# Lunr > Lunr is engineering document management and a common data environment (CDE) for asset owners. It puts every DWG, DGN, RVT, and PDF under revision control, searches the text inside scanned drawings with XRAY, opens CAD and BIM models in the browser, and takes contractor handover that arrives complete, holding the drawing record from project delivery through decades of operation. Built by Lunr Labs Pty Ltd in Melbourne, Australia, and hosted in Australia and the US. ## Product - [Engineering document control and CDE for asset owners](https://www.lunr.app/): Put every DWG, DGN, and RVT under revision control, search the text inside scanned drawings with XRAY, and take contractor handover that arrives complete. Cloud CDE for asset owners, from project delivery through decades of operation. Over 10 million documents under management. Hosted in Australia and the US. - [Watch the Lunr overview](https://www.lunr.app/overview): A short overview of Lunr in motion. Watch one drawing come under revision control, turn up in an XRAY search, and move through handover with its record intact. The overview runs one minute and eighteen seconds. - [Document control, search, and viewing](https://www.lunr.app/features): Put every DWG, DGN, and RVT under revision control, search the text inside scanned drawings with XRAY, view and mark up drawings and models in the browser, and find geo-tagged documents on a map. The capabilities behind Lunr's engineering document management. - [Search scanned drawings with XRAY](https://www.lunr.app/features/xray): Search the text inside scanned drawings and CAD documents. XRAY runs OCR and AI full-text across every DWG, DGN, RVT, PDF, and scanned image you store, and Deep XRAY re-scans dense drawings tile by tile to surface the hits a single pass misses. - [Configurable document workflows](https://www.lunr.app/features/workflows): Match your process with a visual workflow editor. Draw the states, actions, and transitions a document moves through, run a workflow on one document or a whole batch, and keep a full workflow audit trail. Configured and run by your own team. - [Handover, transmittals, and change requests](https://www.lunr.app/features/handover): Take contractor handover that arrives complete. Validate every package against a manifest, parse title-block tags into metadata, issue tracked transmittals, and run change requests with holds, reviewer nomination, and packages, on an audit log that writes itself. - [Lunr ADAC Check: ADAC validation and compliance software](https://www.lunr.app/features/adac-validation): Lunr ADAC Check validates ADAC XML and as-constructed drawings against your configured standard: deterministic checks, a drawing versus data cross-check, and AI advice. - [View DWG, PDF, and IFC in the browser](https://www.lunr.app/try): Open DWG, DGN, PDF, Word, Excel, and IFC in a browser tab with Lunr's viewers. View, measure, mark up, and compare drawings, read Office files, and navigate BIM models with clipping planes. No CAD licence, no download, no plugin. - [Mobile apps for iOS and Android](https://www.lunr.app/apps): Take the controlled drawing record on site with Lunr for iPhone and Android. Scan the QR in a printed title block to open the current revision, download a collection of documents for offline access, view PDFs, read RFIs and change requests, and move a document through its workflow from where you stand. - [Connectors](https://www.lunr.app/connectors): Connect Lunr to the systems you already run: read-write CAD APIs for DWG, DGN, and Revit, live Esri ArcGIS layers with per-asset document locations, REST API integration for asset and works management systems, and facility management integrations for Archibus, MazeMap, SISfm, and OneDrive. - [Book a demo](https://www.lunr.app/demo): Book a working demo of Lunr with someone who knows what a transmittal and an as-constructed set are. See XRAY search the text inside a scanned drawing, on your formats. We reply within one business day. ## Solutions - [CAD drawing management software for asset owners](https://www.lunr.app/drawing-management-software): CAD drawing management software that holds every DWG, DGN, RVT, and PDF under revision control, resolves external references, and opens any sheet without AutoCAD. - [Engineering document management system (EDMS)](https://www.lunr.app/engineering-document-management): An engineering document management system holds every controlled document, from DWG and PDF to Word and Excel, as a numbered, revisioned record with a full audit trail. - [Document control software for engineering teams](https://www.lunr.app/document-control): Engineering document control software that keeps controlled documents in one register, with revision control, approvals, transmittals, and a full audit trail. - [Common data environment software for asset owners](https://www.lunr.app/common-data-environment): Common data environment software that holds one agreed source of information, runs ISO 19650 states and approvals, and keeps the record after handover. - [Implementation and data migration](https://www.lunr.app/implementation): How a Lunr implementation runs: solution design workshops, a signed-off sandbox migration, UAT in a test environment, then production cutover with training and hypercare. ## Compare - [Compare engineering document management systems](https://www.lunr.app/compare): Compare Lunr with SharePoint, Aconex, ProjectWise, Autodesk Docs, Procore, OpenText, Synergis Adept, TeamBinder, 12d Synergy, Autodesk Vault, M-Files, and RedEye. Neutral, tool-by-tool framing for asset owners choosing where the engineering drawing record lives. - [Engineering document management software compared](https://www.lunr.app/engineering-document-management-software): A survey of the engineering document management software asset owners shortlist, from SharePoint and Aconex to ProjectWise, Autodesk Docs, Adept, and Lunr, with the criteria that decide where a drawing record lives. - [Oracle Aconex alternative for asset owners](https://www.lunr.app/compare/aconex): An Oracle Aconex alternative for the asset owner. Aconex runs project delivery. Lunr takes the controlled set at handover and keeps it live for decades of operation. Compare the alternatives owners weigh. - [Bentley ProjectWise alternative for asset owners](https://www.lunr.app/compare/projectwise): A Bentley ProjectWise alternative built for asset owners. Hold the issued drawing record in the browser, control revisions, and search inside scans, without running design work-in-progress workspaces. Compare the alternatives owners shortlist. - [Autodesk Docs alternative for asset owners](https://www.lunr.app/compare/autodesk-docs): An Autodesk Docs alternative built for the operations phase. Hold every DWG, RVT, DGN, and MicroStation drawing under revision control for the life of the asset, and keep Autodesk Docs for live projects. - [Procore alternative for engineering document control](https://www.lunr.app/compare/procore): A Procore alternative for asset owners. Purpose-built engineering document control for the operating record, with handover validation, a controlled drawing register, and OCR search across every drawing. Keep Procore for the build. - [OpenText alternative for engineering drawings](https://www.lunr.app/compare/opentext): An OpenText alternative built for the drawing record. CAD-native viewing in the browser, XRAY search inside scanned drawings, and real revision conventions, without the weight of a general ECM. - [SharePoint alternative for engineering drawings](https://www.lunr.app/compare/sharepoint): A SharePoint alternative built for engineering drawings. Put DWG, DGN, and RVT under revision control, search inside scans, and keep SharePoint for the rest. - [Synergis Adept alternative for asset owners](https://www.lunr.app/compare/adept): A Synergis Adept alternative for asset owners. Hold the drawing record in the browser, with no Windows Server or SQL Server to run and OCR search inside scans. - [TeamBinder alternative for asset owners](https://www.lunr.app/compare/teambinder): A TeamBinder alternative for the asset owner. TeamBinder, now InEight Document, runs project delivery. Lunr takes the controlled set at close-out and keeps it live for decades of operation, hosted in Australia. - [12d Synergy alternative for asset owners](https://www.lunr.app/compare/12d-synergy): A 12d Synergy alternative for asset owners. Hold the engineering record in the browser for the life of the asset, with no Windows client to deploy, no Windows Server or SQL Server to run, and OCR search inside scanned sheets. Hosted in Australia. - [Autodesk Vault alternative for asset owners](https://www.lunr.app/compare/autodesk-vault): An Autodesk Vault alternative for asset owners. Hold the issued drawing record in the browser, with no Windows Server or SQL Server to run and no Windows client to deploy, and search the text inside scanned legacy sheets. Keep Vault for CAD data management at the design desk. - [M-Files alternative for engineering drawings](https://www.lunr.app/compare/m-files): An M-Files alternative built for the drawing record. Drawing numbers and revisions are first-class, DWG, DGN, and RVT open in the browser, and XRAY reads the text inside scanned sheets, with no vault to configure first. - [RedEye alternative for engineering drawing management](https://www.lunr.app/compare/redeye): A RedEye alternative for asset owners. RedEye, now an Accruent product, runs cloud engineering document management. Lunr holds one controlled register for the life of the asset, with browser viewing, revision control, and OCR search inside scanned sheets. ## Industries - [Document management for water authorities](https://www.lunr.app/for/water): Engineering document management for water authorities. Treatment plants, pump stations, and network assets with drawings kept for decades under revision control, located per asset from your GIS, searchable back through the scanned archive, and complete at contractor handover. Hosted in Australia and the US. - [Document management for rail operators](https://www.lunr.app/for/rail): Rail document management for corridors, signalling, and structures. Decades of drawings under revision control, XRAY search inside scanned legacy drawings, hosted in Australia and the US. - [Document management for airports](https://www.lunr.app/for/airports): Airport document management for airfield, terminals, and services. Decades of drawings under revision control, XRAY search inside scanned drawings, hosted in Australia and the US. - [Drawing and document management for mining](https://www.lunr.app/for/mining): Drawing and document management for mining operations. Mine site and processing plant drawings held under revision control for decades, XRAY search inside scanned plant drawings, the current sheet opened from a work order or the map, contractor handover checked at every expansion, and closure records that outlive the mine. Hosted in Australia and the US. - [Document management for hospitals and healthcare](https://www.lunr.app/for/healthcare): Engineering document management for hospitals and health services. Engineering services drawings for a hospital campus under revision control, searchable back through the scanned archive, and complete through constant refurbishment. Hosted in Australia and the US. - [Document management for local councils](https://www.lunr.app/for/local-government): Engineering document management for local government. Civic buildings, roads, and drainage assets with drawings kept for decades under revision control, linked to council GIS and asset systems, searchable back through the inherited scanned archive, and complete at contractor handover. Hosted in Australia and the US. - [Document management for university estates](https://www.lunr.app/for/universities): Lunr manages the engineering drawings a university campus estate keeps for decades: DWG, DGN, and RVT under revision control, XRAY search across scanned archives, map discovery on campus plans, and contractor handover per project. The University of Canberra moved 20,000+ documents off SharePoint to Lunr. - [Document management for utilities and energy](https://www.lunr.app/for/utilities-energy): Engineering document management for utilities and energy asset owners. Network plans, substation drawings, and generation plant records kept for decades under revision control, searchable back through the scanned archive, located on the network map, and complete at contractor handover. Hosted in Australia and the US. - [Document management for government and councils](https://www.lunr.app/for/government): Government document management for councils and agencies. Drawings for roads, water, and buildings under revision control, hosted in Australia and the US. - [Engineering document management for manufacturing](https://www.lunr.app/for/manufacturing): Engineering document management for manufacturing plants. Mechanical, electrical, P&ID, and layout drawings under revision control, the current revision at the machine on a QR scan, OEM drawings searchable inside the sheet, and handover checked on every equipment project. Hosted in Australia and the US. - [Document management for life sciences facilities](https://www.lunr.app/for/life-sciences): Engineering document management for life sciences facilities. Cleanroom layouts, HVAC, water systems, and process and instrumentation diagrams for a pharmaceutical plant, laboratory, or biotech site, under revision control with a full audit trail and superseded revisions kept. Hosted in Australia and the US. ## Glossary - [Document control glossary: drawing and revision terms defined](https://www.lunr.app/glossary): Plain definitions of the terms behind the engineering drawing record: transmittals, drawing registers, revision control, as-constructed drawings, title blocks, document numbering, superseded drawings, controlled documents, ISO 19650, and issued for construction. - [What is a transmittal? Definition and how it works](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/transmittal): A transmittal is the formal, recorded issue of controlled drawings or documents to another party, with a cover sheet listing every file and its revision. How transmittals work, and how Lunr records them. - [What is a drawing register?](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/drawing-register): A drawing register is the master index of every drawing on a project or asset, recording each drawing's number, title, and current revision in one controlled list. - [What is revision control?](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/revision-control): Revision control is the discipline of tracking each iteration of a drawing so everyone works from the current version and superseded versions stay on the record. How it works, and how Lunr handles it. - [What are as-constructed drawings?](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/as-constructed-drawings): As-constructed drawings are drawings updated to reflect what was actually built or installed, handed over as the record set at project completion. What they are, who produces them, and why asset owners rely on them. - [Title block: the 7 fields, and where it sits on the sheet](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/title-block): The seven fields a title block prints, from drawing number and revision to who drew, checked, and approved the sheet, plus how it differs from a register. - [What is a submittal package?](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/submittal-package): A submittal package is a batch of drawings or documents delivered together for review or handover, checked against the drafting standard before it is accepted. How it works for asset owners, and how Lunr validates it. - [What is an asset hierarchy?](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/asset-hierarchy): An asset hierarchy is the structured breakdown of a physical asset into systems and components, used to tag and retrieve the documents that belong to each part. - [What is a redline markup?](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/redline-markup): A redline markup is an annotation layered over a drawing to flag an error or request a change, triggering a revision without altering the released file. - [What is ISO 19650?](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/iso-19650): ISO 19650 is the international standard series for managing information about buildings and infrastructure across the life of an asset. Its six parts, information containers, status codes, the four CDE states, and adoption in Australia and the UK. - [Issued for construction (IFC): the 5 statuses, IFA vs IFC](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/issued-for-construction): IFC means issued for construction. See the five statuses from IFR to as-constructed, how IFA and IFT differ, and a free drawing register that tracks them. - [Document numbering systems: a drawing number, decoded](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/document-numbering): A document numbering system gives every drawing and document a unique, structured identifier. Decode a worked drawing number field by field, compare intelligent and non-intelligent schemes, see the standards behind them, and find where renumbering at handover goes wrong. - [What are superseded drawings?](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/superseded-drawings): A superseded drawing is a revision replaced by a newer one, retired from use but kept on the record. How supersession differs from deletion, why superseded revisions must stay retrievable, and the risk of building from a superseded print. - [Controlled document: the 4 marks, and uncontrolled copies](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/controlled-document): A controlled document is one whose changes run through a defined process: a named owner, approval before release, tracked distribution, and a revision history. See the four marks of control, and what uncontrolled when printed means. - [What is an operation and maintenance (O&M) manual?](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/operation-and-maintenance-manual): An operation and maintenance manual is the compiled record of how a completed asset and its equipment are operated, serviced, and repaired, handed to the owner at practical completion. What it contains, who uses it, and why it decays. - [What is a native file? Native CAD formats vs a PDF plot](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/native-file): A native file is the drawing or model in the format its authoring application wrote, such as DWG, DGN, or RVT. See native set against derived on geometry, structure, xrefs, and metadata, and why asset owners take the natives at handover. - [RFI in construction: the workflow, the log, and the form](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/request-for-information): An RFI, or request for information, is a formal question raised during construction when the contract documents are unclear, incomplete, or in conflict. See the six-step RFI workflow, the columns an RFI log carries, what belongs on an RFI form, and why the answer has to reach the drawing. - [Issued for Review (IFR): drawing meaning and IFR vs IFC](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/issued-for-review): IFR means issued for review: a drawing released for comment, carrying no authority to build. See where IFR sits before IFA, IFT, and IFC, how the issue purpose is recorded in the revision block and the transmittal, and what IFP means. - [Uncontrolled when printed: meaning, and how to use a print](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/uncontrolled-when-printed): Uncontrolled when printed means the copy has left the document control system, so nothing guarantees it is the current revision. What the stamp means, where the wording appears, and how a QR code resolves a print back to the controlled document. - [Master document register (MDR): definition and columns](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/master-document-register): A master document register is the controlled list of every document a project or asset must produce and hold, with each document's number, title, revision, status, and responsible party. See the columns an MDR carries, and how it differs from a drawing register and a transmittal. - [EDMS: engineering document management system defined](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/edms): An EDMS is the controlled system an engineering organisation keeps its drawings, models, and technical documents in, each held as a numbered, revisioned record. See what an EDMS does, why the acronym covers both engineering and electronic document management, and how to tell which one a vendor means. - [What is ADAC (Asset Design and As Constructed)?](https://www.lunr.app/glossary/adac): ADAC is the IPWEA-QNT XML specification Australian councils and utilities use to receive as-constructed infrastructure asset data from developers. What it covers, what a submission contains, and how councils review one. ## Resources - [ISO 19650 explained: a guide for Australian asset owners](https://www.lunr.app/iso-19650): A complete ISO 19650 guide for asset owners: the six parts, the appointing party's duties, OIR, AIR, PIR, and EIR, the four common data environment states, status codes, adoption in Australia as AS ISO 19650, and a compliance path for the operational phase. - [ADAC software buyer's guide for councils](https://www.lunr.app/adac-buyers-guide): How a council chooses ADAC validation software: what ADAC is, where as-constructed programmes go wrong, the questions to ask a vendor, the gaps in a generalist EDMS, how to structure the tender, and an evaluation scorecard you can adapt. - [ADAC compliance requirements matrix](https://www.lunr.app/adac-requirements-matrix): A vendor-neutral requirements matrix for ADAC validation software, written to be pasted into a council tender schedule. 