Estimate in the cloud refers to InEight's hosted estimating solution on the InEight Cloud Platform.
Estimate on-premise refers to InEight's estimating solution deployed in a customer's local environment.

Estimate on premise 20.1 Release Notes

This release of InEight Estimate focuses on improving the work flow and efficiency in using various features. The improvements in the Quote Management feature will greatly improve a company’s ability to choose the right quotes. Adjustment fields will improve user efficiency as they can quickly make adjustments in the CBS register while being able to review its impact on the estimate. The Repositioning of the dependent cost items will aid in users being able to better visualize and have control on the estimate structure.

Some of the other enhancements to Estimate include, the WBS Tree control, Filter Editor and the functionality to Archive and Restore templates.

• Quote Management – Managing Subcontractor and Supplier quotes during the closing hours of the bid can be challenging as much of the risk is in ensuring proper selection of the number to carry in the estimate. The Quote Management enhancements in this release focus on improving a company’s efficiency in entering quotes, aligning scopes and ensuring the selected quote minimizes risk and provides the best value.

  The All Quote Groups layout would allow users to see all the quote groups at the same time and make appropriate selections based on a good understanding on how any particular quote group would impact the entire estimate. Features such as duplicating a quote to create new quotes, packing an entire quote and editing quote values in Quote Compare and Award allow users to quickly make last minute changes to the estimate. In addition, features have been added to provide better visibility and flexibility in aligning scopes and being able to perform an efficient comparison of various quotes. Read more

  All Quote Groups layout

  The Quote Comparison & Award form now includes the layout option All Quote Groups. Previously, you were only able to filter the layout of the Quote Comparison & Award form to display either Quote Groups or All Items. Both of these options are extremely detailed. However, it can become a problem if you only want to view the information of each quote group total relative to its contribution to the overall estimate.

  With this new view, you can now easily scan through all the quote groups in the estimate and see if you are carrying the most appropriate quote. You can also review the Totals per Quote Group and better analyze the risks in the estimate based on whether the cost is a plug number, detailed estimate or a quoted value.

  Some features of this layout include:

  • Ability to see the Awarded Total Plug, Detail and Quote amount per Quote Group
  • Visibility into the Total Awarded Amount per Quote Group
  • Better visibility into the Comparable totals per Quote Groups
  • Expand/Collapse individual or All Quote Groups to display the quote items

  

  Edit Mode in Quote Compare and Award form

  Quote Compare and Award now provides an Edit mode that will enable you to quickly make last minute modifications to the quote price directly in the Quote Compare and Award form. When in Edit mode, the quote items price, unmodified by the quotes bond cost or special conditions, can be updated.

  Users can modify the Unit price or the Extended price for each of the quote items that are not part of the package or marked as Free. The updates made to the quote items in Quote Compare and Award will update the estimate in real time allowing users to quickly see the impact of the changes on the estimate.

  

  Duplicate Quote from Quote Compare and Award form

  In this release, you can now create a new quote by duplicating an existing quote from the Quote Compare & Award form. Duplicate Quotes will contain the same scope as the quote that you previously copied.

  

  Adding Notes to the Quote Compare and Award form

  Users can now quickly add, edit and view notes for a quote in the Quote Compare & Award form. Having visibility into the notes such as phone conversations with vendor/supplier, needs clarification or notes on other attributes will help estimators in making better decision on who to consider when awarding a particular quote.

  

  Other Quote Compare and Award enhancements

  The Quote Compare & Award form contains a few new and notable functions which improves the process of selecting the quote that brings the greatest value to the estimate. These improvements include:

  1. An Asterisk (*) is displayed on a quote to indicate when that quote includes quote items appearing in other Quote groups.
  2. Award quotes to Plug or Detail when the Plug or Detail value is zero.
  3. More information is provided in the Quote Items Tool tip displaying details such as Unit Price, Extended Price, Bond, Taxes, Special Conditions and an indication when the quote item is delta.

     

  4. Additional Summary level items have been added to the Configure Totals dialog to providing users more comprehensive quote information in the Quote Compare and Award form. Some of the summary level items are displayed in the screenshot below.
  5. Position the Summary Section at the top or bottom of the quote items.

     

  6. Include quote items with no prices in the Quote Comparison & Award Report details.

  7. Ribbon actions and right-click context menu now includes the options Duplicate Quote, Ignore Quote, and Package Entire Quote.

