Maintaining Project Information for a Preliminary Estimate

During the preliminary design portion of the estimation life cycle, an estimate transitions from a broadly defined parametric estimate to a detailed item-level estimate. At this stage of development, a concept has been transitioned to a project and any cost estimates associated with the concept are instead associated with the project. Alternatively, an estimate can be initiated at the preliminary design stage by adding one or more cost estimates to an existing project.

If the project does not yet include items, you can use one of the associated cost estimates to populate the project with items and categories. Once the project includes items, you can create new cost estimates based on the project items as needed. After a project with items is associated with a cost estimate, only the unit prices and price tasks can be modified for cost estimate items, and all other changes are made to project items. The system automatically updates cost estimate items with changes made to project items, and it updates project item prices with change made to cost estimate prices.

Note: When a cost estimate is associated with a:
- Proposal or project, the cost estimate follows the workflow for that proposal or project. You can view, add, or edit cost estimates associated with a proposal or project if your system administrator has provided workflow phase rights to your user role.
- Proposal, any cost estimates for projects associated with the proposal are automatically set to inactive.

The Project Cost Estimate Summary lists information about the selected project and any cost estimates associated with it. To access the component, click the Cost Estimate quick link on the Project Summary.

The Project Cost Estimate Summary opens on the General tab, where you can view or change information in these fields:

Click in a field and add, change, or delete information as needed. When you are finished making changes, click the Save button. The system displays a message to confirm that your changes were saved in the database.

To maintain estimate information for the project cost estimates, click the following tab:

Cost Estimates

Click this tab to view or maintain a list of cost estimates associated with the project (see Maintaining Cost Estimates for a Project).

To view snapshots saved for cost estimates associated with the project, click the Cost Estimate Snapshots quick link. The system takes you to the Project Cost Estimate Snapshot Overview. See Maintaining Cost Estimate Snapshots for a Project for more information.