Upload and manage plans for a job

Plans and files holds the plan sets, specs, permits and addenda that come with a job: a general contractor’s drawings, a city’s work order, a bid package. Each file is kept on the request, quote or job and on the property, so next year’s sealcoat or restripe at the same lot already has the striping plan.

With Drive installed, every one of these files also shows in Drive, under Clients, next to your company’s own folders.

Add plans

Open a request, a quote, a job or a client and find Plans and files. Choose Add files, or drag files onto the card. PDFs and pictures of plans are the usual ones, but any file works, up to 200 MB each.

• On a request: files the client sent with the request, or ones you add. They go on the quote you make from the request (and on the job if you convert the request straight to a job).
• On a quote: add the bid documents. When the quote becomes a job, its files go on the job too. A change order’s files go on the job once the change order is approved.
• On a job: add plan sheets, specs or permits for the work.
• On a client: files kept with one of their properties. With more than one property, Add files asks which one.

Each file is named after its file name. Choose ⋯ then Edit details to rename it, add the Revision printed on the plans (like “Rev B” or “Issued for construction”), or leave Notes for the crew such as which sheets are for paving.

A job also shows the files kept with its property from earlier work, under At this property.

Files go up in small pieces, so a big plan set gets through on a slow or patchy connection, and carries on where it stopped if the connection drops. You can move on to another screen while it uploads. Its progress shows at the bottom of the screen: press it to see each file, with Cancel.

Open and mark up files

Choose a file, or Open in its ⋯ menu, to see it in Crewtavo. PDFs, Word documents (.docx) and pictures open right there. Anything else can be downloaded.

To mark up a PDF or fill in its form, or to change a Word document, choose Edit in the file’s menu. The office and crew leads can edit. PDFs get Highlight, Text and Draw. When you’re done, choose Save as new version. The edit becomes the current version and the one you opened is kept underneath it, so nothing is ever written over.

Let clients send plans with a request

A general contractor or a city can attach their plan set when they ask for a bid. Add a question for it to a booking form:

1. Open Settings → Online booking, then a form’s ⋯ menu and Edit form.
2. Choose Add question, name it (for example “Site plans, if you have them”) and pick Files (plans, PDFs) as the answer type. Photos takes pictures only.
3. Choose Save form.

The form then has an Add files button (or Add photos), and people can drop files on it too: up to 10 files a request, 200 MB each. The request goes in first, then the files upload while the page shows how far along they are. If a file doesn’t come through, the request still does, and the page asks them to email that file instead.

The files show on the request under Plans and files, and the request’s answers list which files came with each question.

New versions

When the general contractor sends revised sheets, open the file’s ⋯ menu and choose Upload a new version. The new file becomes the current one and the old one is kept underneath it: choose older versions to open or download it.

Crews only ever see the current version, so nobody paves to an old set. If you upload a version by mistake, choose Move this version to Trash in the file’s menu, and the version before it becomes the current one again.

Tip

Everyone on an upcoming visit for the job is told when a new file or version is added, in their schedule notifications.

Who sees what

• The office (owners, admins, office staff and estimators) sees every file and every version.
• Crew leads see the current files marked for the crew, and can add files, new versions and edits from the job.
• Crews see the current files marked for the crew on the jobs and properties they have visits at, including a request’s files when they’re on its assessment visit.

To keep a file from the crew, like a bid form with your prices on it, choose ⋯ then Make it office only. Archive puts away a file nobody needs anymore without deleting it.

Delete a file

Choose ⋯ then Move to Trash. The file goes to the Trash with all its versions. If the crew could see it, they stop seeing it straight away. Undo in the message puts it back. After that, anyone who can see it in the Trash can restore it for 30 days. See The Trash.

The office can move any file to the Trash. A crew lead can move a file they added while it has just one version, or take back a version they added with Move this version to Trash.

On the crew’s phone

A visit shows its Plans under the work to do. Open shows the plan in Crewtavo on the phone, and the download button saves it to the phone, so it can be opened at a site with no signal from the phone’s Files or Downloads.

Put a plan on the map

On a new site, the aerial picture still shows a field or the old building, so there’s nothing to measure. Lay the site plan over the map instead and draw on it:

1. From the file’s ⋯ menu, choose Put on the map. Or open Measure from the property or quote and pick a plan under Plan on the map. For a PDF with several sheets, choose the Page.
2. Line it up. Measure walks you through four taps: a spot on the plan you can also find on the aerial, like a building corner, curb corner or the end of a drive; the same spot on the aerial; then a second spot far from the first, on the plan and on the aerial.
3. Check the scale. Crewtavo shows the scale the plan lined up at, like “Lined up at 1 in = 30 ft”. It should match the scale printed on the plan. If it’s off, choose Line it up again with spots farther apart.
4. Draw with Area, Line and Count as usual. Sizes come from the map, so they’re right once the plan is lined up.

See-through fades the plan. Show the white paper turned off shows just the plan’s lines on the aerial. The plan and where it lines up are saved with the drawing, and the picture saved with it shows the plan too.

Large files

Each file can be up to 200 MB. A file bigger than your Crewtavo accepts shows a message saying so. Because files go up in pieces, a proxy in front of your Crewtavo that caps a request at 100 MB, like Cloudflare’s free plan, doesn’t stop a big plan set. Big plan sets are often easier to work with split into a few smaller PDFs, and most PDF readers can save a range of pages as their own file.

Crewtavo instances set up before October 2026 accept files up to 50 MB. On Railway, an owner or admin who adds a file that’s too big sees Raise the limit in the message. Choose it, then Raise to 200 MB: Crewtavo changes the setting on Railway for you and restarts file storage, which takes about a minute. It needs Crewtavo’s connection to Railway; if that isn’t set up, the button says to connect it first under Settings → Web address (one press of Allow on Railway).

To do it by hand on Railway instead:

1. Open your Crewtavo project on Railway and choose the storage service.
2. Open Variables, and set FILE_SIZE_LIMIT to 209715200.
3. Choose Deploy to apply the change. Storage restarts in under a minute.

With Docker, update your copy of Crewtavo and run npm run instance again: the new limit comes with it.

Note

Files share space with photos and receipts. On Railway’s Hobby plan, the file storage volume holds 5 GB; the Pro plan starts at 50 GB. A Railway bucket has no size to outgrow and costs a tenth as much, and Crewtavo can move your files there for you. When your company’s storage limit is reached, new plan files are turned away until there’s room, but crews’ visit photos and receipts always go through. See Manage storage space.