A good RFI log answers three questions on a phone: what is still open, who has the ball, and did the field see the answer? This template is a practical starting point for that sheet, not “the industry standard.” Copy it, then cut anything your team will not keep up with.

The full column-by-column explanation is in “The Spreadsheet Logs That Replace a Software Module.” The working template, as a Markdown table you can paste into Google Sheets or Excel, is in templates/H7-01-rfi-log-template.md.

What is in the template

Each row is one RFI. The columns are:

Number; date sent; subject; drawing or spec reference; who has the ball; due date; date closed; one-line answer; does this change the work (yes/no); filed in current set (yes/no); field received, by whom, and date; link or path to the PDF.

There is also a status you can filter: Open, Late, Closed — no change to the work, or Closed — filed and received. You can compute “Late” yourself (the due date has passed and the closed date is blank) or color those rows by hand. Either way, make them stand out. Nobody reads a wall of identical text in the sun.

The template includes a few example rows, clearly marked as examples, so you can see how a closed RFI that changed the work looks when it is actually finished: the answer is filed with the current set, and a named person in the field received it on a date. Those examples are not from a named client.

How to run it each week

  1. Keep one log for the job, in the job folder (05_RFIs), shared with the people who need it. Do not start a new tab every month.
  2. Add a row when the RFI is sent, not when you “have time later.”
  3. When an answer comes back, fill the closed date, the one-line answer, and whether it changes the work. Then file the PDF.
  4. If it changes the work, it is not done until “filed in current set” is yes and “field received” has a name and a date.
  5. Twice a week, filter to open rows. Chase whoever has the ball. Flag what is late.
  6. The afternoon before a pour, a cover-up, or an inspection, filter to the drawing or area that is about to be covered. In an Arizona summer, that review is a day-before job, not a 4 a.m. job.

If you use an AI tool to draft the one-line answer, check it against the source PDF before it goes in the sheet. A stale log is worse than a messy inbox, because people trust it. If the sheet has not been honestly updated in more than a week, fix the habit, or get help, before you add more columns.

If you want the log set up or kept for you

You can copy this template into the next job file today. If you would rather have the sheet built into a full Drive or Dropbox job file, or kept current on a retainer, I can do that, and I can prepare closeout before the scramble.

If you want me to take a look, bring one recent RFI thread and show me where your drawings live. The files stay yours.

If you want help, not just a checklist

Some jobs run fine on a clean file and a superintendent who gives the log fifteen minutes twice a week. Others do not: revisions are moving fast, closeout is already behind, or the field simply has no hours left for paperwork.

That is where I come in. I set up the job file, run the logs on a retainer, or prepare closeout before the scramble starts. Your files stay yours, and there is no software contract to sign.

Email travis@builtonrecord.com Get the free Job File Kit