45 numbered requirements across schema and version handling, geometry, attributes, findings workflow, audit trail, handover, hosting, and reporting, each with why it matters and how to verify it in a demonstration. - [Free document control templates for Excel](https://www.lunr.app/templates): Six free document control templates for Excel and CSV: master document register, drawing, document, transmittal, RFI, and document control registers. Each ships with dropdowns, example rows, and a how-to sheet. No email required. - [Free master document register template for Excel](https://www.lunr.app/templates/master-document-register): Free master document register template for Excel and CSV. Track every deliverable by number, discipline, revision, status, and planned and actual dates. - [Free drawing register template for Excel](https://www.lunr.app/templates/drawing-register): Free drawing register template for Excel and CSV. Track every drawing by number, revision, status, and transmittal, with dropdowns and example rows included. - [Free transmittal register template for Excel](https://www.lunr.app/templates/transmittal-register): Free transmittal register template for Excel and CSV. Log every document transmittal by number, date issued, recipient, documents sent, purpose of issue, and response due, with dropdowns and example rows included. - [Free document register template for Excel](https://www.lunr.app/templates/document-register): Free document register template for Excel and CSV. Track every controlled document by number, title, discipline, type, revision, status, and file location, with dropdowns and example rows included. - [Free RFI register template for Excel](https://www.lunr.app/templates/rfi-register): Free RFI register template for Excel and CSV. Log every request for information by number, date raised, subject, related documents, response due, and status, with dropdowns and example rows included. - [Free document control register template for Excel](https://www.lunr.app/templates/document-control-register): Free document control register template for Excel and CSV. Track every controlled document by owner, approver, revision, status, and next review date. - [Customer case studies](https://www.lunr.app/customers): Case studies from the asset owners running their engineering record on Lunr, including the University of Canberra, which moved more than 20,000 campus documents off SharePoint and went live in July 2022. - [Blog](https://www.lunr.app/blog): Guides and articles on engineering document control: revision management, transmittals, as-constructed handover, XRAY search, and moving CAD and BIM drawings to the cloud. ## Company - [About Lunr Labs](https://www.lunr.app/about): Lunr is a product of Lunr Labs Pty Ltd, built by the team behind Onset Design in Melbourne, Australia. We make the cloud engineering document management platform that universities, utilities, energy companies, and government departments run their record on. - [Contact us](https://www.lunr.app/contact): Talk to the team behind Lunr about engineering document control, XRAY search, and handover for asset owners. We reply within one business day. Call +61 3 9803 9727 or email info@lunr.app. - [Security and compliance](https://www.lunr.app/security): How Lunr keeps controlled documents secure: hosted and operated by an ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified partner in Australia and the US, SAML sign-in, a full audit trail behind every document, and data you can export at any time. - [Accessibility](https://www.lunr.app/accessibility): How the Lunr website supports accessibility: semantic structure, keyboard navigation, colour contrast, and reduced-motion support, aiming to conform to WCAG 2.2 Level AA. - [Privacy policy](https://www.lunr.app/privacy-policy): How Lunr Labs Pty Ltd collects, uses, stores, and discloses personal data across the Lunr service, in line with the Australian Privacy Principles and the GDPR. ## Case studies The full text of every published case study follows, newest first. --- ### University of Canberra: 20,000 drawings under control - URL: https://www.lunr.app/customers/university-of-canberra - Published: 12 June 2024 - Summary: The University of Canberra moved more than 20,000 campus documents off SharePoint onto Lunr. Selected through an RFQ tender, migrated with Onset Design, live on the main campus since July 2022, with XRAY search across scanned archives and Esri map search. The University of Canberra (UC) is one of the top ten universities in Australia, number one in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) for graduate employment, and ranked among the world's top young universities. It is a young university with a global reputation and a focus on promoting equal access to education. The Campus Estate team's mission is to deliver sustainable property and related solutions to enable the ongoing success of the UC community and keep the campus working at its best, encompassing planning and development, project delivery, operational services, and security and transport. ## The challenge A project to scan the document archives commenced in 2016. SharePoint is on the cloud and freely available to universities, so the information was catalogued there, and a Building directory was constructed to store more than 20,000 documents associated with the university's facilities. ![The University of Canberra document archive in SharePoint before Lunr: a building directory of more than 20,000 documents, where drawings were slow to find and duplicates were hard to rule out.](/images/case-studies/university-of-canberra/sharepoint-building-directory.svg) Drawings took too long to find in SharePoint, which cost time and left uncertainty around duplicates. The drawing handover process also left documents missing that contractors still needed to deliver. These are the walls described in [Lunr compared with SharePoint for engineering drawings](/compare/sharepoint). The problem is common to the Property Services and Facilities Management area of all universities, a pattern set out in [Lunr for universities](/for/universities). Managing documentation, including 3D and BIM (Building Information Models), required a new approach to replace the current system, integrate with critical systems such as the GIS, and combine access for internal users and external contractors. ## The approach UC ran several initiatives to identify the issues and develop the requirements of a new system, with stakeholders engaged throughout: - Identify and define the issues through a series of workshops. - Prepare the business case and seek funding. - Formulate the statement of requirements, capturing what regular users, irregular users, consultants, contractors, and others need, how they will use the system, and for what purpose. - Run the procurement and evaluation process. - Consider feel and appearance to ensure a user-friendly adoption. - Understand the quantity and quality of the existing drawings. - Determine the tagging and identification of drawings related to assets. Lunr was selected in an RFQ tender process, with Onset Design engaged to provide implementation, training, support services, and data migration from SharePoint to Lunr. An initial period of scoping and design resulted in agreement on the Solution Design document, and work commenced on the data migration, including cleansing, transformation, and duplicate identification. Initial training prepared users for User Acceptance Testing, and configuration adjustments followed the UAT feedback. ## The outcome The data migration improved system integrity, and the Lunr XRAY component captured additional information from scanned images. As a result, drawings are easily located in Lunr, reducing the time spent retrieving drawings. Daniel Byrnes is the Digital Systems Coordinator for Campus Estate with the University of Canberra and describes Lunr as follows: > _Lunr is a simple solution that provides the flexibility to develop the system to our needs. Onset Design has provided dedicated staff to assist with the conceptual elements, configuration, and development, and it has engaged and trained staff effectively through a series of workshops. Lunr is simple to use, and minimal training is required with the ability to embed short, customised videos for a self-service portal._ Benefits are being realised in a self-service, or 'communal', system that allows for easy user onboarding, as drawings are shared via transmittals and RFIs embedded within the system. Lunr simplifies external access by removing the delays associated with affiliate access approval while clearly showing what contractors and consultants are accessing. Internal staff access is integrated via single sign-on (SSO). The Portfolios feature of Lunr provides overall building information, such as location, background, history, occupants, and GFA/UFA numbers. It gives a good insight for anyone new to the University estate. ![The Portfolios feature in Lunr, grouping the campus estate into assets such as buildings, grounds, and utilities.](/images/case-studies/university-of-canberra/screenshot-2024-06-12-at-2.07.20-pm.png) Viewing platforms are embedded within the system, so everyday users view CAD files via autogenerated PDF without requiring additional software such as DWG TrueView, and without requesting assistance to open and print the file. The viewing tools also allow redline markup and viewing Revit and IFC files. Advanced searching includes a spatial search using GIS data from Esri, which is particularly useful for finding drawings for the university's most complicated buildings (Building 1) and utilities. ![A spatial search using GIS map data in Lunr.](/images/case-studies/university-of-canberra/screenshot-2024-06-12-at-2.08.09-pm.png) ## System integrations Map search is enhanced by using the Esri connector to control the visibility of GIS layers in Lunr. The ability to integrate with the GIS shows the way forward, and the potential to integrate with other tools like Archibus and the CMMS (Computerised Maintenance Management System) represents the next steps. ## On the record - The main campus, in the Canberra suburb of Bruce, went live with Lunr in July 2022. - Around 20,000 drawings were migrated from SharePoint. - Lunr was selected in an RFQ tender process. - [Onset Design](https://onset.com.au) delivered the Lunr solution and provided services for data migration, training, testing, and ongoing support. ## Blog The full text of every published post follows, newest first. --- ### How to Set Up a Drawing Register: Columns, Conventions, and a Worked Example - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/how-to-set-up-a-drawing-register - Published: 21 August 2026 - Category: guide - Summary: The columns a drawing register needs, the conventions to agree before the first row, and a worked example that follows one drawing through five revisions from first issue to as-constructed. If you've spent time on a project where two people are holding different revisions of the same drawing, you already know what a drawing register is for. The argument ends when someone can show which revision is current, who it was issued to, and when. Without that record, it gets settled from whichever printout is closest, and that's how work ends up built from a superseded sheet. It happens more often than anyone admits. On one project we saw, a drafter picked up a drawing from a local file copy and modified it, not realising the sheet was three revisions out of date. By the time the changes reached the document controller, they had to be manually consolidated against the current revision. That one was a non-critical drawing. The same mistake on an electrical drawing has real safety implications. A [drawing register](/glossary/drawing-register) is the single list of every drawing on a project or asset, with each drawing's number, title, revision, status, and issue history in one place. When we implement Lunr for a new client, we ask for two things: a directory listing, and the register, if there is one. Some arrive as a well-kept spreadsheet. Plenty exist only in somebody's head, and the job starts with writing one down. This post covers how: the columns a register needs, the conventions to agree before the first row goes in, and a worked example that follows one drawing from first issue to as-constructed. If you'd rather start from a working file, the [free drawing register template](/templates/drawing-register) has the columns, the dropdowns, and an example project already in it. ## What a Drawing Register Records A list of drawing numbers and titles is a start, but the register earns its keep by recording revisions and issues, because those are the two things a folder of files can't tell you. The columns fall into four groups. **Identity** answers which drawing this is: - **Drawing number.** The controlled number, in one consistent format so the register sorts cleanly. - **Title.** As printed in the [title block](/glossary/title-block), so the register and the sheet agree. - **Discipline.** Architectural, Structural, Electrical, and so on. - **Originator.** The company or team that produced the drawing. - **Sheet.** The sheet number within a multi-sheet set. **Revision** answers which issue of the drawing this row describes: - **Revision.** The code printed on the sheet: A, B, C, or 0, 1, 2. - **Revision date.** The date this revision was drawn. - **Revision description.** What changed, in a line. **Status** answers where the drawing sits in its life. Pick a fixed vocabulary and hold to it. The template uses Draft, [Issued for review](/glossary/issued-for-review), [Issued for construction](/glossary/issued-for-construction), As-constructed, and Superseded. **Issue** answers who has the drawing: - **Issued to.** The party the drawing was last issued to. - **Transmittal reference.** The [transmittal](/blog/understanding-transmittals) it went out under, so every issue is traceable. - **Date issued.** The date it went out. Add a file location column, so a reader can go from the row straight to the sheet, and a notes column for everything else. That's fourteen columns, and it's enough for most projects. It's tempting to add more, but every extra column is another field that won't get filled in consistently. ![The same columns inside Lunr: metadata fields recorded against an approved drawing, with the workflow rail carrying the status, reviewers, and projects.](/images/posts/how-to-set-up-a-drawing-register/document-metadata-workflow.png) ## Three Rules That Keep the Register True The columns are the easy part. What keeps a register reliable is three rules, applied every time a drawing moves. 1. **One row per revision.** When a drawing is reissued, add a new row. Don't overwrite the old one. Overwriting turns the register into a snapshot of today, and a snapshot can't answer what was current in March when the slab went in. 2. **Supersede, never delete.** When a revision is replaced, set its status to [Superseded](/glossary/superseded-drawings) and note the revision that replaces it. Deleting the row removes the only evidence that revision was ever issued; marking it Superseded keeps the history intact. 3. **No issue without a transmittal reference.** We've all heard "I emailed it to them in June". Without a transmittal reference against the row, there's no way to prove what was sent, which revision it was, or whether it arrived. Record the reference, the recipient, and the date, every time. ![Two revisions of the same drawing compared side by side, with the superseded sheet kept on the record. Rule 2 is what makes a comparison like this possible.](/images/posts/how-to-set-up-a-drawing-register/revision-compare-side-by-side.png) ## Agree the Conventions Before the First Row When we sit down with a new client to document their drawing management practices, these are the four things we settle before any drawings are booked in. Retrofitting a convention later costs far more than agreeing one now. - **The numbering format.** One format for the whole project, usually a project code, a discipline code, and a sequence number. Write it down where the register lives, so the next person follows it rather than inventing a variant. - **The revision scheme.** A common scheme uses letters (A, B, C) while a drawing is preliminary and numbers from 0 or 1 once it's issued for construction. Decide the crossover point now, and skip the letters I, O, Q, S, X, and Z, which read as numbers or symbols. That mix-up happens often enough that most CAD standards we see forbid those letters outright, and compliance is still hard to enforce by hand. [Drawing revision numbering](/blog/drawing-revision-numbering) covers both decisions. - **The status vocabulary.** A short, fixed list, matching the terms your contracts use. Five statuses cover most projects, and every status invented on the fly makes the register harder to read. - **The owner.** One person books drawings in, records revisions, and marks superseded sheets, usually the document controller. A register with several editors and no owner drifts within weeks. ## A Worked Example: One Drawing, Five Rows To make this concrete, follow one drawing on a fictional harbour project, Aurora Wharf. The drawing is AW-A-1102, Terminal Building Level 1 Floor Plan, discipline Architectural, originated by Harbourline Architects, sheet 1 of 1. Julie, the document controller, keeps the register. Here's the drawing's life as she records it: - **Rev A, 12 February 2026.** Julie books the drawing in and records the first issue: "First issue for review." Status: Issued for review. Issued to the Aurora Wharf review panel under transmittal AW-TX-0014 on 13 February. - **Rev B, 4 March 2026.** Review comments come back and the stair core moves at grid 7. Julie adds a new row: "Review comments incorporated; stair core relocated at grid 7." Status: Issued for review, under AW-TX-0021. Rev A's row stays put, now marked Superseded. - **Rev 0, 31 March 2026.** The design is accepted and the revision crosses from letters to numbers. New row: "Issued for construction." Status: Issued for construction. Issued to the head contractor under AW-TX-0033. Rev B marked Superseded. - **Rev 1, 18 June 2026.** A site instruction moves door D-114. New row: "Door D-114 relocated; door schedule amended." Status: Issued for construction, under AW-TX-0051. Rev 0 marked Superseded. - **Rev 2, 7 August 2026.** Site changes are captured at completion. New row: "As-constructed." Status: As-constructed. Issued to the asset owner under AW-TX-0088. Rev 1 marked Superseded. Five rows, one drawing. Read from the bottom, the register answers the easy question: the current sheet is rev 2, the as-constructed record. Read in full, it answers the harder one: on 20 May, the contractor should have been building from rev 0, issued under AW-TX-0033 on 31 March. Julie can prove that because she never overwrote a row. {% cta heading="Start from a register with the columns already in it." body="The free Lunr drawing register template ships the fourteen columns, the status and discipline dropdowns, and a worked example set, in Excel and CSV. No email required." href="/templates/drawing-register" label="Download the template" /%} ## Where Registers Go Wrong The failures we see are much the same on every project: - **The register and the files drift apart.** The register says rev B and the folder holds a rev C nobody booked in. Fill the file location column, and make booking in part of receiving a drawing, so a drawing that misses the register is treated as not received. - **The register gets copied.** Two copies means two registers, and neither is the record. One file, one location, one owner. - **Issues live in email.** If the only record of an issue is a sent folder, the register can't prove what was sent, and the proof leaves when the sender does. Every issue gets a transmittal reference in the row. - **Printouts outlive their revision.** A printed sheet doesn't know it's been superseded. Mark prints as [uncontrolled when printed](/glossary/uncontrolled-when-printed), and treat the register as the only authority on what's current. - **Redlines stay in the site office.