Daily Progress Report (DPR) format for construction: what to include, with a template
A Daily Progress Report (DPR) is the raw record of what happened on site each day: who was there, what equipment ran, what material arrived, what work got done, where, and in what quantity. Weekly reports, monthly reports, bills and any delay claim are all built from it later. This guide sets out what a good DPR records, gives you a template to copy, and covers how expectations differ between India, the Middle East, the UK and the US.
What a DPR is for
The DPR is easy to treat as paperwork that nobody reads. It's actually the foundation everything else stands on.
The Society of Construction Law's Delay and Disruption Protocol, widely used in the UK and internationally, describes daily "raw data records" as being "at the heart of establishing progress", and says weekly and monthly progress reports should be compiled from them (SCL Protocol, Appendix B 2.2–2.3). Contracts say much the same: under FIDIC's 2017 Conditions of Contract for Construction, the contractor's records of personnel, equipment and materials are kept "for each work activity… at each work location and for each day of work" (Sub-Clause 6.10, FIDIC Red Book 2017).
In practice, the DPR does three jobs:
- It tells the project team what happened today, so tomorrow's decisions are based on facts.
- It feeds the bill. In India, the Middle East and the UK, contractors are mostly paid against measured quantities, so a DPR that records quantities by item and location makes the monthly bill far easier to substantiate.
- It protects you when something goes wrong. If a delay turns into an extension of time claim, the daily record from the time is your best evidence.
What a good DPR records
Whatever the region or contract, the same core sections come up:
- Header: project, date, report number, prepared by.
- Weather and working hours: conditions, and the hours actually worked.
- Manpower: headcount by trade and by subcontractor, split into supervisors, skilled and unskilled.
- Equipment: what ran, for how many hours, and what stood idle.
- Materials received: what arrived, from which supplier, in what quantity, against which delivery note or challan.
- Work done: each activity or BOQ item, its location, the quantity up to yesterday, today, up to date, and the balance left. This is the most important section.
- Hindrances and delays: what stopped or slowed work, including weather, where, since when, and who it was reported to.
- Visitors and instructions: who visited and why, and any instructions received from the client's engineer or consultant.
- Inspections and tests: what was inspected or tested, and the result.
- Safety: incidents, near misses, toolbox talks.
- Photos: each dated, with a caption saying where and what.
- Plan for tomorrow: activities, and any resources still needed.
- Sign-off: prepared by, and reviewed by.
Set a fixed time for the report to be submitted, such as before 9 am the next day, so it's written while the day is fresh. The SCL Protocol adds a useful discipline: daily records "should set out facts only and offer no opinions" and, where reasonably practicable, be signed by representatives of both the client side and the contractor (SCL Protocol, para 1.12).
A DPR template you can copy
This is a quantity-based format, suited to item-rate and remeasurement contracts, where you're paid for measured BOQ quantities. Adjust the sections to your contract; if your client or PMC prescribes a format, use theirs.
Header
| Project | Report no. | Date | Prepared by | Weather | Working hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tower B, residential block | 214 | 27 Oct | Site engineer, civil | Clear, 31°C | 08:00–18:00 |
Manpower
| Trade / subcontractor | Supervisors | Skilled | Unskilled | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shuttering (Ramesh) | 1 | 8 | 6 | 15 |
| Bar bending (own crew) | 1 | 6 | 4 | 11 |
| Electrical (Sharma Electricals) | 1 | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| Total | 3 | 17 | 12 | 32 |
Equipment
| Equipment | No. | Hours worked | Hours idle | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tower crane | 1 | 9 | 1 | Idle 1 hr, wind |
| Concrete pump | 1 | 4 | 0 | First-floor slab pour |
Materials received
| Material | Supplier | Quantity | Unit | Delivery note / challan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cement, OPC 53 | Gupta Traders | 200 | bags | DN 4471 |
| TMT bars, 12 mm | Steel supplier | 8.4 | t | Challan 9182 |
Work done
| BOQ item / activity | Location | Unit | Scope | Up to yesterday | Today | Up to date | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RCC slab, M25 | First floor, grid C–F | m³ | 96 | 0 | 42 | 42 | 54 |
| Slab shuttering | First floor, grid F–J | m² | 640 | 225 | 85 | 310 | 330 |
| Brickwork, 230 mm | Ground floor, east wing | m³ | 120 | 41.5 | 6.5 | 48 | 72 |
Hindrances and delays
| Hindrance or delay | Location | Since | Effect | Reported to / when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revised drawing for lift core awaited | Core, all floors | 22 Oct | Lift core walls on hold | Project manager, 22 Oct; client's engineer, 23 Oct |
| Rain, 14:00–15:00 | Whole site | 27 Oct | Brickwork stopped for 1 hour | Recorded in DPR |
Visitors and instructions
| Visitor | Purpose | Instructions received |
|---|---|---|
| Client's engineer | Slab reinforcement inspection, first floor | Add cover blocks at grid D before the pour (also entered in the site order book) |
Inspections, tests and safety
| Item | Result |
|---|---|
| Slab reinforcement inspection, first floor grid C–F | Approved by client's engineer, 11:00 |
| Cube samples, M25 slab pour | 6 cubes cast |
| Safety | Toolbox talk on working at height; no incidents |
Plan for tomorrow: shuttering, first floor grid F–J; brickwork, ground floor east wing; curing of first-floor slab.
Photos: each dated and referenced to an item above, captioned with location and activity.
