Now you have your very own project up and running, it’s time to add some drawings to share with your project team. The most efficient way to do this is by using our Upload drawings functionality.

Note: on the web app, users have full upload functionality which includes the ability to scan and define title block fields and create templates to speed up uploads, while on the iOS app users can perform quick uploads to easily add files to projects on the go. In the Windows 10 app you'll be directed to the web application to perform uploads. To find out which file types Drawboard Projects supports head here

To upload your first set of drawings, follow the steps below:

• Go to a project (open your project from the Projects list).
• Click on the + Upload drawings button in the center of the page (or select + Upload drawings in the top right corner if you already have drawings on the project). 

• You will be taken to an overview page, and then the Upload files as drawings page, the first main step of the Drawings upload flow.

There are three methods to upload files: using Drag and Drop, the standard File Explorer, or one of our integrations (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Procore, Aconex). 

• To use the Drag and Drop method, simply select the files you wish to upload into Drawboard Projects and drag them over the Drag and drop your drawings here area in the middle of the Upload page. 
• The alternative method is to simply click on the blue Upload from your computer button. A file explorer window will open, allowing you to search your computer or your cloud drive for a PDF file of your project drawings. Select which PDF drawing files you want to add to the project and press Open.

Note: Any multipage PDF files uploaded as Drawings will be split into single pages automatically. To keep multi-page PDFs intact as one document, upload these files as Documents. 

• During the uploading process, you can also now minimize the window via the blue minimize icon in the top right of the screen and continue working on other parts of your Drawboard Projects project while you wait.

• There is also the option to add more files to the list of the uploads already in progress by clicking on the + Add more files button next to Cancel upload in the bottom left corner of the screen.
• Once all of your drawing files have finished uploading, click the blue Next button.

• You will then have the option to Create new template, Select existing template, or Skip template. 

Note: Existing templates will only appear once your first project template has been created. So on the first upload, the screen below will appear. On subsequent uploads, the existing template options will appear in place of "What is a template?".

• After clicking on Create new template, you will then be prompted to Define title block fields for your drawing set. If you have multiple title blocks in your drawing set, don't worry, you will be able to adjust for this in a later step.
• Center the drawing title block on the screen using the default pan tool in the canvas (pan across the canvas and zoom in with your mouse wheel) and select a field in the left-hand menu to map to the title block.
• When the particular field is selected, draw a box around the area of the title block where that information is usually displayed to map it to the template.
• For more information on how to define these regions, hover over one of the blue question mark icons for a quick animation.
• If you decide you want to skip this step, you can click Skip template creation in the bottom left corner. However, this means that no information will be extracted from your drawings and it will all have to be entered manually.

• Once your template is created, you can then choose to either save it for use later (by typing in a name, like "Structural") or to not save it by un-checking Save this template.
• Once this is complete, click Next to review your drawings before publishing them to the project.

• You can now quickly review the regions of all of your drawings at once compared to what has been automatically read from the actual drawing title block.
• If the text in the fields doesn't match up with the preview and needs adjusting, you can simply edit the text directly in the text box below the thumbnail. 

• For drawings that have more details on the following pages than the first page, you can navigate to them by hovering your cursor over the left and right sides of the template creation preview.

Bulk Actions

• There are multiple ways to select drawings in bulk on the publishing step using our bulk actions functionality.
• The grey title bar lists the file name for each file uploaded to Drawboard Projects - in the example above, this would be "b_Drawboard_S-010 - RETENTION WORKS PLAN.PDF".
• This may not seem immediately useful when uploading single drawing files that have been split out, but if you upload a package of 50 drawings, for example, you can select the entire file of 50 drawings at once by clicking on the check box in the grey title bar.
• Selecting the check box next to each individual drawing will only select that one drawing.
• Selecting the check box at the top left of the page will select all drawings that have been uploaded.

Filtering using Show

• By clicking on the Show dropdown in the top right of the screen, you can filter your uploaded drawings by those that have errors (so they can be corrected) as well as those that do not yet have a Discipline.