  8. Export to Excel feature is now available for the Session Recap register.

  Package Entire Quote

  The Package Entire Quote function provides you with a simpler way to mark an entire quote as a package. This would be beneficial if you were attempting to quickly update an existing detailed quote to a lump sum quote either from the Quote Record or Quote Compare and Award form.

  

  Incomplete quotes

  The Incomplete quotes status has now been added to indicate if a quote includes quote items that do not yet have a price. This is often the case when vendors respond to an RFQ expressing interest in bidding but do not provide their prices until right before the bid is due. These quotes are displayed in gray in Quote Compare and Award form.

  

  Incomplete Quotes that are ‘Scope Only’ can now be viewed in the Quote Compare and Award form using the ‘Zero Items’ toggle. These are quotes that have none of the Items priced and act as lead letters. These quotes are displayed to the right of all the Comparable Quotes.

  

  Quote Record data block improvements

  The data blocks in the Quote Record have been better organized and grouped so users can easily input and view the quote data.

  

  Additional improvements to the Quote Record include:

  • Item Tax and Quote Tax have been combined to display on a single data block called Taxes.
  • The Yes/No drop down for Bonds in the Quote Record and register has been replaced with a check box labeled Add Bond Cost to the Quote in the Qualifications data box.
  • In the Special Terms & Conditions data block, the field FIXED COST to be added to Seller's awarded total (any combination of items) has been relabeled as Special Conditions Adjustments.

  UDF fields for Quote Group tags

  Three new User defined fields (UDF) have been added to the Quote Groups tag register so users so enter certain key information such as responsible party or certain other attributes for better visibility. If preferred, these UDF fields can be viewed in Quote Compare and Award forms and Session Recap register.

  

• Adjust Cost Items from CBS Register – In this release, Estimate now provides the ability to quickly make Total Cost and Billing Adjustments for a scope of work without being required to specify various cost categories, especially in the closing hours of the Bid. The total adjustments can now be made in the CBS register and can be viewed either from the Standard view of the CBS register or a saved view affiliated with change. Read more

  Adjustments can now be reviewed in the CBS register. Adjustment fields have been added to provide an easier way to view and modify the adjustment amount and adjustment percent without having to go into each individual cost item. In addition to adjustments at Cost category level, users can now make a Total Cost/Billing Amount and Total Cost/Billing Percent Adjustments in which case the system will proportionately distribute it to the Cost categories.

  Any adjustment made to the Adjustment Amount fields on the CBS register will then have the Adjustment Percent field automatically calculated. Changes made to those fields will be highlighted in yellow signifying an adjustment has been made.

  

  Other adjustments fields in the CBS register include the many adjustments fields that have been added to the Billing Rates View.

  A new Saved view called Cost Item Adjustment View has been added to the Cost Breakdown Structure.

• Reposition Dependent Cost Items – With this new release, you now have the option to reposition the location of dependent cost items, making the buildup of costs more logical and easier to review in an estimate. Repositioning dependent cost items creates a simpler way to manage the hierarchy of your project by placing items of more importance ahead of other line items. Read more

  Since dependent cost items can now be repositioned, a Position Code field has been added with the functionality of that column remaining the same. The below listed dependent cost item fields are now exposed in the CBS register so users can more easily see the various percentages used in dependent items.

  • Subject Cost
  • Subject Cost Rate
  • Subject Billing Amount
  • Subject Billing Rate

  

• Filter Editor – The new Filter Editor displays conditions as a tree branching system, making it easier for users to create and maintain complex register filters. With each Condition or Group you add, the more branches you add to the filter. Read more

  The new feature for grouping allows you to increase the amount And/Or statements that originated from the first And statement you selected. When you add a new Group, a new Condition is automatically added to that Group.

  With each additional Condition statement, you will need to select an Operator and a Value in order for your customized filter to take effect on your chosen column. Many new Operators have been added to this version as shown in the screenshot below:

  

• WBS Tree filter mode – Similar to the CBS Tree, the WBS Tree has been added to the Work Breakdown Structure View register. Read more

  The WBS Tree allows you to quickly view the entire utilized structure and the details of all items in the WBS grid. Users can now filter down to a specific WBS items without having the clutter of all the other WBS items in the view. When a specific node is selected in the tree, all the subordinate nodes display in the WBS grid.

  

• Archive/Restore templates – The templates feature has now been enhanced to provide users the ability to Archive and Restore templates so they are portable. Read more

  This functionality is helpful when moving templates between different environments and to be able to easily backup the templates similar to Jobs Archive/Restore.