Revision Management is now live in SketchDeck (formerly LIFT). It automates the manual work of comparing drawing sets, updating takeoffs, and documenting what changed, so fabricators and erectors can respond to rebids and change orders in minutes instead of hours.
Why Revisions Are So Painful
Revisions are part of every steel project. An addendum lands mid-bid. A change order comes through after award. An RFI triggers a drawing update mid-project. Each one forces the same interruption: stop what you’re doing, find the revised drawing set, compare it to the one you already worked from, and figure out what actually changed.
On average, it takes around four to five bid cycles to win a job, and that doesn’t include post-award change orders. Every one of those cycles ends with the same manual comparison work, under deadline pressure, while the rest of the pipeline keeps moving.
And it’s not only estimators feeling it. Project managers and contract administrators live in the same revision cycle after award, when change orders and RFIs keep coming and the quantities need to stay accurate for billing and procurement.
For most teams, this means hours of manual comparison, an incomplete audit trail of what changed, and the constant risk of pricing at the wrong number because something slipped through.
What Revision Management Does
Revision Management automates the full cycle: identifying changes between drawing versions, updating the takeoff, and generating the documentation you need to bid or respond to change orders at the right price.
Upload a revised drawing set and SketchDeck compares it to your previous version. Every added, removed, or changed member gets flagged. Your previous work carries forward. You review only what’s different. See the full Revision Management overview.
The core capabilities
Version comparison. Add a new version to an existing job, upload the revised drawings, and arrange the pages to produce a complete revised set. SketchDeck handles the version history automatically.
AI-powered change detection. Rather than transferring markups manually or re-analyzing from scratch, SketchDeck compares the two drawing sets and makes the changes for you. Processing takes roughly one to two minutes per page.
Quantity panel with change status. Every member in the takeoff is marked as added, changed, or deducted. You see the full picture of what moved between versions without hunting for it.
Overlay validation. Turn on the overlay to visually confirm the changes SketchDeck identified. Hover over a member to see a record of what changed, for example, from W250x33 to W360x33.
Page alignment tools. When pages don’t align perfectly between drawing versions, a combination of click-and-drag and keyboard controls lets you fix alignment quickly to ensure accurate comparison.
Delta Report with tonnage summaries. A built-in summary shows net tonnage added, deducted, and changed by member type. On one beta job, this surfaced 150 tons added, 90 tons deducted, and just over 200 tons removed as the net change of moving to lighter members, all directly from the export.
BOM export with change status. Every line item in the exported BOM includes its status (added, changed, or deducted), giving downstream teams a clean record of what moved. The export is built to align with Tekla PowerFab and common internal estimation workflows.
What This Means for Your Team
For estimators, revisions stop eating hours. A revised drawing set comes in, SketchDeck processes it, and the updated takeoff is ready to review in minutes. No more rebuilding quantities from scratch to catch what changed.
For project managers and contract administrators, post-award change orders and RFIs become tractable. The quantities stay current, the audit trail is automatic, and billing and procurement have the documentation they need without a separate scramble.
For the business, rebids and change orders can be turned around at the right price, with confidence, instead of with whatever could be pulled together under deadline pressure.
Built with Customers, For Customers
Revisions have been the single most-requested feature in SketchDeck for over a year. Almost every estimator we sit with brings it up unprompted. We heard it enough times to know it was costing customers real money across the entire life of the project.
Several of our customers have been running Revision Management in beta for the past several months on real projects with real deadlines. Their feedback pushed us in directions we wouldn’t have gotten to on our own, and shaped what we’re shipping today.
The real credit for this release goes to them. To the customers who kept raising their hand, kept telling us where the pain was, and kept giving us feedback on the early builds. That’s how good products get made.
Next Steps
Revision Management is available for every SketchDeck customer, new and existing. Reach out to your CSM or contact us to get access.
We’re showing it live this week at NASCC 2026 in Atlanta. Stop by Booth #1127 to learn more.
Book a demo to see Revision Management on your own project drawings.