Refine template

• This functionality is particularly useful if you find you have many errors from the original template applied in previous steps, or a drawing package with multiple different title blocks.
• By selecting a group of drawings using bulk actions, and then clicking the Refine template option at the top of the page, you will be taken back to the template creation screen and allowed to create a new template for only those drawings selected.

Update tags

• By selecting a group of drawings using bulk actions, and then clicking Update tags, you can apply tags to your drawings to help categorize them more efficiently.
• These tags can then be used on the drawing list to quickly filter through subsets of your drawings, similar to using folders.

Edit Revision

• If there is no revision listed on your drawing set, or you want to manually override the one listed, this can be done via Edit Revision.
• By selecting a group of drawings using bulk actions, and then clicking Edit revision, you can change the revision on many drawings with just one click.

Edit Discipline

• By selecting a group of drawings using bulk actions, and then clicking Edit discipline, you can now apply disciplines to your drawings to help categorize them more efficiently.
• These disciplines can then be used on the drawing list to quickly filter through subsets of your drawings.

Delete

• By selecting a group of drawings using bulk actions, and then clicking Delete, you can delete individual drawings from this upload process. This cannot be undone, and would require drawings that have been deleted to be re-uploaded later if you decide you want them in the project.

 Publish

• If you would like to publish some of the drawings that have been uploaded while you work on correcting errors, a Publish selected option will appear when selecting drawings that do not contain any errors.
• Once all the errors in the uploaded drawings have been addressed, the Publish all option will turn blue and you will be able to advance to the next step.
• This step can be minimized as well while in progress as well as before publishing.

• When all uploads have been published, you will be able to see them on the Drawings page. On this list, under the Filter dropdown, you will now be able to filter drawings by Discipline in addition to Markups and Issues.

Adding a new revision of the same drawing

• Revisions of the same drawing in Drawboard Projects are automatically stacked to allow for optimal version control as well as easy overlays between previous versions or completely different drawings.
• During the upload process, you will be prompted with a blue notification under the drawing number stating "Existing number - this will add a new revision".
• If the same drawing number and revision name already exist in the project, you will get a red notification stating "A drawing with this number and revision has already been published to this project."

Auto-Extraction: Uploading Drawings with AI Assistance

The Upload and auto-extract drawings feature provides an intelligent way to upload drawings by leveraging AI to automatically identify and extract crucial drawing metadata, including the Drawing Number, Drawing Name, and Revision, directly from your files. This significantly speeds up the processing and data entry phase. Note this feature is currently in beta release and functionality may change during the beta period. 

How to Use Auto-Extraction

The upload process begins by navigating to your Drawing List, selecting New Drawing, and then choosing Upload and auto-extract drawings. After selecting the files you wish to upload, click Process.

When processing is complete, click Review and Publish. The system automatically applies the AI auto-extraction template, and you are taken directly to the Drawing Detail Review dialogue. Here, you see the extracted information—Drawing Number, Name, and Revision—for each file.

Reviewing and Correcting Details

While the AI is highly accurate, it is essential to review the extracted data to ensure all details are correct. The auto-extraction is not always perfect, and you may need to manually adjust the values in the Drawing Number, Name, or Revision fields. Once you have verified that all drawing details are accurate, click Publish as normal to finalize the process and add the fully-detailed drawings to your project.

Quick uploads on the iOS app

Quick uploads enables users to perform basic file uploads on the iOS app. 

To upload a drawing or document on the Drawboard Projects iOS app, select the project that you would like to add files to:

1. From the Drawings tab or Documents tab, tap the plus icon in the top menu
2. Select Quick upload
3. Navigate to your file/s and select the one/s you would like to upload
4. Select Open. Your files will then be processed
5. Tap Publish

You can then alter your drawing and revision titles if you wish. From the Drawings tab, simply use your finger or Apple pencil to slide from right to left on the drawing you wish to edit and then tap Edit details.