Plan workflows are rarely straightforward, single paths; hence, the importance of a document management system that serves as the single source of truth, see the blog on the importance of a CDE. The following outlines, then explains in more detail, the plan workflow in Procore.
The Plan Workflow in Procore (Start-to-Field)
| Step | What happens | Why it protects a “single truth” |
|---|---|---|
| Upload | Drag a multi-page PDF into the Drawings tool. Procore’s OCR reads sheet numbers/titles and auto-splits each page into its own drawing. support.procore.com | No manual naming; every sheet lives once, in one place. |
| Review & Confirm | Admin quickly checks the auto labels. | Catches typos before they propagate. |
| Revision stacking | Re-upload a sheet with the same number and Procore stacks it as the next revision; earlier versions stay in history and their mark-ups carry forward. support.procore.com | Everyone opens the newest sheet by default, but nothing is lost. |
| Auto-linking | OCR scans for detail/section call-outs and turns them into clickable links to the right sheet. support.procore.com | Fast navigation, fewer “what page is that on?” moments. |
| Publish + Distribute | Click Publish & Distribute to push the set; subscribers get email & mobile alerts. support.procore.com | Ensures the field is notified the instant a new set is live. |
| Field access | Crews open plans on phone/tablet (offline cache supported) or on a big touchscreen—no paper lag. | The same live set is seen everywhere. |
Result: even without extra modules, the Drawings tool already enforces one authoritative plan set—upload once, revise in place, notify instantly.
Upcoming Document Management
Although not yet available in the USA as at the time of writing, reference https://support.procore.com/products/online/user-guide/project-level/document-management, Procore is rolling out a new Document Management tool aimed at projects that need ISO 19650-style CDE rigor:
| CDE feature | How the tool handles it |
|---|---|
| Metadata & naming rules | Machine-learning tags + enforceable naming standards. support.procore.com |
| Approval workflows | Built-in review/markup steps so only approved files surface to the field. |
| Granular permissions | Attribute-based access (status, discipline, etc.). |
| No folders | Uses “saved views” instead—one canonical file, zero duplicates. support.procore.com |
| ISO 19650 alignment | Designed to satisfy international information-management standards. support.procore.com |
| Regional rollout | Available in EMEA, ANZ & Canada now; U.S. release pending. support.procore.com |
With this module, drawings (and any other project files) inherit stricter governance, ideal for owners who demand a formal CDE.
Streamlining Construction Plan Workflows in Procore
Modern construction teams are moving away from bulky paper drawings and towards digital plan management. Procore’s project management platform offers powerful tools to manage construction drawings and documents from the moment they’re uploaded to when they’re accessed in the field. In this post, we’ll outline the full construction plan workflow using Procore – covering how to upload and organize drawings, track revisions with version control, add markups and links, distribute updates (including via QR codes), and ensure everyone from the office to the jobsite is on the same page. We’ll also highlight how large-format digital plan tables (like those from Volanti) can enhance plan review meetings, site trailer collaboration, and field QA sessions by making it easier for teams to view and interact with plans together.
Uploading Drawings and Organizing the Digital Plan Set
Every plan workflow begins with getting the latest drawings into the system. In Procore, project drawings are uploaded as PDF files into the Drawings tool. The platform uses optical character recognition (OCR) to automatically name and number each sheet, and even categorize it by discipline based on the title block text. This means when you drag-and-drop a new set of drawings, Procore will read the sheet numbers and titles for you, saving time on manual data entry. It will also split a multi-page PDF set into individual sheets automatically, so you don’t have to split files one by one. Organizing by drawing sets (or “drawing areas” for different project phases or locations) is easy – you can create a new set name (e.g. “Issued for Construction – Sept 2025”) or select an existing set during upload. This keeps your drawings logically grouped and helps avoid confusion if your project has multiple packages or areas.
When uploading a revision of a drawing that was already in Procore, the system will recognize the duplicate drawing number and automatically stack it as a new revision of the existing sheet. For example, if “Sheet A1.1 – Floor Plan” is already uploaded and you upload an updated A1.1, Procore notes it as the next revision. The older version isn’t lost – it’s stored in the sheet’s Revision History, which you can view any time – but the current set will show the newest revision by default. This version control ensures everyone is referencing the latest plans without the mess of multiple file versions. Even better, any markups made on the previous version (whether private or published) are carried over to the new revision, so you don’t lose important annotations when plans get updated. Procore also offers a drawing comparison feature that lets you overlay two versions of a drawing and highlights changes (with removed items in red and new items in blue). This makes it much easier to spot what changed between revisions without manually hunting for differences.