** We often see uncontrolled markups accumulating in a site office set. People lose confidence that the sheet they're holding is the latest, and the only fix is walking to the site office to check. Bring [redlines](/blog/cad-drawing-redlines) into the record with everything else. Left long enough without an owner, the end state is predictable: duplicate revisions everywhere, nobody able to find the sheet they need, and the working method becomes digging out the handover directory from the last project in that area and hoping the drawings are in it. We've brought clients out of exactly that position, and while the tools we've built can create order from the chaos, those are the hardest migrations we do. A register and an owner are much cheaper. ## When the Spreadsheet Stops Keeping Up A spreadsheet register does the job for most teams: it's quick to set up, everyone can read it, and it holds the whole drawing record on one page. It's also far from the only format we see. Registers turn up as file shares where the naming convention is doing the register's job, Access databases, and all sorts in between. The best document controllers we've worked with run colour-coded registers with a timestamp on every element: every drawing, every revision, who it went out to, and when, with the title information transcribed by hand from each title block, often with the asset data alongside. A register like that, Access database or not, is an excellent starting point: the numbering, revisions, and metadata are already structured, so bringing it into a more automated and accessible process in a system like Lunr is closer to an import than a rebuild. Whatever the format, a manual register keeps working until two things happen: the register and the drawing files drift apart, and more than one person needs to edit it at once. The two usually arrive together, mid-project. The third driver is the quiet one. A manual register depends entirely on one person who knows the system inside out and has the standing to enforce it. That's the owner rule from earlier, and it's also a single point of failure. When that person is away, drawings get booked in wrong or don't get booked in at all, and when they leave, the register's logic often walks out the door with them. Bringing in a system supports that person rather than replacing them: the conventions they've been enforcing by hand, from the numbering format to one row per revision, become rules the system applies for everyone. The register stops depending on their vigilance, and they might even get to take a holiday. That's the point to move the record into a [drawing management system](/blog/drawing-management-system), where the file carries its own revision history and the register can't drift from it. [Lunr's drawing management software](/drawing-management-software) holds the drawings under revision control, reads the title blocks so nobody transcribes them by hand, and issues tracked transmittals from the same record. ![The register inside Lunr: documents listed with their discipline tags, version, and status, with the files attached to the same rows.](/images/posts/how-to-set-up-a-drawing-register/repository-folder-documents.png) Until then, a disciplined spreadsheet does the job. [Download the template](/templates/drawing-register), agree the conventions, and apply the three rules every time a drawing moves. --- ### Drawing Management System: What It Is and How to Buy - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/drawing-management-system - Published: 19 July 2026 - Category: article - Summary: A drawing management system holds every drawing as a numbered, revisioned record, with the CAD handling and controlled issue generic document systems leave out. What it does, and how to choose one. At Lunr Labs, we have worked with many companies implementing drawing management or engineering content management systems. Often, one of the first questions that comes up is what a Drawing Management System is and why we need one, which is a good question. Computers have long had a way of managing files. Windows Explorer, or Finder on macOS. These days, with the move to the cloud, other file management options exist, such as SharePoint or Dropbox. There are many ways of storing and organising files, but what makes drawings and other engineering content special, requiring a dedicated drawing management system? This post explains the category: what a drawing management system holds, where it differs from document management, and the questions to put to a vendor before you buy one. If you are past the definition and already shortlisting tools, go straight to [drawing management software](/drawing-management-software), which shows how Lunr covers every capability described below. ## What a Drawing Management System Is A drawing management system is a controlled repository for engineering drawings and the information attached to them: the drawing number, the current revision, the tags, the review history, and the file itself, held together so that one revision is current and every earlier one stays on the record. The last part is what separates it from a folder. A folder holds files. A drawing management system holds drawings as records, each with a number, a revision, a status, and a history, and the file is one attribute of that record rather than the whole of it. That is why the category is sometimes described as a drawing management database. What it manages is the register, and the DWGs, DGNs, and PDFs hang off it. {% cta heading="Lunr is a drawing management system for asset owners." body="Every DWG, DGN, RVT, and PDF under revision control, opened in the browser without a CAD licence, and searchable by the text printed inside the sheet." href="/drawing-management-software" label="See drawing management software" secondaryHref="/demo" secondaryLabel="Book a demo" /%} ## Why File Storage Falls Short There are several explanations for this, but it comes down to three significant points: ### CAD and BIM File Formats Engineering files are typically more complex than standard office or PDF documents, whether 2D or 3D models, lidar images, or TIFF scans. A DWG is rarely self-contained. It carries [title block attributes](/blog/autocad-attributes) and it points at other drawings as [external references](/blog/autocad-xrefs), so moving or renaming one file quietly breaks another. General file management systems do not allow you to work with advanced CAD file features, and they have no idea any of that structure is there. They also generally only provide a way to view such files if you install proprietary software on your laptop or phone, which for AutoCAD drawings means AutoCAD or TrueView. ### Document Control Engineering changes need to be controlled and tracked to ensure accuracy and the necessary level of approval, which is the job [document control software](/document-control) does. Managing in a Windows share can make [controlling documents](/blog/controlled-documents) difficult, depending on the volume of documents being changed. Generic document management systems like SharePoint may provide workflow capabilities but often require significant configuration time and expense to tailor them to your engineering workflow. ### Project Collaboration and Transmittals File management and generic document management systems typically do not provide a mechanism for project stakeholders to upload, review, markup, and QA changes to drawings and other project documentation, leading to much of the process being done outside of the system using email, paper, or at worst in somebody's head. ## Drawing Management Versus Document Management The two categories overlap enough that the difference is worth stating plainly. A document management system manages documents. It stores a file, versions it, routes it for approval, and controls who can open it. A drawing management system does all of that, then adds what a drawing needs and a report does not: - **Identity by drawing number.** A document management system finds a file by its name and its folder. A drawing management system finds a drawing by its number, and every revision of it belongs to that one number for the life of the asset. - **Revisions with an issued status.** A version history records that somebody saved a change. A drawing revision is an issued state with a letter or number printed on the sheet, an approver against it, and a superseded predecessor kept on the record. - **CAD-aware handling.** Title block attributes, external references, layer and model space structure, and automated PDF generation from the native file. - **Engineering metadata.** Asset, building, system, discipline, and tag numbers, so a drawing can be retrieved by what it describes rather than by where somebody filed it. - **Controlled issue.** Transmittals that record what was sent, to whom, and why, without opening the whole repository to the recipient. If your content is mostly policies, reports, and contracts, a document management system is the right tool for the job. If it is drawings, models, and the asset record behind them, the drawing-specific behaviour above is the part you would otherwise rebuild by hand. Drawing Management Systems address the engineering-specific challenges above by introducing features beyond those provided by standard file management or general document management systems. ## Critical Features of Drawing Management Systems - **Central Repository:** A designated central repository to manage all engineering documents to provide a single access point for internal and external users to your organisation. - **Security:** A fine-grained permission system allowing groups of users access to the sub-set of documentation they need. - **Document Retrieval:** Ease of document retrieval using the search or browse features. - **Application Integrations:** Drawing management systems have a range of application integrations with CAD-specific file formats, such as DWG, DGN, or RVT. Lunr integrates with several formats, allowing title block and XREF management, native file viewing, automated PDF generation, and more. - **Controlled Documents / Workflow:** Provide a mechanism for managing controlled documents. An approval workflow often manages changes to controlled documents. It should always maintain a complete revision history and audit log, allowing you to revert to a given document revision and providing traceability and insight into any changes made throughout the document's life cycle. - **Secure File Sharing / Transmittals:** Drawing management systems also typically provide easy and controlled sharing of documents with various stakeholders using transmittals or file shares. - **Native File Viewing:** Whilst not strictly required in a drawing management system, most systems will provide a mechanism to preview and markup a document without running proprietary software on your phone or computer. For example, DWG files typically require installation using AutoCAD or TrueView. A document viewer lets you view DWG files in the browser, making the documents accessible to a broader audience. - **Document Archive:** When an asset is decommissioned, for example, at the end of a document's lifecycle, related drawings must be archived. Archived drawings are typically available to a group of users with a higher degree of permissions but do not appear in drawing searches for general users. - **Tag / Metadata Management:** Drawing Management systems manage files (like Windows Explorer) and document metadata. This functionality is generally referred to as tag management. Tags can be added to drawings to facilitate retrieval. For example, by tagging all Electrical Drawings from building 504, you can easily find this subset of files later. ## How to Manage Engineering Drawings If you are starting from a shared drive and a spreadsheet, the order of the work matters more than the software you end up buying. Take it in five steps: 1. **Build the register first.** List every drawing you hold, with its number, title, discipline, asset or building, and current revision. A [drawing register](/glossary/drawing-register) is the index the whole system rests on, and building it is also how you find out what you actually have. 2. **Fix the numbering convention.** One drawing number format, one revision scheme, and one place they are written down. Retrofitting a convention later costs far more than agreeing it now. See [drawing revision numbering](/blog/drawing-revision-numbering) for the revision half of that decision. 3. **Nominate the current revision of each drawing, and mark the rest superseded.** Every drawing needs exactly one revision that is current, and the older ones kept and labelled rather than deleted. 4. **Put the files in one repository and stop working from copies.** Copies on desktops and in email are where the register and reality drift apart, and every duplicate is a chance for somebody to build from the wrong sheet. 5. **Route changes through a workflow.** Give each change a reviewer, an approver, and a record, so the revision increments because a decision was made rather than because somebody remembered. The first three steps are the hard ones, and no software will do them for you. The last two are where a system earns its place, because they are the ones that fail quietly on a shared drive. ## How to Choose a Drawing Management System Once the register exists, the question becomes which system to run it in. These are the nine questions worth putting to a vendor: - Does it open your CAD formats in the browser natively, without a plugin or a desktop licence? - Does it read title block attributes, and does it keep XREF relationships intact when files move? - Can you search inside scanned drawings, or only across filenames and tags? - Does every drawing carry a revision, a status, and a full audit trail as standard? - Can you configure the review and approval workflow your team already uses, without a consulting engagement? - Can you issue a controlled transmittal to an external party without granting repository access? - Does the archive keep superseded revisions retrievable rather than removing them? - At the end of a project, does the record stay with you, the asset owner? - Is it hosted where your data has to live, and does it support single sign-on? Most teams begin with a drawing register in a spreadsheet, and our [free drawing register template](/templates/drawing-register) is a solid version of one. When the register and the files start to drift apart, a [drawing management system](/drawing-management-software) keeps them in one place, under revision control, for the life of the asset. --- ### ISO 19650 and the Common Data Environment: A Practical Guide - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/iso-19650-common-data-environment - Published: 19 July 2026 - Category: guide - Summary: ISO 19650 sets out how to manage information across a project and asset lifecycle. Learn what it asks of a common data environment, and how to meet those requirements in practice. You have won a place on a tender, or you are about to, and the information requirements ask you to work to ISO 19650. Somewhere in that document is a line about a common data environment, and the job of meeting it has landed on your desk. This guide explains what the standard actually asks for, what a common data environment has to do to satisfy it, and how to tell a compliant setup from a shared folder with good intentions. ## What ISO 19650 Actually Is ISO 19650 is an information management standard for building and infrastructure work. It sets out how the information about an asset gets produced, checked, approved, and handed over across the whole life of a project and the asset that follows. It does not describe a 3D model, and it does not tell you which software to buy. It describes a process. The standard grew out of British practice. BS 1192 set the original conventions for collaborative production of information, PAS 1192 extended them for building information modelling, and [ISO 19650](https://www.iso.org/standard/68078.html) took the same ideas international. If you have worked to BS 1192 before, most of ISO 19650 reads as familiar ground with new labels. It is often introduced alongside [building information modelling](/blog/what-is-bim), though the two are not the same thing: BIM is a way of producing and structuring information, and ISO 19650 is the discipline for managing it. Two roles run through the standard. The _appointing party_ is the client, usually the asset owner, who sets the information requirements and receives the finished record. The _appointed parties_ are the consultants, contractors, and suppliers who produce information against those requirements. Parts 1 and 2 are the ones you will meet most often. Part 1 sets out the concepts and principles, and part 2 covers the delivery phase of an asset, which is where most tenders sit. If you already run a drawing management system, the move to a common data environment is more of a step than a leap, because you have the naming and revision discipline in place. What changes is the formality around it: the states, the gates, and the requirements the appointing party sets at the start. Our guide to [transitioning to BIM within a CDE](/blog/transitioning-to-bim-within-a-cde) walks through that path from the appointing party's side. ## What ISO 19650 Asks of a Common Data Environment At the centre of the standard sits the [common data environment](/common-data-environment). ISO 19650-1 describes it as > _an agreed source of information for any given project or asset, for collecting, managing and disseminating each information container through a managed process_. Read that definition slowly, because every phrase in it is a requirement. An agreed source means one place that everyone accepts as authoritative. A managed process means information moves under rules, not by drag and drop. The rest of this section unpacks what those rules are. ### Information Containers, Named and Coded An information container is any structured set of information: a drawing, a model, a document, a spreadsheet, or a report. ISO 19650 treats the container as the unit that gets managed, and it asks that every container carry enough metadata to be found, trusted, and placed in context. Three pieces of metadata do most of the work. A consistent naming convention gives each container a predictable identifier, so people and systems can locate it. A revision code records which iteration you are looking at, so nobody works from a superseded version. A status code, sometimes called a suitability code, records what the container may be used for, for information, for review, for coordination, or for construction. Get these three right and most of the standard follows. ### The Four States ISO 19650 moves every information container through four states, and the discipline of the standard is really the discipline of the transitions between them. ![The four ISO 19650 states of an information container and the gates between them: a check moves work in progress to shared, a review and an approval move it to published, and superseded containers are archived.](/images/posts/iso-19650-common-data-environment/cde-four-states.svg) **Work in progress** holds information that a single task team is still developing. It is private to that team, and nobody outside relies on it. **Shared** holds information that a team has checked and released for others to see and use, but that carries no formal approval yet. Coordination between disciplines happens here. **Published** holds information that has been reviewed and authorised for a defined purpose, tender, construction, or handover. This is the record other parties commit decisions to. **Archived** holds superseded and historical containers, kept as a record of what was issued and when. The states matter less than the gates between them. A container does not drift from work in progress to shared: a check moves it there. It does not appear as published because someone renamed a folder: a review and an approval authorise it. Each transition is a decision with a name against it, and the standard expects that decision to be recorded. For a worked example of a review and approval sequence, see [understanding document workflow](/blog/document-workflow). ### Audit Trail and Controlled Access Two more requirements sit underneath the states. The first is an audit trail, the same record [document control](/document-control) has always kept. Because each container carries a history of who changed it, who reviewed it, and when it moved state, you can reconstruct the record months or years later. That history is what turns a claim of compliance into something you can demonstrate, whether the question comes from an auditor, a dispute, or the next project team inheriting the asset. The second is controlled access. Appointed parties see the containers their role requires and no more, and information leaves the environment to external parties through a controlled issue rather than an open link. ## Workflow Versus Solution ISO 19650 talks about a CDE workflow and a CDE solution, and the difference is the thing most tender responses get wrong. The workflow is the process: the states, the gates, the naming, the status codes, and the audit trail. The solution is the platform you run that process on. You can buy a solution and still fail the workflow. A shared folder with good intentions, a tidy naming convention, and a well-meant email rule looks organised, but it cannot enforce a state transition, it cannot stop someone editing a published container, and it keeps no reliable record of who approved what. The moment two people copy the same file to their desktops, the agreed single source is gone. The standard asks for a managed process, and a folder manages nothing on its own. A compliant common data environment is a solution that carries the workflow inside it, so the process holds even when people are busy. Modelling those state transitions is exactly what a [configurable workflow](/features/workflows) is for. ## What This Looks Like Day to Day Set the standard aside for a moment and picture the week. You book a document in. It arrives with a name that follows the convention, a revision, and a status code, and it lands in work in progress under the team that owns it. When that team has checked it, they move it to shared, and the coordinating disciplines pick it up. A reviewer reads it against the requirements, and if it passes, an approver authorises it and it becomes published. If it fails, it goes back with a comment, and the revision increments when it returns. When information has to go to a party outside the environment, a subcontractor pricing a package, or a consultant who is not yet on the project, you issue it as a [transmittal](/blog/understanding-transmittals): a controlled package with a cover sheet, a recipient, a reason, and a record of what was sent and when. The recipient does not need standing access to the repository to receive it. At project close, the published information becomes the handover record. The [handover](/features/handover) is validated against the requirements, checked for completeness, and issued to the appointing party. The project information model becomes the asset information model, and the asset owner keeps it. That last step is the one teams forget. ISO 19650 does not end at practical completion. The owner has to hold the record for the life of the asset, ready for the next project, the next audit, or the next tender. If the record lives only in a contractor's system, the owner does not really have it. For more on how that record keeps developing after handover, see [how the common data environment evolves](/blog/how-will-the-cde-evolve). ## Where Lunr Fits Lunr supports an ISO 19650 information workflow. It is not certified as anything, and no software can make you compliant on its own, because compliance is a property of how you work. What a platform can do is carry the workflow so the discipline holds. Here is where Lunr lines up with the requirements above. Configurable workflows model the state transitions directly. You define the states your project uses, the reviews and approvals that move a container between them, and the roles that can act at each gate, so work in progress, shared, and published mean the same thing to everyone. Transmittals and collaborator access handle the appointed parties. Issue a controlled package to an external party without granting repository access, or invite a party into a project workspace with the access their role requires. Every issue is recorded. Revision control, status metadata, and a full audit trail come as standard. Every container carries its revision, its status, and its history, and the record of who changed and approved what is kept automatically. The owner keeps the record after handover. Because the environment belongs to the appointing party, the published information stays with the asset owner when the project team leaves, ready for the next appointment. Lunr already holds more than 10 million documents under management, and the University of Canberra moved more than 20,000 documents off SharePoint into a single managed record. ## A Checklist to Take to Procurement When you assess a common data environment against ISO 19650, take these questions with you: - Does it model the four states, and does it enforce the gates between them, or does it only label folders? - Can a review and an approval move a container between states, with the decision and the reviewer recorded? - Does every container carry a naming convention, a revision code, and a status code as first-class metadata? - Is there a complete audit trail for every container, covering changes, reviews, and state transitions? - Can you issue information to external parties as a controlled transmittal without opening the whole repository? - Can you control access so appointed parties see only what their role requires? - Can you validate a handover package against the information requirements before you issue it? - After handover, does the record stay with you, the asset owner, rather than the contractor? - Is the platform hosted where your data has to live, and does it support single sign-on for the people who use it? Score a platform against those nine questions and you will know quickly whether it carries the ISO 19650 workflow or just stores your files. To see how Lunr answers them, [book a demo](/demo). --- ### How will the CDE Evolve? - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/how-will-the-cde-evolve - Published: 20 August 2024 - Category: article - Summary: The Common Data Environment (CDE) is poised to reshape the roles of the Client, Asset Owner, and Occupier. Increasing volume and diversity of data in projects signals a promising evolution. Building on our previous post, the Common Data Environment (CDE) is poised to reshape the roles of the Client, Asset Owner, and Occupier. The increasing volume and diversity of data in projects, such as building modelling, signal a promising evolution. We anticipate a shift towards integrating manufacturers' building (OEM) data, construction drawings, and asset and equipment registers into a single model, known as a federated model. This model, or its components, can be housed within a centralised system and shared throughout the asset or project's lifecycle. Many asset owners already centralise some data. The CDE will continue to formalise the process with the transition of progress from 'scattered artefacts' (disparate pieces of information spread across different systems or locations), and this will also be a discussion point. Asset owners have estates that vary in size and age. There will still be projects where a model is not feasible, and they will need to be able to transition quickly to a federated model. While the industry is moving towards 3D models, the traditional process of acquiring artefacts remains crucial. This includes acquiring drawings throughout the design and construction process and other standard documentation like operations and maintenance (O&M) manuals. The transition to a model with linked information will take time, so it's vital to retain artefacts, even if some of the data within them needs to be updated. This continuity provides a sense of reassurance amid change. Meanwhile, many organisations are evolving, structuring their data to ensure all stakeholders understand what is available. They are transitioning to a CDE that facilitates the sharing of asset and project information. The CDE's scope extends beyond the construction stage, focusing on providing everyday access to asset and project information that all stakeholders can share. This ongoing evolution instils confidence in the industry's adaptability. ISO 19650 formalises much of this shift; our [practical guide to ISO 19650 and the common data environment](/blog/iso-19650-common-data-environment) sets out what it asks of asset owners. ### Standard Components of a CDE The asset owner, or appointing party, should consider the following built-in within a standard [CDE system](/common-data-environment): 1. Requests for Information (RFI) processes 2. Transmittals 3. Integrated or federated models (in IFC format) that contain all data, such as materials, asset and equipment schedules, and building quantities. The federated model will be a source for clash detection or identification of a lack of services (existing and proposed). 4. A project information management system or at least a flexible project collaboration system that contains project sites for internal and external stakeholders, or both. Project collaboration allows for continuous engagement between the client, the architect, the builder, and, most importantly, the client's operations personnel, who are generally left to the end of discussions when an asset or facility is handed over. Issue tracking will be live within the CDE or within the federated model if available. 5. Historical artefacts and building data. As discussed above, these will remain essential sources for projects and asset operations. This includes existing drawings, reports, O&M manuals, building manufacturers, and construction data (OEM), including warranty information and legal documents. This information will evolve to contain financial data, like a built-in Rawlinson's construction guide with all historical facility interdependencies. The transition will be from a single electronic artefact (once physical) to a linked model. 6. Integration with other systems that allow stakeholder access is helpful in planning, design, project delivery, and operations. This includes integrating with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS), and finance data. ### What are IFC models? We see the evolution of platform-independent Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) open data standards. Not to be confused with the issued for construction (IFC) drawing status, the IFC data format will be seen as the standard issuing of models and exchange of "whole data" that is constantly accessible and made available on the CDE of the client's choice. --- ### Case Study - University of Canberra - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/case-study-university-of-canberra - Published: 12 June 2024 - Category: article - Summary: The University of Canberra is a young university with an impressive global reputation and a focus on promoting equal access to education. They chose Lunr to manage their campus documents. One of the top ten universities in Australia, number one in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) for graduate employment and ranked among the world's top young universities, the University of Canberra (UC) is a young university with an impressive global reputation and a focus on promoting equal access to education. The Campus Estate team's mission is to deliver sustainable property and related solutions to enable the ongoing success of the UC community and keep the campus working at its best, encompassing planning & development, project delivery, operational services, and security & transport. A project to scan the document archives commenced in 2016. SharePoint is on the cloud and freely available to universities, so the information was catalogued in SharePoint, and a Building directory was constructed to store more than 20,000 documents associated with the university's facilities. ![The University of Canberra document archive in SharePoint before Lunr: a building directory of more than 20,000 documents, where drawings were slow to find and duplicates were hard to rule out.](/images/posts/case-study-university-of-canberra/sharepoint-building-directory.svg) It was determined that drawings took too long to find in SharePoint, resulting in time loss and uncertainty around duplicates. Additionally, the drawing handover process resulted in missing documents that contractors still needed to deliver. These are the walls we describe in [Lunr compared with SharePoint for engineering drawings](/compare/sharepoint). The problem faced by the University of Canberra is common to the Property Services and Facilities Management area of all universities; [Lunr for universities](/for/universities) describes the pattern across campus estates. Managing documentation, including 3D and BIM (Building Information Models), required an innovative approach to replace the current system, integrate with critical systems such as the GIS, and combine access for internal users and external contractors. Several initiatives were undertaken to identify issues and develop the requirements of a new system with the engagement of stakeholders: - Identifying and defining the issues through a series of workshops. - Preparing the business case and seeking funding. - Formulating the statement of requirements to ensure requirements were captured from various perspectives (regular users, irregular users, consultants, contractors, and others), how they will use the system and for what purpose. - The procurement and evaluation process. - Considering feel and appearance to ensure a user-friendly adoption. - Understanding the quantity and quality of the existing drawings. - Determining the tagging and identification of drawings related to assets. Lunr was selected in an RFQ tender process, with Onset Design engaged to provide implementation, training, support services, and data migration from SharePoint to Lunr. An initial period of scoping and design resulted in agreement on the Solution Design document, and work commenced on the data migration, including cleansing, transformation, and duplicate identification. Initial training was delivered to prepare users for User Acceptance Testing, and configuration adjustments were made based on UAT feedback. The data migration improved system integrity, and additional information was captured from scanned images using the Lunr XRAY component. As a result, drawings are easily located in Lunr, reducing the time spent retrieving drawings. Daniel Byrnes is the Digital Systems Coordinator for Campus Estate with the University of Canberra and describes Lunr as follows: > _Lunr is a simple solution that provides the flexibility to develop the system to our needs. Onset Design has provided dedicated staff to assist with the conceptual elements, configuration, and development, and it has engaged and trained staff effectively through a series of workshops. Lunr is simple to use, and minimal training is required with the ability to embed short, customised videos for a self-service portal._ Benefits are being realised in providing a self-service, or 'communal' system that allows for easy user onboarding, as drawings are shared via transmittals and RFIs embedded within the system. Lunr simplifies external access by removing the delays associated with affiliate access approval while clearly showing what contractors and consultants are accessing. Internal staff access is integrated via Single-Sign-On (SSO). The Portfolios feature of Lunr provides overall building information, such as location, background, history, occupants, and GFA/UFA numbers. It gives a good insight for anyone new to the University estate. ![The Portfolios feature in Lunr, grouping the campus estate into assets such as buildings, grounds, and utilities.](/images/posts/case-study-university-of-canberra/screenshot-2024-06-12-at-2.07.20-pm.png) Viewing platforms are embedded within the system, allowing everyday users to view CAD files via autogenerated PDF without requiring additional software, such as DWG TrueView, or requesting assistance to open and print the file. Viewing tools also allow for red-line markup and viewing Revit and IFC files. Advanced searching includes a spatial search using GIS data from Esri, which is particularly useful for finding drawings for the university's most complicated buildings (Building 1) and utilities. ![A spatial search using GIS map data in Lunr.](/images/posts/case-study-university-of-canberra/screenshot-2024-06-12-at-2.08.09-pm.png) The ability to integrate with the GIS shows the way forward, and the potential to integrate with other tools like Archibus and the CMMS (Computerised Maintenance Management System) represents the next steps. ### System Integrations Map search is enhanced by using the Esri connector to control the visibility of GIS layers in Lunr. ### Summary - The main campus, in the Canberra suburb of Bruce, went live with Lunr in July 2022. - Around 20,000 drawings were migrated from SharePoint. - [Onset Design](https://onset.com.au) delivered the Lunr solution and provided services for data migration, training, testing, and ongoing support. --- ### Transitioning to BIM Within a CDE - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/transitioning-to-bim-within-a-cde - Published: 11 June 2024 - Category: article - Summary: Using structured data in a CDE uncovers valuable insights, gaining more control over assets and projects. Sharing information with others will improve your operations and knowledge of facilities. Organisations worldwide have managed asset information and construction data in various systems for years. For the Client, as described in [ISO 19650](https://www.iso.org/standard/68078.html) as _the appointing party_, designated as the asset owner or organisation managing facilities, assets, and projects, there needs to be more clarity about which system manages the operational and historical project data. With multiple ways of organising files using file management and records management solutions, there is now the impact of cloud systems, such as the evolution of Microsoft SharePoint. For many asset owner organisations, the everyday employee has been left to work with disparate systems and needs more simplicity in managing asset or project information. ### Transitioning from Drawing Management System to Common Data Environment For some organisations, mainly those heavily focused on asset-centric systems, such as our customers who use a Drawing Management System (DMS) like Meridian or [Lunr](/), the transition to the Common Data Environment (CDE) is most likely more apparent. The CDE forms an essential part of the [ISO 19650](https://www.iso.org/standard/68078.html) BIM Standard. The formation of a CDE has just evolved from best practice asset information, structured data, project information management, and collaborative working that has developed IT and digital transformation that a cloud system brings. The CDE is described in ISO 19650-1, p.3.3.15, as > _an agreed source of information for any given project or asset, for collecting, managing and disseminating each information container through a managed process_. For others, like _the appointed parties_ who work for the appointing party, there already has been a focus on investing in data capabilities. The architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry uses data to reduce project costs, ensure public safety, and meet regulatory requirements. Now, the focus is on bringing all parties together in a 'single point of truth system'. The importance of data and technology is paramount, especially in these turbulent times. A Common Data Environment (CDE) ensures that knowledge is retained and efficiencies are increased. It optimises data to minimise waste, reduce project costs, and prevent loss of data during handover processes. With a CDE, you can be confident in the reliability and accuracy of your data, ensuring a secure and effective transition. By embracing a CDE, you, as the asset owner, can open up a world of opportunities. You'll gain more control over your assets and projects, using structured data to uncover valuable insights. Sharing information with others will improve your operations and knowledge of facilities and/or estates. Most importantly, you'll gain buy-in from all stakeholders, boosting technology adoption, productivity, and knowledge retention in a market that is constantly evolving. --- ### Updates to the Lunr BIM Viewer - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/updates-to-the-lunr-bim-viewer - Published: 3 June 2024 - Category: article - Summary: We've recently added some new features to the BIM Viewer in Lunr. All users can now easily create Viewpoints and view property elements in the viewer without using specialist software. We've recently added some new features to the BIM Viewer in Lunr. All users can now easily create viewpoints and view property elements in the viewer without using specialist software. ### Create Viewpoints A viewpoint serves as a specific perspective or snapshot of a 3D BIM model and allows you to save and navigate to specific locations within the model. With the new feature, you can now save a viewpoint by simply clicking the camera icon. This flexibility allows you to create multiple viewpoints over time and use them to compare progress, giving you more control over your work. ### View property elements You can now drill down to view specific elements within the model's structure. For example, in the full view above, we've selected the Volkswagen Beetle parked in the driveway. If necessary, you can use other viewer functions, such as measure, to get more information. ![The model tree and properties panel in the Lunr BIM viewer.](/images/posts/updates-to-the-lunr-bim-viewer/screenshot-2024-06-03-at-11.16.16-am.png) --- ### What is BIM? - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/what-is-bim - Published: 17 May 2024 - Category: article - Summary: Building Information Modelling (BIM) is reshaping the way we integrate building data into digital platforms, but what is it? **Building Information Modelling (BIM)** is reshaping how we integrate building data into digital platforms, but what is it? Historically, building data has been collected from many sources, such as drawings, specifications, manufacturer data, Operations and Maintenance (O&M) manuals, reports, and registers. Due to differing standards, this data has been delivered in various formats. ### BIM as an information consolidation methodology Interestingly, we have not described BIM as a 3D model but as a methodology to consolidate information. The aim is to achieve up-to-date models, but for many asset owners and occupiers, this transformation can only happen after some time. For some, it might begin as an inclusion in a requirements document, while for others, it might involve redefining standards and in-house procedures. ### Where should you start? Start by considering processes, people, and technology and defining your goals. For asset owners, transitioning to BIM will seem more manageable if their data is already managed by an Engineering Drawing Management System (EDMS) such as [Lunr](/), Meridian, or RedEye. Some may discover valuable data dispersed through records management systems, cloud databases, file shares and forgotten drives. This data becomes the focal point of the Common Data Environment (CDE) that BIM relies upon. We'll look more closely at the CDE in future posts. ### The open-source evolution of BIM Crucially, BIM is not characterised as a single system owned by large organisations, unlike the evolution of CAD systems. Instead, BIM is advancing open-source data or digital language, epitomised by the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) standard, standardised as [ISO 16739-1](https://www.iso.org/standard/70303.html) and used alongside [ISO 19650](https://www.iso.org/standard/68078.html) - organisation and digitisation of information