Managing Cost Estimate Items in a Worksheet

In this Topic

Tasks
Views
Reports
Adding Items to the Cost Estimate

Adding a Single Item
Adding Multiple Items

Editing Items with the Details button
Selecting Cost Estimate Items to Calculate Bid Based Prices

The Item Pricing Worksheet contains prices and quantities for all the items in a specific cost estimate and provides a quick way to enter and change information in the cost estimate. To access this component, go to the Cost Estimates Overview, locate the estimate, and then select Item Pricing Worksheet from the Actions menu on the estimate row.

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 Item Pricing Worksheet, but the remaining fields are read-only.

For information about using the standard features of a worksheet, see Working with Worksheets.

The Total Cost Estimate Items amount 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.

Each row represents an item in the cost estimate. You can view or change values in these fields:

You can change the value of any field in the worksheet. When you change the value in the Quantity or Unit Price fields, the system automatically recalculates the item's Ext Amt.

To change the Item ID, you must choose a new item that has not passed its Obsolete Date and that has Spec Book and Unit System values matching those of the project. When you change an Item ID, the system automatically updates the item Description, Unit, and Bid as Lump Sum fields in that item record.

You can click in the Quantity and Unit Price fields and enter a number, or you can click in the field and then click the Formula button (Σ) to calculate the value by using the expression builder. For information about the expression builder, see Using the Expression Builder.

The component Actions menu has the following functions:

Tasks

Select Calculate Bid Based Prices for all Items to calculate average or regression prices for each detail item in the cost estimate that has an active bid based task. See Calculating Bid Based Prices for all Items.

Note: The system sequentially calculates the bid-based price for each detail item in the cost estimate that has an active bid-based task. Depending on the number of items involved, this process will take some time to complete.

Select Open Process History from the component Actions menu to view the results of the calculation process. Open the Error.log file for the Calculate Bid Based Prices process to view a list of error messages for items that failed to calculate a bid-based price. Navigate back to or refresh the Item Pricing Worksheet to view the updated prices for the items.

Select Combine Like Cost Estimate Items to replace multiple instances of the same item with a single combined item. See Combining Like Cost Estimate Items.

Select Combine Like Cost Estimate Items and Calculate Bid Based Prices to replace multiple instances of the same item with a single combined item and automatically calculate bid-based prices for the combined items. See Combining Like Cost Estimate Items.

Select Export Cost Estimates to export the cost estimates associated with this record. See Exporting Cost Estimates.

Select Select Cost Estimate Items to Calculate Bid Based Prices to access a list of cost estimate items with active bid based pricing tasks, which can then be selected for calculating bid based average or regression prices. See Selecting Cost Estimate Items to Calculate Bid Based Prices.

Views

Select Attachments to manage attachments. The Attachments link includes the number of files attached to this record. See Working with Attachments.

Select Issues to manage tracked issues. See Maintaining Tracked Issue Information.

Select Links to manage links. See Working with Links.

If your agency has associated agency views, they will display in this section, alphabetically. Select an agency view to go to the Agency View Summary component. You can modify data in agency views with an Active association, and view data in Inactive agency views where data exists.

Click the Save button when you are finished.

Reports

If the system includes reports for this component, they will display in this section, alphabetically. Select the report you want to run. See Working with Reports.

Adding Items to the Cost Estimate

There are several ways to add items to a cost estimate. You can add a single item or multiple items at the same time. When you add a new item to a cost estimate, the item line number is automatically increased by the amount specified in the Project Item Line Number Increment agency option.

Note: You cannot add items to a cost estimate that is associated with a project or proposal that has project items or proposal items. Items must instead be added on the associated project or proposal.

Adding a Single Item

To add a single item to the cost estimate, click the New Item button. The system adds a new row at the bottom of the worksheet. All fields in the new row are blank. You can also insert a new item row anywhere in the worksheet by selecting the row above which you want to insert the new item row, and then clicking the Insert Row button in the row Actions menu. To save the new item to the estimate, you must enter information in the Item ID field. If your agency requires that every item in a project be assigned to a category, you must also select a value in the Category ID field.

Another way to add an item is by copying an item already in the list. Select the item row you want to copy and click the Copy button in the row Actions menu. Change any information required in the new item row.

If you add a project item that includes a reference item price, the system enters that value in the Price field and sets the Estimation Type field to Reference.

The system automatically populates all fields that contain reference item information. When you are finished adding information for the new item, click Save to apply your changes.

To delete an item from the cost estimate, select Delete from the Actions menu on the item row. You cannot delete a cost estimate that is associated with a project or proposal that has project items. The system shades the row gray to indicate it is marked for deletion. To reverse the delete action, click the Undo button.

Adding Multiple Items

To add multiple items to the estimate, click the Select Items button. The system displays a modal window for selecting items. For more information, see Selecting Items to Add to a Cost Estimate.

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.

Editing Items with the Details button

A Details button is displayed to the right of the Unit Price field. You can click the Details button to view an overlay with the different prices included in the Unit 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.

To view or maintain the bid-based task for a cost estimate item, click the Details button next to the Unit Price field, and then click the Bid Based link on the Details overlay. 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).

To view or maintain reference price tasks for a cost estimate item, click the Details button next to the Unit Price field, and then click the Reference link on the Details overlay. The system takes you to the Reference Price Task Summary. For more information, see Working with Reference Price Tasks for Cost Estimate Items.

To view or maintain cost sheet price tasks for a cost estimate item, click the Details button next to the item Unit Price field, and then click the Cost Based link on the Details overlay. The system takes you to the Cost Estimate Item Cost Sheet Overview. For more information, see Managing Cost Sheet Price Tasks.

To view or manage all price tasks for a cost estimate item, click the Details button next to the Unit Price field, and then 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.

To calculate a bid-based price at the item level, locate the item row in the worksheet. Click the Details button next to the Unit Price field 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 in the overlay. The system displays the Price vs Quantity Analysis window for the item. For more information, see Analyzing Price Versus Quantity.

Selecting Cost Estimate Items to Calculate Bid Based Prices

To select cost estimate items to calculate bid based average or regression prices:

Select Select Cost Estimate Items to Calculate Bid Based Prices... from the Actions menu on the component header.

The system displays a modal window that lists all of the cost estimate items for the current cost estimate with an active bid based price task. You can find a specific item by typing criteria in the Quick Find search box.
Click the row or select multiple rows for the items you want to select.

The system adds a check mark at the beginning of each row to indicate it is selected. Click All to select all items.
Click the Calculate Prices button.

The system displays a message that prices are being calculated and closes the modal window. The number of items selected will impact the length of the calculation process. You can check the completion status of the process on the Process History component.