Markups and Collaborative Annotations on Drawings
Once drawings are uploaded and published, project teams can interact with them directly in Procore. The Drawings tool includes a markup toolbar for adding annotations such as clouds, text notes, highlights, arrows, and measurements. Team members can draw attention to changes or issues by clouding areas or add text comments right on the plan. These annotations can be kept private (visible only to you on your personal markup layer) or published for the whole team to see. For instance, a superintendent might circle a field conflict on a plan and publish that markup so that the project engineer and subcontractors see it as soon as they open the drawing.
Procore’s markup capabilities go beyond simple drawing on the sheet – they support linking and reference to other project information. Users can attach reference items to a drawing markup, essentially turning annotations into hyperlinks. For example, you can place a pin or cloud on a drawing and link it directly to an RFI, submittal, photo, punch list item, or any other related project record. If a detail on the plan has an RFI clarification, you can drop an “RFI” icon right on that detail; clicking it will open the RFI for context. This linking works for many item types (RFIs, submittals, observations, coordination issues, etc.) and is a powerful way to embed project data into the drawings. It means field staff reviewing the plans can tap an icon and instantly see the latest directive or spec section without searching through separate logs. All these markups and linked items become part of a “living” set of drawings – often termed real-time as-builts – because as the project progresses, the drawings in Procore accumulate all the changes, notes, and links needed to reflect what’s happening on the job.
Another advantage is that markups added on a previous drawing revision persist into the next revision when you update the sheet. So if you painstakingly marked up locations for wall openings or QA check points on Revision 2, and now Revision 3 of that drawing comes in, you’ll find those markups already copied onto Rev 3 (avoiding rework). You can always hide or show markup layers as needed – e.g. view only your personal notes or all published annotations. The ability to annotate from anywhere (web or mobile) and instantly share those annotations with the team makes collaboration around the drawings much faster than red-lining paper prints and distributing them manually.
Automatic Sheet Linking for Easy Navigation
A standout feature in Procore’s drawing management is automatic sheet linking. As drawings are uploaded and processed, Procore’s OCR technology doesn’t only read sheet titles – it also scans the content of each sheet for recognizable callout symbols and references to other drawings. This means if a floor plan has a detail callout (like a bubble with “Detail 5 – see Sheet A-5.2”), the software will detect it and attempt to create a hyperlink to sheet A-5.2 in the drawing viewer. Procore can identify common callout shapes for details, section cuts, and elevations, and if the callout text matches an existing drawing number in the set, it will automatically turn that callout into a clickable link.
For users, this is a huge time saver: you can navigate the plans just by tapping on section bubbles or detail callouts, rather than manually finding the referenced sheet. For example, on a foundation plan you might see a section marker for “Section A on S-101” – in Procore, you can click that symbol and it jumps straight to S-101. This linking works best on high-quality vector PDFs (where text is machine-readable); Procore recommends uploading vector-based drawings (not scans) to improve accuracy of automatic linking. If drawings are scanned (raster images), the system will still try to detect callouts inside standard circle symbols, but results may vary. In practice, teams find that with well-formatted drawings, a large majority of detail and section references become navigable links, which greatly speeds up plan reviews. And if a particular link isn’t caught by the software, Procore allows manually adding a hyperlink using the markup toolkit.
Ultimately, sheet linking turns your static plans into an interactive web of drawings. Design engineers in the office can quickly flip to the detail drawings when reviewing a plan, and field crews can instantly open an enlarged section or elevation by tapping the callout on their tablet. This reduces the friction of switching between sheets and helps ensure no detail is overlooked (since the related drawings are just one click away). It’s especially useful in complex projects with many cross-references. By intelligently connecting drawings, Procore supports a more fluid and efficient navigation of construction documents.
Distributing Updates and Ensuring Field Access
Keeping the whole project team up-to-date on the latest plans is crucial. Procore supports this with easy distribution of new or revised drawings. When an Admin user finishes reviewing and publishing uploaded drawings, they have the option to “Publish & Distribute”. Selecting this triggers Procore to send out instant notifications to everyone on the project’s drawing distribution list. These notifications can be in the form of an email and/or a push alert on mobile, letting people know that new drawings or revisions are available. The distribution list (called “Drawing Log Subscribers”) is configurable – team members with at least read access to drawings can subscribe themselves, and admins can add subscribers as well. In practice, setting up your key superintendents, project engineers, subcontractor leads, etc. as subscribers is a best practice so that the moment updated plans are published, they all get an alert. This avoids the situation of someone unknowingly working off an old plan set. (If an Admin only hits “Publish” without “Distribute,” the new drawings still become the current set in Procore but no notification is sent – so for critical updates, it’s wise to use Publish & Distribute.)
