Ways to Share Drawings and Documents

Which Sharing Method Should I Use?

Doclio gives you several ways to get a drawing or document to someone else. They are not interchangeable. The useful question is not how do I send this? but what should exist afterwards — ongoing access to the live set, a dated record of issue, or simply a file in someone's hands.

That is also what separates a formal issue from an informal one. A transmittal creates a record you can point at months later; a downloaded file emailed from your own inbox leaves no trace in Doclio at all. Both are legitimate — they just answer different questions.

There Is No Single Right Way

Doclio was built by Australian architects and builders, drawing on more than 20 years in design and construction. We know that different projects — and different clients — work in different ways. One job runs on formal transmittals and signed approvals; the next runs on a quick file and a phone call, and both deliver. Doclio is designed to suit how you already work, or how your client expects things to be done, and can be as formal or as informal as the job needs.

So treat what follows as a set of options rather than a process to comply with. The point is simply to know what each one leaves behind, so you can pick deliberately.

At a Glance

1. Share Access — For People Who Need the Live Set

Sharing invites someone into the project rather than sending them a copy. They see the current revision of everything you shared, and when you upload a new revision they see that too, without you sending anything again.

You can share at several levels — the whole workspace, a project, a group, a tag, or a specific selection of drawings — and set what the person can do: view only, comment, contribute annotations, or full editing. See Share Levels Explained and Roles and Capabilities.

• The recipient needs a Doclio account. It is free, and the invite email walks them through it. This is the trade-off: ongoing access requires an identity to attach that access to.
• You can set an expiry — never, 7, 30 or 90 days — and revoke at any time.
• Roles control what they see. A subcontractor can be given a role that shows only the annotation types relevant to their trade.
• Sharing is available on every plan, including free, with no limit on how many people you share with.

Use it for: the site foreman, the engineer, the client's project manager — anyone who will come back repeatedly and must always be looking at the current revision.

Do not use it for: a one-off issue to a tenderer you will never hear from again, or anything where you need a dated record of exactly what was sent.

2. Transmittal — For Formal Issue

A transmittal is a report with the type set to Transmittal. It is the formal route: a fixed, dated package of specified drawings, issued to named recipients, with a record of who received it and when they opened it.

Unlike a share, a transmittal is frozen at the moment of issue. That is the entire point — six months later it still shows what you issued for construction on that date, not what the drawing looks like now.

• Recipients do not need an account to view. They open a link. Creating a free account is only needed if they want to comment or respond.
• Opens are tracked, so you can see who has actually looked at it.
• Per-recipient links expire (30 days by default) and can be revoked individually.
• A PDF can be downloaded by you or the recipient, for filing or printing.
• Drawings appear as rendered pages rather than as your original CAD-exported files.

Use it for: Issued for Construction, tender issue, revision issue to the head contractor, handover documentation — anything where someone may later ask what exactly did you send us, and when?

See Building a Report and Sharing Reports.

3. Correspondence — For Sending With a Question Attached

The Mailbox sends an email from inside Doclio and keeps the whole exchange as a thread against the project. It sits between the formal transmittal and an informal email: it produces a record, but it is a conversation rather than an issue.

• Files can go as real email attachments (up to around 8 MB each). Larger files are sent as a link automatically instead of failing.
• Drawings are always sent as links, never as raw attachments — the recipient opens them in a viewer.
• Recipients can reply by email, from their normal mail client, and their reply — including any files they attach — lands back in the Doclio thread.
• Internal notes never leave. Comments marked internal are excluded from outgoing email and from anything the external recipient can open.
• You can see who it went to and when.

Use it for: "here is the revised detail, can you confirm the setout works", RFI responses, sending a marked-up sheet to a subcontractor with a question.

4. Approval Link — For Getting a Decision

When you need someone to formally approve or reject something, send an approval request. They receive a link, open it with no login, see the item and the drawing it sits on, and can approve or reject with a typed name, a comment, a signature, and their own attached files.

The response is recorded against the item, including who responded, when, and their signature — which is what makes it usable as evidence later.

Use it for: hold points, ITP sign-offs, client approval of a variation, engineer sign-off on a detail.

5. Download — For a File in Someone's Hands

Sometimes the other party just needs the file, in their own systems, on their terms — a consultant who works in their own CAD environment, a client who wants a copy for their records, an estimator loading drawings into other software.

• From the gallery: select one drawing to save its file, or select several to get them all as a single zip.
• From the viewer: the download button saves the sheet you are currently looking at — including a superseded revision if that is what you have open.
• You get the original file, at full quality and true sheet size. A sheet that arrived as one page of a multi-page set is saved on its own.

Use it for: informal hand-offs, feeding another system, personal archives.

6. Print — For Paper

Select the drawings you want and print them, with or without annotation pins, filtered by status. Choose Actual sheet size so an A1 prints as an A1, or Fit to paper to scale everything onto the paper your printer has loaded.

Use it for: site copies, drawings for a meeting, sheets that will be marked up by hand.

Formal or Informal — A Simple Test

Ask yourself: if there is a dispute in eight months, would I need to prove what was sent and to whom?

• Yes — use a transmittal (or an approval link if you need a decision, or correspondence if it is a conversation). All three leave a record.
• No — share access for people who need the live set, or a download for a quick copy.

Worked Examples

• Issuing Rev C for construction to the builder. Transmittal. Fixed, dated, tracked.
• The site foreman needs the drawings every day. Share access. They should always see the current revision without you doing anything.
• A subcontractor asks whether a penetration moved. Correspondence — send the sheet with the question, and their answer stays on the thread.
• The engineer must sign off a hold point. Approval link. You need a signed decision, not a delivery.
• A tenderer wants the drawings in their own take-off software. Download the set as a zip. If the tender is formal, issue a transmittal as well so the issue is on record.
• Crew needs paper for tomorrow. Print at actual sheet size.

One Thing Worth Knowing

Sharing, transmittals, correspondence, approvals, downloads and printing are available on every plan, including free — there is no limit on how many people you share with. Plan limits apply to projects, drawings and storage instead. See Plan Comparison.

Related

• Share Levels Explained
• Roles and Capabilities
• Inviting Team Members
• Building a Report
• Sharing Reports
• Managing Drawing Revisions