Organize Submittals and RFIs by Project and Trade
A submittal arrives as a reply to a forwarded email, from a subcontractor who called it "shop dwgs rev2.pdf", to a project engineer who is on site and will open it tonight.
The short answer
Submittals and RFIs organize by project first and trade second, and both are written on the document — the project name in the title block, the trade in the spec section it references. A workflow uses the Read Details from File step to pull them off each document, the Rename step to name it by date and trade, and the Move step to file it under that project. The Email Attachment trigger is what makes this work in practice, because most submittals never exist as anything but an attachment, and the Save a Copy step gives them a home before anything else happens.
Steps this uses
Before and after
What actually changes
As they arrive
- shop dwgs rev2.pdf
- RFI.pdf
- Scan_0311.pdf
- submittal FINAL FINAL.pdf
After the workflow
- Oak Street/Structural/2026-07-02-submittal-steel-rev2.pdf
- Oak Street/Electrical/2026-07-09-rfi-014-panel-location.pdf
- Riverside/Mechanical/2026-07-11-submittal-ahu-schedule.pdf
- Oak Street/Structural/2026-07-15-submittal-steel-rev3.pdf
Four attachments from three subcontractors, filed by the project and trade printed on each drawing.
Setting it up
Described once, then it runs
This is the sentence. Send it to the builder and the steps below appear on a canvas, wired and named, for you to change before anything runs.
When a submittal or RFI arrives by email, save a copy, read the project and the trade off the title block, rename it by date and trade, and file it under that project and trade.
Point it at the inbox and the drive
The Email Attachment trigger covers submittals arriving from subs. The File Uploaded trigger covers the shared drive folder where scans and downloads land. Most teams need both, because documents arrive by both routes.
Project, then trade
Two levels, said in plain English. A third level by document type is worth it on a large job and a liability on a small one, because every level is a filing decision somebody has to make correctly each time.
Read the title block
The Read Details from File step takes the project, the trade, the revision and the date off the document itself, which is why it works on a file called shop dwgs rev2.pdf.
Stop on the ambiguous ones
A submittal that names two projects, or none, is where automated filing gets it wrong. The Ask AI About the File step routes those to a review folder, and Ask a Person to Approve can gate the move entirely.
Why trade beats document type as the second level
Filing by document type puts every submittal in one folder and every RFI in another, which is the view nobody works in. People work a trade: the electrical coordinator wants the electrical submittals, the electrical RFIs and the electrical change orders together. Trade as the second level matches how the work is actually divided, and document type sorts itself out inside it because the filenames say what each document is.
The revision problem
Three files named rev2, REV2 and rev_2 are not a naming problem, they are three different moments in a conversation with a subcontractor. Reading the revision and date off the title block puts them in order regardless of what they were called, and naming each file date-first makes that order visible in the folder. What it does not do is tell you the revision was approved — that lives in the submittal register, not in the document.
What it does not do
It files documents and makes them findable. It does not maintain a submittal log, track ball-in-court, or notify a sub that a submittal was rejected. Those are project management functions and they live in Procore or a similar system. This handles the documents that never make it into that system — which, on most jobs, is most of them.
FAQ
Common questions
How should construction submittals be organized?
By project first, then by trade, with each document named date-first in ISO form so the folder reads chronologically. Keep the structure identical across projects so somebody who has never worked on a job can still find its mechanical submittals. The revision belongs in the filename, taken from the title block rather than from what the sender called the file.
Can submittals be filed from email automatically?
Yes, and it is the route that matters most, since submittals usually arrive as email attachments. The Email Attachment trigger picks them up, the Save a Copy step gives the attachment a home, and the document is then read, renamed and filed under the project and trade named on it.
How do you keep track of drawing revisions?
Read the revision and date off the title block rather than trusting the filename, then put the date first in the new name. The folder then shows the revisions in the order they were issued. Knowing which revision is approved is a different question, and it belongs in the submittal register rather than in the file itself.
Does this replace Procore?
No. Procore runs the project — the submittal log, the RFI workflow, the approvals. This organizes the documents, including everything that arrives by email and never gets uploaded to the project system. The two sit alongside each other.
The submittal files itself.
Project and trade, read off the title block, the moment it arrives.
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