plan, including the area where Fieldwire identified the sheet name.
While the OCR seeks to name the plan, based on what's on the sheet, sometimes this fails or isn't possible due to the plan formatting or file type. In either case, you will need to 'add [the sheet] as a new version' if the sheet on the left is a new version of the sheet on the right:
Or rename the new sheet so the name does not match with the existing sheet and 'confirm' this as a unique plan:
- For more information about how the OCR names plans, check out this article: How are Plans named in Fieldwire?
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For more information about manually setting the OCR scan location and how to edit plan names, check out this article: How can I edit multiple plan names to take advantage of Fieldwire's automatic callout hyperlinks and plan versioning features?
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For more information about automatic versioning and version control, check out this article: What is Version Control for Plans?
Version Control
Project Admins can access the version control for plans. Version Control displays the history of all plans which have been uploaded to the project. These are split out by the upload date and provide you with the last 90 days of plan uploads. Here, you can view the Plan file name, the Version Description, and the Version Notes:
You can also export a 'Drawing log' or a .csv record of when the plans were uploaded and which versions these are associated with.
Delete Plan Sheets
Plan sheets can be deleted by logging into Fieldwire via a computer or your device's internet browser.
Select the desired plans, then click the Actions button:
The "Delete" option will display at the bottom of the list.
To delete a plan version, click on the desired plan, then click the Version Control button. From here, you'll need to hover over the plan sheet version you wish to delete and click, "Edit". After clicking, Edit, you can select which version to Delete.
Note: If you delete individual versions of plans sheets from the Version control button on the single plan view, these plan sheets cannot be recovered from the trash tab.
Plan Sheet Resolution
An improvement to plan resolution was released on August 30th, 2023, allowing you to see greater resolution on your large and extra large plans when you zoom in. Any project created prior to August 30th, 2023 will not have the improved resolution for plan sheets on Web.
On your mobile devices, in order to see this improved plan resolution, you need to make sure your Fieldwire app version is up to date. If you're not seeing any plan sheet resolution improvements after updating your app, you will need to remove the project from your device and then re-enable the project on your device.
Create Unique Folders
Plan Folders will automatically be created when you upload a multipage PDF - however, Project Admins can add, remove, and rename folders. Most users will create plan folders by discipline, however, you can adjust these as you see fit.
To add a new folder, select the '+New folder' option from the plans tab:
To delete a Plan folder, choose the downward-facing arrow (drop-down menu) to the right of the folder name and choose "Delete folder":
Note: If you accidentally delete a plan or plan folder (containing plan sheets), they can be recovered in Trash tab.
To change a folder name, choose the downward-facing arrow (drop-down menu) to the right of the folder name and choose "Rename folder":
Note: Folders are put in alphabetical order automatically. If you would like to reorder them, please check out this article, How can I reorder my folders so they are not alphabetical?, to learn more.
You can open all the plans from a single folder or close them by clicking on that folder title. You can also open or close all plans from all folders by clicking on the 'All plans' folder:
- If you have less than 100 plans: all folders are expanded at initial load, clicking all plans/files folder collapses all folders.
- If you have more than 100 plans: all folders are collapsed at the initial load, only one folder can be expanded at once.
From the "Actions" drop-down, you can see the total number of plans that are present in the Plans tab if all folders have been selected:
You can also see the count of unique plans in each folder. This does not count unique versions, just the total number of uploaded plans:
How to Search for Plans
If you have many Plans, sifting through all of them could take some time. To make it easier, use the search bar to search for plans by the plan name:
Note: To take full advantage of the Search bar, you'll need to enter the plan name exactly as it is displayed within Fieldwire, including periods, ".", and dashes, "-".
How to Toggle Between Thumbnail vs List View
You can preview your plans by using the Thumbnail mode to get a quick glance at that particular plan sheet. However, if you'd like to view the plans by their title in a list, you can toggle on the List view mode. The list view mode will not include a preview of your plans.
You can toggle back and forth by click on the Thumbnail or List view icon on the top right corner of the Plans tab:
Filter Plans by Tags, Version Sets, and Time
You can filter plans by selecting hashtags you have created, by the Version set - the version set being the denomination of a plan's 'version description', and by the Time - the time meaning when plans were added, modified (new version or new markups), as well as the date range which works exactly the same as the date range in our task filters:
- More information about Plan tags, check out this article: What are plan tags?
- More information about Filtering by Version Set, check out this article: What is Version Control for Plans?
'Actions' Menu
Once you select any number of plans using the checkboxes in their upper-left corners, you can click on the red 'Actions' button.
