How to Track a Retrofit Camera Install on a Customer's Existing PDF

A retrofit job is different from a new install. The customer hands you a PDF of their existing system: cameras already labeled, readers already at the doors, a fire panel already on the wall. Your job isn't to redesign the system. Your job is to upgrade, replace, or service specific devices and track every one of them through the install.

Most markup tools assume you're starting from scratch. You'd drop a new camera icon next to the existing one, end up with two devices on the plan that mean the same thing, and confuse the install crew. Or you'd skip the markup entirely and try to track status in a spreadsheet, losing the visual context the floor plan gives you.

What you actually want is a way to tag existing devices on the plan with status, without redrawing them.

FieldMarkup ships a Status Marker icon (in the Misc category) designed for exactly this. It's a hollow ring that you drop directly over an existing device on the customer's flattened PDF. The ring color tracks the device status:

• Planned (slate gray): this device is on the scope of work, not started yet
• Wired (yellow): cable run is complete to this device
• Installed (blue): device is physically mounted
• Tested (purple): device is powered, configured, and tested
• Approved (green): customer or AHJ has signed off

The ring is hollow, so the existing device underneath stays visible. You can drag-resize each ring to match the device it's wrapping. As the install progresses, you update the status on each marker and the color travels with it on the plan, in the device schedule, and in the exported PDF.

Take a small office upgrading 12 analog cameras to IP. The plan you've got is from 2018. Your scope: replace each one in place, plus add three new IP cameras in zones the original system missed.

1. Upload the customer's existing PDF. The floor plan opens in the editor with all 12 existing cameras visible as part of the flattened drawing.
2. Drop a Status Marker over each existing camera. Use the Quick Count tool first if you want to walk the plan and tally the existing devices before placing the markers. Then drop one Status Marker on each, sized to wrap the device. Start them all in Planned (slate).
3. Add the 3 new IP cameras. Use the dome or bullet camera icons from the CCTV category for the new installs. These get full devices with FOV cones because you're designing them; the retrofit cameras just get rings.
4. Walk the job. As the install crew runs cable, update each ring to Wired. As they mount the new cameras, update to Installed. The plan now shows the live state of the install at a glance: yellow rings where cable is in, blue rings where the camera is up, slate where work hasn't started.
5. Test and approve. Update to Tested when configured, Approved when signed off.
6. Export the as-built PDF. The export shows every status ring colored to match the final state. Send it to the customer as the closeout document. The device schedule appendix lists each device, its status, and its location on the plan.

Without a Status Marker tool, retrofit techs typically default to one of three workarounds:

• Spreadsheet tracking: a column for each device, a status field per row. Works for accounting; useless on the job site because there's no spatial context. The tech in the field can't tell which device is which without referring back to the spreadsheet AND the plan separately.
• Highlighter on a printed plan: yellow for wired, blue for installed. Honest, low-tech, and totally fine for a small job. Falls apart when you have multiple plans, multiple crews, or any kind of remote oversight.
• Sticky notes on a PDF: every modern PDF tool can add a comment. None can tag it with structured status that flows into a device schedule and a closeout document.

Status Markers give you the spatial context of the plan, the structured data of the spreadsheet, and the deliverable of the printed plan, in one workflow.

• Don't redraw the device underneath. A Status Marker is meant to wrap an existing device, not replace it. If you draw a full dome camera icon over the existing dome on the PDF, you've doubled up your device count.
• Use the Quick Count tool first to count the existing devices before you start placing markers. Six color buckets let you split CCTV from access from fire if the retrofit spans multiple systems. Quick Count never exports, so it stays out of your BOM.
• Add notes per device. The device drawer (right side of the editor) lets you record manufacturer, model, mount details, and free-text notes for each marker. Useful for "old camera was XYZ model, replacing with ABC model" context.
• Status circles export. The colored ring renders in the flattened PDF export so your closeout document shows the install state visually, not just as a spreadsheet.
• Combine with photos. Tap each Status Marker and attach a photo of the install. The photo gallery appendix in the export becomes your closeout evidence: "here's the camera mounted, here's the cable termination."