Requests for information to the designer (RFI) - how to keep site questions from getting lost

On the slab above the third floor the formwork carpenters stop at ten in the morning. In the architectural drawing the opening for the shaft is 60 by 80, in the structural drawing it is 60 by 60. The site manager calls the designer, who says "make it 60 by 80, I'll send you a detail". The detail never comes. The slab is poured.

Two months later the structural engineer sees the opening and asks who approved it.

The site asked correctly and on time. What was lost was the answer, because it came over the phone. The request to the designer, which the rest of the world calls an RFI, exists precisely for cases like this.

What an RFI is and when to raise one

An RFI (Request for Information) is a written question with a number, a date, an addressee and a due date, to which a written answer is expected. It is most often raised by the contractor, and answered by the designer, sometimes by the client or the construction supervision.

The triggers repeat from site to site:

• two drawings contradict each other;
• a dimension, level or detail is missing;
• the specification does not say what material or class is required;
• a condition found on site does not match the design (an old cable, different soil, a shifted axis);
• the material specified cannot be delivered and a substitute is proposed.

Not every question is an RFI. If the site manager asks a colleague where the keys to the site cabin are, that stays a conversation. The test is whether the answer changes what will be built, what it will cost or when it will be done. If it changes any of the three, the question gets written down.

How to write a question that gets answered quickly

The designer works on several sites at once. A request that makes them open four drawings and make a call just to understand what is being asked will wait. A good question contains four things.

Where. Project, sub-object, floor, axis, drawing number and its revision. "Slab level +9.00, between axes 3-4 and B-C, drawing K-07" saves the first phone call.

What you can see. The fact, without interpretation: "In drawing A-12 the opening is 60/80 cm, in K-07 it is 60/60 cm." A photo from the location and a clipping of both drawings with the dimension circled do more than a paragraph of text.

What you propose. The contractor usually has a view on what is buildable. "We propose 60/80 with additional reinforcement around the opening per the standard detail" turns the question into something that can be answered with a "yes". The proposal is not mandatory, but it almost always shortens the wait.

By when you need the answer and why. "Formwork for the slab starts on the 14th, we need the answer by the 12th" is a deadline the designer can fit among everything else. Everyone writes "urgent".

It is good practice to keep one question per request. Five questions in one letter get three answers, and the request stays open because of the other two.

Why phone calls and chat are not enough

By phone the answer comes fastest, but afterwards there is no way to prove it. A call has no date and no text, and a month later the two sides remember it differently.

Chat looks better because it leaves a trace. But the trace sits between lunch photos and questions about a brick delivery. A message has no status, no due date and cannot answer the question "which requests to the structural engineer are still waiting". And when the person who ran the group leaves the company, the history goes away with their phone.

This does not mean you should stop calling. Call, agree, and then write the question and the answer into the request, with the name of the person who gave it. It takes two minutes, and afterwards instead of "he told me" you have "here is what he answered on the 12th".

The RFI, the order book and design changes

This part is not legal advice.

The answer to a request can be three different things. Sometimes it is a clarification: the design was right, another drawing simply had to be read. Sometimes it is an instruction on how exactly to carry something out. And sometimes it is a change to the design.

For the second and third cases Bulgaria has a procedure. Under Art. 5(7) of Ordinance No. 3 of 31 July 2003 on drawing up acts and protocols during construction, the designer's instructions, connected with their author's rights, for the exact compliance with the design they produced are entered in the order book and are binding on the other participants in construction. And under Art. 7(3), item 4, letter "c" of the same ordinance, the order book contains all the instructions and orders related to the execution of the works, as well as the non-essential changes to the approved designs prescribed by an order of the designer.

In practice the RFI is the working document: it holds the question, the proposal, the correspondence and the answer. When the answer is an instruction or a non-essential change, the designer enters it in the order book, and only then does it bind everyone on the site. A good habit is to put the RFI number in the order book entry, and to note the date of the entry in the RFI. That way each of the two documents leads to the other.

Which change is non-essential is judged by the designer and the construction supervision, not the contractor. If you are not sure which group an answer falls into, ask the supervision before you carry it out.

An answer that changes quantities or materials changes the price as well. The RFI is then the first document in the chain leading to the annex, so it is worth recording the expected amount and the expected delay on the day of the question. In FIDIC contracts this chain is described in most detail, with an explicit procedure for changes.

