Stages & files
How stages organise each project's files: a folder per stage, files up to 500 MB, file-by-file reviews, and the history of every decision.
Stages
A stage is a step in a project's work — "Preliminary Study", "Permitting", "Construction Documents". The possible stages come from the project type, and the team records which stage the project is in as it moves on; the Stages History tab shows every change and its date.
Each stage has a file folder in the project's Files tab and an expected duration, which feeds the delivery and stage-duration statistics.
Where files live
Files live in Vellum's storage (on DigitalOcean, in London) and are uploaded from your computer. In each project's Files tab you'll find:
- One folder per stage — each stage's deliverables, with each file's review status.
- Free-form folders — for everything else: engineering disciplines, studies, client documents.
- Files up to 500 MB, up to 100 per submission: PDF, Office, images, DWG, DXF, DWF, RVT, RFA, IFC, NWD, SKP, 3DM, ZIP and other CAD, BIM and 3D formats.
Storage is shared by the team and counts towards your plan's limit: 3 GB on Free, 25 GB per seat on Core and 100 GB per seat on Professional.
Review states
In review stages, each file has a status:
- Pending Review — uploaded, waiting for review.
- Approved — accepted by the reviewer.
- Changes Requested — the reviewer asked for changes, with a note explaining what.
The reviewer can be an employee or — in stages marked as client review in the project type — the client, through the client portal. Reviews always happen file by file.
Review audit log
Every approval or change request goes into the file's review history, with who reviewed it, the decision, the note and the date. There are no automatic versions: when you upload a new version it comes in as a new file, grouped in a new submission ("Submission #2", "Submission #3"…), and the history of the earlier ones is kept.