Engineering and architecture
Submittal review histories at design firms: AI value and rights
By SourceX Editorial · Reviewed by Noah Loul ·
Short answer
Submittal review records are valuable to AI developers because each one pairs a contractor's proposal with a design professional's documented judgment: the review action, the comments and the resubmittal chain. Design firms can usually license their own comments and actions, but shop drawings and product data are authored by contractors and manufacturers and need separate treatment.
Key takeaways
- Each review action works as a label: approved, approved as noted, revise and resubmit, or rejected.
- The resubmittal chain shows what changed between rounds and why, which often teaches more than the final approval.
- The design firm's comments and review actions are usually its own; shop drawings and product data belong to others.
- Replace company and personal names with roles, but keep specification sections and the sequence of rounds.
Why are submittal review records valuable to AI developers?#
Submittal review records are valuable to AI developers because they capture expert document review with a recorded outcome. A contractor submits shop drawings or product data, a design professional checks them against the contract documents, and the firm records a decision with reasons. That is the shape of the tasks document-review agents are built to perform.
Most available training material lacks that shape. A specification shows requirements; a submittal review shows a professional applying those requirements to a real proposal, catching a wrong fire rating, an undersized connection or a substitution nobody requested.
The value grows with linkage. A review tied to its specification section, its resubmittal rounds and any related RFI shows the whole reasoning path, not just a verdict.
Submittal histories also carry timing. The interval between receipt and return, and the number of rounds before approval, show where reviews stall and which trades generate the most rework, which matters for agents that plan and schedule review work as well as those that perform it.
Review actions as labels#
Review actions work as labels because each one is a categorical judgment applied to a defined input. Stamp wording varies by firm and by contract, so map each firm's terms to a common set and keep the original wording beside the mapped value.
Consistency matters more than vocabulary. If one studio stamped minor substitutions as approved as noted and another as revise and resubmit, the labels conflict; a short mapping note for each studio or period lets a buyer interpret them correctly.
| Review action | What it signals | Use as a label | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Approved, or no exceptions taken | The submittal conforms to design intent | Positive example | Approvals given mainly to keep a schedule moving |
| Approved as noted, or make corrections noted | Conforms once the noted changes are made | Positive example with required corrections | Notes that live only in markups, not in the log |
| Revise and resubmit | Does not conform; corrections required | Negative example linked to the next round | Resubmittals logged under a new number |
| Rejected | Fundamentally fails the requirements | Strong negative example | Rejections for an incomplete package rather than content |
| Received for record, or not reviewed | No design review was performed | Exclude from labels | Mixed in with real approvals |
| Not required | The submittal was not called for | Exclude, or use as a scope signal | Confused with rejections |
What a complete submittal review record contains#
A complete submittal review record contains the request, the evidence, the judgment and the consequence. Missing any one of the four weakens the record as training or evaluation material.
Firms usually hold these pieces in different places: the register in a project information system or spreadsheet, markups in Bluebeam, consultant comments in email and the contractor package in a project folder. Linking them by submittal number and round is most of the preparation work.
- Register entry: submittal number, specification section, type and round.
- Contractor package: shop drawings, product data, samples or calculations as submitted.
- Reviewer markups and comment text, including consultant reviews of mechanical, electrical or structural items.
- The review action and the date the package was returned.
- Transmittal records showing who sent and received each round, by role.
- Resubmittals linked to the original, with what changed between rounds.
- Related RFIs, supplemental instructions or bulletins.