Once drawings are published, how do people on-site actually use them? Procore’s mobile app (available for iPad, iPhone, Android, even Windows devices) is the gateway for field access. Team members in the field can pull up the entire drawing set on a tablet or phone through the app – and they can do this even without an internet connection. Procore allows users to download drawings for offline use, meaning a superintendent can have the latest plans on an iPad and view them in a remote area with no cell signal. Any markups or annotations they add while offline are stored locally, and as soon as the device gets a connection again, Procore will sync those changes back to the cloud so everyone sees them. This offline capability is a game-changer for construction sites where connectivity isn’t always reliable – crews always have the current drawings in hand, literally.
Field workers can easily access the latest plans on tablets using Procore’s mobile app. The app provides full drawing functionality – zooming, markups, hyperlinks – and even works offline, automatically syncing any changes once back online. Digital access in the field ensures that superintendents and trades are always looking at the current set, reducing mistakes from outdated paper copies.
In addition to viewing via the app, Procore introduced a clever QR code integration for bridging the gap between physical drawings and digital access. For any drawing in Procore, you can generate a unique QR code printout directly from the Drawings tool. Once printed, this QR code can be posted on a paper plan in the trailer or on a wall at the jobsite. Field users can simply scan the QR code with the Procore mobile app’s scanner, and it will instantly open that exact drawing on their device. This is extremely useful when you have printed plans on-site for quick reference – by scanning the code, you ensure the person sees the latest digital version of that sheet (with all current markups or revisions) on their phone or tablet, rather than relying on the possibly outdated printed copy. It’s also a fast way to jump to a sheet without manually searching in the app. Essentially, QR codes tie the physical and digital worlds together: a subcontractor can walk up to a posted floor plan, scan the code, and be looking at that plan in Procore (with pinch-zoom, layers, and all) in seconds. This speeds up access to information and encourages more folks on the crew to reference Procore’s live drawings rather than old paper rolls.
Enhancing Workflows with Large Touchscreen Plan Tables
While phones and tablets are great for individual use, sometimes the team needs to huddle around a set of plans together – for example, in a coordination meeting or in the jobsite trailer reviewing tomorrow’s work. This is where large-format touchscreen plan tables come into play. A Volanti plan review table is essentially a big, sturdy, high-definition touch display (available in sizes like 43”, 55”, or 65”) that runs a full Windows PC. These devices can run Procore or any construction drawing software, allowing the team to interact with digital plans on a conference-room scale screen. Instead of everyone craning over a paper print or passing around an iPad, the plan table lets multiple people see the whole drawing at once and collaborate by touch.
Volanti’s large 4K touchscreen plan tables allow teams to view and mark up full-size construction drawings together. In a site office or meeting room, a digital plan table can display entire sheets at true scale – making details easier to see and measurements true to size. The robust, adjustable display lets collaborators zoom, pan, and annotate the plans with simple touch gestures, creating an interactive experience that paper or standard monitors can’t match.
One of the biggest benefits of using a plan table is visual clarity and context. With a 55” or 65” ultra-HD screen, you can typically display a full drawing (such as an ARCH D or E size sheet) nearly in its entirety, which means the entire sheet is visible at once in crisp detail. This reduces the constant zooming and panning that happens on laptops or tablets where only a portion of a drawing is readable at a time. For example, in a plan review meeting, a project engineer can zoom out to show the whole floor plan for context, then quickly pinch-zoom into a specific area to discuss a coordination issue, and everyone in the room can follow along. Touch-native gestures on the plan table make navigation very fluid – you can pan across a drawing or jump between linked sheets with a tap, much like on a tablet but with a much larger display that everyone can see. This helps teams catch coordination problems or clashes early because they’re viewing the big picture in real scale (it’s easier to spot an interference when you can see the entire layout). And when checking dimensions, the plan table’s true-scale capability means an on-screen measurement can be accurate without needing to scale off paper – the digital plan can be calibrated so that an inch on screen equals an inch on the plan, etc., allowing quick measurements on the fly.