You can see the number of plans you selected as well as a list of 10 different actions you can perform:
- More information about 'Compare', check out this article: How to Compare Plans
- More information about 'Export', check out this article: How to export (and print) plans as PDFs and view markups?
- More information about 'Scan number/description' and 'Batch edit', check out this article: How can I edit multiple plan names to take advantage of Fieldwire's automatic callout hyperlinks and plan versioning features?
- More information about 'Edit scale', check out this article: How to use the measurement and calibration tools
- More information about 'Manage tags', check out this article: What are plan tags?
Rotate Plans
You can rotate your plans to -90°, 180°, or 90° degrees. Whenever you rotate your plan, your tasks and markups rotate with the plan, and a new plan version is created. You can modify (change version sequence or delete that plan version) using version control. Please see the following article for more information on version control: What is Version Control for Plans?
To rotate plans select the plan(s), click on the action button, and select the rotation degree you wish to use:
Export Markup Summary
Customers on Pro, Business, and above can export a summary of the markups on their plan sheets. While on the Plans tab, after selecting one or many plans, go to the 'Actions' dropdown menu. There, you'll see the option for "Export markup summary". By selecting this option, you'll see a pop-up message stating that you'll be emailed the export.
Shortly thereafter, you'll receive an email with the markup summary export in a .zip file. Click on the link in the email to download the .zip file and extract a .CSV. On the .CSV file, you'll be able to see a summary of all of the markups on that selected plan sheet(s). To name a few of the markup attributes included in the summary, there is the "Sheet #", "Sheet Description", "Sheet version", "Measurement", "Measurement units", the X and Y coordinates of that markup, who created the markup and when they created it as well as who last modified the markup and when it was last modified.
This action can also be performed on the individual plan tab if you'd like to get a markup summary from that singular plan sheet.
QR Codes for Plans
Generate QR Codes on Web
QR Codes are a helpful way to provide users in the field instant access to a specific plan to ensure the correct plan is being referenced for each area of the jobsite. To generate a QR Code for a specific Plan from the Web:
- From Fieldwire in a desktop web browser, navigate to and click on the individual plan sheet you would like to generate a QR code for.
- Next, select the Actions menu from the Plan.
- Select ‘Export QR code’.
- The QR Code PDF will be opened in a new browser tab.
Once a QR Code PDF for a plan has been generated, you can print it out to hang in the appropriate location on site.
Generate and View QR Codes on Mobile
QR Codes for specific plans are also available to view and download from both the iOS and Android applications. QR Codes can be used on mobile to quickly share reference to a plan with someone standing nearby, or to download and print off directly from your mobile device.
To view a QR Code on Mobile:
- From the Fieldwire iOS or Android Application, navigate to the desired plan you would like to generate a QR Code for.
- Select the ‘Share’ icon from top right corner of the Plan.
- Select ‘QR Code’.
From here, the basic QR Code can be shared with someone nearby for quick reference. If you would like to download the QR Code from mobile, select ‘Download as PDF’ from the basic QR Code view. PDF Downloads of QR Codes are only available while the device is online with a connection to wifi or cellular data. Viewing a QR Code for a task requires that the task has previously been synced.
Once the PDF has been downloaded, you select the ‘Share’ icon from the top right corner of the PDF to send it off or print directly from your mobile device.
Scan QR Codes on Mobile
QR Codes can be scanned and opened from the device’s camera or from the QR Code scanner within the Fieldwire Mobile Apps. To scan a QR Code from within the Fieldwire App:
- From the Project list, Task List, or Plan list – open the search bar.
- Tap the QR Code Scanner Icon in the far right of the search bar.
- Note: the QR Code scanner icon will only display when there is no text in the search bar.
- Focus the QR Code scanner on the QR Code.
- The linked plan will automatically be opened in the iOS or Android app.
Please note, there are a few limitations to scanning a QR code from the device or Fieldwire Mobile Scanner:
- If you do not have access to the linked project, you will not be able to access the linked Plan.
- If you do not have the Fieldwire app installed on your mobile device, the link will open in the mobile browser.
In addition to the limitations mentions above, it is important to note the following limitations as well:
- You are not able to create a QR code linked directly to a photo in the Photos tab as individual photos do not have a custom URL. Generating a QR code for a photo would just open the photos tab of the Fieldwire app.
- Opening a QR code linked to a specific file on the Files tab does not work on iOS or Android. Both mobile apps open the Files tab rather than the designated file.
- Links to Submittals and Specifications do not work.
Tasks on Plans
With the Plans tab open, you can select 'All tasks' to view the number of tasks related to each plan.
This number changes depending on which category you have selected (you can select 'All tasks' to show all tasks in all categories - see below):
More Information:
For more information on Plans, Markups, etc., please see the additional resource below.