Construction runs on relationships — a question tied to a detail, a submittal tied to a spec, a clash tied to the two elements that overlap. Most software flattens those relationships into rows in a spreadsheet or a list of forms. FlowGraph keeps them as a graph, and pairs that graph with a real IFC viewer, so the process and the model finally live in the same place. This is the construction home for FlowGraph: a free viewer, per-element handover documentation, and a set of process templates that open as living graphs you can wire to your building.
Start with the model
The free online IFC viewer opens any .ifc or .ifczip file in your browser with no upload and no install — the model is parsed and rendered on your own device, so a sensitive coordination file never leaves your laptop. Explore the spatial breakdown, group elements by class, read property sets, and orbit the geometry. It is the same engine that powers the full app, offered as a no-friction front door: look first, sign in only when you want to keep the model or ask AI about it.
Then wire it to your process
A model on its own answers "what is in the building." The process templates answer "what happens next," and because they open as real editable graphs you can connect each step to the exact element it concerns. Every template is free to open and edit, needs no account to explore, and carries a receipt on every change once you save it to a vault.
- RFI process flowchart — from a field question to a distributed, closed answer, with the incomplete-RFI loop most static flowcharts leave out.
- Submittal workflow — subcontractor to architect and back, modelling the approve-or-revise fork and the link to procurement lead times.
- Punch list workflow — from the completion walk to sign-off, with the re-inspect step and a reassign loop for items that fail.
- Inspection & test plan (ITP) — hold and witness points, acceptance criteria, and an explicit nonconformance branch.
- Permit approval process — application to issued permit, adaptable to your authority having jurisdiction and its correction cycles.
- BIM coordination process — federate, clash, resolve, verify, with each clash linkable to the actual element it concerns.
The handover story
When a project closes, the documentation usually arrives as a dump — folders of PDFs no one can navigate. FlowGraph's element story turns that around: click a wall, a door, or a duct in the model and see its whole record — the RFIs that questioned it, the submittals that approved its materials, the inspections that signed it off. The building becomes browsable by the thing itself, not by the folder someone happened to file the paperwork in. That is what as-built documentation should feel like, and it is why the model and the process belong together.
Why construction, and why now
The horizontal diagram tools have no IFC engine, and the construction incumbents have no canvas. FlowGraph sits in the gap: a governed graph that speaks BIM. The whole surface is local-first — the free viewer never uploads your files, and even inside the app your vault lives on your device by default — which is exactly the answer the procurement conversation is looking for. Open a model above, open a template beside it, and connect the two.
How teams put it together
A typical first session looks like this. Open the free viewer and drop in the IFC you were sent, just to see it — no account, no upload, nothing to install. Once the model is on screen and you can see the structure, open a process template beside it: the coordination workflow if you are chasing clashes, the RFI flowchart if you are drowning in field questions, the ITP if you are running quality. Assign an owner to each step so the graph answers "whose court is it in." Then wire the two together — link a clash card to the pair of elements it concerns, or an RFI to the beam it questions — and the model stops being a file you glance at and becomes the spine of the work. Every change from that point carries a receipt, so the history of a decision is never lost in an email thread. Nothing is written until you accept it, and nothing leaves your device unless you choose to share it.