Project closeout records checklist for Procore, Autodesk Forma, BIM 360 and Aconex

When should you start backing up project records for closeout?

Before practical completion, while every team still has access and the people who know the project are still on it. The native closeout options on Procore, Autodesk Forma, BIM 360 and Aconex all work on windows of about 30 days. Records needed for defects, final accounts and claims are needed for years.

Leaving it to the last week causes the common failures: the person with the right permissions has left, an archive link expires before anyone downloads it, or a subcontractor discovers their access to the head contractor's project has already ended. The table compares what each platform does at closeout.

Who owns the project records at closeout?

The organisation that holds the subscription controls the project, but each party is responsible for keeping its own record. If you work in a head contractor's or owner's project, your access ends when they close it, so you need your own copy of your side of the record before that happens.

Oracle's Aconex help is explicit: when the project's subscription ends and no other subscription or archive covers it, all organisations lose access. On Autodesk, archiving and deactivation are account administrator actions in the hub that owns the project. On Procore, a Project Archive is created by a user with access to each tool, and it is private to that user unless someone has Admin permission on the project Directory tool.

Inside your own company, closeout records usually touch several roles. Agree who does what before the last month of the job.

• Project manager. Confirms the record is complete and signs off the closeout copy.
• Document controller. Checks registers, transmittals and mail against what was captured.
• BIM or digital engineering manager. Covers models, federated files and the hub or project settings.
• IT. Owns the storage location, access permissions and retention rules.
• Commercial, risk or legal. Confirms what must be kept for final accounts, defects and claims, and for how long.

What should you export or back up before access ends?

Everything that shows what was agreed, issued, built and approved, with its history. A set of final drawings is not enough. You need the revisions, the registers that list them, the RFIs and submittals that changed them, and the correspondence and daily records that put them in date order.

Use this list as a starting point and tick off each item for each project.

• Contract documents, subcontracts, consultant appointments and any deeds
• Variations, change orders and extension of time claims, with approvals and supporting records
• RFIs with responses and attachments
• Submittals with review status, comments and attachments
• Drawings and specifications, with every revision, plus the drawing and document registers
• Transmittals showing what was issued to whom and when
• Models, including federated and coordination models
• Correspondence and formal mail, kept as threads with attachments
• Daily logs or site diaries, photos and weather records
• Inspections, test results, observations, punch lists and non-conformance reports
• Meeting minutes and action logs
• Budget, commitments, progress claims, invoices and payment records
• Certificates, including occupation or occupancy certificates and compliance certificates
• As-built drawings and models
• O&M manuals, warranties and asset registers
• The project directory, so you know who held which role

What does Procore do at project closeout?

Procore offers Project Archive, a one-off export of the tools you choose into a downloadable .zip file. Procore's help pages say the archive is available to download for 30 days, archives are private to the user who created them, and most items download as PDFs while documents and photos keep their original file type.

You can export from active and inactive projects, but you need at least Read Only permission on each tool you include, and you must select at least one item from each tool. You can only download archives with a Partially Completed or Completed status. Users with Admin permission on the project-level Directory tool can see and download archives created by others.

In practice, that means one person needs the right permissions on every tool, has to run the archive for each project, and has to download it and move it to permanent storage within 30 days.

• Confirm who will create each archive and that they have access to every tool needed.
• Download each archive as soon as it completes, and record where it was stored.
• Check that the archive status is Completed, not Partially Completed, before relying on it.

What happens to an Autodesk Forma or BIM 360 project at closeout?

An account administrator archives or deactivates the project. Autodesk's BIM 360 help says only account administrators can activate, deactivate or archive projects, and once a project is inactive or archived, project admins and members who were invited to it no longer have access.

Archiving is a project status, not a copy of the data. Autodesk's help describes archiving as a way to keep a clean project list, and an account admin can restore an archived project from the Archived tab in the Projects tool. Autodesk's account help says access to cloud documents continues for about 30 days after a subscription ends.

If your company works in another organisation's hub, you will not control when the project is archived. Take your copy while you still have access.

• Ask the hub owner when the project will be archived or deactivated.
• Capture files with every version, plus issues, RFIs, submittals, transmittals and reviews, not just the latest drawings.
• Record the hub, project and folder structure, so files can be found in context later.

What happens to an Oracle Aconex project when it ends?

Oracle closes it. Aconex help says Oracle may place a banner on the project warning that it will be inaccessible after 30 days, and will close the project in not less than 30 days. After that, every organisation loses access unless another subscription or an archive covers the project.

Oracle sells archives as quoted extras. An Online Archive gives read-only access through your Aconex login. A Project Archive is downloaded at the end of the project and holds registered documents and mail with document and mail registers. A Scheduled Archive is a local application on a dedicated PC that downloads an incremental copy during the project, and Oracle recommends it from project inception until 24 hours after completion.

Without an archive, Aconex help lists manual options: export document metadata, download documents as a zip file, export mail individually, or run reports.

• Request an archive quote early if you plan to use one.
• Keep mail with its attachments and thread history, not as loose files.
• Export the document and mail registers so the record can be searched later.

How do you check that the closeout copy is complete?

Compare what you captured against the project's own registers, then open a sample of records from the copy. A closeout copy that has never been opened is an assumption, not a record. Do the check before access ends, while you can still go back for anything missing.

Then store the copy somewhere that will outlast the project team: a location your company controls, with a retention rule that matches your longest legal exposure and a named owner. The guide to how long to keep construction records covers which records matter and what to ask your lawyer.

If you would rather not depend on a manual export at the end of the job, SIINC backs up Procore, Autodesk Forma and BIM 360, and Oracle Aconex projects hourly as standard throughout the project, into Amazon S3 or Azure Blob Storage in your own account.

• Count drawings, RFIs, submittals and mail items in the copy against the platform registers.
• Open a sample of files from each category, including old revisions.
• Check that attachments came across with RFIs, submittals and mail.
• Record where the copy is stored, who can access it and how long it will be kept.
• Apply a retention or immutability setting if the storage supports it.