In the process of downloading it now @DavidCutler .
I watched the launch webinar yesterday and things didn’t go to plan with regards the new headers and footers. However, the new functionality for splitting areas, combining areas, etc. looks like it could be really handy – so I thought I’d test that out.

Bluebeam released Revu 21.11.0 this week. Has anyone made the move yet? Anyone having any issues? I’m hanging back on 21.10 Complete at this point. Still need to try out Max – waiting for a new project to try it out on…

This is great; it’s a huge advantage when an estimator has constructability knowledge. I like how you use the “Location” column when you have, I assume, utilities and things that don’t fit completely inside a “Space”. And the “Lift” column is great for many reasons, I would assume. I built a very similar idea with a lumber yard where we…

Read more

@troy-degroot all of my workflows have something built in for collecting data for use at valuation time.

For drainage, I use a “Location” column to allocate markups to plots or groups of plots. The lasso tool gets used for the allocation part. Once the csv gets imported into my spreadsheet using Power Query then all of the measures are…

Read more

I never went any further with the 50 Shades @DavidCutler but this one may be worth a revisit at some point – I’m sure it can be improved upon.

I always tell my students, as estimators, they are actually data collectors; it benefits everyone if you can pass the baton to the next person downstream rather than have them learn everything again, or worse yet, miss it.

Great topic @troy-degroot !

A few of our Superintendents and Foreman use our marked up takeoff sets for reference, but I don’t think they are using them for progress tracking.

Our Project Manager definitely uses the takeoff sheets to understand the project/see how we developed the quantities, but again, I’m not sure how he is using them…

Read more

Nobody talks about this enough: the follow-up measuring on payment applications.

The first takeoff on a job gets all the attention. Tool Chest built, colors set, everything organized. Then the project starts moving, and every billing period you’re back in that file trying to figure out what actually got done since last time,…

Read more

Full credit to @isaac-harned on that part. I know when to bring in the right people!

The JavaScript for the rental company sounds impressive @troy-degroot !

I could probably flood this thread with examples and never run out, but I want to hear what everyone else has built too.

Just in the last month, I’ve built custom Bluebeam Revu profiles for a high-end cabinetry shop in Montana, a commercial framing contractor in California, and an industrial piping contractor in Dallas. I’m about to start one for…

Read more

Are you referring to the number shortcut assigned in My Tools? You can now click on the properties gear on each toolset and enable number shortcuts. Not sure if that helps or not. One thing that has made a huge difference for me is that we can rearrange the order of the columns in the Tool Chest now. Label is easier to see when you put it…

Read more

Love it, just requires a little creativity to end up with additional value.

That is a very interesting topic. Sadly (or fortunately) I don’t belong to a niche. In the Contract Administration side of things I’m involved with many aspects of the buildings.

I thought about creating different profiles, but then I can’t really leverage on tool-chest shortcuts because those are universal across the profiles and I can’t…

Read more

@Vince hit the nail on the head with this on @troy-degroot – it’s not that the tool is special, it is the data that you collect with the tool that make’s it “niche”.

When I started here we had a tool for “8” DIP Cl52″ and it measured the length. The current tool is “6070 Water Main – 8″ D.I.P. CL52”. While it still provides the length it…

Read more

I think custom columns might be the most fun part of Bluebeam. It’s like a puzzle when everything falls into place.

Not really niche tools @troy-degroot but, I do have 5 different profile for measuring groundworks alone. Not only to limit the number of tools in the tool chests but mainly in order so I can collect as much info in the custom columns as possible – automatically wherever possible.

Spent parts of last week building tool chests for a couple of customers’ niche scopes, and it reminded me that Bluebeam’s default libraries are built for the most common trades, not every trade.

If what you do is mainstream markups or general architectural work, you’re mostly covered out of the box. But get into something more…

Read more

I don’t think it is quite the same thing unfortunately, this year it was only really a half day event – still great though!

At least they have an Unbound in London now. I need Shan to fly me over one of these days. 🤣

They’ll be mad if they don’t let you present @troy-degroot !

Unfortunately, a bit to far for me to come and see you though.

Who’s planning on attending Unbound in April in Las Vegas?

I will, of course be there; I haven’t missed one since 2015

Fingers crossed they allow me to present again!

This is one I watch trip up sharp people constantly: two markups that look completely identical on the page land as two separate line items in a legend. Same tool, same measurement, same everything you can see at a glance.

Nine times out of ten it comes down to something the legend checks that you can’t, color, subject text, or a label field…

Read more

I use Microsoft To Do – with working for lots of different people there are so many tasks to remember but To Do works really well.

Great idea to set the monthly reminder @Vince 😎

That’s a great practice, and having a reminder would help as the weeks quickly fly by. Especially for someone like you with so many profiles and advanced setups.

I have a monthly reminder to do a complete backup of Bluebeam – not had to use it yet but don’t want to risk somehow losing all of thse profiles.

Every few months I hear from a student who lost real time: a customized toolbar, a Tool Chest, a batch of hyperlinks they carefully built out, all gone because a profile got overwritten or a project file got rebuilt from scratch.

It’s almost never a software problem. It’s that nobody built a habit of backing up the pieces that took the longest…

Read more

I use custom tools in order so the markup reflects the items being counted.
As for the method of counting that depends on how many items there are as well as item being counted – things like road gullies on a large housing site will be done via visual search whereas piles to a house or block of flats will be done manually.