Queries everywhere, and a log that only has half of them
During construction the questions pour in. The contractor's site manager emails the project engineer about a missing lintel detail. The steel fabricator's detailer sends a technical query to the generic office inbox. The architect forwards a question from the contractor with their own comment on top. A foreman mentions a clash between a drainage run and a pile cap on a site visit, and the engineer writes it in a notebook.
The RFI log, a spreadsheet on the project drive, contains the ones someone remembered to add. When the contractor claims an answer was late, you cannot say for certain when the question arrived, who picked it up or when it was answered.
Why RFIs fall through the gaps
- Queries arrive at personal inboxes, so only the recipient knows they exist.
- Logging is a separate step from replying, and replying always feels more urgent.
- Answers often need input from another engineer or discipline, and the handover is informal.
- The contractor's own RFI numbering does not match yours, so cross-referencing is manual.
- Nobody owns the log across the whole project team.
Contractors increasingly run formal query processes through their own platforms, but many smaller projects still run on email. Your practice ends up juggling both, with no single view.
There is a habit problem too. Engineers are trained to answer technical questions well, not to administer them. A good engineer replies to the site manager within the hour and moves on, which is exactly the right instinct for the project and exactly the wrong one for the record.
The price of a patchy log
| Gap | What it leads to |
|---|---|
| Query not logged | Missed or late response, and a contractor waiting on site |
| No received date | Weak position if programme delay is later attributed to you |
| No link to drawings | Answer given without checking the latest revision |
| No owner | Two engineers answer the same query differently, or nobody does |
There is also a quieter cost. Engineers spend part of every day re-reading threads to work out what is still open. That is time taken from design work that is billable against the stage.
What we build for RFI handling
- A project RFI mailbox, or a rule on your existing inboxes, catches incoming queries and creates a log entry with sender, date and the original message.
- A quick capture form on a phone lets an engineer log a query raised verbally on site, with a photo.
- Each RFI gets your reference, the contractor's reference if they gave one, and a link to the drawings or calcs it concerns.
- An owner is assigned, and a target response date is set from the project's agreed turnaround or your own default.
- A daily view shows each engineer their open RFIs, sorted by date, with overdue ones at the top.
- Answers are drafted and sent from the log, so the reply and the record are the same thing.
- Where a response needs a revised drawing, the RFI is linked to that revision on issue.
- A project summary lists open, answered and overdue RFIs for design team meetings.
A language model can help at intake by suggesting which drawings and which engineer a query relates to, based on its wording. It makes a suggestion. The engineer decides.
We usually start with one live project that has a busy construction phase, because that is where the gaps show fastest. Once the team is comfortable with the intake and the daily view, other projects are added, and older RFIs can be imported from existing spreadsheets so the log is complete from the start.
A project engineer's morning afterwards
The engineer opens one list instead of three inboxes and a notebook. Each open query shows how long it has been waiting. When the design team meeting comes round, the RFI summary is already produced.
If a question arises months later about when a query was answered, the date and the reply are in the log with the original message attached.
Is this happening on your projects?
- RFIs arrive at personal inboxes and are logged only sometimes.
- Queries raised on site are written in notebooks.
- You could not say with confidence how many RFIs are open today.
- Two engineers have answered the same question.
- Rebuilding the log for a dispute or claim would take days.