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Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
Sprache: Englisch

Beschreibung

Expert tips for the last piece in the paperless puzzle The Bluebeam Guidebook offers comprehensive coverage of the industry's leading PDF tool to help AEC professionals adopt a more efficient digital workflow. With desktop, mobile, and server-based products, Bluebeam makes collaboration and document coordination seamless, and provides a perfect complement to BIM software. This book shows you how to push the boundaries and discover the software's true capabilities. Written expressly for working AEC professionals, this book offers tips, tricks, and ideas that cater to industry-specific needs. Expert instruction and step-by-step guidance helps you get started quickly, and case studies feature users from firms such as Kiewit, Populus, Sundt Construction, and more to show you how Bluebeam is quickly becoming a critical component of design and construction. * Master the industry's leading PDF software and alternative to Adobe Acrobat * Create, edit, and markup documents in a way that suits the architecture and engineering workflow * Learn how major AEC firms have transitioned seamlessly to digital workflows * Integrate Bluebeam into estimating, quality control, field applications, and more The days of file boxes and paper reams are quickly coming to a close. The transition to paperless has been a boon for the AEC industry, in which collaboration and document sharing is central to getting the job done. BIM has revolutionized the design process, and Bluebeam offers that same level of functional innovation for the document side of every project. For AEC professionals seeking a better way to get things done, The Bluebeam Guidebook is your ultimate guide to everything Bluebeam can do for you.

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Leseprobe

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction

What Is This Book About?

Who Is This Book For?

What Benefits Will I Gain by Reading This Book?

Why Did You Write This Book?

Chapter 1: Taking the Leap: Switching from Red to Blue

Products and Feature Comparison

License Pricing

Value Proposition

For IT

Training

Conclusion

Chapter 2: Doing Red in Blue

Changing Preferences

Tabs and Toolbars

Creating PDFs

PDF Document Actions

Conclusion

Chapter 3: Redlining

The User Interface

Conclusion

Chapter 4: Redlining Together

Getting into Studio

Sessions

Projects

Managing Notifications

Conclusion

Chapter 5: Management of Change

Digital Slip Sheeting

Bluebeam Sets

List of Tables

Table 1-1:

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Table 7-1

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The Bluebeam Guidebook

Game-Changing Tips and Stories for Architects, Engineers, and Contractors

Rachel Attebery

Jason Hascall

Cover images: Top Image: © Photography is my life/Getty Images

Bottom Image: © Vasko/iStockphoto

Cover design: Wiley

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with the respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom.

For general information about our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Attebery, Rachel, 1990- author. | Hascall, Jason A., author.

Title: The Bluebeam guidebook : game-changing tips and stories for architects, engineers, and contractors / Rachel Attebery, Jason Hascall.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, 2018. | Includes index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2017056760 (print) | LCCN 2017056891 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119393962 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119393955 (epub) | ISBN 9781119393948 (paperback : acid-free paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Building information modeling–Computer programs. | PDF (Computer file format) | Bluebeam Revu. | BISAC: TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Construction / General.

Classification: LCC TH438.13 (ebook) | LCC TH438.13 .A88 2018 (print) | DDC 720.285/53–dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017056760

To my wife, Dr. Jenny Johannes-Hascall, for her consistent support and persistence in demonstrating to me that we are each capable of more than we imagine.

—Jason

Always, First, and with Love, the time and effort and any success of this book is dedicated to my Savior, Jesus Christ.

Always, Second, and with Love, this book is dedicated to my husband Aaron who is made of the ingredients of support, understanding, and partnership.

Always, Third, and with Love, this book is dedicated to my family and close friends who have been excited for me and supported me and “that Bluebeam thing” even though they never really knew what it was.

And finally, this book is dedicated to every person with a compelling sense of “surely there must be a better way.” You're right. I hope this book gives you some tools, and I hope to learn something new from you soon.

—Rachel

Foreword

Innovation is not an end in and of itself. Its value is derived from its application and mass adoption—otherwise, it has no context, no sustainability, and thus no meaning. Let's consider this statement—context is to exist in a place; sustainability is to persist over time; and meaning is to influence culture. To exist in a place, innovation must resolve its value within an industry sector(s). To stand the test of time, innovation must inspire long-term change and transform behavior. To influence culture, innovation must be at scale to shift a community from what is to what could be. Therefore, the value of innovation is rooted in its impact on the many and not the few or the one.

Logically, to promote adoption by many individuals, one must overcome natural barriers to change, which in a knowledge-centric economy are the new, the unknown, and the uncomfortable. The solution to breach these change barriers is mass education—education to promote a better understanding of technology and to empower individuals to adapt to change, not fear or oppose it. This is what Jason and Rachel provide—first-hand knowledge from the context of AEC project experience with the goal to educate and in so doing, propel the community forward.

Through practical, step-by-step instructions and case studies, this guide will allow individuals to capture the often-elusive value of technology—its application and adoption in the marketplace. The stories told within the case studies alone are knowledge gold as we consider the amount of time it would take to learn from successes and failures without standing on the shoulders of Jason and Rachel and the others who contributed their stories to this book.

