🗓️ December 2024 Challenge - Year-End Workflow & Tool Tips!

Marco M

Hi everyone! 

Welcome to the final Monthly Challenge of 2024! As we wrap up the year, we’re reflecting on the workflows, tools, and habits that have contributed to our success. 

But before we dive in, let’s take a quick look back on the past monthly challenges!

🧠 Our 2024 Challenges

This year we’ve had some incredible Monthly Challenges, and it’s been great to see the Bluebeam Community come together to collaborate, share experiences, and showcase their expertise. From Custom & Favorite Tool Sets in August to exploring your Seal of Approval workflows in September, sharing Shortcuts in October, and showcasing Dark Mode in November. Thank you for making each challenge a success - we loved seeing your ideas and learning from your experiences!

Let’s continue to collaborate, share insights, and keep the momentum going as we tackle the final challenge of 2024. What strategies and tools have helped you stay organized, efficient, and successful this year?

🎖️ Recognition 

Participants will earn a special Year-End Challenge badge and points to level up in the community! 

💬 Share & Discuss 

Share your top workflow tips and the tools that made the biggest difference for you this year, and exchange insights on making year-end tasks smoother and more efficient. Don’t forget to comment on and 👍️ your favorite posts here! 

📚️ Resources 

For inspiration on streamlining your year-end tasks, check out these helpful resources:

• Bluebeam Revu Tips & Tricks PDF
• Bluebeam Support - Workflows & Tutorials

Shaya Birnbaum

My favorite Bluebeam Tip is to use the Snapshot tool ("G") to overlay drawings.

Darbie

My most used workflow for this year was the added hotkeys for status changes. It lets me redline and identify consultant coordination, internal issues, and other categories quickly!

akhikund

My Favourite Tool & tips in Bluebeam:-

1# The tool Overlay Pages and Compared documents and then combine the results by "Export Markups" from the Compared document file (the cloud marks mainly) and then import them (the .bax files) in my Overlay drawing. It is so helpful to work with change orders and revisions with this tool because the clouds help to find changes easily ( so we do not miss any) and the very tiny changes are already visible for the Overlay also (Which we can not get only in Compared doc by cloud).

2# Markup Alert to the attendee to minimize other ways of passing information.

Jes Stafford

Fav Workflow (used most often) - Bluebeam Sessions for design team QC review before documents are issued.

Fav Workflow (most valuable) - Overlay multiple disciplines' sheets to check coordination, especially ceiling plans… a throwback to the RediCheck interdisciplinary review system.

Fav Commands/Keystrokes - using CTRL+click to move and copy and CTRL+click+Shift to move and copy orthogonally. Paste-In-Place is a close second.

michael miller

Hard to say if this is truly my 'favorite', but I use it repeatedly: taking a snapshot of a graphic element in a drawing (perhaps a door or some symbol), paste it into the same or another PDF, colorize it to make it red, and use it as an insta-markup.

LCrago

Honestly, I'm not new to Bluebeam (been using it since 10, maybe), but I've always used it for basic plan mark-up and PDF editing. Not until recently, did I start learning more of the functions and even discovered this community. I look forward to utilizing this community more and learning more from you all.

Matt

If it's opened in Bluebeam: SHIFT + G
If it's on the web or wherever: SHIFT + WIN + S

Then paste to a PDF and choose add to tool chest. Pretty much everything can be turned to a tool. :)

Pro tip! If you paste it to the PDF, choose insert, then copy and repeat the process you might even get rid of that white background if you copied an object that had a white background.

Isaac.Harned

Exporting schedules and turning them into usable Excel data has been my number one. Low key, number two is snapshotting a room tag that has been covered up by an engineers markup, pasting in place, changing colors on the snapshot from White to Clear, and flattening. Now me and the field can see what room tag was behind their markup!

Angela Aff

@LCrago - you are not alone!! I've heard so many Bluebeam users say they only use a handful of features and when they learn more, they're shocked!! Love that you found the Bluebeam Community…makes my day!!

Gopi J

I am Regularly Used Tool in Blue Beam is Batch - Overlay. it saved my time a lot to compare the old vs new. you can easily Overlay the pages based on page region.

Josh Gebelein

We do a lot of collaborative formal review studio sessions, and a massive time saver is Markups Sorting and Markups Filter List tool. Best tips are:

• Sort by Date to show most recent comments first
• Filter Date range to show only what has changed since you last attended the session
• Sort by Author and then collapse the Subject [+] to see a quick summary of who has commented and the number of markups
• Sort by Page Index to show comments in correct page order
• Sort/Filter by Status to identify comments to resolve. Turning off "Completed" or other status types will grey them and out make it easy to see remaining comments.
• Sort/Filter by Color, and use a shared tool chest so that particular colors represent specific disciplines or actions needed. For example use magenta clouds and text to flag items for coordination and step through them during a meeting.
• Since you can't remove markups of other users in a session, you can change the status of items you want to remove to "Rejected", then once the file is saved offline use the Filter tool, select all markups with Status = "Rejected" and press Delete. Same with all markups of a particular color, or author, etc.
• You can set up a shared tool chest where the tool Subject is set to a descriptive name. For example all the tools in a Tool Set can have Subject = "Architectural" and a separate Tool Set is created for each discipline. Then you can sort or filter the Markup Subject by category.
• And on a related note, using the dimmer tool really helps make markups visually easier to see.

Marco M

The December Monthly Challenge has officially come to an end!

Thank you to everyone who participated and shared their great workflows and tool tips. These have all been helpful to the entire community. Let’s carry this energy into the new year as we continue to learn and collaborate together.

Stay tuned for our January challenge coming early next week!