User guide/Sharing & Guests
Module 11
Sharing & Guests
Nobody outside your firm needs a seat. Everything that leaves LODE leaves on the record — a link you can name, track, and revoke — and every outside party works through one: share links, transmittals, personal review links, or a single-document grant.
11.1 · Orientation
The ways out of LODE
| Surface | What it carries | Where it’s made |
|---|---|---|
| Share link | One or more compiled documents, view and optionally download. | Files › Outputs · the viewer’s file browser · any CA/financial record’s Share |
| Transmittal | A formal send — each recipient gets a personal link, and every open is logged. | Send on a compiled output |
| Issuance link | An issuance’s drawings, specs, and narrative as one package. | Share on an issuance card |
| Review link | A personal, identity-carrying door into the review room, scoped by access class. | Share issuance › Review links for the team |
| Document grant | Exactly one document — a sheet that stays current, or a sealed record copy. | Minted by answering an RFI or sending a submittal |
Elsewhere in the guide: the GC’s standing door is the contractor portal, bidders work the bid room, and punch walks travel by punch link.
11.2 · Share links
Share links
On any compiled output in Files › Outputs (formerly Issuance archive), Share link mints the link and copies it to your clipboard in one click. Share options first, if you want them: include the sheet index, include the diff view, allow download — and on the grouped Field Set / Revision Record Set bundles, exactly which documents ride along. Sharing from a CA or financial record adds an expiry choice (7 / 30 / 90 days or none) and freezes the documents as they are now — “markups added later won’t appear in it; share again to send the newer state.”
The recipient meets an identification card first — “Who’s accessing this document?” “Let the architect know it’s you. Your information will only be shared with the project team.” It’s a courtesy, not a lock: continuing without filling it in logs an anonymous visitor.
Every link the project has issued lives in Project Settings › Share Links: give each a label, read its meta line — created date, views, downloads, last accessed — and expand the access log for the per-visitor detail: who (or “Anonymous visitor”), every view and download, timestamped. Revoke asks once — “Revoke this link? This cannot be undone.” — and means it: a revoked link shows the recipient “This link is no longer active” and can never be reactivated. Anyone on the project can revoke.
11.3 · Transmittals
Transmittals
A transmittal is the formal issue. Send on a compiled output opens Send Issuance: the document rides along automatically; you supply the issuance name, package type (Field Set — formerly Compiled Set — Revision Record Set, Sheet Index, Bid Set, CD Issue, Addendum), date, an optional description, recipients (name + email, as many as needed), and an optional email note. Issue & Send emails each recipient a personal download link — which is what makes the tracking honest.
Files › Transmittals is the log: each transmittal shows its type, status, and “{X} of {Y} opened”; expand it for the per-recipient truth — Opened 2h ago · 3× Not opened Downloaded 1d ago — with a Copy link beside each recipient. Individual ASI and Addendum packages have a lighter Share on their archive rows (emails + a note) that lands in the same log.
No resend button — by design
11.4 · External parties
External parties & review links
Consultants, owners, and reviewers join the project as external parties — companies from your directory, never seats. Each carries an access class that governs what they see:
| Class | What it means |
|---|---|
| Contributing | Part of the design team — sees working markups and the issued record, and can add working markups. |
| Reviewing | Sees the issued record and their own review only — never internal working coordination. |
Class changes don't travel
A review link shows the supplemental sketches that amend its sheets the same way the team sees them — a chip above the region, in the sketch’s colour. A chip whose sketch is not part of the review still reads (its number and title) but does not open; the share’s content boundary holds, by design.
11.5 · Grants & signals
Document grants & what you hear back
Some sharing happens as a side effect of the record. Answering an RFI that cites a sheet, or sending a submittal, mints a document grant — a link to exactly one document with a currency line the recipient can trust: a sheet grant always resolves to the current revision (“A-501 — current as of ASI-02, issued Mar 14, 2026”), while a record copy stays sealed as returned. No navigation, no markup — just the one document, honestly dated.
And one signal comes back to you: the first time a share link is opened, its creator gets a notification — “{Name} accessed {link label}” — pointing at the Transmittals tab. Everything after that first open is in the logs: per-recipient opens and downloads on transmittals, per-visitor sessions on share links, and the Share & Download Activity block on Outputs.