Reviewing at a firm

This guide is for a reviewer at a consulting firm: someone a project's owner has invited to mark up drawings. If you know Bluebeam Revu or Acrobat, you already know most of it. Circulate runs in your web browser; there is nothing to install.

Go to getcirculate.ca and choose Sign in.
If your firm has set up Microsoft sign-in, choose Sign in with Microsoft and you are in. Otherwise type your work email in Email and choose Send sign-in link.
Open the mail, follow its link and choose Continue. You see the Projects page with the projects you were invited to.

2. Open a review stage

Choose a project. Its page shows your role, its revisions and its Stages.
Choose an open stage. The review screen opens: the drawing in the middle, the Sheets panel on the left, the Properties panel on the right and the Markups list along the bottom. The title bar shows the stage, the revision and Back to the project.
Choose a sheet in the Sheets panel to open it.

The ribbon at the top works like Office's: File, Home, Markup, Measure, Review and View. If it takes too much room, choose Show tabs only (Ctrl+F1) from the ribbon's display menu on the right.

3. Mark up

The Markup tab has the tools, in the groups you know:

Comment: Callout, Note and Text Box.
Text: Highlight, Underline and Strikethrough, for text on the sheet.
Shapes: Cloud, Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Line and Arrow.
Draw: Pen and Stamp.
Measure: Length, Area and Count.

Choose a tool, or press its key (C for Cloud, Q for Callout; all keys are on the keyboard shortcuts page).
Draw on the sheet. Rectangles, ellipses, lines and arrows are dragged. For a Cloud, Polygon or Area, click each corner; to finish, click the first corner again (the pointer snaps onto it when you are close) or double-click. The markup appears with your name and discipline, and everyone in the stage sees it at once.
Choose Select (or press V) to stop drawing. Click a markup to select it, drag to move it, and press Delete to remove it.

To measure, the sheet needs its scale first: on the Measure tab, choose Calibrate, click two points a known distance apart, type the Real length, pick the units and choose Save scale. Until then the measure tools stay off on that sheet.

4. Statuses and replies

Select a markup to see it in the Properties panel.

Type in Reply and choose Send (or press Enter) to answer it. Everyone in the stage sees the reply under the markup.
Set its Status. The choices are your organisation's, from Open, Accepted, Rejected, Resolved, Deferred and N/A. You can also right-click a markup and choose Set status.
Discipline, Severity and Reference (for example a bylaw section) help others filter the list. Timeline shows who changed what, and when.

You can add markups and reply anywhere. You can move, change, delete and set the status of your own discipline's markups; the project's owner can change any of them.

5. Undo and Redo

Undo takes back your last markup change; Redo does it again. Other people's changes are never undone.

Undo and Redo are in the title bar, next to the stage's name, on every tab.
They are also the first group on the Markup tab, and in the Edit group on the Home tab.
Or press Ctrl+Z to undo and Ctrl+Y to redo.

Hover over Undo to see what it will take back, such as "Undo move cloud (Ctrl+Z)".

6. Find comments with filters

The Markups list shows the comments with their sheet, type, author, discipline and status.

Choose This sheet or All sheets.
Narrow the list with Filter by status, Filter by discipline, Filter by author, Filter by sheet or Filter by severity, or type in Search text, reference, author.
Click a row to go to that markup on its sheet.

Press Alt+L to show or hide the list, and Alt+T for the Sheets panel.

7. Compare revisions

On the Home tab, choose Compare revisions.
Pick the two revisions to compare.
Choose Side by side, or Overlay to see one over the other: what is only in the first revision shows red, what is only in the second shows blue, and what is in both shows near-black.

8. When the stage is issued

When the owner closes the stage, it becomes read-only: nothing in it can change any more. Circulate writes its record: the review letter, the comment list (Excel and CSV), and the sheets with every markup. On the Review tab, Stage record opens it, and the owner can send it to the city and the applicant by email. Comments not yet Resolved or N/A can be carried into the next stage when the owner opens it.

Working in Circulate for Windows

If you have Circulate for Windows, Open in Circulate for Windows in the title bar opens the same review there. See Circulate for Windows.