jar546
Forum Coordinator
By itself, Bluebeam is a great tool for contractors, design professionals, estimators and of course plans examiners. It is, however, only a great tool when it works. Stand alone Bluebeam works rather well but they are having more problems with Bluebeam Sessions, especially when they integrate with other software platforms whether or not those platforms are web-based. For the past 3 years we have struggled with Bluebeam's Application Programming Interface, otherwise known as API. Bluebeam's API is the Achilles heel of its platform.
For over 3 years we have struggled with Bluebeam's API with the permitting software we use. When it is working, it is a great system. PDF files are checked out from your permitting software, you place markups, stamps and text boxes. When you check it back in, all of those deficiency comments you wrote up come back into your permitting software and are automatically placed in your report. It's like magic. Like magic when it works. When it doesn't work because of Bluebeam's API it becomes a nightmare.
Imagine spending 4 hours meticulously going over architectural drawings, finding problem and placing markups. All of that time spend typing out comments, referencing code sections is a lot of work. Then imagine you go to check those drawings back into your permitting software and Bluebeam's API faults. Maybe on a few files came back, but not all. Now all of those comments you typed up, you have to go back to Bluebeam, try to remember where they were and they retype them in your permitting software manually. It more than doubles your work load. Now you have to save all of the documents you marked up in Bluebeam to your local machine and upload those marked up files to your permitting software. This is the most inefficient way for a workflow to function.
Now imagine that your report this to Bluebeam and your integration software and nothing changes for over two weeks. You now spend two weeks manually reviewing and retyping your work. In today's day and age, it is hard to believe that companies can simply be down for two weeks or more in a row without a fix. In our case, it was a band aid that allowed us function semi-normally for a few days trying to get caught up with ten and twelve hour days. After a few days of somewhat normalcy, the problems started all over again. For us, this started on July 3rd and continues to today, August 11th. That is about six weeks without the system working as designed and advertised.
At one point, two weeks in, I reached out to the CEO of Bluebeam North America who put a team in contact with me. Five minutes before our Zoom meeting the first band aid was put in place. Now that we are continuing to have issues into the sixth week, knowing not on the CEO but many other heavy hitters are aware of the problem, I don't have any confidence in Bluebeam and we are actively looking for an alternative. I have been in contact with three different permitting software companies that are also looking to integrate with products other than Bluebeam.
In my opinion, I think they may have grown too large, too fast without the ability to service their customers and keep their product operational. Bluebeam's inability to react to major integration issues and frequent down time in Bluebeam Studio leads me to believe they have peaked and it time for the competition to pounce on their inadequacies. The good news is that there are other options to choose from and apparently at the very least a few permitting software companies looking for alternatives.
So if you think want to integrate your permitting software with Bluebeam. I'd think twice.
For over 3 years we have struggled with Bluebeam's API with the permitting software we use. When it is working, it is a great system. PDF files are checked out from your permitting software, you place markups, stamps and text boxes. When you check it back in, all of those deficiency comments you wrote up come back into your permitting software and are automatically placed in your report. It's like magic. Like magic when it works. When it doesn't work because of Bluebeam's API it becomes a nightmare.
Imagine spending 4 hours meticulously going over architectural drawings, finding problem and placing markups. All of that time spend typing out comments, referencing code sections is a lot of work. Then imagine you go to check those drawings back into your permitting software and Bluebeam's API faults. Maybe on a few files came back, but not all. Now all of those comments you typed up, you have to go back to Bluebeam, try to remember where they were and they retype them in your permitting software manually. It more than doubles your work load. Now you have to save all of the documents you marked up in Bluebeam to your local machine and upload those marked up files to your permitting software. This is the most inefficient way for a workflow to function.
Now imagine that your report this to Bluebeam and your integration software and nothing changes for over two weeks. You now spend two weeks manually reviewing and retyping your work. In today's day and age, it is hard to believe that companies can simply be down for two weeks or more in a row without a fix. In our case, it was a band aid that allowed us function semi-normally for a few days trying to get caught up with ten and twelve hour days. After a few days of somewhat normalcy, the problems started all over again. For us, this started on July 3rd and continues to today, August 11th. That is about six weeks without the system working as designed and advertised.
At one point, two weeks in, I reached out to the CEO of Bluebeam North America who put a team in contact with me. Five minutes before our Zoom meeting the first band aid was put in place. Now that we are continuing to have issues into the sixth week, knowing not on the CEO but many other heavy hitters are aware of the problem, I don't have any confidence in Bluebeam and we are actively looking for an alternative. I have been in contact with three different permitting software companies that are also looking to integrate with products other than Bluebeam.
In my opinion, I think they may have grown too large, too fast without the ability to service their customers and keep their product operational. Bluebeam's inability to react to major integration issues and frequent down time in Bluebeam Studio leads me to believe they have peaked and it time for the competition to pounce on their inadequacies. The good news is that there are other options to choose from and apparently at the very least a few permitting software companies looking for alternatives.
So if you think want to integrate your permitting software with Bluebeam. I'd think twice.
