BIM 360 to Project Center Workflow for Submittals and RFIs

For information on setting up the connector, please see Set up the BIM 360 Connector for Workflow.

Have questions? View the BIM 360 Connector for Workflow FAQs on the Customer Community.

The submittal and RFI workflow for the BIM 360 Connector for Workflow is largely transparent to users on both sides. The intent of the connector is that users should be able to work as usual in their system of choice without altering their process.

However, there are several things users should be aware of when using the BIM 360 to Project Center connector to manage submittals and RFIs.

Key points

Only submittals/RFIs received via BIM 360 can be returned to BIM 360.

Projects can start using the connector at any time. However, any already in progress submittals or RFIs cannot be returned to BIM 360.

Workflow

When sending the submittal or RFI from BIM 360, the contractor needs to select the design team member set up during configuration to receive items as the Ball In Court assignee.

The submittal or RFI must be in an Open status in BIM 360.

Note that the Ball in Court assignee must also be on the Project Center team for the project.

Only select one Ball in Court assignee in BIM 360. Adding more people may cause the item to bypass Project Center and enter the BIM 360 review workflow instead. The same Ball in Court assignee should be used for Submittals and RFIs.

When a submittal or RFI is sent from BIM 360, BIM 360 still sends a notification that an item was sent for review. However, it may take up to 30 minutes from the time the submittal or RFI was sent from BIM 360 for it to appear in Project Center. The Ball in Court assignee receives a notification from Project Center when the item is delivered to Project Center. If the Ball in Court assignee is a generic account, you can set up a rule for that account’s mailbox to auto-forward all mail to a specific group – for example, a distribution list for the Contract Management team.

All submittals and RFIs sent from BIM 360 appear in Project Center as Pending Incoming with the Via method set to BIM 360:

The submittal/RFI due date is set based on the default due date configured in Project Center Project Settings.

If the user sending the submittal or RFI from BIM 360 is not on the Project Center project team, the recipient’s name appears in both the To: and From: fields.

You can select from the list of Expected Submittals when you receive a Pending Incoming submittal.

Project Center users can follow the normal submittal/RFI review process. Any user with the ability to receive submittals and RFIs and respond and close to submittals and RFIs can perform these tasks as usual.

This includes the ability to receive Pending Incoming submittals as expected submittals. You will need to follow the regular Project Center receive pending submittal workflow to identify the submittal as an expected submittal during the receive action.

When you’re ready to close out the submittal or RFI, use Respond and Close. This is the only option that will return the submittal or RFI to BIM 360.

The response can take up to 30 minutes to be delivered back to BIM 360. The Project Center Change Log for the item will show a confirmation that it was delivered to BIM 360.

When you select Create on Respond and Close, Project Center also generates and displays an email with a copy of the submittal/RFI attached. You can choose to send the email or cancel it. Neither action affects the return of the submittal/RFI to BIM 360.

You can copy additional individuals to respond when closing the submittal or RFI . Those recipients will receive an email notification with the transmittal and the files.