Bluebeam vs. Revver

As stated before, the mobile application is a great companion to the desktop version. Either one works great in viewing, editing and saving documents. While the measurement tool is handy to have, we have found the precision to be lacking when measuring scaled drawings (construction design drawings). While it is a good rough place to start for measurements, we wouldn't recommend relying on the precision of the measurements taken on something with a very large scale.

Incentivized

Great if your field requires copious amounts of paperwork, and you want to get rid of the clutter and stress of dealing with physical paperwork. With the size of our organization (about 8 people), we were borderline on whether the cost would be worthwhile, but even for our group we've found the enhanced workflow and eSignature function to be very valuable. I would think for groups smaller than ours the cost would likely not be worth it.

Incentivized

• Overlaying pdf drawings to identify changes made by architects.
• Scaling dimensions when the architect has not provided required dimensions to proceed with work in the field.
• Hyperlinking construction documents with required information makes it much easier to look through multiple sheets in less time.

Incentivized

• The ability to set restrictions on documents sent out or stored in the system is one great strong suit of eFileCabinet.
• It gives us the confidence that our documents are safe.
• eFileCabinet has excellent technical support. When needed, I can call or email them and the problem is usually solved in that moment or that day. They have also worked directly with our IT Support Service to get things set up on our server.
• The search features are frequently used by me. You can limit where the search takes place, and even search within a search to narrow down your results. The side panel lets you preview the documents as well so most often I don't even need to fully open a document to get the information I need.

Incentivized

• If you have several tabs open and you try to drag one out for a side by side view then you do not have all the modification options and you have to combine them back together.
• There is a lag time when hitting the print option.
• There is also a lag time when opening files, sometimes I think the window is frozen.
• I wish the basic version also had basic file editing, as in editing a document as Adobe does.

Incentivized

• eFileCabinet's sidekick app can sometimes stop working on the printer side with Windows updates. It's getting better and less problematic, but it would be nice for support to push out notices to the customers when they know they have bugs in the software.
• The sidekick app would be nice if it had a "full size mode" and the "smaller / simple mode" so that you don't have to run the browser and sidekick together. This is confusing for our users as they might want the advanced functionality of the website browser efilecabinet instead of the minimal sidekick app.
• Have auto refresh on sidekick and the browser so that if you make changes in the browser eFileCabinet, the sidekick will update automatically. This is very confusing for our users and should be an included feature in 2019.
• Mac Sidekick App shouldn't be in beta after 2-3 years. This is sad to see :(

Incentivized

Bluebeam is a powerful PDF viewer and mark-up tool. We are more familiar with it than Adobe Acrobat Pro or other viewers, and it has more features geared towards construction document managers than Acrobat Pro does.

Incentivized

We do not have any issues with eFile Cabinet. It has become just part of our daily life - finish files and projects and save all the documentation here. Need to research? Find it in eFile. I personally cannot imagine my job without it.

Incentivized

I'm constantly finding that Bluebeam Revu does more than I knew it could. And when I find something that it can't do, I've found that Bluebeam truly listens to its user base and will work to incorporate any good suggestion when feasible.

Incentivized

eFileCabinet gets the job done and is fairly easy to use once you find a few workarounds and understand how the software works. Using the browser interface next to the desktop sidekick app is needed when it should all be included in a single app. Users always wonder "why do I have to open both the browser and the sidekick interfaces to do a simple task". Basically one does what the other doesn't do and Sidekick is needing to be open regardless for the printer/scanner upload functions, but is limited on what you can do compared to the browser interface. The mac Sidekick is still in beta and makes me wonder how much longer it will be supported or updated...

Incentivized

The software loads very quickly, their servers are great. The software can be a tad buggy or quirky at times but it gets the job done which is why it's an 8 out of 10 rating. Their desktop printer and scanner software could use an update so that windows updates don't break it from time to time too.

Incentivized

Its hard for me to give a rating on this one as we rarely have to use the support feature for Bluebeam. However, when we have used it, they have been ultra supportive in helping us get exactly what we needed. I know another engineer was trying to figure out a feature and the rep gave a detailed tutorial on how to complete the task

Incentivized

It makes workflow so much easier, including the ability to save in the cloud makes it accessible from anywhere. I save very little on our server now which means this also makes filing more secure. I literally save and research via the platform several times a day.

Incentivized

I don't know as it happened before I started working here

Incentivized

Bluebeam is a diverse program with many functions and tools, whereas competitive programs only specialize in one or few tasks. Although there are many tools within the program, users can still quickly learn how to use the program to best fit their needs. There is always a help tab for any assistance needed.

Incentivized

eFileCabinet is much better of a digital document solution than a file storage solution like Dropbox Business or Box.com. It is more secure, it is more friendlier to use for documents as it's viewed as file cabinets and file cabinet drawers and individual folders that contain the files. This makes it easy for your departments to convert over to a digital paperless solution easier. Thomson Reuters is in a different league and is much more expensive but does what eFileCabinet doesn't, in my previous references of missing software features, buggy software, and learning curves, but overall we use eFileCabinet because it's ROI and value is just that much better for us.

Incentivized

• A major positive aspect is being able to take your computer home without taking the entire set of paper drawings. They have made it so easy to navigate a set of drawings that I can work at home using only the digital drawings.
• Collaboration with owners and architects has been a great feature. Setting up a Bluebeam studio and having everyone get in and mark things up, then having the architect be able to go in and see what markups have been added, has made the constructability review process much much better.
• Even when not working on drawings, Bluebeam is a very good tool for working with standard PDF documents. The markup tools are very easy to use.
• The negative aspect is the takeoff function because some people would like estimators to use the Bluebeam takeoff because it would make their job easier down the road; however, the actual act of doing a full scale takeoff in Bluebeam would require much more time.

Incentivized

• Pricing is budget friendly.
• Pay only for the number of users you need. I needed 2, so I pay for 2. Other DMS programs come with up to 5 users and charge accordingly. This gives me the flexibility to grow my business at my rate - not someone else's.

Incentivized