RFI Drafting and Tracking
RFI Drafting and Tracking drafts contractor-issued RFIs and design-team responses directly against the live project record — contract documents, drawing set, specification, and prior responses — with each clause cited to its source. The agent reads the RFI and record, drafts a citation-backed answer, and presents it for engineer review, available now as a Labs engagement under MSA + Appendix.
- RFI responses drafted with citation back to the contract, specification, drawing sheet, or prior RFI source.
- RFI log stays structured and queryable so “did we already answer this?” resolves in seconds instead of days.
- The RFI agent never asserts an answer the project record does not support, keeping every response grounded in the record.
From draft-from-scratch to draft-from-record.
Workflow today
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01
RFI lands
Day 0. A contractor issues an RFI questioning a specific drawing detail or contract clause. The RFI appears in BIM 360 / ACC, Procore, Aconex, or email, often with vague references like “detail at Level 3 stair” and no clear citation to the governing specification section or prior correspondence.
Day 0 -
02
Engineer searches the record
Day 1. A project engineer or architect hunts through the drawing set, project manual, addenda, prior RFI log, and contract documents to see whether the issue is already covered. Senior staff hours disappear into PDF search, model review in Revit, and email trawling, with no guarantee that a similar RFI from another package is found.
Day 1 -
03
Response drafted from memory
Day 2. The engineer drafts a response based on best-available memory and partial notes, pasting in drawing snippets or paraphrasing spec language. Citations back to the exact sheet, detail number, or contract clause are informal, which makes later claims work and scope drift detection harder to defend.
Day 2 -
04
Response issued; question recurs
Week 2+. The response is issued through BIM 360 / ACC, Procore, Aconex, or email, and the team moves on. Weeks later, a different subcontractor asks a near-identical question. No one remembers the earlier RFI number, so the team repeats the search and drafting effort, and the RFI log fragments across tools and exports.
Week 2+
Workflow with VitruAI
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01
RFI lands; agent reads it
Day 1, ~5 min. The RFI Agent ingests the new RFI text alongside the project record: contract, full drawing set, specification PDFs, addenda, and prior RFIs with their responses. It aligns the RFI to likely governing clauses and details, including related contract-clause language already monitored by contract clause monitoring.
Day 1, ~5 min -
02
Agent drafts the response
Day 1, ~30 min. The agent drafts a proposed response that cites each statement back to its source sheet, detail reference, spec section, contract clause, or prior RFI answer. It calls the same document parsing stack as the Document AI Agent to quote exact passages, and it flags where the record is silent so the engineer can decide whether this is a scope change or design clarification.
Day 1, ~30 min -
03
Engineer reviews and signs
Day 1–2. The engineer reviews the drafted text, the cited basis, and any low-confidence citations. They adjust language for tone, add model snapshots from Revit or Navisworks if needed, and decide whether to escalate as scope change aligned with scope drift detection. The signed response returns through the firm’s standard RFI channel without changing the approval chain.
Day 1–2 -
04
RFI log stays structured
Ongoing. Each RFI and response sits in a structured log with status, citations, and links back to the underlying documents. When a near-duplicate RFI appears, the agent checks the log, surfaces the prior answer and its basis in seconds, and proposes a consistent response. The same integration stack used for VitruAI + BIM 360 / ACC keeps IDs aligned with the host RFI system.
Ongoing
RFI drafting and tracking — common questions
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Does it draft RFI responses without engineer review?
No. The system drafts RFI responses, but a licensed engineer or architect always reviews, edits, and signs before issue. For every proposed answer, it cites the specific drawing, specification, contract clause, or prior RFI that supports the text, using the same parsing stack as the Document AI Agent. If the project record does not support an answer, it flags the gap instead of guessing.
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Does it integrate with BIM 360 / ACC RFI?
Yes. As a Labs engagement, the workflow integrates with the firm’s existing RFI tools such as BIM 360 / ACC, Procore RFI, Aconex, or a custom in-house tracker. The same connector family used for VitruAI + BIM 360 / ACC maps RFIs, attachments, and statuses so drafting happens against the live record, not exported spreadsheets. Integration scope is calibrated per deployment and documented in the engagement appendix.
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What about RFI tracking (open / answered / superseded)?
The agent maintains a structured RFI log with status fields for open, answered, superseded, and voided, tied directly to the issued response text. When an answer is superseded, the log keeps the prior versions with timestamps and citations so claims work and contract clause monitoring stay grounded in the full history. This structure also supports cross-project analysis of recurring RFI themes for practice-wide detail updates.
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When does this ship as a productised release?
RFI drafting and tracking is on the roadmap for a productised release, but the workflow is available now as a Labs engagement under MSA + Appendix. Early adopters work directly with the VitruAI team to connect their contract templates, RFI tools, and drawing/spec repositories. Feedback from these Labs projects feeds into the general release criteria and the shared capabilities of the RFI Agent.