Is Lunr an alternative to Oracle Aconex?

For an asset owner, yes. Aconex is a common data environment built for project delivery, and it coordinates the mail, transmittals, and workflows across every party through design and construction. Lunr is the owner's system of record from handover onward. The two are not rivals during delivery. The alternative Lunr offers is to the practice of leaving the record in a delivery archive once the project closes, when the owner needs a controlled register they hold for decades of operation.

What happens to the record in Aconex when a project closes?

The project moves to archive access. No new information can be created, the environment goes read only, and keeping access depends on an archive product and a live subscription. That suits a delivery record that has done its job. It does not suit an operating asset, where the register has to stay live so new revisions and as-builts can land. Lunr takes the controlled set at handover and keeps it live for the operating life of the asset.

Who owns the data in Aconex, and why does that matter to an asset owner?

In Aconex each organisation owns its own data, and the owner sees only what was sent to them through mail and transmittals. During delivery that model protects every party. At handover it means assembling one complete controlled set for the asset is a collection exercise rather than a given. Lunr gives the owner a single controlled set, held as their own, with the current revision and status of every sheet in one register.

Can you keep Aconex alongside Lunr?

Yes, and it is the sensible setup. Aconex runs project delivery, with the mail, transmittals, and workflows the delivery team needs. Lunr holds the record the owner keeps after handover. Each project hands its controlled set to Lunr at close, so the delivery environment and the owner's record sit side by side, each doing what it is good at.

How does taking handover from Aconex into Lunr work?

Import the handover package in bulk. Lunr reads the title-block tags from each sheet into metadata, so drawing number, revision, and discipline become searchable fields without retyping, and it validates the package against a manifest so a missing as-constructed drawing is caught on upload. Automatic numbering applies the owner's register format as records land. Once the set is in, the register is live, and revisions through operation land straight against it.

Do owners need a CAD licence or the delivery tools to open drawings?

No. The operations team is not the delivery team, and most of them never had a CAD seat. The whole team opens DWG, DGN, and PDF drawings in the browser through the Rift viewer, with layers, measurement, and markup. Models open in Foundry and point clouds in Nimbus. A CAD seat is only needed to author a drawing, not to open one while maintaining the asset.

What about the decades of legacy drawings an owner already holds?

An owner usually holds far more than one project's handover, and much of the archive is scanned. Lunr imports the legacy drawings alongside the handover set, and XRAY runs OCR across everything, so a valve tag on a 1994 scan is searchable next to today's as-built. The owner ends up with one register over the whole asset, not a new project record sitting apart from the archive.

fig. 01 · oracle aconex alternative

An Oracle Aconex alternative built for the asset owner.

For the asset owners and document controllers who hold the record after the project team goes home. Aconex runs project delivery well. Lunr takes the controlled set at handover and keeps it live for the operating life of the asset, with a register you own, browser viewing, and search inside every scanned sheet.

Book a demo View a drawing in the browser

10M+ documents under management · Hosted in Australia and the US · SAML · Full audit trail

fig. 02 · where Aconex fits

Aconex is strong software, for the job it was built for.

Aconex is a common data environment for project delivery, and it coordinates the mail, transmittals, and workflows across every party through design and construction. Plenty of owners should keep it for exactly that. The claim here is narrow. Aconex is built for delivering a project, and the record an owner runs for decades of operation needs things a delivery environment does not hold.

Lunr is built for the owner’s record. It takes the controlled set at handover and keeps it live through operation, while Aconex keeps running the projects that feed it.

Read why owners keep the drawing record on their own system

Keep Aconex forproject delivery

Project delivery, where many organisations coordinate through design and construction.
Mail and formal correspondence, with RFIs, instructions, and notifications on the record.
Transmittals that issue documents between project parties and log receipt.
Review and approval workflows that move a submittal through the delivery team.

fig. 03 · the walls

Where a delivery environment hits the edge of the owner’s record.

These are the specific points where Aconex stops matching what an asset owner needs after handover. Each one is a job the owner’s record has to do for the operating life of the asset, and a project-delivery CDE was built for something else.

01The record is scoped to a project, not to the asset. Aconex is organised around a construction project that closes, but the owner runs one asset for decades and needs a register that outlives any single project.

02At project close the environment moves to archive access. New information stops, the project goes read only, and keeping access depends on an archive product and a live subscription, which is not where an operating asset lives.

03Data ownership sits with each contributor. In Aconex every organisation owns its own data and the owner sees only what was sent, so assembling one complete controlled set for the asset is a collection exercise, not a given.

04Handover produces a manual, not a living register. Smart Manuals and an asset register capture the state at handover, but an operating asset keeps changing, and as-built revisions during operation need somewhere controlled to land.

05Operations changes have nowhere to go. Once the delivery team stands down, an updated single-line or a new valve drawing has no project workflow to move through, so the owner's copy drifts from the plant.