Ultimately, this knowledge transfer will allow teams to move up the learning curve quicker and focus their efforts on value-added work, not the trivial or mundane. Rachel and Jason clearly understand what is driving the industry today—commoditization of technology and obsolescence of human capital—and have concluded that to transform the AEC industry, knowledge must be open sourced, and real value is the impact of networked individuals working together, not simply the results from individual performers.

This is a magnanimous position to take as they have effectively captured years of experience into a guidebook designed to support collaborators and competitors alike. Could this generosity be rooted in the position that they will grow from the experience of knowledge sharing and to improve, they must embrace competition and continuously redefine their comparative and competitive advantages? Maybe.

Regardless, by shifting up the learning curve, one of Rachel's goals for the industry is met—to transfer the knowledge of more experienced professionals to the next generation and potentially fill the ever-growing knowledge gap between generations. However, her ultimate goal goes beyond knowledge transfer to the intersection of human experience with artificial intelligence (AI)—to improve cognition of learning machines. This vision might fly in the face of Jason's concern that the human component of work might be rendered irrelevant with advanced AI, but peering into the future, one can also postulate that AI would simply capture another layer of knowhow, pushing the human experience higher up the value chain. Although seemingly aspirational, the next five years will bring much of this to reality as we project the evolution of IBM Watson and the metamorphosis of learning algorithms into cognitive algorithms that contextualize data, providing for direct application of information to the built world.

Ultimately, technology's impact on society is directly related to the speed at which man moves up the learning curve—human capital must grow in direct proportion to the speed of technology. Work today is simply different than in the past—it has not been eliminated—it has evolved. Arguably, the future holds much of the same with the added benefit, as Rachel would proffer, of a higher quality of life. Jason would hold the position that the introduction of new technologies could positively or negatively impact the world, which underlies his concern. However, these opposing forces are what also bring a level of excitement and motivation for Jason to be at the forefront of technology, so that he might demonstrate how to positively leverage technology for a better future.

Within these pages, Jason, an experienced structural engineer who sees himself as calming, cool, and bold, and Rachel, an experienced chemical engineer who describes herself as specific, deep, and imaginative, provide their perspectives and extensive experience with Bluebeam technology. This guidebook is thorough and creative. Their stories are what bring the technology to life and lift you to a level of understanding that will change your world, one written word at a time.

When I was the CEO of Bluebeam, Inc. I had one goal in mind—to change the world by helping people do what they do better. This rudimentary concept is based on the idea that change management is the most difficult challenge one must overcome in order to adopt technology. And, that to promote change, the goal is not to change processes, but to enable them with technology and education. In doing so, efficiencies would be gained in the transformation of processes through the acceptance and adoption of technology. This philosophy allowed Bluebeam to average a 50% compounded annual growth rate for 15 years and expand its footprint to well over one million users worldwide in 130 countries.

As a technologist, a member of this community, and a staunch advocate of collaboration, I would like to thank Jason and Rachel in earnest for this knowledge guide to a better future.

—Richard L. LeeBluebeam Founder and CEO2002–2017

Acknowledgments

To the daring professionals and colleagues who were bold enough to share the stories that make up the case studies within this book, thank you. It is your contributions that make this endeavor possible and your willingness to share that supports the resounding theme of the text within.

To the many professionals at Bluebeam who created a software that changed the AEC community and simplified my life, thank you. You listen like no others; your sense of community is unsurpassed; and your creativity is something to be marveled at. It is your creation that gives this book purpose and meaning.

To Larry Naab, who introduced me to Bluebeam, which has not only influenced my career but also the direction of our entire company, thank you. I can't imagine a week without Revu.

To my co-author, Rachel Attebery, who jumped into this endeavor without a moment of hesitation, thank you. I am proud of what we accomplished.

To Brad Hardin, who said, “Go for it!” thank you. Your leadership has opened doors that wouldn't have been opened otherwise.

And finally, most importantly, to Jenny and Truman, thank you. Your patience, encouragement and support, not the least of which was the occasional candid reminder to “FINISH THE BOOK,” carried me to the finish line. You both fill my life with joy and purpose every day, and I can say with 100 percent certainty that I would never have become an author without you.

—Jason

I'm so grateful to Black & Veatch for giving me the chance to try something new.

Jason Patterson was the first person to introduce me to Bluebeam, and he did so against many odds. Thanks for changing the course of my life, Jason.

Jason Hascall was the first person to explain Bluebeam to me. His passion, clarity of thought, and creativity continue to motivate me to be better.

Brad Hardin introduced us to his contacts at Wiley and encouraged us to write this book. Without his support and connections, this book wouldn't be here today.

The Black & Veatch Bluebeam UserX team, started by Brad Hardin, has become family. You all impress me every time we get together, and some of you are featured in this book. Thank you for your irrepressible sense of “it could be done better.”