Signed: prepared by (site engineer) · reviewed by (project manager)
Regional notes
India
There is no single official DPR format; clients, PMCs and government departments usually prescribe their own. What matters is that the DPR links cleanly to how you're measured and paid:
- Use BOQ item descriptions in the work-done section, so daily quantities can be added up against the measurement book at billing time.
- Show the balance, not just today's work. Client formats often ask for it. Indian Railways' model tender document, for example, asks for a daily progress report on overhead electrification works "specifying the total quantum, balance quantum, location of work and the work done on the previous day", submitted before 09:00 the next day (Indian Railways).
- CPWD works record measurements in an electronic measurement book (e-MB), as set out in the CPWD Works Manual 2022 (para 5.12). Even items the engineer considers inadmissible are measured "without prejudice for record purposes", which is a good reason to record disputed work in the DPR too.
- Record hindrances the same day. On CPWD works tendered from 19 February 2019, the physical hindrance register has been dispensed with: a hindrance is to be written "at once" in the site order book and reported to the Engineer-in-Charge (CPWD Works Manual 2022, para 5.15, NDMC copy). Your DPR's hindrance section should match what goes into the site order book.
UAE and Saudi Arabia (FIDIC contracts)
Under FIDIC's 2017 Red Book, unless the parties agree otherwise, the contractor's progress reports include records of the occupations and working hours of each class of personnel, the type and working hours of each item of equipment, the temporary works used, the plant installed, and the quantities and types of materials used, all broken down by activity, location and day (Sub-Clause 6.10). A DPR built on the template above covers that, provided each line carries its activity and location. Check your particular conditions, since projects often amend the reporting clauses.
UK
UK contracts commonly use bills of quantities measured under RICS's NRM2 rules (RICS), so the quantity-based template fits. The SCL Protocol's list of daily records is a good checklist: a report for each major work area covering weather, manpower, deliveries of key materials, adverse site conditions, working hours, major plant and equipment, and the activities underway, plus an obstruction log recording start and finish dates and the daily status at each affected work front, and progress photographs "with date taken and if possible GPS coordinates" (SCL Protocol, Appendix B 2.2). In the UK, the same record is often called a site diary.
US
US contractors usually call it a daily log or daily report, and its contents are typically set by the project specification, often Section 01 32 00, Construction Progress Documentation. One owner's version, for example, asks for the subcontractors on site, personnel counts by subcontractor and trade, change order work performed that day, equipment, material deliveries with quantities, weather, accidents, visitors, decisions, delays and photographs (Yale specification 01 32 00). Because US billing usually runs on a schedule of values rather than measured quantities, work done is often recorded as progress on each line rather than as a measured quantity.
Common DPR mistakes
- No quantities. "Slab work in progress" can't be billed or defended. "42 m³ poured, first floor, grid C–F" can.
- No location. Without a floor, grid, chainage or area, a quantity can't be checked or matched to the BOQ.
- Photos without captions. A week later, nobody knows which slab it was.
- Hindrances recorded late, or not at all. A hindrance noted days afterwards carries far less weight than one recorded the day it happened.
- Reports written from memory. A DPR typed up at night from scattered WhatsApp messages, or days later, is where errors and gaps come in.
From WhatsApp to a DPR
On most sites, the information for the DPR already exists: it's in the WhatsApp groups, as messages, photos and voice notes through the day. The question is who turns it into a report. (For setting up those groups so updates arrive in a usable form, see how to manage site team commitments on WhatsApp.)
- By hand: the site engineer scrolls back through the groups each evening and types up the report. It works, but it takes time every day, and anything not posted, or missed in the scroll, is lost.
- Velora's free DPR Generator: a Windows app that reads your WhatsApp groups and drafts a narrative DPR for you to review and send. It runs a local AI model, so your data stays on your machine. In our testing, its accuracy is around 80%, which suits drafting a DPR for a single site.
- The Velora platform: reads the site groups, including voice notes and photos in Hindi, Arabic, Telugu, English and other languages, and turns them into structured records of progress, manpower, deliveries and hindrances, each linked back to its source message. The daily progress log and manpower report export to Excel, and reports can go out on a schedule by WhatsApp or email.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a DPR in construction?
- A Daily Progress Report (DPR) is the daily record of what happened on a construction site: manpower, equipment, materials received, work done by activity and location with quantities, hindrances, inspections, safety and the plan for the next day. Weekly and monthly reports, bills and delay claims are built from it.
- What should a daily progress report include?
- A header with project, date and author; weather and working hours; manpower by trade and subcontractor; equipment and hours; materials received with delivery notes; work done by item and location with quantities up to yesterday, today, up to date and balance; hindrances; inspections and tests; safety; captioned photos; the plan for tomorrow; and sign-off.
- Is there a standard DPR format in India?
- No single official format applies to every project. Clients, PMCs and government departments usually prescribe their own, so use theirs if one is specified. On CPWD works, measurements are recorded in the electronic measurement book and hindrances in the site order book, so the DPR should line up with both.
- What is the difference between a DPR, a site diary and a daily log?
- They are largely the same record under different names. DPR is the usual term in India and the Middle East, site diary in the UK, and daily log or daily report in the US.
- Who should prepare and sign the DPR?
- The site engineer or supervisor usually prepares it, ideally by a fixed time the next morning, and the project manager reviews it. The SCL Delay and Disruption Protocol recommends that daily records state facts only and, where reasonably practicable, are signed by representatives of both the contractor and the client side.