What is a submittal log?

A submittal log — also called a submittal register or submittal schedule — is the tracking document listing every submittal a project requires, one row per item, with its spec section, type, current status, ball-in-court, and the dates of each review cycle. It is both a project management tool and a contract record, and most specifications require the contractor to produce one within the first few weeks of the job.

What columns should a submittal log have?

At minimum: submittal number, spec section, description, submittal type (product data, shop drawing, sample, certification, closeout), responsible subcontractor, date required by the schedule, date submitted to the GC, date transmitted to the A/E, date returned, the review action, revision number, ball-in-court, and lead time. Adding the required-on-site date and the procurement lead time is what turns the log from a filing cabinet into a scheduling instrument.

How do you create a submittal log?

Build it from the specification book, not from the drawings. Read the PART 1 SUBMITTALS paragraph of every technical section in your scope and create one row per required item per section. Then cross-check against Section 01 33 00 for the general procedural requirements and against the project schedule to set required-by dates working backward from the installation date minus lead time minus review cycles.

When is the submittal log due?

Most specifications require the contractor to submit a preliminary submittal schedule within 15 to 30 days of the notice to proceed, often as a condition of approving the first payment application. It is then maintained and reissued throughout the project, commonly monthly or with each pay application.

What is the difference between a submittal log and a transmittal?

The log is the running register of every submittal on the project and its status. A transmittal is the cover document that accompanies one specific submittal package when it is sent — identifying what is enclosed, to whom, on what date, and what action is requested. Every transmittal generates entries in the log; the log is never a substitute for the transmittals.

Construction submittal log template (and what belongs in it)

Start with what the log is for

A submittal log is not a filing index. It is a procurement schedule wearing a different name. Every row is a piece of material that cannot be ordered until that row reaches an approved status, and every day the row sits open is a day of lead time you no longer have.

Logs that get treated as documentation get updated monthly and are useless. Logs that get treated as schedules get updated weekly and prevent the phone call about why the switchgear is not on site.

The columns

Identity

Submittal number — sequential, or spec-section based (23 34 00-001). Section-based numbering is easier to audit against the spec book.
Spec section — the section that required it. This is the column that proves the log is complete.
Description — what the item is, in the words a person would use.
Type — product data, shop drawing, sample, certification/QA, or closeout. Types have different lead times and different reviewers.

Responsibility

Responsible party — the sub or supplier who owes it.
Ball-in-court — who has it right now. The most-used column in any weekly meeting.

The cycle

Date required — driven by the schedule, not by hope.
Date received from sub
Date submitted to A/E
Date returned
Action — Approved / Approved as Noted / Revise and Resubmit / Rejected / For Record Only.
Revision — 0, 1, 2. A visible resubmittal count is how you spot a sub who is not reading the comments.

The scheduling columns most logs are missing

Lead time — weeks from release to delivery.
Required on site — from the construction schedule.
Float — required-on-site, minus lead time, minus remaining review cycles, minus today. When this goes negative the row is a schedule problem, and you want to see that in week six rather than week twenty.

Build it from the spec, not the drawings

This is the part that determines whether the log is right.

Open the project manual. For every technical section in your scope, read the PART 1 SUBMITTALS paragraph. Create one row for every item it names. Section 23 05 93 asks for a TAB agency qualification, a sample report form, and a final report — that is three rows, not one row called "TAB."

A log built by scanning the drawings for equipment will produce a plausible-looking register that is missing every certification, every qualification statement, every design-mix, and every closeout item. Those are the ones that surface at the worst possible moment, because nobody was tracking them.

Then reconcile: check Section 01 33 00 for procedural requirements (copies, format, portal, review period), and check the schedule to set required-by dates by working backward — installation date, minus lead time, minus at least two review cycles.

Keeping it current

Weekly, not monthly. Three questions:

What changed status since last week?
What is past its required-by date, and who has it?
What has negative float — regardless of whether it is late yet?

The third question is the one that earns the log its keep. An item with a sixteen-week lead time and eleven weeks until it is needed is a problem today, even though nothing about it is currently overdue.

Getting the log built without doing it by hand

Reading a spec book section by section and extracting one row per required submittal is precisely the kind of work that should not consume a PM's week — it is mechanical, it is high-volume, and it is exactly where fatigue causes omissions.

We build this for contractors: the system reads the project manual, produces the log with one row per required submittal per section, sets required-by dates against the schedule and lead times, tracks the review cycle with ball-in-court, and generates the transmittals. Any trade, any division.

See the submittal tools, or the trade-specific builds for mechanical, Division 22 and 23 and electrical, Division 26. If you want the background on why a bad log is expensive, we wrote that up here. For the process the log tracks, start with what submittals are.