about buildings and civil engineering works. ### Looking ahead We will continue to explore these concepts in future posts. In the meantime, [contact us](/contact) to learn how [Lunr](/features) can manage your BIM data and simplify your model viewing and analysis. --- ### Managing Project Data with Lunr - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/managing-project-data-with-lunr - Published: 2 January 2024 - Category: article - Summary: Lunr efficiently tracks and captures data, putting project and reporting tools at your fingertips. Being informed by the most up-to-date system information allows a focus on resourcing and planning. When it comes to managing the essentials of engineering content in a drawing office or asset management facility, Lunr is the key. It's designed to bring your content under control and maintain version history through disciplined workflows. As social networking companies understand, the great news is that having a solid data platform like Lunr lets you draw on a wealth of information for management and planning. For instance, it can track project progress, identify potential bottlenecks, and most importantly, it equips you to make informed decisions, putting you in the driver's seat. Managing a project in Lunr is a comprehensive process that ensures you are in control. It controls access to documents and bundles them into change requests or RFIs for communication. The project overview provides a simple dashboard reflecting document workflow status, while the reports area delivers system statistics to assist with management and planning, ensuring you have all the tools you need at your disposal. Lunr efficiently tracks and captures data, putting project and reporting tools at your fingertips. Easy access to reports allows you to focus on resourcing and planning, all while being informed by the most up-to-date system information. ![A reports view in Lunr summarising project data.](/images/posts/managing-project-data-with-lunr/reports.png) --- ### Integrating Lunr with Other Systems - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/integrating-lunr-with-other-systems - Published: 26 December 2023 - Category: article - Summary: The full value of your engineering content lies in its integration with other enterprise systems, allowing your organisation to harness more of your content. Previous articles have highlighted the power and benefits of using Lunr to manage your engineering documentation. However, the full value of your engineering content lies in its integration with other enterprise systems. This integration not only allows your organisation to harness more of your content but also extends the reach of your documents to a wider audience, giving you more control and confidence in your operations. Let's look at a couple of examples to understand this better. For instance, you can use the asset hierarchy from popular asset management systems like Maximo or Ellipse to similarly structure your engineering content in the Lunr repository. This integration enables you to place a QR code at the asset location, providing a direct link to the relevant documentation in Lunr. Another example of Lunr's integration is with Esri layers. In the Lunr map view, these layers can display the physical location of assets, making it a breeze to locate them. You can even retrieve all drawings within a given radius of the asset location using your mobile device. This level of convenience can significantly improve your workflow, making the process more comfortable and less daunting. The following connectors are available today, each serving a specific purpose in enhancing your experience with Lunr: - CAD (including AutoCAD and MicroStation) - Esri - Ellipse - Maximo - Archibus - MazeMap - SISfm Rest assured, Lunr not only offers a range of connectors off the shelf, but also provides a comprehensive API documentation. This documentation is designed to guide you through the integration process, ensuring that integrating Lunr with your enterprise systems is a natural part of your solution. You can trust Lunr's support to make your integration process smooth and successful. --- ### Understanding Asset Hierarchy - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/understanding-asset-hierarchy - Published: 19 December 2023 - Category: article - Summary: Lunr manages both 2D and 3D engineering documents on the cloud, and for most asset owners, contextualising this data within the organisation's asset hierarchy makes sense. Lunr manages both 2D and 3D engineering documents on the cloud, and for most asset owners, contextualising this data within the organisation's asset hierarchy makes sense. Asset owners are vested in managing the intellectual property (IP) of assets valued at millions of dollars. Maintaining the value of these assets and ensuring productive and efficient operations and maintenance starts with effective and dependable data management. Capturing these documents during the project lifecycle and holding them under [engineering document management](/engineering-document-management) throughout the asset lifecycle is a fundamental component of successfully overseeing the assets and the associated business operations. To illustrate this further, the water utilities we collaborate with use systems like SAP, Maximo, or Ellipse for asset management, monitoring, and maintenance. Both Meridian and [Lunr](/) can process the underlying asset hierarchy to tag operations and maintenance documentation, enabling swift retrieval. --- ### Managing BIM Models with Lunr - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/managing-bim-models-with-lunr - Published: 13 December 2023 - Category: article - Summary: The BIM space is moving quickly as many enterprise sites seek to incorporate models and IFCs into their working process. The BIM space is moving quickly as many enterprise sites seek to incorporate models and IFCs into their working process. Existing systems often competently manage 2D engineering documentation, but you need somewhere to store the growing number of models as your organisation receives them. There are many features of the Cloud platform that assist with BIM: - Scalable (unlimited) storage. - Streaming of extensive model data for viewing. - External upload by design teams. - Accessibility from different locations. - Low latency (high performance) based on configurable geographic hosting location. - Drawing on the cyber security associated with the hosting platform, such as Azure or AWS. - Managed services such as backup and recovery. With built-in capabilities to view and markup point cloud, Navisworks, Revit, and other BIM document formats, Lunr is not just a standalone solution, but a perfect accompaniment to your existing on-premise system. This ensures that your current setup is not disrupted, but enhanced with the power of Lunr. While many sites use Lunr as the entire solution for 2D and BIM, we also use [connectors](/connectors) to integrate with other systems and supplement existing functionality with Lunr BIM. Ready to take the next step? The best way to experience the power of Lunr is to set up a trial and upload some models. Our dedicated team is eagerly waiting to work with you, guide you through the process, and ensure Lunr is a perfect fit for your organisation. Start the discussion today and [get in touch](/contact) to embark on this BIM management journey together. --- ### As-Constructed Drawing Project Completion with Lunr - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/as-constructed-project-delivery - Published: 16 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: The Lunr dashboard takes into account various factors to provide a realistic indication of your project's status, so you can make informed decisions. A Lunr workspace is thoughtfully divided into two areas: the document repository and projects. The document repository, a folder-based area, is designed for efficient storage of engineering documentation, so everything in it sits under [engineering document management](/engineering-document-management): a number, a current revision, and an audit trail per document. Projects, on the other hand, provide a straightforward way to manage the delivery of as-constructed drawings via Signal, ensuring you stay organised and on top of your tasks. When you open a project in Lunr, the first thing that greets you is the project completion overview dashboard. This comprehensive tool provides a birds-eye view of your project's progress, giving you a clear understanding of how close you are to completion. The dashboard takes into account various factors to provide a realistic indication of your project's status, so you can make informed decisions. - **Estimated as-constructed drawings: **One of the key features of Lunr is its flexibility. When creating a project, you have the option to indicate the estimated number of drawings you expect to receive. This feature is particularly useful in cases where you can't pre-allocate your as-constructed drawing placeholders ahead of time, allowing you to adapt to changing project requirements. - **Document numbers allocated:** If you're allocating document numbers to a project ahead of time, this metric captures the placeholders set aside that are expected to come back in as a part of the as-constructed handover process. Document numbers refer to unique identifiers assigned to each document in the system. - **Existing documents under workflow:** Any documents assigned from the document repository to a project count towards this metric. These documents are expected to complete workflow when they're returned either un-revised or revised. ### Completion Status Using the metrics mentioned above, Lunr compiles a completion report. This report is a valuable tool that gives you a clear picture of how far you've come in completing your project, helping you plan your next steps effectively. ![Project Completion Status](/images/posts/as-constructed-project-delivery/project-completion-status.png) As an asset owner, this can be used as a guide for when to release any retention funds to the project vendors. From the contractor side, it provides a way to gauge when you're ready to finalise the project handover with clients. ### Project Workflow Summary This chart provides an overview of the workflow status distribution of your project documentation. It can be useful for identifying project bottlenecks. For example, if you can see that 50% of the project documents are in review, it could mean that the document control department needs more resourcing to keep up with the project handover workload. ### ![Workflow Summary](/images/posts/as-constructed-project-delivery/project-workflow-summary.png)Project Activity The project activity feed lets you see who has been active on a project and what they've been up to. You can jump to any linked document from the feed to participate in the document review process. ### ![Project Activity](/images/posts/as-constructed-project-delivery/project-activity.png)Documents Approved The documents approved chart allows you to see how the document handover within a project is trending. If you see a sharp drop-off in documents approved, it could just be a holiday weekend, but it may also be an advanced warning of upcoming delivery delays. ### ![Documents Approved](/images/posts/as-constructed-project-delivery/project-workflow-approval.png)Power BI The baseline reports included in the project overview are a great starting point and can give you insights into how you're tracking with as-constructed project completion. For larger and more complex projects with many documents and stakeholders, it's often helpful to take things a step further to determine where your project bottlenecks are and how you can clear them. The best way to address these situations is to use the Signal REST API to query project and document data and feed this into your Azure PowerBI environment for further reporting. While this is more work to set up, it can give you outstanding insights into your project delivery, sparking optimism and motivation about the project's progress. --- ### Why Move CAD Drawings to the Cloud? - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/why-move-your-cad-drawings-to-the-cloud - Published: 16 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: It's not ideal when your entire Engineering Drawing Management System (EDMS) is really just one person. Easily improve that situation by moving your engineering documentation to the Lunr cloud. Whether it be Dropbox, SharePoint, box.net, or Google Drive, businesses have started to migrate files to the cloud in a big way, as opposed to the 2000 to 2010 era, where the majority of companies stored files in an on-premise Windows share or Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. While the first approach was acceptable when most employees were based in a central office, it began to break down as more and more employees sought work from home or other flexible working arrangements. At first, people began to upload essential documents such as Word files, spreadsheets, or PDFs, and once the trend started, there was no stopping it. However, this transition has left behind a significant challenge-managing engineering files. Formats like AutoCAD DWG, or 3D models authored in Revit or Inventor, often get lost in the shuffle. This has led to a divide in many organisations, where finding a contract or invoice is a breeze in SharePoint, but locating a crucial DWG file for a room upgrade is a daunting task. We look at that divide in detail in [Lunr compared with SharePoint for engineering drawings](/compare/sharepoint). Often, the answer is, "Well, you need to go down to the basement and ask Bob." Bob knows how to find every drawing in the system. He has them all nicely arranged on a Windows share (which only he has access to), or worse, they're on his local hard drive. Often, Bob even has a spreadsheet or Access database where the drawing numbers are meticulously tracked. While general business documentation has found a home online, the [Engineering Drawing Management System (EDMS)](/engineering-document-management) is still reliant on individuals like Bob. As competent as Bob may be, he's just one person. If Bob goes on leave or leaves the organisation, the drawing management system goes with him. This highlights the critical need for a more resilient and secure solution like a cloud-based drawing management system. When implementing drawing management systems like [Lunr](/) and Meridian, we've found that people like Bob are the most significant asset. We sit down for a few days and work with Bob to document the drawing numbering and revision system, the file naming convention, approval workflows, and the drawing taxonomy. These are configured in the cloud-based drawing management system, and the drawing library is uploaded. --- ### AutoCAD Attributes: Block Attributes, ATTDEF, and Title Block Data - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/autocad-attributes - Published: 15 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: What a block attribute is in AutoCAD, how to define one with ATTDEF, how to edit one with ATTEDIT and BATTMAN, and why title block attributes matter to a drawing management system. AutoCAD has been equipped with attributes for a considerable period of time, even predating my own usage. This long-standing feature, while not novel, has proven its reliability and effectiveness in our increasingly data-centric environment. The focus on data, including its capture and analysis, has only served to underscore the importance of attributes in fortifying the integrity and value of an [EDMS (Engineering Document Management System)](/blog/drawing-management-system). ## What a Block Attribute Is Let's put these concepts into practice. In AutoCAD, a block is a group of drawing objects, and an attribute is text that is embedded in a block. You can think of the attribute as a tag or label that can be filled in when the block is inserted. This is particularly useful when you need to create an item list for drawings that contain multiple instances of blocks, such as those representing electrical or mechanical components. In the context of an [EDMS](/blog/drawing-management-system), we are particularly interested in sheet frames as title blocks, where attributes can be used to capture crucial title data, making it easier to manage and search for specific documents. Every attribute has three parts, and every command that touches attributes asks for them by name: - **Tag.** The name of the field, written without spaces, such as DWG\_NO or REV. The tag identifies the attribute inside the block definition, and it is what an external system reads. - **Prompt.** The question AutoCAD asks when the block is inserted, such as "Drawing number?". - **Value.** The text entered in answer, which is what prints on the sheet. The attribute definition carries a default that pre-fills it. The tag stays the same on every insert of the block. The value changes with each one, and that is what lets a single title block definition serve a whole drawing set. ![AutoCAD Attributes](/images/posts/autocad-attributes/blog-img-attributes.png) ## Defining an Attribute with ATTDEF When you've drawn your sheet frame, and before defining the block (with the **BLOCK** command), attributes are created in the title line positions, similarly to adding text (**ATTDEF**). The attribute properties determine size, position, and even the default value. The benefit is that the title lines can be prompted for completion when your sheet is inserted (**INSERT**). Be aware, however, that this can be turned off (**ATTREQ**), or the block can be exploded (**EXPLODE**) after insertion. The system could be better, but the purpose and intent are understood by most users and organisations motivated to use attributes and appreciate the value and significance of the captured title metadata. The order of those steps matters, so in full: 1. Draw the sheet frame. 2. Run **ATTDEF**, fill in the tag, prompt, and default value for one title line, and place it where that text belongs. Repeat for every field the title block prints. 3. Select the frame and the attribute definitions together, then run **BLOCK**. Pick the attribute definitions in the order you want to be prompted in, because that sets the prompt sequence. 4. Run **INSERT** to place the sheet, and answer the prompts. The **ATTDEF** dialogue also carries the attribute modes, and two of them change what an external system sees. **Constant** fixes the value in the block definition, so it is identical on every insert and cannot be edited afterwards, which suits a field like sheet size and ruins one like the drawing number. **Invisible** keeps the value in the file without printing it on the sheet, which is a way to carry data a reader does not need to see. The remaining two are conveniences: **Preset** fills the default without stopping to prompt, and **Verify** asks the user to confirm what they typed. Two system variables decide what happens on insert. **ATTDIA** controls whether the values are collected in a dialogue or at the command line. **ATTREQ** set to 0 skips the prompting entirely and accepts the defaults, which is how a set of sheets ends up carrying the same placeholder drawing number. **EXPLODE** is the other way the data goes. Exploding a block with attributes turns the values back into attribute definitions displaying their tags, so the drawing number on the sheet reverts to reading DWG\_NO and the value is gone. ## Editing Attributes After Insertion Attribute values and attribute definitions are edited by different commands, and reaching for the wrong one is the usual source of frustration. - **ATTEDIT** edits the values on a block reference already placed in the drawing. The command-line form, **-ATTEDIT**, edits values across many references at once, which is how you correct the same field on a whole set of sheets rather than one at a time. - **EATTEDIT** opens the Enhanced Attribute Editor for a single block reference, where the value sits alongside its text options and properties. Double-clicking a block that has attributes takes you to the same place. - **BATTMAN**, the Block Attribute Manager, edits the block definition rather than any one insert. Use it to change a tag or a prompt, reorder the prompt sequence, or remove an attribute from the block. - **ATTSYNC** pushes a changed definition out to the block references already placed, so existing sheets pick up an added or renamed attribute instead of keeping the old set. **DATAEXTRACTION** reads the attribute values back out, into a table on the drawing or a file you can open in a spreadsheet. That is how the item list described above gets built without anybody counting blocks by hand. ## Attributes in the Title Block The sheet frame is where attributes earn their keep, because a [title block](/glossary/title-block) is a fixed set of fields printed in the same place on every sheet in a set. Give each of those fields an attribute rather than plain text, and the sheet stops being a picture of its own metadata. The fields worth attributing are the ones people search on: drawing number, title, revision, discipline, sheet size, scale, and the names and dates for who drew, checked, and approved the sheet. They are also the columns a [drawing register](/templates/drawing-register) carries, which is the point: attribute them once and the register fills from the sheet. Revision is the one that moves most, since it changes at every issue, and a REV attribute is what lets a system write the current revision back into the sheet instead of relying on somebody to retype it. See [drawing revision numbering](/blog/drawing-revision-numbering) for what belongs in that field and when it changes. {% cta heading="Read the title block once, not sheet by sheet." body="Book a walkthrough and watch Lunr pull the drawing number, title, and revision off your attributed sheets and into a controlled register." /%} ## Feeding Attributes into a Drawing Management System For ease of data capture and improved data consistency, the [engineering document management system](/engineering-document-management) should be able to automatically retrieve title attributes from drawings and use this to populate [EDMS](/blog/drawing-management-system) metadata, avoiding re-entering the title data, saving time and ensuring that titles in the EDMS accurately reflect drawing titles. Systems such as [Lunr](/) and Meridian include this capability. Meridian refers to this as 'synchronising properties', while Lunr automates this feature when uploading documents. Behind the scenes, these systems maintain a mapping table that associates drawing attributes with their matching [EDMS](/blog/drawing-management-system) properties, ensuring valuable title data reliably populates the [EDMS](/blog/drawing-management-system). The mapping is why the tag matters more than the printed text. A system reads DWG\_NO, not the words next to it, so a block whose tags follow one convention across the whole drawing set maps once and keeps working. A set where the same field is tagged DWG\_NO on some sheets and DRAWING\_NUMBER on others needs the mapping maintained by hand for as long as both survive. An EDMS's actual value and success lie in the trust and confidence it instils in its users. A key factor in this is the ability to search for documents with the assurance that search terms accurately reflect drawing titles, leading to consistent results. Title block attributes with automated EDMS input are a pivotal element in this process, bolstering user confidence in the system's reliability and accuracy. Please get in touch with us if you want to obtain some samples of attributed title sheets (A1, A2, A3) that may serve as practical examples. --- ### Construction Document Communication - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/as-constructed-communication - Published: 15 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: A look at communication methods used during the project and maintenance phases of an asset, and how Lunr allows you to tame this process and get your communications back under control. A look at communication methods used during an asset's project and maintenance phases... ## Project Phase During the construction/project phase, two primary forms of communication need to be handled. ### General project communications There are often points in a project where you must send a general project communication email to all relevant project stakeholders. In the past, most of these emails were sent from Outlook. While Outlook is a convenient tool everyone knows how to use, it presents several challenges when sending project broadcast emails. 