A request is the act or instance of asking for something, such as a request for information, bid submission, or performance of work. Requests may take many forms depending on the need including fault reports for maintenance, requests for small works, and purchase requests (where these are to be made through a help desk or buying function). 

The Approval Association concept applies to this entity. Approvals may be associated to indicate the status of acceptance or rejection using the IfcRelAssociatesApproval relationship where RelatingApproval refers to an IfcApproval and RelatedObjects contains the IfcActionRequest. Approvals may be split into sub-approvals using IfcApprovalRelationship to track approval status separately for each party where RelatingApproval refers to the higher-level approval and RelatedApprovals contains one or more lower-level approvals. The hierarchy of approvals implies sequencing such that a higher-level approval is not executed until all of its lower-level approvals have been accepted. 

As shown in the figure below, an IfcActionRequest may be aggregated into components.  

An IfcActionRequest entity may be nested into follow-up requests, in order of issue. 

As shown in the figure below, an IfcActionRequest may be assigned to the following entities using relationships as indicated:

• IfcActor (IfcRelAssignsToActor): Person or organization issuing the request such as a tenant or owner.

The IfcActionRequest may have assignments of its own using the IfcRelAssignsToControl relationship where RelatingControl refers to the IfcActionRequest and RelatedObjects contains one or more objects of the following types:

• IfcActor: Person or organization(s) fulfilling the request such as a facilities manager or contractor.