COBie 2.4 · Supporting guide
Issue
Records business-process and exception-reporting information associated with delivered COBie records.
What business-process or exception information affects the delivery, who owns it, and which records does it concern?
Attach business-process and exception information to the data
Issue records exchange questions, changes, exceptions, coordination matters, claims, RFIs, safety concerns, installation problems, and other business-process information associated with COBie data. Annex A's spreadsheet schema marks Issue.Name plus both SheetName and RowName reference pairs as required compound-key fields, keeping the concern attached to the records it affects.
Type explains the nature of the issue, while Risk, Chance, and Impact communicate its assessed significance. These fields should follow an agreed project scale. Free-text severity labels are useful only when all parties interpret them consistently and know whether the assessment is current.
Make ownership and mitigation actionable
Owner should reference a Contact so responsibility can be traced to an identifiable person or organization. Description explains the problem, and Mitigation records the planned or completed response. The two worksheet and row reference pairs can express an issue involving a relationship between COBie records; when only one record is conceptually involved, the issued template and validator control how the required second pair is represented.
The worksheet should not become a dump of every historical coordination comment. Include open items, accepted exceptions, or other records the receiver needs to understand at the delivery milestone. Issue has no dedicated Status field, so any resolution state or outcome must be communicated through Description, Mitigation, or an agreed project convention.
Review issues against the latest model evidence
Model coordination tools and Autodesk Forma may hold comments, clashes, reviews, and RFIs, but a COBie Issue row needs a deliberate relationship to the delivered workbook. External issue identifiers and supporting Documents can help maintain traceability without copying an entire project issue history into COBie. The publication excludes Issue from required U.S. design and handover QC coverage and tests it only when supplied.
BIMRelay provides project issue context alongside the workbook and can validate that referenced Contacts and target rows still exist as Revit-derived data is regenerated. This helps teams close or transfer handover exceptions against the current asset evidence instead of an obsolete model snapshot.
Key relationships
Can reference other worksheets
Can identify owners and approvers through Contact
Practical quality checks
- Assign a responsible owner
- Document resolution state in the project convention
- Link to the affected record
Issue worksheet FAQ
- What is the COBie Issue worksheet?
- Issue records a question, change, exception, risk, RFI, coordination matter, or similar business-process item. Annex A's spreadsheet schema provides two required worksheet and row reference pairs for the affected COBie records.
- How is an Issue owner identified in COBie?
- Issue.Owner references a Contact record so the responsible person or organization can be resolved elsewhere in the workbook.
- Should every project issue be copied into COBie?
- No. Include issues and lasting decisions that are relevant to the delivered facility information or required by the contract at the exchange milestone.
- How does BIMRelay keep Issues connected to current data?
- BIMRelay can validate Issue owners and target row references after workbook regeneration so handover exceptions remain tied to active model-backed records.
This is an independent practical summary, not a reproduction of the COBie specification. Refer to the official standard for normative definitions and field requirements.
Reviewed against the official NIBS COBie 2.4 publication and Annex A worksheet schemas.
Where the official documents, contract-issued workbook, and project validator differ, follow the contract requirements and accepted validation process.
Open the official COBie 2.4 publicationOpen the official COBie 2.4 Annex A worksheet schemas