Maintaining Items for a Cost Estimate

The Cost Estimate Items tab contains an accordion list of items recorded for the estimate. The Total Cost Estimate Items is displayed at the top of the list. When you add, remove, or change items included in the estimate, the total is not visible until you save your changes. When you save the changes, the system updates the total automatically.

• Note: When the cost estimate is associated with a project or proposal that includes project items or proposal items, you cannot add, delete, or change the quantity of items on the cost estimate, or modify item categories, alternate sets, or alternate members. Instead, these changes are made on the associated project or proposal. You can still modify item pricing information on the Cost Estimate Items tab, but the remaining fields are read-only.

To add a new item to the cost estimate, click the New button. The system adds a new item row at the bottom of the list with the fields blank. The item line number is automatically increased by the amount specified in the Project Item Line Number Increment agency option. Enter information about the new item as needed.

Next to the New button is a list Actions menu. This menu repeats several options available in the component Actions menu, with the following additions:

• Click Select Items for Transition... to bring up all parametric items associated with the cost estimate to transition to detail items. See Transitioning Items from Parametric to Detail, below.
• Click Select Items... to select multiple items to add to the cost estimate at one time. See Selecting Items to Add to a Cost Estimate, below.

• Line  

• Item

• Type

• Quantity

• Unit

• Price

• Ext Amt

• Active

• Item

• Supplemental Description

• Price Source

• Unit of Measure

• Active

• Parent Typical Section

Clearing or selecting the Active check box determines whether the price is included in the cost estimate. The Parent Typical Section field is displayed only for detail items.

In the Price Summary section, you can view or change information in these fields:

• Quantity

• Price

• Ext Amt

In the Quantity and Price fields, you can click in the field and enter a value. When you enter a value in the Price field, all associated price tasks are set to inactive.

The Quantity field contains a Formula button (Σ), which you can click to use the expression builder to calculate the value. See Using the Expression Builder.

A Details button is displayed to the right of the Price field. Click this button to view an overlay with the different prices included in the Price value, the calculation methods used to determine each amount, and links to the components used to configure settings for the calculation methods. See Viewing Cost Estimate Item Price Details.

• Click the Bid Based link to view or maintain the bid-based task for a cost estimate item. If a bid-based task is associated with the cost estimate item, the system takes you to the Cost Estimate Item Bid Based Task Summary (see Maintaining a Bid Based Task). If no bid-based task is associated with the cost estimate item, the system takes you to the Add Cost Estimate Item Bid Based Task component (see Adding a Bid Based Task).

• Click the Reference link to view or maintain reference price tasks for a cost estimate item. The system takes you to the Reference Price Task Summary. See Working with Reference Price Tasks for Cost Estimate Items.

• Click the Cost Based link to view or maintain cost sheet price tasks for a cost estimate item. The system takes you to the Cost Estimate Item Cost Sheet Overview. See Managing Cost Sheet Price Tasks.

• Click the Maintain Item Price Task link to edit and analyze item price tasks for all methodologies on one component. See Maintaining Cost Estimate Item Price Tasks.

Outside of the other sections, you can view or change information in these fields:

• Note: The Parent Parametric Item field is displayed only for detail items and is not displayed for parametric items (a parametric item cannot be a parent of a parametric item). The Transition Date field is only displayed for parametric items. This field indicates the date the parametric item was transitioned to detail items.

In the Remarks section, you can view or change information in these fields:

• Type

• Remarks

To record a remark, first select the type of remark from the Type field, then enter explanatory text in the Remarks text box. To delete a newly added remark, click the Delete button to the right of the remark. You can delete a saved remark by clicking the Mark for Deletion button. You can undo the mark for deletion by clicking the Undo button.

Actions

Tasks

Views

Selecting Items to Add to a Cost Estimate

If you want to select one or more items to add to a cost estimate at one time, perform these steps:

1. Go to the Cost Estimate Items tab on the Cost Estimate Summary and choose Select Items... from the Actions menu on the item list, next to the New button. (You can also perform this task by going to the Cost Estimate Item Pricing Worksheet and clicking the Select Items... button.)
   
   The system displays a modal window for selecting items.

2. In the Select Items window, use the Quick Find search box to locate the items you want to add or click Show first 10.
   
   The system lists all the items that meet your search criteria.

3. Click the row for each item you want to add.
   
   The system adds a check mark beside each item you select and shades the row. To cancel a selection, click the selected row again.

4. You can assign the same category to all selected items by setting the Category ID field at the top of the modal window.

5. When you are finished selecting all the items you want to add, click the Add to Estimate button.
   
   The system closes the modal window and adds the new items to the list.

6. To save your changes, click the Save button.
   
   The system displays a message to confirm that your changes were saved.

Calculating Prices for a Single Item in the Estimate

To reduce the number of steps needed for pricing analysis, you can calculate a bid-based price or view the Price vs Quantity Analysis window for a single item in the estimate on this tab.

To calculate a bid-based price at the item level, locate and expand the item row on the Cost Estimate Items tab. In the Price Summary section, click the Details button to open the details overlay. In the Bid Based section of the overlay, click the Calculate Price link. The system calculates the bid-based price for the item. To view the Price vs Quantity Analysis window at the item level, click the Price vs Quantity Analysis link. The system displays the Price vs Quantity Analysis window for the item. See Analyzing Price Versus Quantity.