06Legacy drawings sit outside the project. An owner inherits decades of older sheets, much of it scanned, and a correspondence-and-transmittals platform was never meant to hold that archive or read the text drawn inside a scan.

fig. 04 · side by side

Aconex and Lunr, capability by capability.

A factual read of what each tool does across the asset lifecycle. The two are not rivals for every row. Aconex runs project delivery, and Lunr holds the record the owner keeps after handover.

Capability	On Aconex	On Lunr
Coordinate document exchange across project parties in delivery	Yes, its core strength	Not its role; Lunr is the owner's record
Mail, RFIs, and formal project correspondence	Yes, on the delivery record	Stays in delivery, referenced from the record
Transmittals issuing a document set	Yes, between project parties	Yes, from the owner's register
A live controlled register held after the project closes	Archive access, read only, subscription-bound	Yes, a live register the owner holds
One complete controlled set for the asset	Each organisation owns its own data	The owner holds a single controlled set
Revisions and as-builts land through operation	Built for delivery, not the operating phase	Yes, the register stays live for the asset's life
Full-text search inside scanned drawings	Search across registered documents	Yes, XRAY OCR reads the text on the sheet
Owned system of record for decades of operation	Project archive, retained by subscription	The owner's system of record, held as their own

fig. 05 · the owner’s register

A live register the owner holds, not an archive of a closed project.

Take the controlled set at handover and Lunr numbers it in your register format, keeps the full revision history, and marks the previous revision as superseded. The title-block fields come across as searchable metadata, so drawing number, revision, and discipline are things you filter on. Then the register stays live, and new revisions and as-builts land straight against it through operation.

A controlled register the owner holds, showing the current revision and status of every sheet at a glance.
Automatic document and version numbering, applied in your register format as drawings are taken on.
Superseded revisions kept and marked, so the current sheet is never a guess years into operation.
Title-block tags read into metadata, so the drawing number, revision, and discipline become filters.

owner’s register · automatic numbering · superseded marking · title-block metadata

See document control

A drawing's metadata and workflow panel in Lunr, showing title-block fields such as drawing number, revision, and discipline held as searchable metadata.

fig. 06 · viewing

Open a DWG, DGN, or RVT in the browser, no CAD licence.

The operations team is not the delivery team, and most of them never had a CAD seat. In Lunr the Rift viewer renders DWG, DGN, and PDF at full fidelity, with layers, measurement, and markup, so anyone maintaining the asset can open the sheet. Models open in Foundry, point clouds in Nimbus.

View DWG, DGN, RVT, and PDF in the browser, with no CAD licence and nothing to install.
Toggle layers, measure, and mark up the drawing straight in the viewer.
Open BIM models in Foundry and point clouds in Nimbus from the same record.
Turn a redline into a change request or an RFI without leaving the viewer.

browser viewers · layers · measurement · markup · no CAD licence

Try the viewers

A DWG drawing open in Lunr's Rift viewer in the browser, showing the sheet with its layers panel and viewer toolbar, with no CAD licence required.

fig. 07 · search

Search the words printed inside a scanned drawing.

An owner inherits decades of drawings, and much of the archive is scanned. XRAY runs OCR and full-text search across every drawing, scans included. Search a valve tag, a title-block reference, or a note, and Lunr returns the sheet whether it came from this year’s handover or a 1994 archive.

OCR and AI full-text search across every DWG, DGN, RVT, PDF, and scanned image.
Find a tag, a reference, or a note printed inside the drawing, not just the file name.
Deep XRAY re-scans a dense sheet tile by tile, so nothing on the drawing is missed.
Filter results by metadata, tags, and revision to narrow a large set fast.

OCR · AI full-text search · deep XRAY tile re-scan · metadata and tag filters

See how XRAY search works Read about drawing OCR

Lunr's XRAY search returning a list of drawings matched on text found inside the sheets, scanned drawings included, with metadata and revision shown for each result.

fig. 08 · handover and audit

Take handover on the record, with an audit trail behind it.

Lunr validates each handover package against a manifest, so a missing as-constructed drawing is caught on upload rather than found years into operation. It issues transmittals from the owner’s register, moves operational revisions through configurable review and approval, and keeps a full audit trail behind every approval, revision, and change.

Validate each handover package against a manifest, and read title-block tags into metadata.
Issue tracked transmittals from the owner's register, and run change requests that hold, forward, and close.
Move operational revisions through configurable review and approval workflows.
Keep a full audit trail on every controlled drawing, ready for compliance and audit.

manifest validation · transmittals · change requests · configurable workflows · full audit trail

See handover and transmittals

Lunr's document activity view, showing an audit trail of transmittals, workflow transitions, and metadata changes on a controlled drawing.

fig. 09 · taking handover

Take the record across at handover, keep Aconex for delivery.