The contacts we've made through the Kansas City Bluebeam User Group have made us feel part of a Bluebeam community in Kansas City. Thank you for your contributions to this book, the ones that are obvious and the ones you will never know.

The company of Bluebeam itself seems to be made only of enthusiastic, passionate, hugging, name-remembering rockstars who have supported us no matter how dumb our questions are. Thanks for setting a new standard of software service and pushing the envelope on useful software.

—Rachel

Introduction

What Is This Book About?

This book is a Rosetta Stone for anyone in the architecture, engineering, and/or construction industries who wants to implement new technology but avoid making beginner's mistakes on a real project with real budget and real deadlines. Bluebeam Revu is a powerful PDF software made specifically for our industry, and it is the featured technology in this book. Its creators are people like us, who have lived the painful day-to-day slog of AEC workflows and did something about it.

As a company, Bluebeam focuses on innovatively streamlining workflows for these tasks:

Design reviews

Bids and estimates

Requests for Information (RFIs) and submittals

Field inspection

Site management

Punch and back check

Closeout

Facilities management

As of 2017, they achieved the following customer base:

100% of Top 50

Contractors

98% of Top 50

Design Firms

100% of Top 50

Design/Build Firms

It is unusual for professionals in our industry to share lessons learned with competing firms, but this book doesn't care about that. After all, if you've figured out something great, you're probably not the first one. Why not share and get new information in return? This book uses three approaches to illustrate best practices for making the most of your document-based workflows with Bluebeam:

Interviews real AEC professionals for success stories

Explains click-by-click how you can be successful too, with contextual lessons learned

Shares exclusive expert tips from power users

Who Is This Book For?

This book is for anyone in the AEC industry, including design and field engineers, contractors, project managers, architects, CAD technicians, equipment/material vendors, construction workers, administrative assistants, document control personnel, and everyone else who wants to improve the way their project's drawings and documents are handled. Within the tasks listed above, Bluebeam improves specific processes traditionally done on paper, such as preserving the original vector quality of drawings and documents all the way through to their final delivery; signing documents digitally from anywhere in the world; creating real-time, global collaboration for markups; making drawings available digitally in the field; storing 360° site photos within a design drawing; estimating quantities and takeoffs; viewing the design model in a 3D PDF; and much, much more.

This is the perfect time to learn how to use these features to your advantage. A 2016 survey of AEC professionals around the world showed “a strong relationship between investment in advanced technologies and performance vs. competitors” (CIMdata, www.cimdata.com/en/resources/complimentary-reports-research/commentaries/item/7090-aec-technologies-and-transformation-survey-results-and-interpretation-commentary). Especially over the past four years, increased spend on IT correlates to higher and even leading performance.

Company Performance vs. IT Spend

CIMdata, “AEC Technologies and Transformation: Survey Results and Interpretation (Commentary),” Oct. 26, 2016

By the way, this is an excellent survey summary to read to understand the technology labor pains our industry is in right now. The digital tide swept the world decades ago, and our industry has ridden the waves to some extent. Most of us have computers at least. But when it comes to really overhauling the way we work to embrace the latest tools on the market, AEC is traditionally . . . well, traditional. Change is difficult but necessary to survival. If you and your company can be open-minded enough to entertain thoughts of challenging “the way we've always done it,” you have great odds to lead our industry and differentiate yourself from the competition. Our collective struggle to leverage technology is rebutted by owners who would still rather receive a cardboard box of paper drawings. Fine—you can still print paper deliverables for whomever wants them; but that doesn't mean you have to operate internally with hammers and chisels. Take the efficiency gains for yourself, rally your company around a better method, and, as always, serve the clients whatever they ask for. The customer is king, and they will be just as happy to accept their paper drawings in half the time and at twice the quality.

What Benefits Will I Gain by Reading This Book?

As you read this book, you will learn if Bluebeam Revu is a useful tool for you. If that proves to be the case, you'll hear the true stories of other Bluebeam users, learn the how-tos of Bluebeam's most powerful features, and profit from the recorded mistakes made by early adopters. You'll be able to champion Bluebeam Revu within your company, armed with the collective knowledge of power users across many firms. You will also gain inspiration from the nuggets of users who persisted in their quest for a better way; you are certainly not alone in this journey, which is bigger than one software tool. The classic story of a few lone evangelists with a message from the future is woven through this book, and we hope you'll feel camaraderie and support to keep going.

Why Did You Write This Book?

This is the only book of its kind on the market today. In the face of furtive, competitive secrecy, we've decided to bare it all for the sake of implementing new, innovative technology at historically entrenched AEC firms. The authors work at a century-old engineering, procurement, and construction company and were among the first to adopt, and moreover promote the use of, this new technology. In our saga of experimenting, talking with peers at other companies, navigating cultural resistance, and building a sustainable support structure, we've learned that sharing information only benefits its sharers. Without an exchanged flow of experiences, we as an industry will stagnate. Let's gain our competitive edges by doing amazing, trustworthy, genius work and not by hoarding technology successes. Publishing this information is a duty we have to ourselves, and to you, as cohorts in this great industry of architecture, engineering, and construction. We wish you well in all your endeavors and hope this book serves you in a useful way. On to chapter 1!

