Answer an RFI

Depending on the creator and the context of an RFI, the general contractor can answer or assign any company responsible for answering it in its workflow. In a typical RFI workflow, an RFI is assigned to the design team, namely the architect or the engineering firms, for an authoritative response.

This article explains how a GC PM can answer the RFI and how the party assigned as the responder to an RFI can provide their answers and forward the same to the next step as per the workflow. 

• If required, you have the ability to delegate an RFI fully or in part to other people, like junior architects of your firm, for their response. An RFI can be routed any number of times to any persons within your organization for answers to questions relevant to them. This is useful if you want the RFI questions to be analyzed by someone with special knowledge. 
• Only those staff members of your company added as project managers to the project can be delegated as additional respondents. 
• The RFIs awaiting your response are shown in the 'Assigned to me' column in the 'RFI' > 'Boards' interface. This includes:
  • RFIs forwarded to you by the general contractor;
  • RFIs delegated to you by the original assignee;
  • RFIs returned to you after review by your subordinates to whom you redelegated the RFI.
• You can assess the questions and provide your responses for those relevant to you, with any supporting attachments like drawings, photos, documents, etc. 
• After you submit your answers, you can move the RFI to the next step:
  • The RFI from the subordinate responders moves back to the original assignee.
  • The RFI from the original assignee moves to the next step in the workflow, typically for review and closure by the GC.

Tip:

You can chat with the team members and the participants of the RFI. Click the button on the top right. See Chat and collaborate on RFIs for more guidance.

Respond to an RFI

You will get a notification once an RFI is assigned to you. 

• Click on the notification to directly open the RFI.

Alternatively:

• Open the project management console
• Click 'RFI' on the top

The RFI boards open by default

• Click 'Boards' on the left if you are on a different page in the RFI interface:
• Click on the RFI card under 'Assigned to me' to open it.

• Review the details.

The 'Questions' area contains the list of questions in the RFI:

You have two choices to answer the questions:

• Enter your answer
• Delegate to another person, for example, a junior in your organization, to get the response 

Answer a question

• Review the question
  • Click on an attachment to expand it.
  • Click on an attachment to download it to your device.
  • Click on an attachment to remove it from the question.
• Click at the right of the question you want to answer

• Enter your answer in the text box. 
• Use the tools on the top to format your text.
• Click on the top right to add attachments like plan drawing with markups, photos, images, and/or other document files to your answer. Click here if you need more guidance on this.
• Click the button to save your answer.
• Repeat the process to answer more questions.

If the RFI is complete, click the button to move it to the next step.

If the RFI is pending responses from other persons, delegate it to the responsible, as explained below.

Edit an answer

You can make corrections and alterations to the answers provided by you or by your juniors at any time before routing the RFI to the next stage.

• Click the down arrow at the right of a question to expand the pane and reveal the answer.
• Click the icon to edit an answer.

The text editor opens for editing the answer.

• Make the necessary changes and click the button to save your changes.

Assign to other staff

• Click the button

The 'Select Engineer' pop-up appears:

• Junior Engineer - The drop-down shows the list of employees of your organization already added to the project. Select the person to whom you want to assign the RFI.
• Response Date - Select the due date within which you want the responder to submit their answer(s).
• Click 'Submit'

The RFI is assigned to the selected person. Linarc sends a notification to the person. The assignee can open the RFI and respond to it, as explained above. Also, the person is added as a responder to the RFI's workflow automatically.

• Click 'View Workflow' to view the current workflow and the progress stage of the RFI.

Add attachments to your answers

• Click on the top right to add attachments like plan drawing with markups, photos, images, and/or other document files to the question:

Attach plan drawings with/without markups

• Choose 'Select From Plans' 

The plan drawings added for the project are shown as thumbnails.

• Select the plan you want to use
• Create markups if required to explain the change in more detail. See Markups for guidance on creating different types of markups on the plan drawing.
• Click the 'Save' icon in the markup toolbar to affix the plan drawing markup to your response.
• Repeat the process to add more plan markups

Attach photos and other documents

• Drag and drop the file to the lower pane

Alternatively,

• • Click 'Browse'
  • Navigate to the required image file and open
  • Add a markup on the image, if required. The process is similar to adding markups to a plan drawing. See Markups for guidance on this.  
  • Repeat the process to add more images or documents
• Click the button to save your answer.