Calculating Prices for All Items in the Estimate

To calculate bid-based prices for all detail items in the cost estimate, choose Calculate Bid Based Prices for all Items from the Actions menu on the item list, next to the New button. The system submits a process to sequentially calculate the bid-based price for each detail item in the cost estimate that has an active bid-based task and either:

• A Cost Estimate level Bid History Profile, or

• A Task level Bid History Profile  

Depending on the number of items involved, this process will take some time to complete. To view the results of the calculation process, select Open Process History from the Actions menu on the Menu bar. Open the Error.log file for the Calculate Bid Based Prices for all Items process to view a list of error messages for items that failed to calculate a bid-based price. Navigate back to or refresh the Cost Estimate Items tab to view the updated prices for the items.

Selecting Cost Estimate Items to Calculate Bid Based Prices

Transitioning Items from Parametric to Detail

When you have sufficient information about an improvement, you can transition to using detail items in place of parametric items. A parametric item represents a group of similar detail items that are generally used for a certain type of work. Parametric items are used in long-range estimates before detailed plans have been developed.

A cost estimate can include both parametric and detail items simultaneously. You can transition one item or multiple items, and you can perform the transition manually or automatically. All parametric items must be transitioned to detail items before project items can be built. See Building Project Items.

The process of automatically moving from parametric items to detail items relies on transition profiles. To automatically transition an item from parametric to detail pricing, the parametric item must be mapped to at least one detail item with the same spec book and unit system in an active transition profile. See Maintaining a Transition Profile.

For information about manually transitioning a parametric item to detail items without using a transition profile, see the Manually Transitioning an Item section, below.

• Note: The system allows a parametric item to be transitioned only if the item is marked Active in the cost estimate and the Transition Date for the item is not already populated.

• Note: If your agency has the Take Snapshot Before Transition to Detail Items agency option set to Yes, the system automatically creates a snapshot for the cost estimate before parametric items are transitioned to detail items. See Working with Snapshots. 

Transitioning Multiple Items

To select one or more parametric items to automatically transition to detail items, follow these steps:

1. On the Cost Estimate Items tab, choose the Select Items for Transition... from the Actions menu on the item list, next to the New button.
   
   The system displays a modal window that lists active parametric items in the cost estimate that have not been transitioned to detail items.

2. Click a parametric item row to select it.
   
   A check mark appears at the beginning of the row to indicate it is selected. Continue selecting parametric item rows as needed. You can click a row again to clear the selection.

3. When you are finished, click the Transition to Detail Items button.
   
   The system closes the modal window and displays a message to confirm that the transition completed successfully.
   
   For the selected parametric items that have an active transition profile, the system adds the detail items from the associated profiles to the list on the Cost Estimate Items tab. For each detail item, the Parent Parametric Item field displays the parametric item that was transitioned. If the detail items include reference price tasks, bid price tasks, or task groups, they are added to the cost estimate, as appropriate. The detail items are associated with the same category as the parametric items from which they were transitioned. For the parametric items that were transitioned, the system sets the Transition Date to the current date.
   
   If the agency option Set Transitioned Item Active is True, the system adds the detail items as active and changes the corresponding parametric items to inactive. If the option is set to False, the system adds the detail items as inactive and does not change the active status of the corresponding parametric items.

Transitioning a Single Item

To automatically transition a parametric item into one or more detail items, follow these steps:

1. On the Cost Estimate Items tab, locate the row for the parametric item you want to transition, and then choose Transition Parametric Item to Detail Item... from the Actions menu on the item row.
   
   Note: The Transition Parametric Item to Detail Item... command is available only on rows for parametric items.
   
   The system displays a modal window that lists detail items that are mapped to the selected parametric item in a transition profile.

2. Click a detail item row to select it.
   
   A check mark appears at the beginning of the row to indicate it is selected. Continue selecting detail item rows as needed. You can click a row again to clear the selection.

3. When you are finished, click the Add to Cost Estimate button.
   
   The system closes the modal window and displays a message to confirm that the transition completed successfully. The system adds the selected detail items to the list on the Cost Estimate Items tab. For each detail item, the Parent Parametric Item field displays the parametric item that was transitioned. On the parametric item, the Transition Date is set to the current date. If the detail items include reference price tasks, bid price tasks, or task groups, they are added to the cost estimate, as appropriate. The detail items are associated with the same category as the parametric items from which they were transitioned.
   
   If the agency option Set Transitioned Item Active is True, the system adds the detail items as active and changes the corresponding parametric items to inactive. If the option is set to False, the system adds the detail items as inactive and does not change the active status of the corresponding parametric items.

Manually Transitioning an Item

You can manually transition a parametric item to detail items without the need for a transition profile. To manually transition a parametric item to detail items, follow these steps:

1. Add one or more detail items to the cost estimate with a status of inactive.

2. In one of the detail item rows you added, click in the Parent Parametric Item field and indicate the parametric item on the cost estimate that you want to transition to the selected detail item.  

3. In the same detail item row, select the Active check box to change the status of the item to active.

4. Click the Save button.
   
   For the cost estimate item indicated as the parent parametric item, the system changes the status to inactive and enters the current date as the Transition Date.  

5. You can repeat steps 2 through 4 for all of the detail items that result from transitioning the parametric item.  

Related topics:

Managing Cost Estimates

Maintaining a Cost Estimate