Hi Steve, et al

This new open blog should be great. I love it already. Congratulations on getting off the ground. Some of us have so much to contribute, it's nice to have an open forum to share these thoughts.

One of those, much in line with your new Library module, is a way to log, track and respond to RFIs. As you know, Requests For Information is a valuable tool used between contractors and architects to ferret out issues during construction, and to maintain a record of issues and their resolutions. While most important on larger projects, it is equally beneficial on smaller scale ones, too.

It would be great to have a page in ArchiOffice to log in a new RFI with a summary of the issue or with the option to attach the actual RFI (Word, PDF or scanned fax, etc.) and then have ArchiOffice provide a target response date (or the due date required by the RFI issuer can be inserted instead) and a place to record the response (and attach any associated sketches, documents, etc.) If the RFI needs to be forwarded to a consultant(s), a column and date for sending and recording the response and date should be included as well. Once all information is recorded, the RFI response can be recorded and date stamped within the log. One last neat item: ArchiOffice should show the number of days under or over due the date for the response.

Those of you who are detailed oriented will recognize the value of this feature. It is especially valuable during those construction meetings to have your ArchiOffice RFI log print out with you showing all RFIs answered, and before their due date. Clients LOVE that.

Hope this one makes it into ArchiOffice, too.

Irving,

Thanks for all the nice words.Thanks for the idea regarding RFI's. It also came up during some discussions we had at the AIA Convention in San Antonio a couple of weeks ago. We're hot on this one. Expect to see it implemented with v8.6.

Steve

I agree this would be a great addition. Even greater would be the ability to publish the RFI log directly to the web so that the contractor & owner could see what's happening, too. Even better than that would be an interactive log so the contractor could post RFI questions directly and we could answer them in place like on other web-based project management sites for architects.

Just keep in mind that most RFIs are generated by the contractor. If there is not a way for the RFI module to be interactive it would be necessary to attach the RFIs they send (as paper, email, pdf, etc.) to the item in AO so we're not just re-entering their questions. It needs to be flexible enough to work with these various methods of posting RFIs.

Thanks!

Eric

I like the use of color when looking at an RFI log to tell me what is approaching its due date (yellow) what is overdue (red) and what has been closed (background) - I also like a column of days held that will fix when the rfi is responded to and closed so I can scroll through, or show to others my average response time.