Note

Top 50 firms by revenue as reported by Engineering News-Record

Chapter 1Taking the Leap: Switching from Red to Blue

Blue isn't for everyone. To understand if Bluebeam might be the right choice for a group or company, it helps to understand how the increasingly popular PDF tool came into being. As evidenced by the tool's devotion to efficiency, it was the brainchild of a team of engineers seeking to make their own work faster and easier. In the late 1990s, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory was tasked with designing and building the robotic arms for the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. They only had two years to do it, and with a little fewer than 20 employees, they had to get creative. Although Adobe was running the PDF market at that time, their products didn't meet the specialized needs of the engineering team, specifically, creating accurate PDF files from computer-aided design software such as AutoCAD. Thus, the inception of Bluebeam's first product: Pushbutton PDF. The software continued to evolve and become more popular, and Brett Lindenfield, the director of the robotic arms project, called on his friend Richard Lee to turn what started as a humble innovation into a full-blown company. Pushbutton PDF spun off into its own company in 2002 as Bluebeam Software Inc. The product began to diffuse from the engineering industry into architecture, construction, and oil and gas, and was renamed Bluebeam Revu. Read the full story on NASA Spinoff: https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2016/it_3.html. Fourteen years later, in 2016, Bluebeam Software Inc. achieved 1,000,000 users in over 100 countries and is used by 98 percent of the world's top 50 design-build firms by revenue.

Products and Feature Comparison

Even with over a million users requesting new features, Bluebeam has stayed true to its initial industry, focusing on solving problems for design reviews, bids and estimates, RFIs (request for information) and submittals, field inspection, site management, punch lists and back checks, project closeout, and facilities management. Bluebeam products are not designed for artistic use in the same way that Adobe Creative Cloud or Photoshop or Illustrator are. They are, however, highly competitive with Adobe's base products, such as Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat. Like Adobe, Bluebeam has a portfolio of products tailored to specific needs. As of the time this book was authored, here are Bluebeam's offerings:

Bluebeam Revu: Bluebeam's flagship product, built for Windows PCs and tablets. Bluebeam Revu is a PDF workhorse. It comes in three flavors: Standard, CAD, and eXtreme, in order of increasing price.

Bluebeam Revu Mac: Most of the functionality of Bluebeam Revu, but for Apple PCs

Bluebeam Vu: Free PDF view-only tool

Bluebeam Revu iPad: Mobile version of Revu

Bluebeam Vu iPad: Free mobile version of Vu

As stated above, although Bluebeam is a fantastic tool, it is only fantastic when it's the right tool for the job. Remember the NASA engineers—they weren't out to create a PDF tool for everyone; they just wanted something to meet their specific needs. To understand which product is the right fit for a given use case, consider the comparison chart of high-level features for Bluebeam and Adobe products (Table 1-1). For a more detailed comparison, see www.bluebeam.com/us/products/revu/compare.asp, http://www.bluebeam.com/us/bluebeam-difference/bluebeam-vs-adobe.asp, and www.bpsboise.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Bluebeam_vs_Adobe.pdf.

Table 1-1: Bluebeam and Adobe Features

Bluebeam Revu Standard

Bluebeam Revu CAD

Bluebeam Revu eXtreme

Bluebeam Revu Mac

Bluebeam Vu

Adobe Acrobat Standard DC

Adobe Acrobat Pro DC

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC

Redline PDFs

In Studio

Create custom markups

Track annotations

Online collaboration

Pin files

SharePoint integration

ProjectWise integration

Markup 3D PDFs

In Studio

Create 3D PDFs

Create PDFs from Microsoft Office

Create PDFs from any Windows file

Create PDFs from AutoCAD

Create PDFs from Revit, SolidWorks

OCR

Form creation

Redaction

Scripting

Measure PDFs

In Studio

Flatten markups

Markup layers

Markup summary

Import markups

Calibrated markups

Create hyperlinks

Dynamic stamps

Embed photos and video

In Studio

Translate markup language

Custom calculations

Custom statuses

Markup legends

Document tags

Extract, delete, rotate, insert pages

Embed file attachments

Overlay pages

Combine PDFs

Reduce file size

Split document

Headers and footers

Create bookmarks and page labels

Text search

Visual search

Custom toolbars

Color processing

Batch functions

Password protection

Create digital signature fields

Sign digitally

License Pricing

After deciding which product offers the best feature set for a given group, the next consideration is cost. For current pricing, visit Bluebeam's and Adobe's websites. As with many products, the bigger the enterprise is, the better the volume discounts and included services will be—for both Bluebeam and Adobe. To get the best and most accurate pricing, call both software providers and talk through the specifics of what is needed.