You do not have to leave the record in a read-only archive or rebuild it by hand. Import the handover package, validate it against the manifest, and open the register for operations. The owner’s record moves to Lunr, and Aconex carries on delivering the next project.

01
Take handover in bulk
Point Lunr at the handover package from Aconex, and it reads the title-block tags from each sheet into metadata, so drawing number, revision, and discipline become fields the owner can filter on.
02
Validate against the manifest
Each handover package is checked against a manifest as it lands, so a missing as-constructed drawing is caught on upload rather than found years into operation.
03
Open the register for operations
The controlled set becomes a live register the owner runs, where new revisions and as-builts land through the operating life of the asset, rather than a read-only project archive.
04
Keep Aconex for the next project
Delivery teams carry on running projects in Aconex, and each project hands its controlled set to the owner's register in Lunr, so the two sit side by side.

Lunr's repository folder view, showing an imported folder structure on the left beside the controlled drawing documents on the right.

See the CAD, GIS, and facilities connectors that keep the owner’s record fed on the connectors page.

fig. 10 · proof

Owners already run the record this way.

Universities, utilities, energy companies, and government departments run their drawing record on Lunr, taking it at handover and keeping it live through the operating life of the asset.

over10,000,000

documents under management on Lunr. Proof the owner’s record holds up at owner-and-portfolio scale.

Case study · University of Canberra

20,000+drawings and documents brought under control on Lunr.

“Lunr is a simple solution that provides the flexibility to develop the system to our needs. Lunr is simple to use, and minimal training is required.”
Daniel Byrnes, Digital Systems Coordinator, Campus Estate, University of Canberra

Read the University of Canberra case study Engineering document management for universities

fig. 11 · questions

Questions owners ask about Aconex and the record after handover.

What Aconex does through delivery, what changes when the project closes, and what it takes to keep the record live for the operating life of the asset.

Is Lunr an alternative to Oracle Aconex?: For an asset owner, yes. Aconex is a common data environment built for project delivery, and it coordinates the mail, transmittals, and workflows across every party through design and construction. Lunr is the owner's system of record from handover onward. The two are not rivals during delivery. The alternative Lunr offers is to the practice of leaving the record in a delivery archive once the project closes, when the owner needs a controlled register they hold for decades of operation.
What happens to the record in Aconex when a project closes?: The project moves to archive access. No new information can be created, the environment goes read only, and keeping access depends on an archive product and a live subscription. That suits a delivery record that has done its job. It does not suit an operating asset, where the register has to stay live so new revisions and as-builts can land. Lunr takes the controlled set at handover and keeps it live for the operating life of the asset.
Who owns the data in Aconex, and why does that matter to an asset owner?: In Aconex each organisation owns its own data, and the owner sees only what was sent to them through mail and transmittals. During delivery that model protects every party. At handover it means assembling one complete controlled set for the asset is a collection exercise rather than a given. Lunr gives the owner a single controlled set, held as their own, with the current revision and status of every sheet in one register.
Can you keep Aconex alongside Lunr?: Yes, and it is the sensible setup. Aconex runs project delivery, with the mail, transmittals, and workflows the delivery team needs. Lunr holds the record the owner keeps after handover. Each project hands its controlled set to Lunr at close, so the delivery environment and the owner's record sit side by side, each doing what it is good at.
How does taking handover from Aconex into Lunr work?: Import the handover package in bulk. Lunr reads the title-block tags from each sheet into metadata, so drawing number, revision, and discipline become searchable fields without retyping, and it validates the package against a manifest so a missing as-constructed drawing is caught on upload. Automatic numbering applies the owner's register format as records land. Once the set is in, the register is live, and revisions through operation land straight against it.
Do owners need a CAD licence or the delivery tools to open drawings?: No. The operations team is not the delivery team, and most of them never had a CAD seat. The whole team opens DWG, DGN, and PDF drawings in the browser through the Rift viewer, with layers, measurement, and markup. Models open in Foundry and point clouds in Nimbus. A CAD seat is only needed to author a drawing, not to open one while maintaining the asset.
What about the decades of legacy drawings an owner already holds?: An owner usually holds far more than one project's handover, and much of the archive is scanned. Lunr imports the legacy drawings alongside the handover set, and XRAY runs OCR across everything, so a valve tag on a 1994 scan is searchable next to today's as-built. The owner ends up with one register over the whole asset, not a new project record sitting apart from the archive.

fig. 12 · get started

Keep Aconex for delivery. Give the owner a record.

Book a walkthrough with someone who knows what a transmittal and an as-constructed drawing are, and watch Lunr run against a handover set of your own.

Book a demo Explore features

10M+ documents under management · Hosted in Australia and the US · SAML · Full audit trail · Export anytime

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