The way construction teams mark up drawings hasn't kept up with the way they share them. At Procore Groundbreak 2026, four of us spent two days at the Drawboard booth talking with general contractors, specialty trades, owners, IT leads and Procore consultants.
The same frustrations came up regardless of company size, trade or which PDF tool people used. None of them is about missing features. They are about drawings living in one place while the markup happens somewhere else.
Most teams we met keep their drawings in Procore. When the work calls for serious markup, though, the drawing leaves. One project manager named the routine as one of their biggest frustrations: "you have to download, make your edits, and then re-upload."
Every round trip adds another copy. A project lead at a commercial builder said the team ends up with "four or five versions of the same thing," and keeping them coordinated becomes a headache of its own.
Procore's built-in markup handles quick notes in the field. As soon as a job needs measurements, layers or a proper review set, people reach for something else, and that's where the download loop starts. See how Drawboard works with Procore.
Session-based collaboration was built for a time when files sat on someone's desktop. Someone opens a session, invites people, and has to close it before the markups go anywhere. An operations lead at a fire protection contractor pointed out the catch: "It's not until they close that session that it pushes [to Procore]."
Because sessions take managing, teams ration them. A project executive at a developer told us they don't want to let too many people in, which defeats the point of collaborating.
What people described wanting sounded more like a shared document than a meeting room. A Procore implementation consultant put it simply: "it's like Google Docs, the live document," with one set everyone sees and no session to open or close.
Supers and field engineers work on tablets. They want to tag a deficiency, attach a photo and move on. One project manager summed up the gap: "I don't need ninety percent of what [our desktop tool] is selling," just something that works well on an iPad.
When the desktop tool doesn't fit, the field falls back to whatever is closest to hand. An IT lead at an industrial contractor said many of their field staff never open the markup tool at all, because Adobe opens automatically. At a contractor with about 1,000 field staff, an operations lead told us some crews still mark up paper and are "literally taking a picture of it and emailing it."
When on your iPad or iPhone, use our native iOS App for the best Drawboard Projects markup and review experience. Mark up with ink using your Apple Pencil, and download drawings to work offline while you're onsite.
More teams than we expected run on Macs, from small builders to some of the largest companies at the show. The construction PDF standard is Windows-first, so Mac users improvise. One project manager said the only way to use it is to "run a virtual Windows machine on our Macs."
Others pay for licenses they never touch. A team lead at a construction firm told us they renew every year out of habit, then avoid the software because it doesn't suit a Mac.
Explore the Drawboard iOS app.
Many companies buy a seat for everyone, then find only a fraction use it properly. One contractor holds more than 500 licenses with perhaps 150 to 200 regular users. Another said only four of their 120 licence holders use the tool well. A technology lead at a general contractor with about 225 licenses put it bluntly: "I would bet you half of our users don't use it to its full capacity."
Managing those seats is its own job. An operations manager with 42 seats said none of them renew at the same time, and asked for them to be consolidated. Others mentioned old perpetual licenses that new hires can't use and prices that rise at renewal. For IT and finance, the cost isn't only the seat price. It's the time spent managing seats nobody opens. Learn more about Drawboard pricing.
A drawing set is only useful if everyone on the project can see and comment on it. When each collaborator needs a paid licence, teams fall back to emailing PDFs. A project manager at a general contractor described what happens next: "Nothing's ever synced," so they overlay a colleague's red lines on their own or go through them page by page. A project engineer called the cycle of sending a markup set out, then on to the engineers, simply "painful."
When we showed that guests can mark up for free, the reaction was consistent. People compared it to inviting someone to a Procore project: no extra cost, no extra account.
The teams we met don't want another place to put drawings. They want markup that lives where the drawings already are, works on the device in their hand, and includes everyone on the project without a licence for each.
That's what we're building Drawboard to do. If any of this sounds like your team, start a free trial or book a 20-minute walkthrough and bring your messiest drawing set.
The way construction teams mark up drawings hasn't kept up with the way they share them. At Procore Groundbreak 2026, four of us spent two days at the Drawboard booth talking with general contractors, specialty trades, owners, IT leads and Procore consultants.
The same frustrations came up regardless of company size, trade or which PDF tool people used. None of them is about missing features. They are about drawings living in one place while the markup happens somewhere else.