1. **Email overload:** If you send a large broadcast email from Outlook with a number of people CC'd, by default, everyone is included in the reply loop. This can lead to an overwhelming amount of email traffic to everyone on the email thread and network traffic delays. 2. **Error-prone:** When you manually draft the contact list in Outlook, it's simple to loop in people you didn't mean to accidentally. This results in people not being involved in the project receiving the information they shouldn't or, on the flip side, people on the project not receiving information that they need to see. 3. **Time-consuming:** With this method, you need to create this broadcast list every time you send an email to the project group. This may be insignificant for smaller projects but can really add up with larger projects that may span months or even years. Lunr's [Signal](/features) module addresses these challenges with its project broadcast tool. Project broadcasts allow you to send a broadcast email to all project members. They are also accessible on the project dashboard and enable comment-based discussion. ### Document communications Document communication emails are triggered automatically on the relevant [workflow](/blog/document-workflow) steps. For example, when a document is submitted for review or approval, the reviewer group receives an automated email notification to action the request. Escalations can then be set up on these emails to remind reviewers/approvers at a specified interval after the initial email. This eliminates the requirement for manual follow-up by document controllers and avoids running into project bottlenecks on review and approval. ## RFI (Request for Information) [The Training Industry](https://trainingindustry.com/wiki/professional-development/request-information-rfi/#:~:text=DEFINITION,will%20better%20inform%20buying%20decisions) defines an RFI as: > _A standard business process used by customers to collect written information regarding the capabilities of various suppliers, which will better inform buying decisions._ Signal allows you to create an RFI, optionally attach documents from the Lunr repository, and specify either an optional or mandatory response by the RFI response due date. Like most artefacts in the Lunr repository, RFIs are enabled for commenting for all RFI members. This ensures that all stages of the RFI process are kept inside the system, improving searchability and transparency. ## Asset/maintenance phase At the end of the project, the as-constructed documents are handed over to the asset owner or maintenance team. There is some overlap with the project phase in that document workflow email notifications are also relevant for maintenance document revisions. However, some communication types are unique to this phase. ### Document repository broadcasts Some broadcast emails are relevant to all members of a document repository. As with project broadcasts, repository broadcasts are delivered as an email but also feature as an announcement on the main repository dashboard. - **Engineering/Asset document standards update:** Each time a standard policy is revised, you generally want everyone involved in the repository to know about it to ensure the drawings can be delivered to the new standard as early as possible. - **System updates:** It's also helpful to inform people when major system updates are coming. This could be something as simple as adding a new discipline to the tag list or something more major like a new system feature or planned outage. - **Asset archive:** These kinds of emails are typically sent when an entire folder in the repository is going to be archived due to an asset being made obsolete. - **Document reminders:** Certain documents need to be reviewed and updated at certain intervals. One example is a license that is renewed annually. With document reminders, users can subscribe to be notified that a document should be reviewed and updated annually. Optionally, users can choose to automatically add the document to their to-do list for edit when the interval is reached. Construction projects are becoming increasingly complex, and the demands on [document control](/document-control) departments are higher than ever. In today's project environment, managing project collaboration with a duct-taped system of spreadsheets and Outlook is not feasible. Lunr allows you to tame this process and get your project and asset communications back under control. --- ### Drawing Revision Numbering: 6 Letters to Skip, Rev 0 vs 1 - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/drawing-revision-numbering - Published: 15 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: How drawing revision numbering works in practice: which letters the convention skips, what the first revision should be, when a drawing moves to rev 0 or rev 1, and where superseded revisions go. When an asset is changed in the plant or out in the field, it's crucial to modify the existing engineering drawing to incorporate the changes. This process, known as revision management or [revision control](/glossary/revision-control), is a best practice in engineering design and construction projects. Once the edits have been made, the existing drawing is superseded and replaced by the new version. In a [Drawing Management System](/blog/drawing-management-system), these kinds of changes are completed within a [document workflow](/blog/document-workflow) and often require the engineering review and approval that [document control](/document-control) exists to record. A common practice is to store the revision number inside the drawing title block and ensure that this revision is available to anybody viewing the file either within the system or externally. The drawing revision and drawing number make up a unique reference to a drawing - when making a change, you need to know both the drawing number and the revision you are editing (generally the most recent revision). Recording those references in a [drawing register](/templates/drawing-register) keeps the current revision of every drawing visible in one place. ![The revision number lives inside the drawing title block. Here it reads REV D, part way through the project phase, before the drawing is issued as-built and moves to revision 1.](/images/posts/drawing-revision-numbering/drawing-title-block-rev.svg) ## Letters First, Then Numbers There are many kinds of revision numbering schemes. One that we commonly see uses alpha characters for the drawing revisions prior to when the drawing is released as-constructed, then moves to a numeric numbering system for operations and maintenance changes. A drawing runs A, B, C, D through design and construction, and once it has been handed over it starts a numeric sequence that carries every change made for the rest of the asset's life. This clear and consistent numbering system ensures that everyone involved in the project understands the status of a drawing at any given time. As an example, drawing **ME\_501\_A\_001.dwg** may start as revision **A** and move through to revision **D** during the project phase. Once it's submitted as-built, it moves into the numeric sequence. Revision numbering schemes like this are useful methods to ensure that everybody understands exactly where a drawing is at in its lifecycle and help avoid costly errors and lost time. ### Which Revision Letters to Skip Not every letter is available. The convention, set out in ASME Y14.35 for the revision of engineering drawings, uses upper case letters in sequence from A and omits **I**, **O**, **Q**, **S**, **X**, and **Z**. The reason is legibility on a printed, faxed, or scanned sheet. **I** reads as 1, **O** and **Q** read as 0, **S** reads as 5, and **Z** reads as 2. **X** is left out because a drawing office commonly uses it to mark a field that still needs input. That leaves twenty usable letters. When the single letters run out at **Y**, the sequence continues with double letters, **AA**, **AB** through **AY**, then **BA**, **BB**, and so on. **O** and the digit **0** are the pair worth the most care, because a letters-then-numbers scheme puts both alphabets on the same drawing over its life. Dropping **O** from the letters removes the ambiguity for good. ## What the Initial Revision Should Be Every drawing carries a revision from the moment it exists, so a sheet with a blank revision field is immediately visible as uncontrolled. Which value goes in that field on day one depends on the scheme: - Under a letters-then-numbers scheme, a new drawing starts at revision **A**, the first issue for comment or review. - Under a purely numeric scheme, it starts at **rev 0** or **rev 1**, following the rule in the next section. - Under the ISO 19650 revision codes used on projects working to the UK BIM framework, it starts at **P01**, where **P** marks a preliminary issue. The preliminary sequence runs P01, P02, and onwards until the information becomes contractual and moves to **C01**. Some offices issue a drawing at revision A only once it has been checked, and use a separate work in progress marker before that. Others treat revision A as the first thing that leaves the drafter's desk. Both work, provided the whole project agrees which one is in force. ## Rev 0 vs Rev 1 Rev 0 and rev 1 are both used for the first numeric revision, and which one is right depends on the convention your organisation has written down. Two are common: - **Start at 0.** Rev 0 is the first issue in the numeric sequence, usually the as-constructed handover, and rev 1 is the first change made after the asset is in service. - **Start at 1.** Rev 1 is the as-constructed issue and there is no rev 0 at all. This suits a scheme that has already dropped the letter **O** to avoid confusion with zero, since the digit never appears in a revision. Neither is more correct than the other, and both are in daily use. The damage comes from running both in one register, because a reader who sees rev 0 then cannot tell whether it means the approved baseline or a drawing that has not been issued yet. Pick one, record it in your [document numbering](/glossary/document-numbering) standard next to the drawing number format, and hold every discipline to it. ## Minor Revisions Within a Change Cycle During a single change cycle on a drawing, the file may go through a number of iterations as it's reviewed and adjusted to meet the project requirements. This is often referred to as a minor revision and is represented with an _alpha.numeric_ format like **A.1** or **1.1**. This minor revision scheme is consistent with the guidance outlined in the [UK BIM framework](https://www.ukbimframework.org/standards/) ISO 19650-2 around revision management within a CDE (Common Data Environment). For reference, the relevant section of the guide is 5.1 (Revision Control during Work in Progress - WIP). ## What Happens to the Superseded Revision Issuing a new revision does not delete the old one. The previous revision becomes a [superseded drawing](/glossary/superseded-drawings), retired from use, marked so nobody works from it by mistake, and kept on the record. Keeping superseded revisions matters for two reasons. The first is traceability: when a fault turns up in the plant, you need to know which revision the crew held on the day, which means the register has to answer what was current in March last year, not only what is current now. The second is evidence. The issued record shows what was designed, approved, and built, and a revision deleted to tidy up a folder is evidence gone. The practical test is whether a superseded revision is hard to reach and easy to find. Hard to reach, so it never surfaces in a routine search or gets attached to a transmittal by accident. Easy to find, so an auditor or the next project team can retrieve it and see exactly why it was replaced. Deleting old revisions fails both halves, and leaving them loose in the same folder as the current sheet fails the first. An [engineering document management system](/engineering-document-management) passes both, because every revision hangs off the one drawing number and only the current one is served. {% cta heading="Every revision kept, and only one of them current." body="Book a walkthrough and watch Lunr increment the revision through workflow, write it back to the title block, and keep the superseded sheet on the record." secondaryHref="/templates/drawing-register" secondaryLabel="Free register template" /%} ## Automating the Revision Number [Drawing Management Systems](/blog/drawing-management-system), such as [Lunr](/), make it easier to follow best practices like this with engineering drawing-specific features and offer significant benefits. These systems simplify the revision process, ensure accurate and up-to-date information, and enhance collaboration among project stakeholders. Two features that exemplify these benefits are: - **Automated revision numbering:** Each time a drawing goes through workflow, the system should automatically increment the major and minor revisions to avoid the need for somebody to remember to make the change manually. - **Title block integration:** Ideally, the revision should be synchronised back to the drawing title block automatically to ensure that the system and the drawing file are aligned. Both features come built into modern [drawing management software](/drawing-management-software), so the revision on screen always matches the revision in the file. --- ### Engineering Drawing OCR: Scanning and Searching Legacy Drawings - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/engineering-drawing-ocr - Published: 15 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: How OCR reads the text printed on an engineering drawing, what it pulls out of a title block, and how scanning a paper archive turns decades of drawings into something you can search. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is a technology that systematically reads and indexes text within images. When used as part of an [engineering document management system](/engineering-document-management) such as Lunr, this can open up a large portion of the data set that would not ordinarily be retrievable using search. Searching on text-format documents like Word files or text-based PDFs (instead of image-only PDFs) loads each file into a database that supports full-text search. However, this approach only works with image files, which don't support indexing similarly. ## What OCR Reads on a Drawing A drawing is mostly linework, and its text is a small share of the sheet spread across a lot of separate places. What OCR recovers from it, in rough order of value: - **Title block text.** Drawing number, sheet title, revision, discipline, scale, and the project and client names. That is the metadata the drawing already carries, so reading it means a sheet with no record behind it can still be found by its number. - **Tag and equipment numbers.** The valve, pump, circuit, and room numbers labelled on the sheet itself. These are the searches that matter in operations, because somebody standing at an asset knows the tag and often nothing else. - **Notes and legends.** General notes, revision notes, material callouts, and the schedule tables carrying detail the linework does not show. - **Room names and grid references.** On architectural sheets, this is what makes a floor plan findable by the space it describes rather than by the building it sits in. Two things make drawing OCR harder than OCR over a page of prose. Text sits at several rotations on the same sheet, since notes run horizontally while dimensions and pipe labels follow the geometry. And there is no surrounding sentence for a recogniser to lean on, so a tag like V-1042A has to be read character by character with nothing to check it against. ## The Problem - Historical scanned drawings (usually TIFF or PDF) often need to contain adequate metadata for search and retrieval, leading to situations where people either need to spend a lot of time browsing through archives to find the files or, worse, give up and re-draw the diagram from scratch. - Operations and maintenance manuals, contracts, and similar files are often too large to appropriately index using standard metadata tagging techniques. Searching for the file's project name or asset description may work, but more broad searches by part description or contractor name are impossible. ## Scanning the Paper Archive Plenty of drawing archives are still paper, or microfilm, or a folder of TIFFs somebody scanned in the 1990s to a standard that made sense at the time. Scanning is the entry path to everything above, and the quality of the scan sets the ceiling on what OCR can return afterwards. What matters when the drawings go through the scanner: - **Resolution.** 300 dpi is the working minimum for a drawing. Below that, the small text in a title block and the digits in a tag number break up, and no amount of processing afterwards puts them back. - **Sheet size.** Engineering drawings are A1 and A0, so this is large-format scanning. Sectioning a big sheet on an A3 scanner and joining the pieces costs more than it saves and skews the join. - **Greyscale for old sheets.** A faded, stained, or pencil original scanned straight to black and white loses its light strokes. Greyscale keeps them and gives the recogniser something to work with. - **One file per sheet, named by drawing number.** Scanning is the cheapest moment to attach a drawing number. Recovering it later means opening every file. - **Straight and complete.