Chasing an information request to an answer
An RFI has a contract defined response window, and the clock that matters is the one nobody watches: the day the answer arrived versus the day it reached the drawing set and the subcontractor whose work it changes. Logging and chasing are the visible half. The skipped half is propagation, because an answer sitting in Procore while three crews build to a drawing revision it supersedes is rework already in progress. The chase goes out on the aging of the request against its window, and the answer gets walked to everyone downstream of it rather than to whoever asked.
The estimate, the project system and the accounting system each hold a cost code structure, and the mapping between them lives in a spreadsheet maintained by one person.
A project generates a paper chain where each hop is a re-keying. A field condition becomes a time and materials tag, then a potential change order, then a priced request, then an executed change order, then a budget revision, then a line on the next payment application. Every hop is a place the amount can quietly diverge.
- Procore
- Outlook
When this is the wrong thing to build
Pick something else if the design team is unresponsive for reasons no system will fix. Chasing faster changes the relationship rather than the answer date.
The constraint that shapes it
Lien deadlines are statutory, vary by state and by role, and run from a furnishing date rather than from an invoice date. More on how this sector works.
A list of things that are missing, worked until it is empty. Read what this shape is, or start from one of these.
- Chasing a compliance file to complete
- Chasing a referral fee through to a closing you cannot see
- Asking for the replenishment before the retainer runs to zero
- Chasing medical records until the set is complete
- Getting a deposition on the calendar of every party
- Chasing the warranty credit the distributor has not issued
- How do I stop an RFI sitting unanswered with the architect?
- Who needs an RFI answer besides the person who asked?
- How do I get an RFI response onto the current drawing set?
- How long should an RFI response take under the contract?
Back to construction and contracting, or see how this is priced and scoped.