In site trailers and field offices, large plan tables replace the traditional rolls of drawings spread over a table. Superintendents can pull up the latest plans on the screen and mark changes or RFIs as they discuss them with subcontractors. Because the plan table is essentially a Windows PC, it runs Procore’s web app (or even tools like Bluebeam) with full functionality. This means all the features we discussed – version overlays, linked RFIs, layer toggling – are available on the big screen. Instead of a static whiteboard or pin-up, the team has an interactive hub for plans. Collaboration is enhanced – for instance, an inspector and a foreman can stand at the plan table and drop digital punch pins on the floor plan together during a QA/QC session, instantly creating those items in Procore as they talk. In owner/architect meetings, having a large touch display often improves engagement: everyone can clearly see the drawing, and marking up a change is as easy as drawing on the screen (no more trying to draw on paper and later transcribe to digital – it’s one step).
Volanti’s plan tables are designed for the construction environment – they come on heavy-duty casters so you can roll them around the jobsite or move them as needed, and even offer battery backup options for locations without easy power access. For example, you could wheel a mobile plan table into different rooms of a building during a coordination walkthrough, running on battery, to review plans on-site with trades and mark issues in real time. The frames are adjustable in height and tilt, allowing the screen to be used flat like a tabletop or tilted up like a presentation board, which is great for comfort and ergonomics in long meetings. And despite their size, these displays are high-performance and compatible with all the standard software construction folks use – whether it’s Procore, Revit, Bluebeam, Navisworks, or other applications. In short, a digital plan table brings the best of both worlds: the full-size clarity of a printed drawing with the real-time, interactive power of digital tools.
Use Cases: Why a Big Touchscreen Makes a Difference
- Plan Review Meetings: In weekly coordination or owner meetings, a large touch display means everyone can see the drawings clearly without crowding around a laptop. Teams can pull up the latest drawings from Procore, mark changes on the spot, and navigate between sheets or 3D models. This improves understanding and reduces miscommunication. As one user put it, having a clear, large plan view “has been a game changer… also nice to get the clear large image when trying to plan detour routes” – the clarity helps in making decisions quickly.
- Site Trailer Collaboration: Replacing the stacks of paper plans in the trailer with a Volanti plan table saves time and printing costs. A general contractor who deployed digital plan tables reported significant cost savings on plan reproduction, and found them extremely helpful for reviewing plans with subcontractors and owners. The plan table becomes a central, always-updated reference – any team member can walk up and pull up the newest drawing set in Procore. This ensures the trailer is always aligned with the field, since everyone sees the same live documents.
- Field QA/QC and Punch Walks: During quality inspections or punch list walks, carrying an iPad is common, but a large screen can be useful for group tasks. For instance, at the end of a walkthrough, the team can convene at the mobile plan table in the area and review all the marked issues on the floor plan together. Because the plan is large and interactive, they can zoom in on each room or element with issues, verify them, and even update statuses in real time. It’s a more engaging way to conduct QA sessions, almost like an interactive map of the building’s status.
- Training and Onboarding: New team members or subcontractors can get up to speed faster by using the plan table to orient themselves with the project. It’s much easier to explain a complex design when everyone is literally on the same page (and the page is big enough for everyone to see!). Navigating through linked drawings on the big screen also helps illustrate how the plans are organized – e.g. “click here and it jumps to the detail sheet” – which can encourage broader adoption of the digital tools.
In all these scenarios, the large-format plan table doesn’t replace individual devices, but complements them. Field crews still carry their tablets for personal use, but the plan table serves as a collaborative station. And since it runs the same Procore environment, all markups, updates, or RFIs opened on the table are instantly saved in the project for everyone else. This ties in perfectly with Procore’s goal of a single source of truth for project drawings – whether you access it on a phone, tablet, laptop, or a giant touch table, you’re looking at the same up-to-date information.
Tips for Optimizing Your Procore Plan Workflow
To wrap up, here are some practical suggestions for project teams looking to get the most out of Procore’s plan management (and avoid common pitfalls):
- Start with Quality PDFs: Upload the best-quality (vector) PDF drawings you have. Clear, vector-based drawings will ensure OCR can correctly read sheet numbers and titles, and will maximize the success of automatic hyperlinking of callouts. Avoid uploading scanned paper drawings when possible – if you must, be prepared to do a bit more manual review on those for naming and linking.
