Master Document Register
Template (Excel)

A Master Document Register (MDR) is the project-wide register of every engineering document on an EPC project: P&IDs, PFDs, datasheets, single line diagrams, specifications, reports, drawings, registers, and vendor documents. For each document it captures document number, title, discipline, type, phase, originator, current revision, issue status (IFR / IFA / IFC / AFC / AB), latest revision date, transmittal numbers, comment resolution status, hold flag, superseded references, and reviewer assignments. It is the source-of-truth document-control register that drives document review cycles, audit traceability, and handover dossier completeness.

Standard EPC issue status codes: IFR (Issued For Review, earliest stage where the document is shared for stakeholder input), IFA (Issued For Approval, document is ready for client / operator approval), IFC (Issued For Construction, document is approved and released to construction), AFC (Approved For Construction, equivalent to IFC in some EPC conventions), AB (As-Built, document reflects what was actually constructed after field changes are incorporated). MDR Issue Status column tracks the current code per document. See the IFR IFA IFC AFC standard reference.

Pathnovo, an engineering document intelligence platform, auto-maintains the MDR by extracting document metadata (number, title, revision, date, transmittal) from every incoming document and matching it against the existing MDR entries. New documents create new rows; revised documents update existing rows with new revision and supersede the prior; transmittals update the transmittal columns. Pathnovo integrates with Aconex, Wrench SmartProject, ProjectWise, Documentum, and SharePoint as document sources. See the MDR automation workflow.

The MDR is the project-wide document register; the Vendor Document Schedule (VDS) is the vendor-specific subset that tracks every document each vendor must submit per their VDR (Vendor Document Requirement). The VDS rolls up into the MDR via the Vendor Document Reference column. EPC document controllers maintain both registers in parallel; the MDR is the project view, the VDS is the procurement / vendor view. See the vendor document schedule template.

A comment resolution log captures every comment raised by reviewers (client, operator, third-party verifier, discipline leads) on each document revision, the originator's response, the agreed action, and the close-out status. MDR Comment Resolution Status column flags whether all comments are closed (allowing the next revision to issue), still open, or escalated. EPC contractors typically maintain a separate comment resolution log per document, linked back to the MDR by document number. See the comment resolution log template.

Aconex, Wrench SmartProject, and ProjectWise are EDMS platforms that manage the document store and the workflow. The MDR is the project register that summarises what is in the EDMS. Modern EPC practice: the EDMS is the source of truth for the file content and the audit trail; the MDR is the source of truth for the project status view. Pathnovo can populate the MDR by reading the EDMS metadata API or the document transmittals directly. See the Oracle Aconex integration and the Wrench SmartProject integration.

At project handover, the owner-operator receives a complete document set per the Vendor Data Requirement (VDR) and the project handover dossier requirements (typically CFIHOS for petroleum and petrochemical, or operator-specific schemas). The MDR is queried to confirm every required document is at AB (As-Built) status with all comments closed. Missing or superseded entries are flagged for closeout before handover. See the CFIHOS handover checklist template and the engineering handover workflow.