Reducing risk in drawing reviews with digital tools

“We try to make sure that one complete markup serves every purpose,” says Jenny Edwards, creative director at Oktra. “If we’re going to review something, we do it properly once, not three different times for three different audiences.”

Oktra delivers projects of varying sizes and duration, from fit-outs and refurbishments through to larger shell and core or Cat A schemes. Like many design-led businesses, the firm manages multiple live projects at once.

Each project involves layered feedback across internal design review, technical coordination, cost scrutiny, client approvals and supplier queries. While a typical drawing pack may run to around 60 drawings, that figure can easily exceed 100 once subcontractor drawings are included.

Without structure, reviews can fragment. Comments scatter across emails, meeting minutes and verbal encounters. Pdfs circulate with unclear version control, markups get repeated for different teams, and instructions are repeated. Over time, ambiguity creeps in.

The risk is not just administrative. At best, unclear reviews can introduce unforeseen costs. At worst, something moves forward that does not align with the project’s design intent.

Traditional paper markups add to the problem. Notes must be crossed out, rewritten, rescanned and reinterpreted for cost teams or subcontractors. Each redraw introduces more opportunity for confusion and error.

On fast-paced workplace projects, particularly those with tight client programmes, the margin for misinterpretation shrinks further. Oktra needed a way to centralise review feedback, eliminate duplication and maintain a clear audit trail without slowing the pace of design.

Rather than treat each review as a separate exercise, Oktra made a deliberate shift: every drawing would receive one comprehensive markup set that could serve all downstream uses.

“It’s better to do one complete markup that serves all uses, rather than repeating it for each team,” Edwards says.

Designers create a consolidated markup layer within Bluebeam that becomes the authoritative version. As designs evolve, whether adjusting finishes, ceiling layouts or joinery details, those markups are amended cleanly within the pdf rather than crossed out and recreated. On a typical project, that can mean working through around eight rounds of design review, with the same markup set carried forward each time.

“I cannot imagine not having Bluebeam,” says Brad Smart, a senior designer at Oktra. “It has become an everyday part of our workflow.”

Instead of rescanning or rewriting comments, designers refine instructions directly in the document. Notes remain sharp, clear and traceable, even after several rounds of revision.

The result is fewer duplicated comments, clearer communication and less time spent reconciling conflicting versions.

Oktra has also standardised the way comments appear on drawings. Design disciplines use predefined colours to indicate perspective and responsibility. Custom approval stamps record who reviewed what and when.

“Internally and externally, I’ll use an approval stamp,” Smart explains. “For joinery and shop drawings, it shows I’ve reviewed the set and the date it was approved.”

This time stamp does more than create a cleaner document: it also introduces accountability. When drawing packages are issued to clients or subcontractors, Oktra retains a saved copy of the marked-up pdf in a controlled folder structure.

While clarification queries are rare, if something has not materialised on site as expected, the team can refer back to the exact markup and approval date when querying the relevant subcontractor.

For cost managers, the benefit is that quantities, finishes and adjustments are visible in the reviewed document, reducing the need to infer what has changed before preparing enquiries.

In workplace fit-out projects, design intent can shift rapidly. Clients may adjust layouts, finishes or furniture packages during the project. If those changes are not captured cleanly, cost exposure can increase.

By maintaining a controlled markup history, Oktra says rework and site clarifications have been reduced as subcontractors receive clearer instructions from the outset.

Oktra has taken on increasingly complex schemes over the past five years, with greater demands around sustainability, safety and BIM deliverables. As project requirements have grown, the discipline around drawing markups has helped teams maintain clarity.

The firm began with around 30 Bluebeam users. In the past year, that number has more than doubled to nearly 70.

For Edwards, the principle remains straightforward: “If we’re issuing drawings, they need to be clear. We want everyone – cost teams, technical teams, suppliers – to be working from the same understanding.”

In Oktra’s process, that understanding is now held in one controlled document.