- Use Consistent Naming Conventions: Make sure drawing numbers and titles on the PDFs match the references within the drawings. Procore’s auto-linking works by matching those codes exactly. For example, if your callout says “A100”, ensure the sheet is named “A100” not “A-100” (or vice versa, but be consistent). Minor formatting consistency will help the software create the links accurately.
- Leverage Drawing Sets and Areas: If your project has multiple bid packages, phases, or building areas with overlapping sheet numbers, use Drawing Areas or separate set names in Procore to compartmentalize them. This prevents confusion (e.g. two “Sheet 1” from different wings) and allows field users to filter to the relevant area. It also helps in comparing revisions set by set, using Procore’s bulk compare feature if needed.
- Review and Confirm OCR Results: After uploading, Procore will queue the drawings for processing. It’s good practice for a team member to Review and Confirm the drawings in Procore (there’s a step for this) before publishing, especially for large sets. Double-check that sheet names, numbers, and disciplines were interpreted correctly, and fix any that aren’t (Procore lets you edit the fields if OCR gets something wrong). A quick review can save headaches later by ensuring the set is labeled correctly for everyone.
- Publish Markups and Links for Team Visibility: Encourage your project engineers and architects to publish important markups or attached items on drawings (rather than keeping them private). Published markups – like clouding a design change or linking an RFI – will be visible to all users and can serve as a form of communication. For instance, if an RFI answer requires a change, publishing a cloud with a linked RFI on the affected plan sheet will alert everyone that “something on this drawing changed” when they see the cloud icon. It’s a great way to broadcast information in context.
- Set Up Notifications (Publish & Distribute): As mentioned, always use Publish & Distribute for new revisions if you want an immediate notice sent out. Also, train your team (especially external partners like sub trades) on subscribing to drawing log updates. Those who subscribe will get automatic emails or mobile push alerts whenever drawings are updated – which vastly improves the chance they’ll know about changes without you having to individually call or email them.
- Take Advantage of Offline Mode: Before heading to the field, open the Procore app while you have Wi-Fi and download the latest drawing set to your device. Procore’s mobile app allows offline viewing and markup of drawings, but you need to cache the data while online. Doing this each morning ensures you won’t be stuck if reception is poor in part of the site. Any markups or notes you add offline will sync later, so you can work confidently with or without connectivity.
- Integrate Large Displays for Team Reviews: If your project has the resources, consider using a large touchscreen in the trailer or conference room for group plan reviews. As discussed, a digital plan table or even a large TV with touch capabilities can significantly improve collaboration. It eliminates ambiguity because everyone is literally seeing the same thing in real time. It’s especially useful for big coordination meetings (MEP coordination, site logistics planning, etc.) where visualizing the plans at scale leads to better understanding. The cost can often be justified by the printing savings and reduction in errors/rework caught through improved visualization.
- Train the Team and Standardize Workflow: Finally, invest time in training the field staff and designers on using these tools. Even the best features are only helpful if people know about them. Show your superintendents how to scan QR codes on drawings to open them in Procore, teach your site engineers how to drop an RFI pin on a plan, and encourage your foremen to use the tablet instead of a week-old paper set. When everyone follows the practice of relying on Procore for the “source of truth” drawings, the workflow truly streamlines – you’ll see fewer mistakes from outdated info and faster communication when changes happen.
Conclusion
Managing construction drawings is a lot more efficient and collaborative in the digital age. Procore provides an integrated workflow where a drawing only needs to be uploaded once, and from there it remains the up-to-date reference for the entire project team. Through features like version tracking, automatic hyperlinks, in-app markups, and easy distribution, it ensures that superintendents, project managers, coordinators, and engineers are all literally on the same page. Collaborative tools – whether software-based like Procore’s linking and markup or hardware-based like Volanti’s plan tables – further enhance the process by bringing people together around the drawings with clarity and interactivity.
By fully leveraging Procore’s drawing management and investing in technologies that improve plan viewing (big screens, mobile devices, etc.), construction teams can save time, reduce paper waste, avoid costly rework, and build with greater confidence that they are using the right information. The goal is to support the workflow from the office to the field, ensuring that a change made by an architect in the morning can be understood by the superintendent on site moments later. With the right workflow and tools in place, the days of rolling out dog-eared sheets and chasing the “latest set” can be left behind, replaced by a seamless digital plan workflow that keeps everyone informed and in sync.
If you have a different perspective as to how the Procore plan workflow operates please let us know.