Most teams we met keep their drawings in Procore. When the work calls for serious markup, though, the drawing leaves. One project manager named the routine as one of their biggest frustrations: "you have to download, make your edits, and then re-upload."
Every round trip adds another copy. A project lead at a commercial builder said the team ends up with "four or five versions of the same thing," and keeping them coordinated becomes a headache of its own.
Procore's built-in markup handles quick notes in the field. As soon as a job needs measurements, layers or a proper review set, people reach for something else, and that's where the download loop starts. See how Drawboard works with Procore.
Session-based collaboration was built for a time when files sat on someone's desktop. Someone opens a session, invites people, and has to close it before the markups go anywhere. An operations lead at a fire protection contractor pointed out the catch: "It's not until they close that session that it pushes [to Procore]."
Because sessions take managing, teams ration them. A project executive at a developer told us they don't want to let too many people in, which defeats the point of collaborating.
What people described wanting sounded more like a shared document than a meeting room. A Procore implementation consultant put it simply: "it's like Google Docs, the live document," with one set everyone sees and no session to open or close.
Supers and field engineers work on tablets. They want to tag a deficiency, attach a photo and move on. One project manager summed up the gap: "I don't need ninety percent of what [our desktop tool] is selling," just something that works well on an iPad.
When the desktop tool doesn't fit, the field falls back to whatever is closest to hand. An IT lead at an industrial contractor said many of their field staff never open the markup tool at all, because Adobe opens automatically. At a contractor with about 1,000 field staff, an operations lead told us some crews still mark up paper and are "literally taking a picture of it and emailing it."
When on your iPad or iPhone, use our native iOS App for the best Drawboard Projects markup and review experience. Mark up with ink using your Apple Pencil, and download drawings to work offline while you're onsite.
More teams than we expected run on Macs, from small builders to some of the largest companies at the show. The construction PDF standard is Windows-first, so Mac users improvise. One project manager said the only way to use it is to "run a virtual Windows machine on our Macs."
Others pay for licenses they never touch. A team lead at a construction firm told us they renew every year out of habit, then avoid the software because it doesn't suit a Mac.
Explore the Drawboard iOS app.
Many companies buy a seat for everyone, then find only a fraction use it properly. One contractor holds more than 500 licenses with perhaps 150 to 200 regular users. Another said only four of their 120 licence holders use the tool well. A technology lead at a general contractor with about 225 licenses put it bluntly: "I would bet you half of our users don't use it to its full capacity."
Managing those seats is its own job. An operations manager with 42 seats said none of them renew at the same time, and asked for them to be consolidated. Others mentioned old perpetual licenses that new hires can't use and prices that rise at renewal. For IT and finance, the cost isn't only the seat price. It's the time spent managing seats nobody opens. Learn more about Drawboard pricing.
A drawing set is only useful if everyone on the project can see and comment on it. When each collaborator needs a paid licence, teams fall back to emailing PDFs. A project manager at a general contractor described what happens next: "Nothing's ever synced," so they overlay a colleague's red lines on their own or go through them page by page. A project engineer called the cycle of sending a markup set out, then on to the engineers, simply "painful."
When we showed that guests can mark up for free, the reaction was consistent. People compared it to inviting someone to a Procore project: no extra cost, no extra account.
The teams we met don't want another place to put drawings. They want markup that lives where the drawings already are, works on the device in their hand, and includes everyone on the project without a licence for each.
That's what we're building Drawboard to do. If any of this sounds like your team, start a free trial or book a 20-minute walkthrough and bring your messiest drawing set.
We are a PDF and collaboration company. We believe that creating more effective connections between people reduces waste.
Our best work has been overtaken by busywork. That’s why we’ve created ways to help people get back to working wonders without any paper in sight.
Drawboard PDF lets you mark up and share with ease, and Drawboard Projects brings collaborative design review to architecture and engineering teams.
At Drawboard, we work our magic so our customers can get back to working theirs.
We are a PDF and collaboration company. We believe that creating more effective connections between people reduces waste.
Our best work has been overtaken by busywork. That’s why we’ve created ways to help people get back to working wonders without any paper in sight.
Drawboard PDF lets you mark up and share with ease, and Drawboard Projects brings collaborative design review to architecture and engineering teams.
At Drawboard, we work our magic so our customers can get back to working theirs.
