Digital Plan Room Help Center

Manatee County is pleased to offer electronic plan submission and review through the Digital Plan Room. The online application is fully integrated with Online Services, our virtual permitting and land development portal. With the Digital Plan Room, customers can submit their applications online and upload their plans at the same time, eliminating unnecessary trips to our office!

Key Features

Easily submit plans, specifications, and other supporting documents electronically
Digital signature and file validation to make sure your documents are ready to be reviewed--no more back and forth
Automated sheet versioning. Finally, a single-source of truth for each sheet throughout the review and approval process!
Access mark-ups and view issues or conditions documented by each reviewer
Interactive access to Mark-ups, issues and conditions documented by reviewers
Final stamped PDF plans sets available for download

ONLINE SERVICES

Online Services is Manatee County's virtual portal where customers can submit permit and/or land development applications, upload plans and documents, schedule inspections, or submit complaints to Code Enforcement.

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What is the difference between an Electronic Signature and a Digital Signature?

An electronic signature is a method of signing a document in a virtual environment and is treated with the same authority as a handwritten or wet signature. A digital signature differs from an electronic signature in that it’s backed by a certificate authority that has verified the signer’s identity, the same way a notary would verify a signer’s identity before to certifying a signature.

This allows the Digital Signature to act as a verified signature in a virtual environment. Documents prepared by design professionals, such as architects or engineers, are required to be signed and sealed using a digital signature. For additional information, visit our Digital Signature Validation section of the Digital Plan Room Help Center.

Digital Signature Validation

The Digital Plan Room is set up to validate whether a document has a valid digital signature in accordance with the Florida Administrative Code. The following document types will require a valid digital signature in order to be uploaded through Online Services:

• Plans
• Building Plans
• Calculations
• Construction Plans (applies to Construction Plans Review applications)
• Elevation Certificate
• Engineer Letter/Affidavit
• Fall Down Radius Certificate of Tower
• FEMA Flood Proofing Certificate
• Final Elevation Certificate
• Final Plat
• Floodway Construction Certificate
• Landscape Fill Certificate
• Landscape Plan
• Letter of Mitigation
• Lighting Plan
• Limited Geotechnical Exploration Report
• Master Drainage Plan
• Survey*
• Preliminary Plat Plan
• Traffic Study
• V-Zone Certificate

Manatee County has provided a general Guide to Digital Signatures. This guide is not intended to be a legal interpretation and we encourage you to also review F.A.C. Rule 61G15-23.003 for engineers and 61G1-16.005 for architects. Common Certificate Authorities include but are not limited to DigiCert, IdenTrust, and GlobalSign. Please note Adobe and Docusign are not valid Certificate authorities as they are not capable of verification.

For more information on signing and sealing Engineering Documents please refer to the Florida Board of Professional Engineers.

*Development Services recommends that Surveys being submitted be digitally signed which will validate the authenticity of the document. Surveys not digitally signed will require additional staff review to validate the authenticity of the document. See 5J-17 Professional Surveyors and Mappers

General Document Standards

There are a few document standards that we recommend for best uploading performance. Please follow these guidelines in your document design to ensure correct processing in the Plan Room.

General Documents

All files must be in PDF file format
Maximum file size is 500MB
Do not use encrypted or password-protected files
All layers in the PDF will need to be flattened (including seals, signatures, notations)
Please do not combine supporting documents in the same PDF file with any plan sheets - they will need to be uploaded as separate files
Documents that are typically uploaded as a different file type, such as CAD files or Legal Descriptions, may still be accepted if they are not a PDF

Initial Submission of Plans

Arrange plans in a landscape page view
All layers need to be flattened including seals and signatures (see below for assistance)
Plans must be generated to scale (e.g., 1/4" = 1’, 1/8” = 1’ or 1:10)
Professional engineers or architects must have a blank area measuring 3"x6" on the top left of the coversheet to accommodate the county's approval stamp
- All other sheets should have a blank area in the top left corner measuring 3"x2" for the approval stamp
Include a title block in the lower right-hand corner on all plan sheets with the sheet number. The system will read your sheet numbers and automatically number them. If the system cannot clearly read your sheet numbers, you will have to manually number them after uploading your plans
- How to number your sheets: The sheet number should include the prefix of the trade (e.g., L for Landscaping, V for Survey/Mapping, C for Civil, etc.) and the sheet number
Example:

For additional information and guidance on how to name your plan sheets please visit https://www.nationalcadstandard.org/ncs6/pdfs/ncs6_uds1.pdf
Below are the recommended fonts to use in your title blocks, the preferred font size is 18

Recommended Fonts

Multiple files can be uploaded at the same time
- Do not combine supporting documents in the same PDF file with any plan sheets

Include a table of contents, 'create bookmarks' in AutoCAD when exporting/publishing to the PDF. The Digital Plan Room will read the table of contents from the bookmarks and automatically generate the sheet number and sheet name for each plan page uploaded. If you do not include a table of contents/bookmarks you may need to manually enter the sheet title

Example of bookmarks:

