Construction Document Control: What It Is and How to Run It

Document control is not file storage. A shared drive stores files. Document control adds rules about how a file gets a number, how a new revision replaces an old one, who is told, and what is kept at the end.

Published guides and job descriptions for document controllers agree on the same core duties:

• Assigning document numbers and codes.
• Tracking revisions and keeping the latest approved version identifiable.
• Logging what is sent to and received from owners, consultants, subcontractors and suppliers.
• Setting distribution and access rules.
• Filing and archiving records under company procedure and legal retention rules.

The documents in scope are the usual project record: drawings, specifications, addenda, RFIs, submittals, change orders, meeting minutes, transmittals, permit documents and correspondence.

Most of what you will read online comes from software vendors. Their definitions are consistent, but they also all end in a product. The practice works the same in a spreadsheet and a folder structure if the rules are followed.

A log is a running list with one row per item. If you can only start with a few, start with these.

The Los Angeles manual lists project status, change orders, RFIs and submittals among the items its construction managers track in the city's project system, and notes the system can export summary reports of them. You do not need a city's software to copy the idea: one place, every item, a status on each.

A file name should tell a reader what the file is without opening it. A workable convention puts the same fields in the same order every time, for example project, originator, discipline, document type, sequence number and revision.

Write the convention down on one page and give it to every party in the kickoff meeting. Three habits keep it working:

1. Never rename a file after it is issued. Issue a new revision instead.
2. Never reuse a number.
3. Keep the revision in the file name and in the drawing title block, so a printed sheet can be matched to the log.

If your project follows ISO 19650, the standard asks that each file carry a unique ID built from an agreed, documented convention. The exact format comes from the national annex that applies to your project, so check which one your owner has adopted. In the US, most private work has no such requirement, and the owner's contract or the project specifications set the rules instead.

A revision code answers "which version." A status code answers "what can I use this for." They are different, and mixing them up causes errors.

Autodesk's file naming standard, which is based on ISO 19650, uses a set of status codes. Its published table lists:

Autodesk notes that projects can customize these codes. Many US teams use plainer labels such as "For Review," "For Permit," "For Bid" and "For Construction." Either approach works. What matters is that the set is short, defined in writing, and that a sheet marked "For Construction" is the only sheet the field is allowed to build from.

Note: One 2020 consultation response on the UK annex criticized the standard's codes as ambiguous because they say what a status is, not how to use it. Define each code on your project in one sentence.

On a large job it is a named role: a document controller, who also keeps the registers and checks that transmittals went out. On a small job it falls to the project engineer, project manager or architect's construction administrator.

Whoever owns it, assign it by name. Document control that belongs to everyone belongs to no one, and the failure is predictable: two people issue the same sheet with different revision marks, and the field builds from whichever one reached them first.

In the Los Angeles process, the construction manager is responsible for uploading project correspondence and documents to the city's system. The pattern holds elsewhere. One role, one record.

Document control ends in the closeout package. Under the AIA A201-2017 general conditions, Section 3.11 has the contractor keep a set of the contract documents annotated to show field changes and selections made during construction, along with approved submittals. AIA notes that the A201 does not use the term "record specifications" or name the set in the way many owners do, so read your own contract for what it calls the deliverable.

Two limits to know:

• A contractor's marked-up set is not the same as drawn record drawings. Under the B101-2017 owner-architect agreement, producing as-constructed record drawings is a supplemental service of the architect, built from the contractor's markups. AIA notes the architect is not responsible for the accuracy or completeness of those markups.
• How long to keep records after closeout is not set by the A201. Look to the owner's contract, the project specifications (MasterSpec section 017839, Project Record Documents, is a common source), and your state's record retention rules.

If the project is permitted, add the permit file: approved plans, correction letters and your responses, inspection records and the final sign-off. Permit documents are also project records. For how that process runs, see how to get a building permit.

You do not need a platform to start. This works for a team of two to ten:

1. Write the one-page procedure. Naming convention, status codes, revision rules, who issues, who files.
2. Set up the folder structure. One top-level folder per project. Inside it: a working folder, an issued folder, and an archive. Only the document owner moves files into "issued."
3. Start the registers on day one. A spreadsheet with the columns from the table above is enough.
4. Issue by transmittal. Every set that leaves the office has a transmittal listing sheet numbers and revisions. Log it.
5. Retire the old version when you issue the new one. Move the superseded file to the archive the same day, and tell the recipients which sheets are replaced.
6. Review weekly. Open the registers once a week and check for overdue RFIs and submittals, and for sheets issued but never acknowledged.
7. Close out on purpose. At substantial completion, collect the marked-up set, final submittals, permit file and warranty documents against the closeout checklist in your contract.

Move to software when the registers become the thing people argue about, or when several companies need to read and write the same set. At that point, pick a tool that enforces the rules you already wrote rather than designing your rules around a tool.

Permit documents move through a similar loop, with the building department as one more reviewer. A correction letter is a document that needs a number, a response and a status like any other. If you are tracking responses to plan check comments, see how to respond to a plan check correction letter. Olumba tracks those corrections against the sheets they cite, which is the same job as a change log, for permit comments.