How many places does one drawing live in your office?

Try this with one drawing from a live job. Count every place a copy of it exists right now.

Here's what we usually find:

• The email it arrived in, and every reply that quoted it.
• The project folder on the server.
• The model folder, saved again as a reference.
• Somebody's Downloads folder, opened "just to have a quick look".
• The site WhatsApp group, as a photo of a printout.
• A printed copy on the wall, covered in red pen.
• The client's portal, which may or may not match any of the above.

Every one of those copies was right on the day it arrived. The trouble starts when one of them changes and the others don't.

Why it matters more than it sounds

A second copy isn't a problem. Not knowing which copy is current is. That's how a connection gets detailed to Revision B while the client is looking at Revision C, and how a quote gets priced on a scope that moved last Tuesday.

Nobody in that story did anything wrong. The information just lived in too many places.

What we did about it

In Redpen, each job keeps its enquiry, drawings, quote and every revision, RFIs and variations together. When someone asks "which one did we send them?", the answer is on the job, not in somebody's inbox.

Tell us yours

We're running this as a poll on LinkedIn this week: one place, two or three, four or more, or please don't ask. Vote, then tell us the strangest place you've found a drawing. We'll share what you told us.

See how Redpen keeps a job together.