Bluebeam has developed considerably in its enterprise licensing options, now offering the choice of perpetual licensing or open licensing for Revu eXtreme only. Typical perpetual licensing registers one seat of product per workstation, while open licensing is cloud-based and allows all users to share licenses on an as-needed basis. For example, if an organization owns 100 open licenses of Revu eXtreme, up to 100 people can be using Revu eXtreme at the same time, and when one user closes his or her instance of the software, a different user can now open it. With perpetual licensing, there can be only as many total users as there are purchased licenses. Therefore, open licensing is useful when this organization has over 100 users total but no more than 100 simultaneous users. Unlike perpetual licensing, which is a one-time purchase, open licensing is paid on a recurring annual basis (Figure 1-1). Open licensing may be a worthwhile option for a company operating out of several different time zones where the cost savings of reduced license count outweighs the cost of annual subscription. Companies should consider how many years they plan to use Revu eXtreme and then calculate the total cost of ownership for the projected number of required licenses to decide whether open or perpetual licensing is the right choice. Carrying out the example of an organization with 100 open licenses, the chart below shows that it will take five years with 850 total users for the cost of open licensing to become more expensive than perpetual licensing, given the example pricing in Table 1-2. This pricing is for illustrative purposes only; please see Bluebeam's pricing website for accurate costs: www.bluebeam.com/solutions/pricing/.

Table 1-2: Open versus Perpetual Licensing Example

Licensing Type

Number of Licenses

Price per Seat

Maintenance

Upgrade

Total Cost per Seat

Open licensing

100

$500

Included

$500/yr

Perpetual licensing

850

$175

$30

$87

$292

Figure 1-1: Cost of Open Licensing versus Perpetual Licensing

For more information about open licensing, see www.bluebeam.com/us/_media/pdfs/DM-OpenLicensing-CMYK-Nem-Mech.pdf.

Revu eXtreme is currently the only Bluebeam product with the option of open licensing. All Revu products, with the exception of Mac and iPad, offer volume discounts on a transaction-by-transaction basis. Pricing is different for Revu Standard, CAD, and eXtreme, depending on whether the purchase location is the United States and Canada or elsewhere in the world.

Unlike Bluebeam, Adobe's volume discount pricing is not clearly stated on its website. To attempt to compare costs as “apples to apples,” compare the prices for individual licenses of Adobe Acrobat Standard DC and Pro DC on an annual prepaid basis, as shown on Adobe's website (https://acrobat.adobe.com/us/en/acrobat/pricing.html?promoid=KLXMR), to the prices of individual perpetual licenses of Bluebeam Revu Standard and Bluebeam Revu eXtreme in the United States, without including maintenance or upgrades.

Value Proposition

Because Bluebeam offers so many features in its products, it can be difficult to decide if the return on investment will be worth spending more money on a more advanced edition. After a base edition is selected based on the group's must-have features, next look at the “nice-to-have” features and figure out how much time and money would be saved by being able to utilize those features. For example, an organization isn't sure if it should pay the extra money for Revu eXtreme instead of the basic Revu Standard. Pick a “nice-to-have” feature, like OCR (optical character recognition). OCR allows scanned paper documents to be processed into searchable PDFs. Do a quick case study on the value of OCR by asking a professional how often he or she searches PDFs, how long it takes to find content in a nonsearchable PDF, and how long it takes to find content in a searchable PDF. One such case study showed a 54 percent reduction in time to find the desired content when using an OCRed document instead of the original scanned document. If an engineer is currently spending two hours per week searching scanned documents and works at a rate of $55 per hour, the cost savings equate to $59.40 per week, and the cost difference between Standard and eXtreme pays for itself in less than a month.

This OCR example is one data point in a bigger technology selection philosophy. It's shortsighted to make an enterprise purchasing decision based only on must-have features, because all too often, the must-have features are actually just a copy of how things are currently done. If the switch to a new product just mimics the capabilities of the old product, that's a miss. Technology is moving so rapidly that each product change should be accompanied by a new suite of features that makes a business better, faster, stronger. It's unfortunate that in many large organizations, the person making decisions about enterprise technology is not usually the user of that product. To get the best possible value out of a new product, the technology decision maker should spend time talking with the end users of the potential product and understand what they like and don't like about their current product. What do they like being able to do? What would make their jobs easier or let them do more in the same amount of time? Also think about the future of the company—what goals have executive leadership set for the next 10 years? What does company growth look like, in terms of employee count and global presence? What new markets might the company enter? What types of new professionals will the company hire? How does the company hope to do business in the future? What tools would be important to keep the company at the leading edge among its competitors? Because technology is embedded in every part of life, it has a powerful impact on a company's success, even its survival. Technology decision makers have more responsibility than ever before to understand their company's big picture objectives and make future-looking choices to help achieve those goals. The days of simply “keeping the servers up” are over. The most valuable information technology professionals will be those who can understand the future of business and make decisions to prepare their organization for that impending future.

Case Study

Meet Larry Naab

Electrical Engineer, Black & Veatch

Change isn't always easy, and change at a 10,000-person engineering firm can feel downright daunting. The process for approving the change may take longer, and require more effort than actually implementing the change. It can wear down even the most resilient of professionals. But still some of those changes happen and some of them have big impacts that alter a company forever.

