Systems and records

Owner, GC or architect: who owns the RFIs and submittals in Procore?

By SourceX Editorial · Reviewed by Noah Loul · October 9, 2026

Short answer

Rights in the RFIs and submittals in Procore follow the project contracts and who wrote each record, not the company whose account hosts the project. The host, usually the GC or owner, controls access. A design firm's starting point is its own responses and review comments; content other parties wrote generally needs their permission or removal before reuse.

Key takeaways

Hosting a project in Procore gives a company control over access, not ownership of every record inside it.
Rights in RFI and submittal content follow authorship and the owner-architect, owner-contractor and subcontract agreements.
Platform-generated records such as ball-in-court history and distribution logs mix every party's actions and need the most care.
Using records inside the project rarely needs new permission; reusing them outside the firm usually does for anything another party wrote.
Export your firm's copy at closeout, because invited collaborators can lose access when the host deactivates the project or its own Procore contract ends.

Why the Procore account holder is not automatically the owner#

The Procore account holder is the company that pays for the subscription and hosts the project, and that role gives it administrative control rather than ownership of everything inside. On many building projects the general contractor or construction manager hosts the project, and owners on larger programs sometimes host their own. Architects and engineers are usually invited collaborators.

Control and ownership answer different questions. Control decides who can see, edit, export, archive or close the project. Ownership, and the narrower question of who may reuse a record, comes from the contracts between the parties and from authorship: who wrote the question, who wrote the answer, who drew the shop drawing.

Procore's own terms sit on top as a separate layer. They govern the relationship between Procore and its paying customer, and terms of this kind typically cover hosting, processing and the vendor's use of usage data. They rarely settle questions between the owner, the GC and the design team about project content, so read them alongside the project contracts, not instead of them.

Who created it versus who holds it: a record-by-record matrix#

A record-by-record matrix is the fastest way to see that a single RFI carries content from several parties. The GC or a subcontractor drafts the question, the architect or engineer drafts the response, and the platform records who held the ball and when. Each layer can carry a different set of rights.

Read the right-hand column as a starting position for review, not a conclusion. A response your firm wrote can still be confidential to the owner, and a question a contractor wrote may quote your drawings.

Who created it versus who holds it: a record-by-record matrix
Record	Usually created by	Usually hosted by	Starting position for the design firm's reuse
RFI question and its attachments	GC or subcontractor	GC or owner account	Another party's content; needs permission or removal
RFI official response	Architect or engineer of record	GC or owner account	Your firm's work product, subject to confidentiality and the owner's license
Submittal package: shop drawings, product data, samples	Subcontractor, supplier or manufacturer	GC or owner account	Third-party content, often proprietary; usually excluded
Submittal review action and comments	Architect or engineer	GC or owner account	Your firm's work product; check confidentiality terms
Drawings and specifications referenced	Design team	Uploaded by the GC or design team	Instruments of service; terms set by the owner-architect agreement
Markups made in Procore	Whoever drew each markup	Host account	Follows the author of each markup layer
Ball-in-court history and distribution logs	The platform, from every party's actions	Host account	Mixed record; treat as shared and review with counsel

What the project contracts usually decide#

The project contracts usually decide three things that matter here: who holds copyright in design documents, what each party may do with project information, and what happens to records at closeout. Standard-form owner-architect agreements commonly classify drawings, specifications and related documents as instruments of service; the architect generally retains copyright, and the owner receives a license tied to the project.

Confidentiality clauses often reach further than copyright. An owner may own nothing in your response yet still require that project information stay confidential, which can limit reuse outside the project even of material your firm wrote. Digital data and BIM exhibits, and any project-specific protocol for the collaboration platform, can add rules on access, retention and transfer.

Instruments of service clause: who owns copyright and what license the owner receives.
Confidentiality clause: what counts as confidential project information and how long the duty lasts.
Digital data or BIM protocol exhibit: rules for shared platforms, file transfers and retention.
Records and closeout clause: what must be turned over, kept or destroyed after completion.
Subcontract and purchase order terms: who controls shop drawings and product data.
Owner-specific terms: institutional and public owners often add stricter data and publicity rules.

When does your firm need permission?#

Your firm needs permission when a use goes beyond the project and touches content another party wrote or information the contracts treat as confidential. Inside the project, the contracts already contemplate sharing. Outside it, the question changes from access to authority.

De-identification narrows the problem but rarely ends it. Removing names and addresses helps with privacy and confidentiality, but it does not change who wrote a shop drawing or whether a contract forbids use outside the project.

