After a project is won, it can be very useful for the construction team in the field to have the plans and takeoff information created during the estimating process.
Having this information can save time and help with budget management - the field team won't have to spend time measuring the same plans and will know what materials and quantities have been budgeted for the project.
You can easily upload plans from STACK to SmartUse to access your preconstruction plan information throughout the construction phase. Find out how below.
What to Know Before You Get Started
*This feature is available if you have a paid STACK account and are an Owner, Administrator, or Power Collaborator + Documents on a SmartUse account.
You can upload plans from STACK but not documents.
If a project has been "Shared" with you in STACK, you can't upload it to SmartUse.
You can upload 100 files at a time. If you have more than that, you just need to upload in batches.
Make sure to add any notes, legends or other information that you want to see in SmartUse before uploading your files from STACK. Takeoffs, markups and legends will be flattened and you will not be able to edit them in SmartUse.
Uploaded files do not sync moving forward. Any changes made in STACK after the upload will not transfer to the SmartUse file. You will need to upload the file again to capture the changes.
Note: This feature is not currently supported when using the Safari-Apple web browser. While we work to address this issue, you can use Chrome, Firefox or Edge as your browser, or you can download your plan files as PDFs from STACK and manually upload them to SmartUse.
Upload Plans from STACK to SmartUse
Log in to SmartUse and set up your project and project folders.
Note: It’s important to create the folder structure before uploading your plans. All files will be uploaded into that folder; the STACK folder structure is not retained.Go to Upload.
Select Drawings or Documents.
Drawings: Plans will become higher-resolution Revisions organized with the official record sets.
Documents: Files will be uploaded at the existing resolution as a PDF reference set.
Click on the STACK button on the left and log in to STACK when prompted.
Click on the project containing the plans you want to upload. (You can only upload plans from one STACK project at a time.)
*If you have projects in the 'Won' status, they will automatically be filtered.
You can filter by other Project Status or search for projects using the Search bar.
Expand the Plans folder and select the plans you want to upload.
*Plans with takeoffs (designated with a compass icon) are automatically pre-selected but you can de-select them and select other plans.
Click NEXT and the upload process will begin.
*The time it takes to load files will vary depending on number and size of files. DO NOT close your browser during this time; it will stop all transfers and you will have to restart the upload process from the beginning.
Choose your Version Set Information.
*Create New Version Set is selected by default and pre-populated with “Plans from STACK” and the current date/time but can be changed.
Click NEXT.
Edit info as needed in Review.
*STACK plan names are retained during upload. If multiple files are uploaded with the same name, SmartUse will add a number to the name to differentiate them... XXX (1), XXX (2). You can change the file names during this step.
To use hyperlinking in SmartUse, plan names should be something like "A101" or "A-101". If you have longer plan names like “A101-First Floor Plan”, we recommend that you rename or extract names during this step. Titles can also be extracted.
Select users to Notify and complete the upload.