How the response deadline is tracked

A request without a deadline easily goes unanswered. The deadline is counted backwards: from the day the work in that place has to begin, subtract the days for ordering and preparation. If the contract sets a response time for requests, write that one.

A deadline only means something if someone watches it. That is why every request has a person in your company responsible for it: they remind, they call, they close the question when the answer has been carried out. This person is not the addressee. The addressee owes the answer, the owner makes sure it is received.

Once a week, best at the site meeting, go through the open requests: which are overdue, which are holding up work, and which already have an answer but nobody has closed them. An answered request that stays open makes the list useless, because it no longer shows what is really waiting.

When an answer is late and work stops, record that in the construction site log for the day as well. The request shows when you asked, the log shows what the waiting cost you.

RFIs in Construction Team

In Construction Team requests are in the Field section, under the name "RFIs". Each one gets a number built from the project code: for a project coded LOZ they run RFILOZ-001, RFILOZ-002 and onward.

What gets filled in. The object, the subject and the question are required. The rest is optional: sub-object, contract, priority, internal assignee, external addressee and response due date. There is no separate field for a proposal, it is written into the question. Photos and files are attached to the request, either at creation or afterwards.

Place on the drawing. If the object has drawings uploaded, the request can be pinned to the exact spot on the sheet. One request can sit on several drawings, which is handy precisely when the question is about a mismatch between two of them.

Statuses. There are five: "Draft", "Open", "Answered", "Closed" and "Void". With "Submit" a draft becomes an open request and the sent date is recorded. When an answer comes in, who gave it and when is recorded. Editing is possible only in "Draft" and "Open". After the answer the request is locked, so nobody can rewrite the question to fit the answer. Only a draft can be deleted, and an unneeded request is voided and stays in the history.

Assignee and addressee. The "Internal assignee" is the colleague who drives the request. The "External addressee" is the company among your partners the question is for: designer, client, supervision.

Answer without an account. The designer usually has no login to your system. On "Submit" you can send them an invitation by email with a link to a page that needs no login. There they see the question and the attached files, write the answer and upload their own files. A submitted answer changes the status to "Answered" and the internal assignee gets a notification. The link is valid for 90 days and can be revoked. The invitation works if "Allow public access for RFIs" is turned on in the company settings. You can also skip the invitation and run the request internally only.

Two separate threads. "Discussion" is for colleagues and never goes outside. "Correspondence" is with the external addressee, and they write in it from the same public page. A reply in the correspondence is not an answer and does not change the status. This is also where an answer received through another channel is recorded: you tick the option for recording an answer received by phone or email and enter the name of the person who gave it. This is the place for the phone call from the start of this article.

Deadline. A request with the status "Open" and a passed response deadline counts as overdue. The list has an "Overdue" counter and an "Overdue only" filter, and a reminder goes out for an approaching and a passed deadline.

Impact. Two switches: "Cost impact" with an estimated amount and "Schedule impact" with estimated days of delay. When the request has a cost impact and is linked to a contract, a "Create change order" button appears on it. It opens a new change order (annex) with the subject filled in, a reference to the request number and one item for the amount entered. Everything can be corrected before saving, and afterwards the request shows a link to the change order.

Risk. If the question is a symptom of a bigger problem in the project, "Record as risk" moves it to the risk register with the subject, description and impact filled in.

The list is exported to Excel, CSV and PDF according to the current filters. The file also has the sent and answered dates, so you can see how long each request waited.

There is more about the module on the page about RFIs.

How far it goes

The system does not enter anything in the order book. The book is on paper, on the construction site, and the entry in it is made by the designer. In the request you can note that it has been entered and when, for example in the discussion or as an attached photo of the page from the book.

The response deadline is set by you. The system does not know what is written in your contract.

And no software makes the designer answer. It gives you a clear list of what you asked, when, whom, and how many days you have been waiting.

Where to start

On your next site, agree on just one thing: every question to the designer that changes the work gets a number. After the first ten requests you will have a list that is quick to go through at the site meeting, and you will know which questions get answered in a day and which in three weeks.

Related articles

• Order book of the construction site - who writes in it and what
• Construction site log - where to record downtime while you wait for an answer
• Construction punch list - when the unclear detail has already been built wrong
• Risk management in construction - the RFI as an early sign of project risk
• FIDIC contracts in construction - how changes reach the price and the time