Drawing markups after a new revision
Which Procore markups carry forward to a new drawing revision, which do not, and why publishing is still a separate step before the team can see them.
Upload the new revision through the normal upload in the same Procore project and let the tool carry review markups forward. Procore documents that markups from the previous revision are preserved and inherited, with sketches as the exception. Then add two rules of your own: no markups on a revision once a newer one is uploaded, and publish what the team needs to see. This rests on Procore’s “Mark Up a Drawing”, “Drawings”, “Upload Drawing Revisions” and Procore Connect for Drawings FAQ pages.
Will reviewers lose their markups when the next revision lands?
On a drawing-heavy project, a new revision often arrives while review comments are still open. Reviewers have clouded conflicts, pinned punch items and added text notes. The worry is that the upload wipes that work and someone redraws it by hand. Procore’s “Mark Up a Drawing” page says that when you upload a newer revision of the same drawing, all markups except sketches from the previous revision are preserved and inherited by the new drawing. It adds that you should automatically see the same personal and published markups on top of the new revision. The gaps sit in timing, sketches, visibility and connected projects.
How inheritance works, and where it stops
Procore’s “Upload Drawing Revisions” page explains the trigger. You upload revisions the same way as any drawing. Procore recognizes the drawing number as a duplicate and marks it as a revision, which appears under the Revision History of the existing drawing. Markups added to the Private or Personal and Published layer of a previous revision are preserved and inherited by the new revision.
The same page documents two limits. Sketches will not carry over to a new revision upon uploading. Markups added to the old revision after a newer revision is uploaded will not be added to the new revision. We read the trigger to mean that a drawing number Procore does not recognize as a duplicate gives you a new sheet, not a revision with inherited markups.
Uploading revisions takes ‘Admin’ permissions, or ‘Read Only’ or ‘Standard’ permissions with the ‘Upload Drawings’ or ‘Upload and Review Drawings’ granular permission enabled.
Visibility is a separate step. Per “Mark Up a Drawing”, markups you add go to your Personal layer. To make them visible to any user with permission to view drawings on the project, you must publish them to the Published layer, which takes ‘Standard’ or ‘Admin’ permissions. Not all markups can be edited after publishing; to redo one, you delete it and add it again. Imported Bluebeam Studio markups appear as a read-only layer group that cannot be edited, moved or deleted in the Drawings tool.
What changes across connected projects?
The Procore Connect for Drawings FAQ states that drawings sync without markups, and markups made in sending drawings are not copied to the receiving project. The receiving project can add its own markups. Those are retained when the sending project adds a new version, and they are not copied or published back. This means review comments live on one side of the connection only. The habit is the same as in the weeks after an ERP go-live: check what carried over before you trust it.
Do we rely on inheritance or rework markups?
The decision is how much markup continuity you leave to the upload and how much you control by rule. Procore’s “Drawings” page adds one manual route: Copy pastes a markup into a different drawing, at the same coordinates if both drawings have the same dimensions.
| Option | We would choose it when | What we would check first |
|---|---|---|
| Rely on native inheritance | Revisions are uploaded in the same project with stable drawing numbers | That uploads land under Revision History, not as new sheets |
| Inherit, plus a markup cutoff rule | Reviewers keep working on superseded sheets | Who adds markups after a newer revision is uploaded |
| Copy markups manually | Markups sit on a different drawing, such as a renumbered sheet | Whether both drawings have the same dimensions |
| Re-mark in the receiving project | Drawings arrive through Procore Connect | Which side owns the review comments |
What to do this quarter
- Pull ten recent revision uploads and check that each sits under the Revision History of its drawing.
- Name one owner who decides when a superseded revision is closed to new markups.
- Replace open sketches with standard markups before upload, since sketches do not carry over.
- Measure how many personal markups sit unpublished on the governing drawings at each issue date.
- Map which projects receive drawings through Procore Connect and where their markups live.
What this means for a bottleneck worth $1M or more
Markup handling is one step in a wider flow of revisions, RFIs and transmittals. When rework, missed coordination or claims trace back to which drawing governs, the flow is worth redesigning as one domain within project-information operations. Rules handle the predictable, such as numbering and cutoffs. AI handles the messy, such as reading which markups relate to an open RFI. People approve consequential decisions; AI never decides alone. See how we redesign revisions and RFIs.
Limits of this evidence
These pages are Procore vendor documentation. They describe what the Drawings tool and Procore Connect are documented to do, not how often inheritance works as described in practice. They give no data on rework time or coordination effort. They do not cover other document control products. Several features they mention are labeled beta, and the pages do not say how inheritance behaves in those viewers.
Questions buyers ask
Do sketches carry over to a new drawing revision in Procore?
No. Procore's "Upload Drawing Revisions" page says sketches will not carry over to a new revision upon uploading.
Do unpublished personal markups carry forward?
Yes, Procore documents that markups on the Personal and Published layer of a previous revision are preserved and inherited. They still need publishing by a user with 'Standard' or 'Admin' permissions before other project users can see them.
Are markups copied across Procore Connect?
No. The Procore Connect for Drawings FAQ says markups made in sending drawings are not copied, while markups added by the receiving project are retained when the sending project adds a new version.
Sources
Sources give context. Dates show when each was last checked.