This article provides intake instructions for manually uploading plan review documents in PDF format and supporting attachments in any format to a Project.
Incoming plan review documents will undergo an inspection via our PDF Scout™ Inspector tool.
Prerequisites:
An open project record exists. See Add a Project record, Step 1.
Plan review documents in PDF format and supporting documents, in any file format, are accessible to the user.
Step 2 - Upload Documents
Navigate to the Projects page and select the Documents tab.
Click the upload icon
on the bottom right of the Documents tab.Click SELECT FILES to browse for documents or drag and drop files.
All PDF files will list under the “Plan” section by default and any other file types will list under “Attachments. If a PDF is not meant to be marked up during the review, it should be moved to the Attachments list before processing the files. NOTE: Non-PDF files can only be processed as attachments - they cannot be moved to the “Plan” section.
Plans: Refers to any files that need to be marked up during review. These must be submitted in PDF format.
Keep these files listed under the Plans section.
Attachments: Refers to any files that will not be marked up during review. These files will be accessible to all plan reviewers as reference material from the Attachments tool in the EPR Review page.
Drag these files over to the Attachments section.
Confirm that the plans and supporting documents are listed in the correct panels, then click the PROCESS button to launch the PDF Scout Inspector, which will check “Plan” files for the following:
Submittal Requirements
Issue | Description | Message | Result | Solution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
File Size | Documents must not exceed 400 MB. | REJECTION | Return to the source document and create PDF files that are below the file size limitation or break up PDF into smaller files. Follow the instructions in the DOCUMENT SUBMITTAL RECOMMENDATIONS. | |
Page Size | Checks for page sizes smaller than 8.5" x 11" or larger than 36" x 48"and will trigger a warning if detected. | Warning | None required. These suggestions are in place because most printers cannot print wider than 36 inches, but EPR will allow pages of any size. | |
PDF Version | Checks PDF version. If PDF version older than 1.4 is detected, the file will be rejected. (Version 1.3 was released prior to 2001.) | REJECTION | Update the PDF to a newer version. | |
Password protection | The inspector checks for password security that prevent opening the PDF. If the PDF cannot be opened, the file will be rejected. | Accessible | REJECTION | Remove the password protection to allow PDF access. |
Page Access | The inspector tries to read each page in the document. If a page is not readable, the file will be rejected. | REJECTION | Adobe Reader may report these pages as damaged or in need of repair. Recreate the PDF from the source document using Adobe Pro or Nitro Pro. | |
Annotations/SHX Text | Checks for annotations that appear in the pdf Reader ‘Comment’ panel, such as SHX Text generated by AutoCAD. | Warning | None required. Note that SHX text annotations will be removed from pdf 'Comment' panel when printing deliverable files so they do not interfere with review comments. (No other annotations will be removed.) | |
Filename Special Characters | Checks if filename contains any of the following characters: !,*, ', \, ;, :, @, &, =, +, $, , (comma), /, ?, %, #, [, ], ", <, >, | | REJECTION | Remove these characters from the filename and re-upload file. | |
Page Orientation | Checks if document has mixed page orientations. | Warning | None required. Manually checking that pages are not upside down or sideways is recommended. | |
PDF Portfolios | Portfolio PDFs or PDFs with attachments will be rejected as they are a serious security issue. (see PDF Portfolios) | REJECTION | A PDF Portfolio contains multiple files assembled into an integrated PDF unit. The files in a PDF Portfolio can be in a wide range of file types created in different applications. |
The results of the PDF inspection are displayed on the REVIEW PROCESSED DOCUMENTS tab, shown below.
For files flagged with a warning icon or X status click the eye icon to view the inspection results and correct errors.
Delete plan review files marked with an X status
PDF's that do not pass inspection are flagged with a red X status as shown above. These cannot proceed to plan review and must be corrected before processing.
To correct:
Delete the version that returns an error (X status).
Fix the problem indicated by the response.
Then upload the corrected file along with any other files that must be processed.
Finish upload for Plan Review files that pass inspection
Files that pass inspection are flagged with a green check mark, as shown above.
Select the FINISH button to complete the upload process.
Plan review documents will be sent to the rendering server.
An optical character recognition (OCR) process is then performed to capture the sheet numbers.
Attachments/supporting documents will be visible on the ATTACHMENTS page.
OCR is not performed on attachments.