Add Folders for Studio Sessions!

Add folders for studio sessions to organize the list of recent Studio sessions. Some of our clients utilize one Studio session per deliverable on large projects that have multiple reviewers. It can be quite a task to find the one studio session for a smaller project amidst the rows and rows of studio sessions per deliverable from the larger project. Folders in Bluebeam studio would also be appreciated by people who prefer to organize their Studio sessions by the projects they are working on, rather than the "last used" list currently implemented. The current "Project" functionality appears (to my knowledge) to only be a file-sharing utility and currently there is no ability to load multiple Studio sessions into a Project.

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  • EnsoMoran
    EnsoMoran Posts: 4

  • EnsoMoran
    EnsoMoran Posts: 4
    edited November 26

    I accidently hit enter and it posted before I filled out the body of the message. Also when I say Studio I ment the Sessions tools in blubeam studio

    But the title says most of it, it would be nice to be able to create groups or folder within the "Documents" window in a Sessions so that we can Archive older drawings and mark-up sets in the same Session. Ideally when the session is complete the folder or group structure is mimicked in the output file that that we can easily integrate it into our local drives.

  • Alan A.
    Alan A. Posts: 50
    edited November 26

    Hi @EnsoMoran,

    Thank you so much for reaching out to us about a subfolder or grouping capability for Studio Sessions, and we've taken note of your request. While we may not be able to accommodate every feature request, we greatly value knowing which features are important to you. Could you elaborate on why you would like to archive older drawings within a session rather than on a local drive?

    Please let us know if there’s anything else we can do or if you have any other questions. We look forward to collaborating in the future.  

  • EnsoMoran
    EnsoMoran Posts: 4
    edited November 26

    I think the main reason for this feature would be to be able to more easily keep track of different revisions to the same drawings.

    For example, electrical finishes their set of schematic drawings on 01/01, so they name their file "2024-01-01-Electrical Set". The QC manager comes in and makes a bunch of mark ups and then the draftsman makes the changes in ACAD and plots out a new PDF set. Now they name the new updated file "2024-02-02-Electrical Set", which is great because we can track the changes to a drawing in Bluebeam session and every one can see the changes but if you multiply this process by 4 or 5 trades and a few rounds a QC and then the Bluebeam Session browser gets a little cluttered.

    It would be nice to have one of two options, either to replace an existing file uploaded or to be able to create groups within the browser so that things can be easily organized as the project progresses.

    An example of the first option might be something similar to creating an "Electrical Set" then every time we QC the drawings a create a new PDF we can replace the same file but the old file gets archived and is still able to be accessed through the life of the bluebeam session.

    An example of the second option might be something similar to being able to create a group called "First Round of Mark-ups" put all the PDFs from all the trades in that group and then make another group called "Second Round of Markups" for the updated set of PDFs.

    I think the main area where I can see improvement in the bluebeam session is the ability to organize the PDF browser area to find/search/sort/group all the PDFs that might be added to the session.

  • Jim Pearson
    Jim Pearson Posts: 1
    edited November 26

    Adding features to organize and search BB Sessions would be extremely helpful. I have dozens of open sessions. Most were created outside my organization. Other organizations use their own nomenclature which does not match ours.

    I suggest adding the following functions for Session: Alias names(for sorting based on internal nomenclature), search function, folders or groups.

  • N&L JHicks
    N&L JHicks Posts: 3
    edited November 26

    This would be great. We try to keep the same Bluebeam session open for clients/owners during project development. We often need to keep the current reviewed drawings available while uploading a drawings for additional comments. As time goes on, the list becomes long and people get lost on what file is current (regardless what date is in the file name). Being able to create folders for old files would be a great way to keep the list relevant to what is current. We also have sessions for a group that may be working on a few different tasks. Being able to create a folder for each cluster of documents would be a great organizational improvement.

  • I would use this feature if developed. Anyone else?

  • Alan A.
    Alan A. Posts: 50

    Hi @Alexander McCaskill,

    Thank you so much for reaching out to us about folders for Studio Sessions, and we've taken note of your request. While we may not be able to accommodate every feature request, we greatly value knowing which features are important to you. @Chad Okinaka, could you share any more detail about how this would be useful to you? I agree this would be a value add for Studio Sessions.

    Please let us know if there’s anything else we can do or if you have any other questions. We look forward to potentially collaborating on future projects. 

  • We have several client sectors in which we upwards of 50-80 projects concurrently. At some point, I have eyes on or will need to review all projects prior to stamp & signature. It would be a benefit to be able to group project sessions together that fall under a particular client for ease of navigation for those that must review or sometime track progress in real time. I won't say this is a must have, but nice-to-have.

  • Theresa Scalia
    Theresa Scalia Posts: 1
    edited November 26

    Ditto all the above. Bluebeam sessions have become a central location for various documents. Documents may be irrelevant for some users in the session, but need to be accessible to others. Organizing into folders would greatly reduce scrolling and searching. I've seen sessions being separated by "Divider" documents with appropriate naming to help organize, with appropriate document prefixes for grouping. That does not help with ongoing session cleanup where document names are not prefixed for the purpose of grouping.

  • This would be extremely helpful. I have countless sessions that are all named by a mix of different clients, review agencies and me. So I am not able to rely on a convenient naming convention. Sorting them into folders feels like the best option to easily find any session.

  • Luke Shiras
    Luke Shiras Posts: 336

    Would this be a case for making client-based "Projects" with multiple sessions for the various projects?

  • Kyle.Fuerstenau
    Kyle.Fuerstenau Posts: 1
    edited November 26

    Bumping this request. Being able to reference the lifecycle of changes is helpful within sessions that include multiple QCs. The documents tab can get very busy with different naming conventions and iterations of a set. This would also help when a new user joins the session to quickly gain an understanding of the most recent document for their specialty

  • Eugene
    Eugene Posts: 1

    We use BB Studio Session for collaboration on drawings reviews. Most drawing sets will go through multiple iterations and each time we add a new revision to the Session. This means at some point we have a long list of files with similar names. It would be good if there was a function of adding folders and subfolders in Studio Sessions. This way we would be able to organise files thus making it easier for users to find the file they need.

    I understand that folder functionality is a part of Studio Projects, but we do not use Projects because we have another software for managing our projects. Using Project would effectively double up our work (maintaining files on Studio Projects and another software). Plus all users would need to go through a training on how to use it.

    Thank you!

  • Jes Stafford
    Jes Stafford Posts: 26
    edited November 12

    Yes, please! We are facing the same issue with files building up in Sessions.

    ~j

  • Luke Shiras
    Luke Shiras Posts: 336
    edited November 12

    Yep.

  • Marco M
    Marco M Posts: 160

    Merged some similar posts to gain an accurate vote count for this feedback.

  • Please add "folders" to Bluebeam Sessions for better document management.

  • Marco M
    Marco M Posts: 160
    edited November 26

    Good idea!

    Merged similar feedback. Make sure to vote.

  • michael miller
    michael miller Posts: 13
    edited December 12

    Just a note: it looks like there are two separate but related features being requested in this combined thread:

    1. Folders for organizing the list of 'joined' Sessions
    2. Folders for organizing files within a given Session

    Both of these would be very valuable improvements.