That was the case for Larry Naab, an electrical engineer at Black & Veatch. In early 2012, Larry was serving as the design manager for a large project. While attending a recurring Project Management Lunch 'n' Learn, he was introduced to a product called Bluebeam Revu. The Black & Veatch project manager giving the presentation had come from another firm in the area and cited the remarkable benefits of using Revu. He claimed that it was so good that he purchased a copy to use at home on a personal level.

Larry watched as the PM showed the basic features of Bluebeam and shared how each feature had made a difference at his previous employer. He showed markups and markup tracking, measuring, searching, and an array of other capabilities. Larry liked the features; they were no doubt better than any electronic quality control software he had seen, but he was still a skeptic. Electronic quality control reviews had been tried, but none had been successful. At the end of the day, it was faster to work on paper and professionals would abandon the electronic way in favor of the hard copy from which they would then copy their marks back into the electronic system. Could Bluebeam be any different? The project manager said, “Yes.”

With an upcoming 65 percent quality control review on his project, Larry saw an opportunity and set out to try out this Bluebeam for himself. If he could convince the project team to use Revu, he would not only save the reproduction costs of printing the hard copies, but also allow two to three more days of design and review time, something that Larry didn't take lightly.

In Larry's mind, a big reason why electronic quality control reviews weren't successful was because of the dismal screen real estate available to a reviewer. It had been nearly impossible to see the whole drawing at a time while still maintaining the ability to read the text. The easy solution in Larry's mind was to utilize a larger monitor and so he requested a 24-inch variety to test the capabilities of Revu himself. If Larry wanted the project team to use Revu, he personally had to want to use Revu.

The request for the larger monitor was quickly declined, noting that exceptions for one professional couldn't be made without causing hard feelings for others. Determined that Bluebeam could make a difference, Larry didn't stop there. He went to the local electronics store, purchased a 24-inch monitor for himself, and showed up to work the next day with a new piece of hardware. Little did Larry know what he was about to start.

With a free trial copy, Larry set off testing Revu. He changed his default PDF software to Bluebeam so any PDF would open in Revu without any additional effort, forcing himself to actively use the new software. To this day, Larry claims that switch was the most important step in his Bluebeam conversion.

Larry tried out numerous features, from markup and measuring to comparing documents and text recognition. He even accessorized with a stylus and touchpad, which he ended up completely disliking.

Though some capabilities lagged behind its competitors, in Larry's mind, Bluebeam came out on top overall. This was something he could use. This was something his project could use. This was something Black & Veatch could use.

For his immediate need, Larry believed he could shave his quality control cycle by 3 days if the project utilized Bluebeam. That in turn would extend the design time of the project at the time when it needed it most. The challenge was getting the 20-person project team to agree on going electronic. Larry refused to force or mandate his team to use Bluebeam, citing numerous failures in other software rollouts due to a lack of professional buy-in. Instead, Larry needed them to want to use Bluebeam. He needed an incentive and he knew of just the thing, larger monitors. Larry struck a deal with the project team; anyone agreeing to use Bluebeam Revu exclusively for the next QC cycle would receive a large, 24-inch monitor paid for by the company, essentially eliminating screen real estate issues.

“Do we get to keep the monitor?” “Can I use the monitor on other work?” “What if we don't like Bluebeam?” Larry heard all the questions. He was so confident in Bluebeam's success that he agreed, use Revu on this one project and the monitor is yours to use on all future work. No further commitment on using Bluebeam, no further strings attached. The decision was nearly unanimous and Larry put his plan into action by hosting an hour-and-a-half introduction to Revu.

At 65 percent, the Bluebeam debut, Larry hit a few snags. A few professionals demanded paper, so he printed a handful of hard-copy sets. A couple professionals groaned that Bluebeam was a memory hog and made their computers run slow, so Larry printed a few more. Conflicts with access rights were causing delays, so Larry created an individual electronic file for each professional. But after that, the Bluebeam experiment was running smoothly.

The team used Bluebeam for the two remaining review cycles, and following project completion, Project Management held their usual continuous improvement meetings, or the “Lessons Learned Rundown.” The response was unexpected and overwhelming; the team loved Bluebeam, citing the benefits of the measurement tools, the searching tools, and the callout tool. Professionals said, “I have to have this now, all the time.” “I want to use this on every project.” “I don't ever want to go back to the old way.”

Larry said, “I certainly didn't expect it to go THAT well!”

At this point, word was out. It seemed like everyone in the Business Unit wanted to get Bluebeam and everyone wanted it now. Project managers were asking Larry how to roll it out on their projects. Large groups were asking Larry for demo sessions. Engineers and technicians were asking how to get larger monitors. And then it happened; the floodgates opened, leadership said, “Okay.”

Larry worked with Steve Mitts, the chief engineer at the time, to determine which version of Bluebeam Revu was appropriate and how many licenses the division should buy. They also hashed out an official Electronic Quality Control process to create some uniformity between projects. Together they decided on 50 additional licenses of Bluebeam Revu eXtreme.