** A skewed or cropped scan clips the title block, which is the one region on the sheet worth the most. Scanning and OCR are two separate steps. The scanner produces an image, and OCR reads it. Doing the first without the second leaves a picture of a drawing, findable only by whatever somebody typed into the filename. {% cta heading="Search the text inside your scanned archive." body="Book a walkthrough and watch XRAY read a scanned sheet from the 1990s and return it by the tag number printed on it." secondaryHref="/features/xray" secondaryLabel="See XRAY" /%} ## Reading the Archive with XRAY Our solution is to use Lunr's XRAY technology to OCR all image files as they are uploaded. The text extracted during this process is then indexed, allowing searching over a more significant portion of your document repository. XRAY runs this way inside Lunr's [drawing management software](/drawing-management-software), so a scanned 1994 sheet surfaces in the same search as a live DWG. [XRAY](/features/xray) indexes the words inside DWG, DGN, RVT, PDF, Office files, and scanned images, and returns results as rendered thumbnails so you recognise the drawing before you open it. For dense sheets, such as a schedule packed with tags or small text that a single pass under-reads, Deep XRAY re-scans the page at high resolution tile by tile and surfaces the hits the first pass missed. Recognised text works best as the fallback behind the other ways into a repository. Tags and a curated folder structure find a drawing when somebody knows what they are looking for. Full text finds the ones nobody got around to curating, which on a legacy archive is most of them. [A better way to find your engineering content](/blog/engineering-content-search) sets out how the two fit together. --- ### Redline Drawings: Markup vs Revision, and Redline Services - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/cad-drawing-redlines - Published: 15 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: A redline drawing is a released sheet marked up in red to show what should change. What redline markups record, who drafts the change, and how construction redlines become the as-constructed record. A redline drawing is a released drawing marked up in red to show what is wrong with it or what should change. The markup sits over the drawing as an annotation and leaves the drawing underneath exactly as it was issued, so the sheet everyone is working from stays intact while the change is being agreed. Red is the convention because it separates the comment from the linework at a glance on a printed sheet. The colour carries no meaning beyond that, though many offices extend the palette, using green for a comment that has been actioned or blue for a query rather than an instruction. The word doubles as a verb: to redline a drawing is to mark it up, and a redlined set is one that has been through that process. ## When Drawings Get Redlined CAD redline markups annotate a drawing to indicate an error or suggest an amendment. There are two primary triggers for redline markups. 1. **Project revisions**: When a drawing is in the project/construction phase, it will often undergo several revisions before it is finalised with an as-built status. Redlines provide a convenient method for drawing reviewers to suggest changes to a drawing. 2. **Operations and maintenance**: In real-world scenarios, such as on-site surveys or general maintenance work, errors in drawings can be discovered. CAD redline markups offer a practical solution in such situations, allowing these errors to be highlighted and triggering a [revision](/blog/drawing-revision-numbering) update on the drawing to rectify the issue, thereby maintaining the integrity of the drawing. ## Markup and Revision Are Two Different Jobs A redline is a request. A revision is the answer to it. Somebody marks the sheet, somebody else opens the native CAD file, makes the change, and issues a new revision that carries it. Those are two pieces of work, usually done by two people, and running them together is where redlines go missing. The distinction matters because of what each one is evidence of. The markup records what was found, who found it, and when. The revision records what was done about it. Keep both and you can answer why a drawing changed years after the fact. Keep only the revision and you have the change with the reason stripped out of it. A redline never alters the released sheet. It sits over the top of it until a revision supersedes it. See [redline markup](/glossary/redline-markup) for where the line between the two sits. ## Redlining Construction Drawings On site, redlining is how a drawing set keeps up with what is being built. A crew marks the issued sheet wherever the installed work departs from it: a duct routed around an obstruction, a valve set two metres from where it was drawn, a circuit run a different way. The marked set travels with the job, and at the end of it the accumulated redlines are drafted back into the drawings to produce the [as-constructed drawings](/glossary/as-constructed-drawings) the asset owner will operate from for the life of the asset. That makes site redlines the highest-value markup in the set and the easiest to lose. They are made in the field on paper, they live in a site office, and they get typed up at the end of a project once the people who made them have moved on. Capturing the markup against the controlled drawing at the moment it is made removes the dependency on a roll of paper surviving the job. ## Redline Drafting Services, and When You Need Them Search for redline services and you will find drafting firms that take a marked-up set, whether that arrives as scanned paper, PDF, or photographs from a phone, and return updated CAD files. The work is real and there is a good reason people buy it. A backlog of site markups is a drafting job, and if you have no drafters, or the ones you have are committed to live projects, sending it out is the sensible answer. What a service of that kind typically covers: - Reading the markups and querying the ones that are ambiguous. - Opening the native DWG or DGN, making the changes, and matching your layer, level, and title block standards. - Returning the updated files at a new revision, usually with a comparison against the previous one. What the arrangement cannot do is close the loop quickly. The round trip runs at the speed of the batch: markups accumulate, get packaged, get sent, come back, and get checked, and for the whole of that cycle the current drawing on your system is the one without the changes. The longer the cycle runs, the longer people are building from a sheet that is known to be wrong. So it is worth being clear about which part you are buying. If you need drafting capacity, a service is a reasonable way to get it, and the work still has to be done by someone. If the problem is that markups are not reaching the drawings at all, more drafting capacity will not fix it, and the markup needs to land [under document control](/document-control) at the moment it is made. {% cta heading="Close the loop between the markup and the drawing." body="Book a walkthrough and watch a redline land against the controlled sheet, then come back as a new revision with the markup still on the record." /%} ## Redline Markups in a Drawing Management System When drawings are uploaded to Lunr's [drawing management software](/drawing-management-software), a few files are generated in the background: - A thumbnail to support quick previews. - A PDF rendition to enable viewing in the browser and redline markups. - An OCR content file to allow users to search for text inside drawings. Markups are securely stored against the PDF rendition, enabling easy review on the web. Access to redline markups can be controlled using securities, ensuring only authorised users can view and create them. Typically, read-only users will not have access to redline markups, instead, they will only see the latest as-constructed drawing file, maintaining the integrity of the drawing review process. When drawings are released from [document workflow](/blog/document-workflow), markups are kept with the current document version, meaning the new as-constructed version does not include the markups from the previous version. --- ### Sharing documents with Lunr - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/sharing-documents - Published: 15 June 2023 - Category: guide - Summary: Sharing documents with Lunr | Lunr Engineering Content Management One of the key benefits of a cloud-based [engineering document management system](/engineering-document-management) is the ability to easily share documents with people inside or outside your company. There are three ways to do this in Lunr, each suited to different scenarios. In this article, I'll outline the how and why of each of these methods. ### **1. Secured link** The simplest option for sharing documents in Lunr is to send a secured link to the documents. This is as simple as selecting the documents from the folder browse page and clicking the share button. In this case, the user receives an email link to download the shared package of documents. If the recipient isn't already a member of your Lunr team they'll receive an invite to sign up before they access the files, striking a balance between simplicity and security. The convenient thing about this method is that you can send the files to a user that wouldn't ordinarily have access to those folders. You can also set the link to expire after a given time-frame to limit the access period for these files. ### **2. Transmittal** This option works similarly to option 1. You can select a list of files to include in your [transmittal](/blog/understanding-transmittals), and click share to initiate the transmittal process. With a transmittal, you also need to specify the issue purpose. With transmittals, in addition to the shared files, a Transmittal cover sheet is automatically generated and attached to the email. The cover sheet includes the following details: - Sender details - Recipient details - Issue purpose - Documents (including revision number) Transmittals are useful at the early stages of a project before users have been invited to collaborate in a live Lunr project workspace. If you are still logging issues by hand, the free [transmittal register template](/templates/transmittal-register) carries a row for each of the details above. ### **3. Lunr project workspace** Lunr projects are the recommended way for all members of a project team to collaborate on document changes. To share documents with users via a project simply invite the users to the project, and assign the documents to the project. Once the document is assigned to the project they're available for workflow initiation by the responsible parties. --- ### Tackling Engineering Project Costs with Submittal Package Validation - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/submittal-package-validations - Published: 15 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: Package validation in Lunr reduces the feedback loop from drawing handover to acceptance and increases the likelihood that the original draftsperson is still on hand to make the required corrections. How often do you receive a package of as-constructed drawings that complies 100% with the requirements outlined in your engineering drafting standard in the first submission? Suppose you're like many people responsible for receiving and reviewing as-constructed drawings as a part of project completion. In that case, there is a good chance that many received packages require some rework before they're accepted. In our experience, this can be anywhere from 30%, if you're lucky, to as high as 50 - 60% of drawings requiring rework to meet compliance. Much of the time, package quality checking or quality assurance (QA) is manually performed by a document control team. When a package is rejected, there is an additional cost involved in correcting the drawing and a secondary QA review step. This problem is compounded when the package reaches less than 100% compliance on the second submission and can sometimes involve 3 - 4 round trips before acceptance. This situation introduces two significant problems for engineering projects: - **Cost blowouts due to drawing corrections**: Multiple drawing corrections require more drafting resource time to submit the package. It's often also difficult to secure the relevant resource if they've already moved on to another project. - **Bottlenecks in document control**: The increased QA demand can lead to project bottlenecks in document control departments due to the need for more review cycles than anticipated in the project. ### Simplifying package submission - Validation A fantastic way to solve both problems is to introduce automated package validation into your submittal package workflow. The revised workflow is as follows: 1. The project member uploads the submittal package. 2. Validation checks are run over the package. 3. If the package is validated successfully and complies with the standard, it is automatically imported into the system for QA review. Otherwise, it's rejected and returned to the submitter for corrections. Package validation reduces the feedback loop from drawing handover to acceptance and increases the likelihood that the original draftsperson is still on hand to make the required corrections. The earlier you can catch defects in the package, the more time you can save. ### High-value validation rules At the start of a [drawing management software](/drawing-management-software) implementation process, we review the CAD standard to determine which rules from the drafting standard can be automatically checked. Here are some common rules that add much value to the process. - **File name validation:** Ensure that all files in a submittal package match the rules outlined in the drafting standard. - **XRef validation:** Verify that no unbound XRefs are missing from the package. - **Title block validation:** Verify that the asset owner's standard title block has been used. - **Tag validation:** Verify that each tag in the title block complies with the asset drawing metadata requirements. - **Project document number validation:** A common practice with large infrastructure projects is to pre-allocate a batch of document numbers (placeholders) in the document repository at the start of a project. This ensures that only valid file names are used and avoids duplication. Repositories that use this strategy also benefit from a document number validation rule, which verifies that all documents received have been allocated a placeholder in the given project. Adding automated validation checking to your as-constructed documentation handover workflow is always possible. If you've got the benefit of starting fresh with a new system, getting these rules right from the start is worthwhile. However, even if you're working with an existing document repository, you can start taking small steps towards automated validation. Starting with a relaxed validation workflow and gradually tightening the rules over time can also be a great way to ease project stakeholders into the process. --- ### Understanding Controlled Documents - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/controlled-documents - Published: 15 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: Lunr provides a way to manage controlled documents through the complete document lifecycle, while still allowing you the option of uploading uncontrolled documents as required. If you've been around drafters or document controllers long enough, you may have come across the terms 'Controlled' and 'Uncontrolled.' Understanding these terms is crucial for your professional growth and knowledge in the field. Drawing Management Systems distinguish between these categories of documents as a core part of [document control](/document-control). So, what are they, and why does it matter? ### Uncontrolled documents The most common example that I come across of uncontrolled documents is photos. Imagine this scenario. You're in the field and notice a defect with a particular diagram. In Lunr, one option is to take a photo of the asset and upload it as a comment against the associated drawing. The system does not control this photo, meaning it doesn't go through a workflow or require any specific approvals, and revision history is not maintained. If you're working with a Windows File share, then from a system perspective, all documents are uncontrolled. There may be business processes in place to manage changes to the documents, but Windows lacks any constraints around who can modify the document, how versions are managed, and so on. The photo example is a great use case for an uncontrolled document because modifying or removing it without approval carries no risk, and you generally don't care about maintaining the file's version history. ### Controlled documents In addition to working with uncontrolled documents, Drawing Management Systems also allow you to work with Controlled Documents. Controlled documents have the following constraints: - **Workflow:** Changes to a document are completed within a workflow. For example, when Julie wants to change drawing BXY\_A1005.dwg, she should initiate a change on the document. The document is then locked to prevent anyone from inadvertently making a conflicting change. Once the document edits are complete, they can go through an optional approval, depending on their nature. For example, it's common for electrical documents to require multiple approval steps before the version is finalised. Once all the necessary approvals have been completed, the document is released from the workflow and the lock is removed. This makes it available for the following user to make a change. - **Version history:** Controlled documents maintain an entire version history, making it possible to revert to a previous version of the document at any point in time. - **Automated version numbering:** Engineering documents such as drawings and models are often managed in a Drawing Management System. Drawing Management Systems usually automatically allocate version numbers each time a new document version is created. For example, a document may start as version A and then automatically be assigned version B when the first version is completed. Most CAD standards define a version numbering system. Systems like Lunr that provide this out of the box avoid users needing to manage this manually, ensuring that the version numbers are always consistent. - **Automated document numbering:** Some Drawing Management systems, such as Lunr, also allow you to set up standard rules for naming controlled documents. For example, a file name may consist of a Location Code followed by a Discipline Code and a unique sequence number. Documents named in this way carry a basic amount of information even when transferred out of the system, allowing users to quickly differentiate between different types of files. Systems like these also ensure that documents are unique, making it easy to retrieve the correct document. - **Audit trail:** Many asset owners and engineering groups must comply with ISO 9000. Controlled documents assist with this compliance by providing a full changelog. An example changelog entry may look like this: _Julie Brown edited the document 2017-01-01 0500_. The critical pieces of information are who completed the change, what the change was, and when the change was completed. Both uncontrolled and controlled documents have their place. Lunr provides a way to manage controlled documents as part of [engineering document management](/engineering-document-management), while allowing you to upload uncontrolled documents as needed. --- ### Understanding Document Workflow - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/document-workflow - Published: 15 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: Lunr's document workflow allows controlled collaboration between all members of the project team, including staff, vendors, sub-contractors, and more. A reasonably standard engineering review workflow consists of the following steps: - **Edit document:** Moves the document into the Draft workflow state, locking it to the editor to avoid conflicting changes. - **Send for Review:** After the editor finishes the changes, the document is sent to somebody in an Approver role for review. This user is responsible for confirming the changes are correct and to standard. [Drawing management software](/drawing-management-software) can be configured to trigger an email notification to the approver at this step of the workflow to let them know that they have a review pending their attention. - **Approve/Reject:** The user then has the option to approve or reject the workflow and provide a comment for context. If a document is rejected, it will usually be assigned back to the editor so that changes can be made. If the document is approved, the revision is automatically updated and released as a master version. Our system prioritises security, ensuring that documents are only accessible to the users who need them. This prevents a user from an operations or maintenance role from accessing a document on the workflow that may be incorrect or incomplete, instilling confidence in the system's integrity. ### Benefits Document workflow provides several benefits: - Document changes are controlled, and only one user can edit a document simultaneously. - Changes to documents require review and approval, reducing the risk of defects. - An audit trail is maintained for every document. - Automation can be set up to push the document to other applications on workflow changes. Those four points are what [document control](/document-control) means in practice, and the workflow is where they are enforced. Lunr's document workflow fosters a sense of collaboration, allowing all members of the project team, including staff, vendors, sub-contractors, and more, to contribute and feel valued in the process. --- ### Understanding Transmittals - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/understanding-transmittals - Published: 15 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: Document Transmittals are a formal process used by Engineering and Construction companies to send controlled documents or drawings to external companies, contractors, or vendors. Document Transmittals are a formal process used by Engineering and Construction companies to send [controlled documents](/document-control) or drawings to external companies, contractors, or vendors. A transmittal typically consists of four parts: - **Recipient(s):** Details of who the transmittal is sent to. - **Cover