Who owns which parts of a submittal package?#
The parts of a submittal package have different authors, and each author's rights travel with its part. That makes submittals one of the most mixed record types in a design firm's archive.
| Component | Usual author | Licensing approach |
|---|---|---|
| Shop drawings and fabrication details | Contractor, subcontractor or fabricator | Usually exclude, or describe with structured fields only |
| Product data and cut sheets | Manufacturer | Exclude the documents; keep product category and specification reference |
| Reviewer markups and comments | The design firm | Often licensable after de-identification, subject to client contracts |
| Consultant review comments | Engineering consultants | Include only with the consultant's agreement |
| Review action and log fields | The design firm | Usually licensable |
| Transmittals and correspondence | Mixed | Keep roles and dates; remove names and contact details |
Client contracts and contractor platforms may still limit use#
Client contracts may still govern the firm's own review comments, because those comments describe the client's building. Check the confidentiality and ownership terms project by project: a designation-based confidentiality clause may leave de-identified review comments outside its scope, while a clause covering all project information may not.
The platform where review happened is a separate question from who wrote the comment. When the general contractor ran submittals in its own Procore or Autodesk Construction Cloud project, the firm's stamps and comments are its work, but the submittal record, its workflow history and the attached contractor files sit in an account the firm does not control. Note in the inventory which projects the firm holds natively, which it holds only as downloaded packages, and which it can no longer reach.
Owner-contractor agreements and platform terms can also say who may use that record. Projects where the firm holds only downloaded packages are usually the easiest of the contractor-hosted group to assess, because the firm already has the files it would license; the question is whether its contracts let it use them.
How to prepare submittal histories for licensing#
Preparing submittal histories for licensing means removing identity while keeping the reasoning. Replace firm, contractor, manufacturer and personal names with roles such as architect, general contractor, glazing subcontractor and reviewer, and remove project names, addresses, permit numbers and seals.
Keep what makes the record useful: MasterFormat specification sections, product categories, the review action, comment text, round numbers and the relative timing between rounds. Where contractor drawings are excluded, a short structured description of what was submitted, such as system type and the attributes reviewed, preserves the context the comments refer to.
Illustrative: an architecture firm scopes its submittal archive#
Illustrative: a fictional architecture firm focused on multifamily and mixed-use buildings keeps submittal registers in a project information system and reviewer markups in Bluebeam. The managing partner wants to know whether this history has value beyond closeout.
The firm finds complete registers and markups for most recent projects, consultant reviews on mechanical and structural items, and contractor-hosted logs on several projects where it holds only exported reports.
It scopes a package of its own review actions, comment text, specification references and resubmittal chains, with contractor documents replaced by structured descriptions. Consultant comments stay out unless each consultant agrees, and contractor-hosted projects are held for a rights check. The operations lead documents how each studio's stamp wording maps to the common action set, so the labels can be audited later.
How SourceX approaches submittal histories#
SourceX handles a submittal package through the SourceX five-step transaction: Supply, Rights, Preparation, Approval and Delivery. The Rights step separates each component by author before anything is prepared, and nothing is delivered until the firm signs off on what remains.
For the buyer and the firm alike, the SourceX Evidence Packet sets out provenance, licensing rights, permitted use, the privacy record and release authorization, and lists the components that were excluded or replaced with structured descriptions.
Frequently asked questions
Does the review stamp's limitation language affect licensing?
Not directly. Review stamps usually state that review is for general conformance with design intent and does not relieve the contractor of responsibility. That language concerns liability on the project, not ownership, but keep it in the record because it defines what each action means.
Do we need the contractor's permission to license our own comments?
Generally the firm's own comments are its work, but they often quote or describe the contractor's drawings. Keep quotations short, avoid reproducing contractor drawings and check the project contracts. Where comments depend heavily on contractor content, counsel may advise a narrower scope.
How many projects does a useful package need?
There is no fixed threshold. Buyers look for consistent review practice, complete chains and a mix of building types and trades. A smaller set of complete histories is usually more useful than a large set of registers with no comments.
Should rejected submittals be included?
Yes. Rejections and revise-and-resubmit actions are the negative examples that show a review model what non-conformance looks like. Label rejections for an incomplete package separately from rejections on substance, so the two are not confused.
Can product substitution requests be included?
Often, and they are useful because they record why a proposed alternative was or was not accepted as equal. Treat the manufacturer's literature like other product data, keep the firm's evaluation and decision, and check whether the owner took part in the decision.
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