Larry noted that the tipping feature on the eXtreme decision was optical character recognition, or OCR, the ability to convert nonsearchable text to searchable text. Though technology allows the ability to create PDF files with searchable text, many of Larry's clients were not doing that on their own. The ability to search a document was too valuable to let it go.

The growth continued organically, one project at a time. After 25 additional licenses, 50 more, and then, just one year later, Revu became the default PDF software for the entire Business Unit. Everyone got it on their computers as the standard.

As the growth continued, so did the learning. Larry's original setup was exactly like paper, not utilizing many of the benefits afforded by the new electronic process. Redlines were statused on the page with supplemental redlines, the markup tracking capabilities weren't utilized at all, and filters weren't even discovered yet. But slowly, that all changed.

With each project came new professionals exploring how to best utilize the new tool. Teams discovered ways to allow multiple reviewers to review simultaneously. They learned how to utilize the markup list as the “to-do” list. They discovered that filters were one of the best features they didn't even know they needed.

According to Larry, the way his business uses Bluebeam is still changing. At times, that has led to frustration because the process has never been consistent from project to project, but it has equally been rewarding, each time getting a little better, a little more valuable, or a little faster. He does believe Black & Veatch is reaching the plateau of a consistent, refined review process, but he also notes, “You never know what Bluebeam will introduce next.”

Looking back, Larry cites the importance of allowing the organic growth of a software package, never giving people an ultimatum or forcing them into a corner. He believes if you give people access to a good product and teach them how to use it in a good way, they will make the right decision and do great things with that product.

Larry can't imagine a project without Revu, and he's happy the business has recognized its benefits so he no longer has to fight for it. In fact, the business has even recognized the value of those larger monitors Larry promised his team, so he no longer has to use them as a bargaining chip.

When it comes time for your company to make a change, think of Larry. Even in an enterprise of more than 10,000 professionals, with the right drive and some perseverance, a single person can make a big splash. Today Black & Veatch has over 5000 licenses of Revu and uses the software in each of its business units. It has a dedicated user expert team to help resolve Bluebeam problems, an excellent relationship with Revu developers, has hosted a Bluebeam Hack-a-Thon, and annually holds a 5-day Revu training event called Bluebeam Week.

For IT

Now, once a business has decided to invest in Bluebeam, there are some back-office IT tips to be aware of. Bluebeam stores user licenses on its own servers, not on the servers of its customers. This means that users need to be connected to the internet in order to install the software and to receive version updates. For most regular users this is not a problem. For users consistently not connected to the internet, for example in sensitive compartmented information facilities where users work with classified information and have no network or internet access, the license authorization process can be done manually.

Under the Help tab in Bluebeam Revu, click the Register button.

Enter the serial number and product key and click Register.

Click Get Authorization Code Manually, enter the computer name, and then click Continue.

Copy down the serial number, product key, and security ID.

From a machine with Internet access, open a web browser and browse to

www.bluebeam.com/authorize.asp

Key in the serial number, product key, security ID, and computer name.

Click Get Authorization Code. The authorization code will display on the next page.

Copy down the authorization code and return to the computer where the Bluebeam software is being installed. Enter the authorization code into the Manual Authorization window and click Authorize.

Authorization is complete.

Bluebeam is generous with license overages for enterprise customers, allowing an extra percentage of the total paid license count and then “truing up” the additional cost with the customer. This releases IT from saying no to users who urgently need Bluebeam, even if the company is maxed out on its license count. Bluebeam is also understanding for large enterprises whose users may not all upgrade versions at the same time, or who constantly have computers retiring. Each version of Bluebeam Revu installed and in use on a computer requires its own license, so if a user is in the upgrade process from version 2015 to 2016, he or she will temporarily have two licenses occupied on the single machine. Bluebeam does not count the temporary older license against the total enterprise seat allowance, and even allows an enterprise to have some seats in the newer version and some in the older version to account for a gradual upgrade process. For retired computers where Bluebeam Revu is not uninstalled before the computer goes away, there is a waiting period of two weeks where the license is still counted as in use, and then it is freed up. For more information on enterprise administration of Bluebeam, visit http://support.bluebeam.com/enterprise-installation/. Bluebeam sends monthly license usage (Table 1-3) reports detailing the number of licenses allowed, the number of licenses in use, and other helpful IT management information.

Table 1-3: Sample Monthly License Usage Report

Serial Number

Product Key

Version

Maintenance?