When does your firm need permission?
Intended use	Your firm's own responses and review comments	Content written by the owner, GC, subs or suppliers
Answering questions during the project	Covered by the project role	Covered by the project role
Keeping a project record copy for professional liability	Usually expected; confirm closeout terms	Usually acceptable as part of the record; confirm closeout terms
Internal lessons learned and staff training	Generally workable; check confidentiality	Check confidentiality; de-identify where practical
Marketing or case studies	Owner approval often required by publicity terms	Needs that party's approval
Licensing records outside the firm, including to AI developers	Possible after confidentiality and owner-license review	Permission or removal, as a rule

How to keep a copy your firm is entitled to#

The copy your firm can rely on is the one it exports while it still has access, labeled with where it came from. Invited collaborators can lose access when the host deactivates the project, removes them from the project directory or lets its own Procore contract end, and requests made afterward depend on goodwill.

Keep the export alongside your project file in whatever system your firm uses, whether that is a document management platform, Deltek project records or a structured network drive. A record with no provenance note is hard to defend in a claim and harder to clear for any later reuse.

Step 1: at closeout, export the RFI and submittal logs with full responses, review actions, dates and attachments.
Step 2: save your firm's own responses and review comments into your document system, not only into a shared archive.
Step 3: record the host company, project name, export date and the person who ran the export.
Step 4: note the contract clauses that govern confidentiality and retention for that project.
Step 5: flag third-party content such as shop drawings and product data so it can be excluded later.

Illustrative: a design firm sorts its shared-platform archive#

Illustrative: a fictional regional architecture firm has worked on dozens of projects hosted in contractors' Procore accounts and a handful hosted in owners' accounts. Its managing principal wants to know which RFI and submittal records the firm could ever reuse beyond the original projects, starting with the projects it can still open.

The firm's records manager builds a tracking sheet with one row per project: host company, owner, contract form, export date and whether access is still live. Within each export, every record gets one of three tags: firm-authored (RFI responses and submittal review actions), third-party (questions, shop drawings, product data) or mixed (logs and markup sets with several authors).

The principal then reads each owner agreement for confidentiality, publicity and closeout terms and sends the uncertain ones to counsel. The result is a short list of private-client projects where counsel sees a path to de-identified reuse of firm-authored responses, a longer list that needs a written request to the owner, and a set of public-sector projects the firm leaves out entirely. Third-party and mixed records are excluded from every list unless their authors agree.

How SourceX handles mixed-authorship project records#

SourceX treats mixed-authorship records in the Rights step of the SourceX five-step transaction: Supply, Rights, Preparation, Approval and Delivery. Records are sorted by author and by governing contract before anything is prepared, and content another party wrote is carved out unless that party has given permission.

For any package that proceeds, the SourceX Evidence Packet records provenance, including which company's Procore account each record came from, the licensing rights relied on, permitted use, the privacy record and release authorization. The firm signs off at each step, and the initial fit check collects descriptions of records, never the records themselves.

Frequently asked questions

Do subcontractors keep rights in shop drawings they upload to Procore?

Usually, subject to their subcontract and purchase order terms. Uploading a shop drawing to a shared platform gives the project team access for review, not a general right to reuse it. Many fabricators treat shop drawings and product data as proprietary, so design firms should exclude them from any reuse outside the project unless the author agrees.

What changes when our firm hosts the project in its own Procore account?

Hosting gives your firm control over access, exports and closing the project, which makes keeping a complete record easier. It does not give your firm rights in what the owner, contractor or suppliers wrote. The authorship and contract analysis stays the same; only the practical control shifts to you.

Can an owner make us delete our project copies at closeout?

Some owner agreements include return or destruction clauses for confidential information, often with exceptions for copies needed for legal, insurance or professional record purposes. Read the closeout and confidentiality clauses together, and ask counsel how they interact with your record retention and professional liability needs before deleting anything.

Does Procore itself have rights in our project content?

Procore's rights come from its agreement with the paying customer and its published terms, which typically let it host and process content to provide the service and may address usage data and AI features. As an invited collaborator, your firm may also accept user terms. Read the current versions and keep a dated copy with your project file.

Is a de-identified RFI free to reuse?

Not automatically. De-identification removes names, addresses and other identifiers, which helps with privacy and confidentiality, but authorship and contract limits still apply. An RFI response your firm wrote may be reusable after de-identification and contract review; a contractor's question or a supplier's product data may still need permission.

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