Drawing management where a revision has a reason, an author and a paper trail
The most expensive mistake in construction is not a design error. It is building the right design from the wrong revision. Every firm knows this, and almost every firm still manages drawings in folders named after dates, because a folder is easy and a register is work — right up until the day it is not.
What separates a register from a folder
- 01A drawing that exists once, with revisions beneath it
- 02A revision that records who changed it, when, and why
- 03A superseded marker that makes the old version obviously old
- 04Transmittals that record what was issued, to whom and on what date
- 05A current-issue view: what is on site right now
- 06Search by drawing number, not by whoever named the file
Cloud storage keeps versions; a register keeps revisions
Version history answers 'what did this file look like before'. Revision control answers 'which revision is contractually current, who has it, and what changed'. The first is a property of a filesystem. The second is a property of a project, and it is the one that gets argued about. Version history is not revision control is the long form.
The transmittal is the evidence
If a contractor builds an old revision, the question is immediately whether the new one was issued. A transmittal record answers that in seconds. An email thread answers it in an afternoon, badly.
Who this is inside
The register, revisions and transmittals are part of Ofivio Architecture; the site's copy of what is current is part of Ofivio Build. Same drawings, two ends of the same issue.
Numbering is the part everyone skips
A drawing number is not decoration. It is the only handle a contractor, a consultant and a client can all use to name the same sheet without describing it. Practices that let numbering grow organically end up with two sheets sharing a number, numbers that encode a project phase which no longer exists, and a register nobody can search. Deciding the scheme once, before the second project, costs an hour and settles the argument permanently.
- One number per sheet, for the life of the project, whatever the revision
- A revision letter that means the same thing on every project in the office
- A superseded sheet that stays findable and is unmistakably marked
- A register searchable by number, not by whoever named the file that afternoon
The cost of getting it wrong is not the drawing
Rebuilding to the correct revision is expensive. The larger cost is the fortnight of argument about who issued what, during which the site stops and both sides write letters. That is why the transmittal record — a boring list of what was sent, to whom, on what date — is the most valuable object in a document control system.
Who this is not for
If you are on this list, Ofivio is the wrong purchase and we would rather you know now than in month three.
- Firms needing BIM model federation and clash detection
- Teams that want CAD file editing in the browser
- Projects mandated onto a client's own document control platform
- Anyone whose drawings never leave the office
The products behind this
Questions people actually ask
Does it store the CAD files themselves?
Can the contractor see only the current revision?
Is a transmittal a PDF or a record?
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