Maintenance Exp. Date

Registered Email

Seats Allowed

Seats Installed

1237894

A5GS9–7JCK1L3

Bluebeam Revu 2016 eXtreme

5/14/2017

[email protected]

500

398

6540983

I6ZL6–4QKF9W1

Bluebeam Revu 2015 eXtreme

5/14/2017

[email protected]

400

4561238

MXY4F-BHE8UP5

Bluebeam Revu 12 eXtreme

5/14/2016

[email protected]

TOTAL:

900

497

In addition to comparing the base license cost of Bluebeam versus Adobe, a company should also consider the overall cost of transitioning from red to blue. Anecdotally, Bluebeam initially costs more in IT service ticket spend because it is new to most of the end users and because the end users are utilizing Bluebeam in deeper, more complicated ways than they typically used Adobe. Once users become familiar with Bluebeam, the service ticket count decreases and levels off close to the old Adobe service ticket count. IT may spend more overall time packaging Bluebeam updates for deployment than Adobe, because Bluebeam releases version updates with bug fixes a few times per year, and Adobe historically released version updates only every three years. It is up to the particular company how frequently they update the version. Especially in companies with a wide range of users, from Bluebeam groupies to old-school paper devotees, IT will never make everyone happy with the frequency of updates. A company should find an update rhythm that works for its users; it can always deploy an emergency update if needed for a certain bug fix or needed feature. Training will be needed for new users of Bluebeam, which takes time. Bluebeam themselves as well as several registered resellers offer training for a fee. If a company is lucky enough to have motivated and generous Bluebeam enthusiasts, it's often best to harness internal resources to create targeted training courses with familiar example material. Likely, some processes and procedures will need to be rewritten when a company switches from red to blue. For example, a company has a procedure with specific instructions on how to create and apply digital signatures in Adobe. The end result is the same in Bluebeam, but the specific steps are different. Modified procedures will need to be approved and socialized. To summarize, some of the main contributing line items to the overall transition cost from red to blue are:

Familiarizing IT with different installation and license management processes

Handling increased service desk tickets for the initial adjustment period

More frequent software version updates

Training for end users

Modification of Adobe-specific procedures

Training

For the end user, the adjustment from red to blue is varied. For a tech-savvy user, the new interface is intuitive and exciting, letting him or her do much more than they could with Adobe. For users who don't easily understand technology to start with, switching over to a new program feels like cruel and unusual punishment. Chapter 2, “Doing Red in Blue,” will explain how to do typical PDF functions in Bluebeam. In this chapter, it's necessary to discuss the importance of training for new users. It takes a concerted effort to successfully roll out new technology. There is the initial value proposition to create, then the convincing of management, then the actual IT steps to procure and install the software, then the change management and training for end users. If any of these actions are neglected, the software has a good chance of not making it, rendering the initial value proposition useless.

A company may choose to pay for external training, or may empower internal trainers. Experience says that internal trainers are cheaper, more relevant to their particular company's business, and available to help even after the training class is over. The keys to a successful internal training program are passion, discovery, support, and generosity. The trainers need to care about educating their peers. They should “believe” in the software. Having passion for a cause fuels people, and they will go to remarkable lengths above and beyond the nine-to-five call of duty when they feel what they're doing is right and necessary. The trainers need to be discovered, by management and by each other. In a large organization, passionate trainers may be completely siloed from one another. It takes a manager with a broad and deep gaze to identify people across the business and at perhaps low levels who would be good trainers. Then that manager should bring them together. Let them identify with each other and swap ideas and experiences. The only thing more powerful than a passionate person is a united group of passionate people.

The manager who is sponsoring the transition from red to blue doesn't have to become an expert in the software to give it a successful rollout (what upper manager has time for that?). But that manager does have a responsibility to raise up leaders who can shepherd their fellow users through the transition. After the trainers meet each other and understand their charter, management needs to support their work. Most professionals are already overly busy with their day jobs; adding the responsibility of creating training content, leading training sessions, and spending one-on-one time answering users' questions afterward can take up a surprising amount of time. Managers need to be understanding of these responsibilities and afford the trainers the time they need to make the transition successful. Training should be counted as a high-value activity, because the impact of one person's class ripples through dozens, maybe thousands, of employees, which saves an exponential amount of time when compared to letting each user fend for him- or herself.

Finally, generosity on the part of the trainers is needed. Generosity of time, patience, and listening are key to being a successful trainer. Many times, the trainer will encounter users who are quick to point out mistakes or like to stump the trainer. Respond graciously, write down the question and the name of asker, and follow up. Other times, the trainer will answer a phone call with the same basic question for the fifth time that day. Answer anyway, instruct gently and patiently, and leave the user with a way to answer his or her own question in the future (e.g., the Bluebeam Help menu or Google). Being the expert at Bluebeam—a software that touches almost everyone in an architecture, engineering, construction firm—is a great way to meet new people and serve them, creating a new network where the professionals served leave with an outstandingly positive impression of the trainer's attitude and intelligence. Remember, serving faithfully in the small ways recommends a person for bigger responsibility.

Some practical ideas for training include:

Spread the training out among several individuals; don't leave one person to shoulder the burden alone. Give each trainer responsibility for teaching his or her favorite features of Bluebeam.

Corral as many people as possible into the basics sessions. Most everyone needs to go through this class when first using Bluebeam, and it gets exhausting to keep training small groups of five or six people on the same thing.

Make a big push for Bluebeam training once a year instead of stringing out low-visibility courses throughout the year. Partner with managers, administrative assistants, and IT to get the word out about upcoming training and reach as many people as possible in each session.