Any annotations in the PDF will be removed during the submission process

Supporting Documents

Can be submitted as individual files
Documents can be in landscape or portrait orientation
Cleary describe the contents of each file in the description field

Submitting Plan Revisions

Do not resubmit the entire plan set, only the sheets containing changes from the previous submission
Sheet numbers must match the initial submission exactly (e.g., sheet L-1 cannot be resubmitted as sheet L-1.1) Changing the sheet numbers will delay the review of your submission and may result in having to upload an additional review cycle with the correctly numbered sheets
Resubmittals must be in the same format, scale, and orientation as the initial submittal

Attachments

Certain document types can be uploaded at any point in the review process, and are not required to be PDF. Below is a full list of these exceptions:
- Attachment
- Aerial Photo
- Application Checklist
- Application Worksheet
- Completeness/Sufficiency Extension Request
- Business Plan/FEIN Number
- Change of Contractor Letter
- Contractor Removal Letter
- Criteria for Compliance
- Easement Encroachment Form
- Energy Conservation Form
- Engineer of Record Letter
- Envelope Leakage Test Report
- Final Survey
- Flood Insurance Requirement
- Flood Plain Review Checklist
- GIS File Submission
- Inspection Affidavit
- Insurance
- Letter of Map Change(LOMC)
- Locate Documentation
- Longshoreman Insurance
- Meter Sizing Form
- Notice of Commencement
- Owner Builder Disclosure
- Owner Letter of Permission

DOWNLOAD DOCUMENT STANDARDS

Flattening PDF Layers

When submitting plans or completed PDF forms, please be sure to flatten all layers (seals, signatures, notations) in the PDF. Otherwise, those layers and fields will be eliminated and not visible for the reviewers.

The easiest way to flatten a PDF is to "Print to PDF." To do this, please follow the steps below:

Open the PDF file
Select File
Select Print
From the drop-down menu of Printer options, select Adobe PDF
Click Print
Specify the location to save the printed, "flattened" version of the document or form
Select Save

What are Issues and Conditions?

Issues

Issues are items that will need to be fixed prior to plan approval. Issues must be responded to in the Plan Room in Online Services, and may also require an updated plan sheet or document to be uploaded in the new review cycle. Issues will not be visible to customers until all reviewers have completed their review.

Conditions

Conditions are stipulations that may require action by the customer, but they do not need to be resolved prior to Plan Approval.

For Planning applications, Conditions are synonymous with Stipulations of Approval.
For Building permit applications, Conditions may be open while the project is in the construction phase, but will need to be satisfied before the Certificate of Occupancy or Completion is issued.

Tutorials & Assistance

If you need assistance using the Digital Plan Room, this is a great place to start!

VIDEOS:

Building Applications Customer Training

Building Application Customer Refresher Training - NEW

Development Applications Customer Training

Development Applications Customer Refresher Training - NEW

Uploading Plans and Documents

Submitting Your Review Package

Reviewing Issues, Conditions and Notes

Uploading Corrected Plans and Documents

Downloading Approved Plans and Documents

Submitting Permit Re Reviews

Documentation:
Re-Review Submitting a Change Record - Add Delegate

Below is an outline of common errors you may be seeing when trying to upload documents into the Plan Room, as well as suggested solutions to fix the problem.

Error Message	What does this mean?	How do I fix it?
"Document has been modified since it was signed"	Per Florida Administrative Code (FAC), a digital signature is invalidated if any data in the document(s) is changed after the signature has been added to the document	Remove the signature field from the document and re-sign the document.
"Signature date is in the future"	The signature date on the document is in the future. A timestamp was not applied to the signature and the clock on the computer is set to a future date.	Remove the signature field from the document and re-sign the document using a valid timestamp.
"File is not signed"	A Digital Signature is required for the document type you selected, but there isn't one detected on the file.	Sign the file using a valid digital signature. See more info in above sections on this page.
"Certificate was expired at the date of signature"	True digital signatures have an expiration date. If you are seeing this message, your certificate has expired.	Contact your third party Certificate Authority to have the digital signature renewed, then re-sign the document.
"Certificate was issued after signing date"	The certificate used to sign the file was not valid and the Certificate Authority may not have finalized issuing the Certificate when it was used.	Verify the certificate is valid before signing the file by contacting your CA. If the error still occurs after re-signing the document, contact your third party Certificate Authority.
"Root certificate cannot be trusted"	Self-signed plans can no longer be accepted, you must have your own identity, digital seal and signature validated by a 3rd party Certificate Authority. For more information on digital signatures please see our Guide to Digital Signatures.	You are likely using Adobe, DocuSign, or a similar platform. These are not third party Certificate Authorities and do not validate identity.
"One of more signatures have problems"	Make sure all signatures have met the State's Digital Signature Standards. Self-signed documents are not accepted per the FL Administrative Code 61G15-23.003.	If you are confident you are using a valid Digital Signature from a third party Certificate Authority, please contact the CA to check the status of the signature.
"File is encrypted"	The file is password protected. This frequently occurs with Florida Product Approvals.	If you know the password, you can remove the encryption. Otherwise, you can print to PDF or scan the document.