sheet:** This should include a list of files (with their revision numbers) in the transmittal package. - **Documents:** The documents sent in the transmittal. - **Reason:** The reason that the documents are being transmitted. Examples include _For Information_ or _For Change_. From the vendor or contractor perspective, a transmittal offers a controlled and systematic way to share documents with clients. It not only provides a record of when the transmittal was sent, to whom it was sent, and when it was received but also helps maintain project timelines by eliminating the ambiguity of document receipt dates. Transmittals are a significant advantage in the fast-paced construction industry. From the asset owner's perspective, transmittals are a common practice during the preparation of a tender in capital works projects. They serve as a means to send a comprehensive package of documents for review, enabling prospective vendors to prepare accurate quotes. This process, with its clear and transparent nature, is instrumental in ensuring fairness and confidence in the vendor selection process. Whichever side you sit on, the record only holds if every issue is logged. The free [transmittal register template](/templates/transmittal-register) has a column for each of the four parts above, ready to fill. {% cta heading="Know who holds which revision." body="Book a walkthrough and watch Lunr issue a transmittal that records the recipient, the date sent, and the revision of every document in the package." secondaryHref="/document-control" secondaryLabel="See document control" /%} Modern transmittal systems, with their user-friendly interfaces and advanced features, include a method for recipients to access a digital download of the package contents and automatically mark the transmittal as received once it has been accessed. This convenience makes the process more efficient and less time-consuming for everyone involved. [Lunr](/features) transmittals can send a package of documents to one or more contacts without the need to expressly grant these contacts access to the document repository. Once a contract is awarded to a vendor, this vendor would typically be given access to the document repository and one or more Engineering Projects. --- ### A Better Way to Find your Engineering Content - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/engineering-content-search - Published: 14 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: Lunr uses a combination of search, browse, and push methods to effectively engineer content retrieval and cater to all user needs. There are three main ways for people to find content in an online system. - **Search:** Type in something you know about a document; the system will find it for you (like Google search). In a search-based system, documents are indexed by their content. This could be the title of a book you're looking for on Amazon, the text of a blog post on Google, or the drawing number inside a CAD title block. The benefit of a search-based system is that you don't need to know how the documents are organised to find what you're looking for. However, search systems do have a drawback. Systems with many documents in the search index can leave you with many search results to sort through before you find what you're after. - **Browse**: In browse-based systems, documents are curated using some taxonomy. On Amazon, these could be books classified by genre or author. In this case, you already have some information about what you're looking for, and this helps narrow down to a smaller subset of documents to select from. Well-curated browse-based systems can get you the information you're looking for with minimal clicks and can also help avoid missing key results that, for whatever reason, do not appear at the top of your search results. - **Push:** In a push-based system (like Amazon recommendations), the system (either through manual intervention or a more automated recommendations engine) can push documents you may be interested in, like books similar to those you've already purchased. Each of these find modes has pros and cons, and the most potent systems tend to combine two or more approaches. They allow you to drill down into a subset of documents you're looking for using browse and filter these results with search, or vice versa, which is the approach we take at Lunr. ## Engineering Content Search Searching for engineering content typically revolves around a few critical pieces of metadata: - Title - Drawing Number - Discipline - and so on. Whilst the principles discussed in this article apply to all document content, let's use drawings as an example. There are two critical use cases with search. ### Tag-based search Tag-based searches are convenient when you know something specific about a drawing (for example, the drawing number). In this case, users need a way to search for documents where the tag (drawing number) matches the specified value. In Lunr, this is achieved using the search filter dialogue. You can configure this dialogue to allow users to search for critical tags for your data set. ### Full-text search With a full-text search, you typically know something more general about the drawing you're looking for. For example, you may want to find all drawings referencing a particular street name or building material. Lunr indexes all tags stored against a document and the entire document content (extracted using XRAY). We capture as many document tags as possible during the data migration to ensure a well-curated repository. Full-text search can be a fallback for documents (particularly legacy drawings) that can't be curated to the same degree. That fallback is the reason a scanned archive is worth loading into [drawing management software](/drawing-management-software) at all, because the sheets nobody ever tagged stay findable. ## Browsing In Lunr, you can curate engineering content using tags. Tags can be associated with folders and documents to classify them based on a taxonomy. Take a university campus as an example. In this case, you could create a taxonomy of Campus\\Building\\Discipline (for instance, Melbourne\\983\\Architectural) by creating folders and assigning named tags to these folders. The system automatically curates any documents uploaded to this folder, applying the necessary tags. You can then either filter or browse documents using a well-known classification system. Browse-based systems are very convenient in cases where you know something broadly about the impacted set of documents (for example a building number) but need to know which drawing(s) you need. When a project needs to modify a building, navigating to that building in the folder hierarchy and checking out the relevant files for change is simply a matter of navigating to that building. ## Push Lunr has some preliminary functionality for pushing documents you may need at a given time, such as listing the documents you've recently worked on in the home dashboard. We see the potential for expanding on this in the future. Take the university building project example from above. What if you check out some documents for change but must remember to check out others? An excellent approach would be to recommend documents you may wish to check out simultaneously. This also intersects with BIM. If you have a Building Information Model representing a particular building, you likely have 2D drawings (or PDFs) representing views on this model. If you're checking out the model, you'll likely need to check out the 2D views simultaneously. A recommendation-based approach can help with this. ## In closing Digital systems have many stakeholders, and [Drawing Management Systems](/blog/drawing-management-system) are no exception. Different stakeholders prefer to navigate the data/documents in various ways. For some, search provides a quick and convenient way to find what they're after without requiring deep knowledge of how the data is structured. For others, a deep understanding of the assets or data set is crucial to their job (University Space Managers live and breathe [TEFMA](https://www.tefma.com/) guidelines, for example), and tag/browse-based search modes can give them a shortcut to find what they're looking for. --- ### MicroStation Reference Files: Attachments, Levels, and the References Manager - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/microstation-references - Published: 14 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: What a reference file is in MicroStation, what the References Manager lists, how assigning a level to a reference simplifies a combined model, and what to do when a moved file breaks an attachment. Using reference files in MicroStation is nothing new. It has been a powerful tool since its Intergraph days. Using references for large models was essential before the file format was changed. This was due to a file size limit of 32 Mb for the DGN file. Yes, you read that correctly: 32 megabytes. How did we ever cope with that? I remember using many reference files while processing mapping data and compiling 1:10,000 scale contour maps over the Herbert River area. ## What a Reference File Is A reference file is a DGN attached to the model you have open and displayed alongside your own graphics, without being copied into it. The attachment stores a path to the other file and the position, scale, and rotation it displays at, so the referenced design stays in one place and every model that needs it points at that single copy. Save a change to the referenced file and every attachment picks it up on reload. Elements in a reference cannot be edited from the active model, so to change one you exchange into the reference file and work on it directly. While there is no longer a file size limit, the use of reference files remains a highly effective method of managing CAD data. It allows for the segregation of different design disciplines, such as Civil, Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC, into separate models. This not only facilitates simultaneous work by different team members but also enhances the overall efficiency of the design process. MicroStation attaches a model rather than a whole file, so one DGN can hold several models and you attach the one you want. AutoCAD does the same job with external references, and if your organisation runs both formats, [missing AutoCAD Xrefs](/blog/autocad-xrefs) covers the same ground on the DWG side. ## The References Manager The list of what is attached lives in the References dialogue, which Bentley documentation also calls the Reference Manager and which people commonly search for as RefManager. It is the one place that answers what the model you have open is actually made of. For each attachment it shows the file, the model being attached, the logical name and description, and the full path the file was found at, along with the toggles that control display, snap, and locate. Working from that list you attach and detach, reload after somebody else has saved, move or clip an attachment to a boundary, and reorder attachments so the right one draws on top. Two settings on that dialogue are worth agreeing across a project before the drawings multiply: - **Relative or absolute paths.** A saved relative path lets a whole project folder move, or be copied to another machine, with the attachments intact. An absolute path survives the master file moving on its own and breaks the moment the folder tree changes around it. - **Logical names.** A logical name labels what an attachment is for rather than what it happens to be called on disk. It is the difference between a list a drafter can decode and a list a reviewer can read. ## Assigning a Level to a Reference In the early days, MicroStation's referencing features were not as capable as AutoCAD's Xref feature set. However, with the advent of MicroStation V8i, the software introduced the ability to assign a Level to a reference, a significant enhancement. This feature is accessible from the Reference Attachment Settings window, and it changed how a combined model gets managed. Let's say we are modelling a water treatment plant. We have a separate model for each discipline, such as Electrical, Structural, and Plumbing. Each model has many levels to represent the different items in each discipline. After attaching all models into a combined design model and then into a sheet model, there would be so much detail about each discipline. Turning off disciplines becomes cumbersome as you must turn off each discipline reference level. Assigning a level to the reference makes it easier to manage the final model. So, instead of managing multiple levels per reference, we only work one level per reference. ## When a Reference Breaks Attachments break when the file they point at is moved, renamed, or sent on to somebody without its dependencies. The master file still lists the attachment and still records the path it expects, and nothing displays. To find them, open the References dialogue and read the path. An attachment that cannot be resolved shows the saved path with nothing found at the end of it, the same failure AutoCAD reports as a missing Xref. Nested attachments are the ones that hide, because a reference two levels down can be missing while the model still looks broadly right on screen. There are three fixes, in ascending order of how long they hold: 1. **Repoint the attachment.** Detach and reattach against the file's new home. This fixes one model, and only until the folder moves again. 2. **Set the search path.** MicroStation resolves reference file names against the directories listed in the `MS_RFDIR` configuration variable, so adding the new location there fixes every model that looks for that file, without opening any of them. 3. **Stop depending on the folder tree.** Reference paths break because a directory structure is the only thing recording the relationship. A system that reads the attachments out of the DGN and holds them as a recorded relationship no longer cares where the file sits on disk. Handover is where this bites hardest. A package of DGNs arrives with attachments pointing at a consultant's folder structure that you have never seen and never will, and the gaps go unnoticed until somebody needs the drawings for maintenance years later. {% cta heading="Take the DGNs with their attachments intact." body="Book a walkthrough and watch Lunr read the reference set out of a DGN and hold it as part of the record, where a folder move cannot break it." /%} ## Tracking References Outside MicroStation Reference files are a great way to manage your CAD data within the MicroStation system; however, if you are storing your CAD files on a network drive or a system like SharePoint, there is no easy way to know what files are referenced to each other. Many current [engineering document management systems](/engineering-document-management), such as Lunr, can read and manage the reference information within your DGN files. This allows you to easily search and find all related models without the need to open each of the models. They also enable non-CAD users to view the models with all references without requiring a MicroStation installation. Lunr reads DGN through the same [CAD connector](/connectors) it uses for DWG and Revit, so the attachments arrive as part of the record rather than as something a drafter has to remember. See [drawing management software](/drawing-management-software) for how the rest of the drawing record fits around them. --- ### Engineering Document Management for Universities - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/university-edm-with-lunr - Published: 13 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: Lunr offers Engineering Document Management (EDM) for universities, ensuring efficient project management, document accessibility, and enterprise system integration. As institutions for higher education, universities have been responsible for managing extensive facilities for numerous generations. The properties team, a small yet dedicated group, plays a pivotal role in this, operating and maintaining buildings that span multiple facilities and even countries. At its core, the facilities management role is a complex one, often involving a suite of tools that encompass document management, facilities management, and GIS. It also interfaces with enterprise systems, such as project management, asset management, and CMMS (Computerised Maintenance Management System) for project numbers, asset IDs, and work orders. There are a few critical requirements for [engineering document management](/engineering-document-management): - To manage the project lifecycle by receiving new and updated documentation. - To progress completed project documentation to maintain a current as-built/as-constructed library. - To archive completed projects and obsolete/superseded documentation. - To make all property information available across the facility. - To make use of data in enterprise systems. Our experience with universities indicates that this can be delivered with a basic core structure for document management, as shown in the diagram. \ ![University Lunr Repository Structure](/images/posts/university-edm-with-lunr/lunrunifolderstructure.png) Documentation is revised and collected based on a project number before being transitioned to Masters or Archived. The Masters branch provides a readily accessible library of as-built/as-constructed data for operations and maintenance. Regarding the broader audience, Masters generally caters to in-house teams, and Projects is usually accessible to external contractors. We implement this approach to provide a controlled environment for document management using [Lunr](/), a configurable solution for both project and as-built lifecycles. One of the key advantages of this solution is its practicality. It offers search, view, and mark-up capabilities via a browser, making it accessible on any platform, be it iOS, Android, or Windows. Its REST API integrates cleanly with your existing enterprise systems. For a closer look at how a campus estate runs its record on Lunr, see [Lunr for universities](/for/universities). Please [contact us](/contact) to discover Lunr's unique benefits in delivering Campus Facilities Information Management. With Lunr, you can have a single source of truth for all your facility's information, ensuring efficiency and accuracy in your operations. --- ### Missing AutoCAD Xrefs? - URL: https://www.lunr.app/blog/autocad-xrefs - Published: 8 June 2023 - Category: article - Summary: Xrefs are a great feature during the design phase but may become a liability when drawing handover occurs. Lunr helps reduce the liability by checking for missing references when adding drawings. Are you aware of the potential risks that come with receiving drawing packages with missing External References (Xrefs)? While DWG is the proprietary native file format for AutoCAD, it will persist as a standard with the support of several editing applications such as BricsCAD, ZWCAD, DraftSight, NanoCAD, and more. Additionally, generic document products like Dropbox view the DWG format. We acknowledge that DWG represents the most common ongoing format for 2D engineering documentation. In that case, many engineering organisations and asset owners have made massive investments and have an ongoing interest in the value of DWG as a knowledge store and a means of communication. In another post, we explored the value of [title block integration](/blog/autocad-attributes) to ensure that metadata in your engineering document management system accurately reflects title block information contained within the DWG format. In this update, we explore the compounding value of adding integration for external references (Xrefs) on top of title block integration. Do you understand the implications of receiving drawings without Xrefs? During the design phase, Xrefs are a valuable feature, allowing multiple drawings to update in response to changes in a common reference drawing. However, this dependency can become a liability during drawing handover. If your organisation relies on the DWG format, the handover of referenced drawings can pose a significant risk. The lack of direct identification of these drawings in transmittals can lead to linked dependencies (missing Xrefs) going undetected during handover. To check this in AutoCAD, use the Xref command to display the dialogue and check for the ‘Found At’ path on external references. You have a missing reference where the ’Saved Path’ is included, and the Found Path is empty. This can be a raster image or a drawing, but missing Xrefs leave gaps in your data. ![Autocad xrefs](/images/posts/autocad-xrefs/autocad-xrefs.png) Your [engineering document management system](/engineering-document-management) should validate incoming packages of drawings to check for missing Xrefs. Without this feature, drawings are received and booked into the EDMS, where the absence of linked dependencies may go unnoticed until the drawings are required for operations and maintenance. The [Lunr](/) Engineering Document Management System interrogates Change Requests on upload to validate drawings and identify missing Xrefs. ![Lunr xrefs](/images/posts/autocad-xrefs/lunr-xrefs.png) If your current EDMS is not validating Xrefs on submission, it isn’t easy to catch up after project closure. You need this information at the time of submission and, ideally, should provide this feedback to the external party to allow them to validate, amend, and resubmit the drawing package without your intervention. In this way, you’re ensuring the ongoing integrity of your EDMS and maintaining its value to system users.