Keep RFI responses separate from permission to change the work

Identify the drawing, specification, revision, asset or location concerned. Describe the conflict or missing information and explain the decision needed. Attach marked-up evidence where it helps, but state the question in the record so reviewers do not have to infer it from a drawing cloud.

Include the date the response is needed and the reason. Link it to procurement, fabrication or installation where relevant. An arbitrary urgent flag is less useful than explaining that a defined activity cannot proceed without the answer.

Keep one coherent issue per RFI where practical. Combining unrelated questions can leave part of the response unresolved while the record appears closed. If several questions genuinely share one decision, number them and require a clear response to each.

An RFI may attract comments from designers, contractors and specialist suppliers. The workflow should identify which response is official, who issued it and whether the issuer has the relevant authority under the project process.

Autodesk's RFI workflow documentation describes selecting an official response and moving an answered RFI through closure. That product workflow helps organise communication; contractual authority and implementation approval still depend on the project arrangements.

Preserve response attachments and their revisions. If an answer refers to a sketch, the sketch is part of the decision evidence. A later replacement sketch should not silently change what the site received earlier. Record the new version and notify affected users.

A fictional tray-crossing RFI shows how the handoff works. The issued drawing shows an unresolved support detail. The official response provides a revised arrangement requiring four additional supports. The engineering coordinator confirms that the response answers the technical question for the identified location.

The next step is an impact screen. The quantity change is sent to planning, procurement and commercial owners as applicable. The team checks whether the supports are already within the contracted obligation, whether material is available and whether an instruction or approval is needed before execution.

The four supports are illustrative. Their presence does not prove entitlement to additional payment. Equally, closing the RFI should not make the potential cost disappear from the project's change assessment.

The receiving owner should check completeness, applicability and conflicts with other documents. An answer that resolves one location may not apply to similar-looking locations elsewhere. Record the scope of use and any limitations.

If the response changes design information, identify the document-control action needed. A drawing may require revision, or a controlled instruction may need to accompany the existing drawing under the project procedure. The site should know which record governs the work.

Where the answer is incomplete, return the unresolved question with a clear reason. Avoid closing an RFI because a response exists. The acceptance condition is that the required information has been supplied and reviewed for the defined issue.

Link the RFI to a potential variation, estimate, schedule assessment or procurement amendment where relevant. Assign owners and dates to those actions. The RFI coordinator should be able to see that the handoff occurred without being expected to decide the commercial outcome.

If the project authorises urgent work before price agreement, preserve the actual instruction and its limits through the applicable process. Do not infer authority from the urgency of the RFI or from an informal acknowledgement. Record cost and resource evidence while the work proceeds.

Keep the variation evidence register separate from the technical question while linking their identifiers. This allows engineering to close a resolved information issue and commercial teams to continue an open valuation or entitlement review.

Closure should confirm that the official answer has reached the people who need it and that required document updates or handoffs have been assigned. For consequential responses, obtain acknowledgement from the affected execution owner rather than relying only on an automated email.

Record whether the response was implemented, superseded or found inapplicable. Implementation may be tracked in another workflow, but the link should remain available. If a later design revision changes the answer, reopen or supersede the RFI under a clear procedure.

A searchable register should include package, location, discipline, status, response age and related documents. Users should be able to find the applicable answer without reading every historical RFI for the project.

Response turnaround is useful, but a quick incomplete answer can create more work than a slower complete one. Review reopened RFIs, unanswered subquestions, repeated issues and responses that arrived after the required decision date.

Test a response with a revised attachment, an answer that changes quantity and an answer issued by the wrong role. The process should preserve the version, trigger the impact screen and identify the authority issue. Also test a simple clarification with no change so the workflow does not impose unnecessary commercial administration on every RFI.

The RFI is successful when the project has usable information and the consequences have reached the right owners. Technical clarity and change control should reinforce each other.

1. State the information gap and required decision precisely.
2. Identify and preserve the official response and attachments.
3. Check applicability, authority and document consequences.
4. Route cost, time and procurement effects to linked actions.
5. Close the information issue only when its acceptance condition is met.