Newforma Project Center: exporting project email and transmittals

What should you export from Newforma Project Center?#

From Newforma Project Center, export every record family your teams used to run projects: filed email, transmittals, RFIs, submittals, action items, meeting minutes and project contacts, together with the logs that tie them to each other. A platform change is the moment those links are most likely to break.

Firms often think of Newforma as an email filing tool, but its value as a record lies in the connection between a filed message, the transmittal it triggered and the RFI or submittal it answered. An archive that keeps the files but drops the logs keeps the evidence and loses the story.

Start with the projects that matter most for risk and knowledge: those with open claims, warranty periods still running and repeat clients whose next project will draw on the history. Those exports deserve the most careful checks.

Record map before a platform change#

Storage differs by deployment and version, so map where each record family actually lives in your configuration before choosing export routes. In many on-premises deployments, filed email and issued files sit in project folders on the firm's file servers, while logs and item details sit in the application's own data store.

Ask your Newforma administrator or reseller to confirm the map for your installation, and note any customizations such as extra log fields or renamed folders. Those details decide which exports you need.

Exporting filed project email#

Filed project email should leave Newforma as standard message files, kept in the project folder structure it was filed into, so a reader can open it without the original software. Preserve filing details where you can: who filed each message, when, and to which project and subfolder.

Expect duplicates. When several team members file the same thread, the archive can hold multiple copies; deduplicate by message identifier during export rather than by subject line, which would collapse different messages that share a reply chain.

Unfiled email never reached project folders and stays in individual mailboxes. If the firm runs Microsoft 365, Purview eDiscovery can export search results as PST or individual message files, and Microsoft states that those search exports expire 14 days after creation, so download each package promptly.

Transmittals, RFIs and submittals#

Transmittal, RFI and submittal records carry the most process detail, and their item numbers are the keys that hold the archive together. Export each log to CSV with every field, including status history and dates, then export or copy the files each item references.

Submittal reviews deserve extra care. The marked-up shop drawings and consultant review comments show how the architect and engineers judged a contractor's proposal, but they also hold consultants' work and the contractor's documents. Keep them with the log entry, and flag authorship for any later rights review.

Name exported files so the item number travels with them. A file called by its transmittal or RFI number can be matched to its log entry even if folder structures change again in a future migration.

Pre-migration checklist#

A pre-migration checklist turns the export into a routine that IT can run project by project and a principal can sign off. Run it on a few closed projects first, then adjust before applying it across the archive.

Assign one owner per step. IT usually runs the copies and exports, project managers confirm completeness for their own projects, and a principal signs off on scope and on any projects deliberately left out.

• 1Inventory active and closed projects and decide which closed ones need a full export.
• 2Confirm where each record family is stored in your deployment.
• 3Export logs for transmittals, RFIs, submittals and action items with all fields.
• 4Copy filed email and issued files with folder structure and timestamps preserved.
• 5Write a short data dictionary explaining log fields and status values.
• 6Spot-check traces: an RFI to its email, its response and the sheets it changed.
• 7Plan the separate export of unfiled email from mailboxes.
• 8Keep read access to the old system until the spot-checks pass.

Illustrative: a digital practice leader moves to a cloud platform#

Illustrative: a fictional A/E firm has used Newforma Project Center across its architecture and structural studios, with Revit models and Bluebeam sessions alongside. Its digital practice leader is moving active projects to a cloud project platform.

Active projects migrate with their open RFIs and submittals. Closed projects are archived instead: filed email as message files in their folders, logs exported to CSV, and issued sets copied with transmittal numbers in the file names. Spot-checks show that some early projects filed email to a personal folder rather than the project, so those messages are pulled from the server and attached to the right project.

The archive is readable without Newforma, and each closed project carries a short log of what was exported, what was missing and where the gaps came from.

Project email and transmittals in a data license#

Project email and transmittals can enter a data license only after rights and privacy work, because they are full of client names, consultant contacts, contractor pricing and personal details. AI developers value the threads where problems were raised, debated and resolved, but those same threads hold the most confidential material.

De-identification for project email goes beyond names. Signature blocks, phone numbers, project addresses, permit numbers and attachment metadata can all point back to a client or a person, so the privacy record should list each element removed.

SourceX handles that through the SourceX five-step transaction. The Rights step checks client contracts, consultant authorship and restricted project types; Preparation removes personal and confidential details; and the firm approves the final package before Delivery. Every approved package carries a SourceX Evidence Packet covering provenance, licensing rights, permitted use, a privacy record listing each removed element, and the release authorization.